After the apostles died, was the gospel hopelessly lost until the Reformation?Posted on 01/24/2015 8:33:46 AM PST by RnMomof7
After the apostles died, was the gospel hopelessly lost until the Reformation?
That certainly seems to be a common assumption in some Protestant circles today. Thankfully, it is a false assumption.
I’m not entirely sure where that misconception started. But one thing I do know: it did not come from the Protestant Reformers.
The Reformers themselves (including Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others) were convinced that their position was not only biblical, but also historical. In other words, they contended that both the apostles and the church fathers would have agreed with them on the heart of the gospel.
For example, the second-generation Lutheran reformer, Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), wrote a treatise on justification in which he defended the Protestant position by extensively using the church fathers. And John Calvin (1509-1564), in his Institutes, similarly claimed that he could easily debunk his Roman Catholic opponents using nothing but patristic sources. Here’s what he wrote:
If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory — to put it very modestly —would turn to our side. Now, these fathers have written many wise and excellent things. . . . [Yet] the good things that these fathers have written they [the Roman Catholics] either do not notice, or misrepresent or pervert. . . . But we do not despise them [the church fathers]; in fact, if it were to our present purpose, I could with no trouble at all prove that the greater part of what we are saying today meets their approval.
Source: John Calvin, “Prefatory Address to King Francis I of France,” The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Section 4.
How could the Reformers be so confident that their understanding of the gospel was consistent with the teachings of the ancient church? Or perhaps more to the point: What did the early church fathers have to say about the gospel of grace?
Here is an admittedly brief collection of 30 patristic quotes, centering on the reality that justification is by grace alone through faith alone. Many more could be provided. But I think you’ll be encouraged by this survey look at the gospel according to the church fathers.
(Even if you don’t read every quote, just take a moment to consider the fact that, long before Luther, the leaders of the ancient church were clearly proclaiming the gospel of grace through faith in Christ.)
1. Clement of Rome (30-100): “And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Source: Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 32.4.
2. Epistle to Diognetus (second century): “He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”
Source: The Epistle to Diognetus, 9.2-5.
3. Justin Martyr (100-165) speaks of “those who repented, and who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of an heifer, or by the offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death.”
Source: Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 13.
4. Origen (185-254): “For God is just, and therefore he could not justify the unjust. Therefore he required the intervention of a propitiator, so that by having faith in Him those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified.”
Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.112.
5. Origen (again): “A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are works of the law these are not based on the foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God.”
Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.136.
6. Hilary of Poitiers (300-368): “Wages cannot be considered as a gift, because they are due to work, but God has given free grace to all men by the justification of faith.”
Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 20:7)
7. Hilary of Poitiers (again): “It disturbed the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man (for they considered that Jesus Christ was only a man) and that sin was forgiven by Him whereas the Law was not able to absolve it, since faith alone justifies.”
Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 9:3)
8. Didymus the Blind (c. 313-398) “A person is saved by grace, not by works but by faith. There should be no doubt but that faith saves and then lives by doing its own works, so that the works which are added to salvation by faith are not those of the law but a different kind of thing altogether.”[31]
Source: Didymus the Blind. Commentary on James, 2:26b.
9. Basil of Caesarea (329-379): “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that Christ has been made by God for us righteousness, wisdom, justification, redemption. This is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is justified solely by faith in Christ.”
Source: Basil, Homily on Humility, 20.3.
10. Jerome (347–420): “We are saved by grace rather than works, for we can give God nothing in return for what he has bestowed on us.”
Source: Jerome, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2.1.
11. John Chrysostom (349-407): “For Scripture says that faith has saved us. Put better: Since God willed it, faith has saved us. Now in what case, tell me, does faith save without itself doing anything at all? Faith’s workings themselves are a gift of God, lest anyone should boast. What then is Paul saying? Not that God has forbidden works but that he has forbidden us to be justified by works. No one, Paul says, is justified by works, precisely in order that the grace and benevolence of God may become apparent.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, 4.2.9.
12. John Chrysostom (again): “But what is the ‘law of faith?’ It is, being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power, in that He has not only saved, but has even justified, and led them to boasting, and this too without needing works, but looking for faith only.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 7.27.
13. John Chrysostom (again): “God allowed his Son to suffer as if a condemned sinner, so that we might be delivered from the penalty of our sins. This is God’s righteousness, that we are not justified by works (for then they would have to be perfect, which is impossible), but by grace, in which case all our sin is removed.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, 11.5.
14. John Chrysostom (again): “Everywhere he puts the Gentiles upon a thorough equality. ‘And put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith.’ (v. 9.) From faith alone, he says, they obtained the same gifts. This is also meant as a lesson to those (objectors); this is able to teach even them that faith only is needed, not works nor circumcision.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts, 32 (regarding Acts 15:1)
15. John Chrysostom (again): “What then was it that was thought incredible? That those who were enemies, and sinners, neither justified by the law, nor by works, should immediately through faith alone be advanced to the highest favor. Upon this head accordingly Paul has discoursed at length in his Epistle to the Romans, and here again at length. “This is a faithful saying,” he says, “and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy, 4.1.
16. John Chrysostom (again): “”For it is most of all apparent among the Gentiles, as he also says elsewhere, ‘And that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.’ (Romans 15:9.) For the great glory of this mystery is apparent among others also, but much more among these. For, on a sudden, to have brought men more senseless than stones to the dignity of Angels, simply through bare words, and faith alone, without any laboriousness, is indeed glory and riches of mystery: just as if one were to take a dog, quite consumed with hunger and the mange, foul, and loathsome to see, and not so much as able to move, but lying cast out, and make him all at once into a man, and to display him upon the royal throne.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians, 5.2.
17. John Chrysostom (again): “Now since the Jews kept turning over and over the fact, that the Patriarch, and friend of God, was the first to receive circumcision, he wishes to show, that it was by faith that he too was justified. And this was quite a vantage ground to insist upon. For a person who had no works, to be justified by faith, was nothing unlikely. But for a person richly adorned with good deeds, not to be made just from hence, but from faith, this is the thing to cause wonder, and to set the power of faith in a strong light.”
Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 8.1.
18. Augustine (354-430): “If Abraham was not justified by works, how was he justified? The apostle goes on to tell us how: What does scripture say? (that is, about how Abraham was justified). Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3; Gen. 15:6). Abraham, then, was justified by faith. Paul and James do not contradict each other: good works follow justification.”
Source: Augustine, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, 2-4.
19. Augustine (again): “When someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer, as David too declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness, independently of any righteous actions (Rom 4:5-6). What righteousness is this? The righteousness of faith, preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence.”
Source: Augustine, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, 6-7.
20. Ambrosiaster (fourth century): “God has decreed that a person who believes in Christ can be saved without works. By faith alone he receives the forgiveness of sins.”
Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:4.
21. Ambrosiaster (again): “They are justified freely because they have not done anything nor given anything in return, but by faith alone they have been made holy by the gift of God.”
Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Romans 3:24.
22. Ambrosiaster (again): “Paul tells those who live under the law that they have no reason to boast basing themselves on the law and claiming to be of the race of Abraham, seeing that no one is justified before God except by faith.”
Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Romans 3:27.
23. Ambrosiaster (again): “God gave what he promised in order to be revealed as righteous. For he had promised that he would justify those who believe in Christ, as he says in Habakkuk: ‘The righteous will live by faith in me’ (Hab. 2:4). Whoever has faith in God and Christ is righteous.”
Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles; CSEL 81 ad loc.
24. Marius Victorinus (fourth century): “The fact that you Ephesians are saved is not something that comes from yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is not from your works, but it is God’s grace and God’s gift, not from anything you have deserved. … We did not receive things by our own merit but by the grace and goodness of God.”
Source: Marius Victorinus, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2.9.
25. Prosper of Aquitaine (390–455): “And just as there are no crimes so detestable that they can prevent the gift of grace, so too there can be no works so eminent that they are owed in condign [deserved] judgment that which is given freely. Would it not be a debasement of redemption in Christ’s blood, and would not God’s mercy be made secondary to human works, if justification, which is through grace, were owed in view of preceding merits, so that it were not the gift of a Donor, but the wages of a laborer?”
Source: Prosper of Acquitaine, Call of All Nations, 1.17
26. Theodoret of Cyrus (393–457): “The Lord Christ is both God and the mercy seat, both the priest and the lamb, and he performed the work of our salvation by his blood, demanding only faith from us.”
Source: Theodoret of Cyrus, Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans; PG 82 ad loc.
27. Theodoret of Cyrus (again): “All we bring to grace is our faith. But even in this faith, divine grace itself has become our enabler. For [Paul] adds, ‘And this is not of yourselves but it is a gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should boast’ (Eph. 2:8–9). It is not of our own accord that we have believed, but we have come to belief after having been called; and even when we had come to believe, He did not require of us purity of life, but approving mere faith, God bestowed on us forgiveness of sins”
Source: Theodoret of Cyrus, Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of Paul; FEF 3:248–49, sec. 2163.
28. Cyril of Alexandria (412-444): “For we are justified by faith, not by works of the law, as Scripture says. By faith in whom, then, are we justified? Is it not in Him who suffered death according to the flesh for our sake? Is it not in one Lord Jesus Christ?”
Source: Cyril of Alexandria, Against Nestorius, 3.62
29. Fulgentius (462–533): “The blessed Paul argues that we are saved by faith, which he declares to be not from us but a gift from God. Thus there cannot possibly be true salvation where there is no true faith, and, since this faith is divinely enabled, it is without doubt bestowed by his free generosity. Where there is true belief through true faith, true salvation certainly accompanies it. Anyone who departs from true faith will not possess the grace of true salvation.”
Source: Fulgentius, On the Incarnation, 1; CCL 91:313.
30. Bede (673-735): “Although the apostle Paul preached that we are justified by faith without works, those who understand by this that it does not matter whether they live evil lives or do wicked and terrible things, as long as they believe in Christ, because salvation is through faith, have made a great mistake. James here expounds how Paul’s words ought to be understood. This is why he uses the example of Abraham, whom Paul also used as an example of faith, to show that the patriarch also performed good works in the light of his faith. It is therefore wrong to interpret Paul in such a way as to suggest that it did not matter whether Abraham put his faith into practice or not. What Paul meant was that no one obtains the gift of justification on the basis of merits derived from works performed beforehand, because the gift of justification comes only from faith.”
Source: Cited from the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ed. Gerald Bray), NT, vol. 11, p. 31.
It is amazing to me how you keep inventing these man-made “tests” that you impose on angels in scripture. And yet you claim to believe in sola scriptura?
“The Israelites during the Old Testement had a directive to know who was from God and who wasn’t. Jer 26:4 And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; Did this so called angel say that? No he didn’t.”
I guess the book of Judges is not in your Bible then? Read all of chapter 13 and tell me where you see “Thus saith the Lord” anywhere in there.
I guess your Bible doesn’t have the Gospel of Matthew? On, I know, that’s a New Testament book so that’s why an angel can appear to Joseph twice and not say, “Thus saith the Lord”, right?
Or how about when the angels came to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:5? Yeah, it isn’t there either. How about that? You don’t have that book in your Bible either, right?
Judges 13:8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: “Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.” 9 God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her.
Double checking with God.
Matthew 1:20 "and angel of the Lord"
1 Kings 19:5 "angel of the Lord"
Any idea why it says "angel of the Lord"?
Now find the "angel of the Lord" in Tobit.
Luke writing in Acts 28, concerning his view of Paul's preaching of the gospel
Acts 28
[23] And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
[24] And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.
So its all been there for 3 1/2 millennia, not hidden, but either not read, or not believed.
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You have a solid future in Short Bus tutoring! :o)
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LOL Finally!! A future!! :-)
The same can be said for Roman Catholicism's own apologists since the time of the Oxford Movement, and their "tracts".
In fact, most modern-day RC apologetic follows that form even to the letter (for the same quotes are dredged out again & again, with there being no context shown if avoidable, either of the near-by and closely associated type, or of wider context for whichever early church note-worthy it is whom is being [allegedly] quoted.
There were five (count 'em 5) solas.
None of them are "alone" or were intended to stand alone.
It was when the 5 solas were all put together that they were meaningful, and quite useful.
So all the capitalizing, and bracketing with *** snowballs which you just engaged in --- is something of a misrepresentation of the "faith alone" as Luther and others apparently utilized the five solas.
Salvation by faith is totally scriptural you say.
Many agree to that.
Yet
is not alone, set aside from:
Christ
Grace
and all those together
Not;
the glory of the OTC™
the glory of "popes"
(or by invoking the name of "Mary")
nor the 'glory' of "early church fathers"
Amen
I said: If you are intent on predestination; that Abraham was going to obey God from the womb, then why was he disobedient at times, going to Egypt, lying about his wife being his wife?
**This would actually support my cause, because instead of showing that Abraham was righteous, you make him a sinner. You also did not deal with your major impediment: that if we are saved by our merits or works, it is not by grace, because grace is not provided as debt for labor provided or for the merits of an individual. It is given gratuitously. All of this disproves your claim that we are justified by our merits, partly out of your own mouth too.**
Your stumbling block seems to be your obsession with ‘our merits’. Obedience to God is not our merits. Abraham’s journey, sacrifices, etc. were not his merits, but obedience (Heb 11:8). Our works are as filthy rags.
That’s why, imo, that God’s testamony of Abraham in Gen. 15:6 was recorded AFTER he had made the journey to Canaan. The poorly instructed, ‘salvation is already yours’ mentality is why people come to think that the rest of the Word is not important, prayer is not important, worship is not important, and so on down the slippery slope. It’s like telling all that Abraham didn’t have to move a muscle to receive the promise; and so, with that line of thinking we have sloppy uncommitted ‘Christianity’. But, that is prophesied.
So, in your predestinated state (including the place and time), you heard and believed* the gospel, and God read your predestinated mindset, at which point you were convinced by your interpretation of the Word, and became aware that you were saved before being conceived. And since then, you probably believe that every thing that you do is predestinated. Your reference to Joseph and his brothers seems to imply that. (believed*-when properly understood, that includes believing the Lord and his apostles words. (John 17:8,14,20)
If you are misinterpreting the Word, is that predestinated?
I said: I can guarantee you that the WORKS that Rom. 4:4 refers to is NOT Acts 2:38. For Paul is writing to those that have obeyed Acts 2:38, noting that in the beginning of the epistle he greets those in Rome as ‘saints’. He reminds them in places like Rom. 6:17 about their conversion:
**Secondly, this does not prove that salvation is through works**
One can be baptized, all day long, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and be wasting one’s time, if God really doesn’t remit sins in that act of faith. But, the Word says that he does.
**because the only way anyone will want to repent and be baptized is through the Holy Ghost, which Paul says precedes repentance and baptism: 1Co_12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.**
Paul is writing to souls that have already been taught Acts 2:38: “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their’s and our’s.’ 1Cor 1:2. They already know the sound (John 3:8) that is heard when every one is born of the Spirit.
As far as the Spirit moving someone, that is not the same as Spirit birth.
**Act_13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.**
And I’m sure that if we could have the entire ‘minutes of the meeting’, we would see that they were given the same Acts 2:38 instructions that Peter gave those asking on Pentecost.
**From Augustine’s reading of Romans chapter 9:**
I have read that chapter many times. Paul is talking to the ‘saints in Rome’, who have already been born again. If chapter nine to be considered a cornerstone in predestination doctrine, then are those that reject the Lord’s precise witness of Spirit birth (Jn 3:8) predestined not to born of the Spirit?
**God requires of us a heart turned from sin to enter heaven**
Repentance is part of the detailed instructions on rebirth fully given in Acts 2:38.
So, by predestination, God knew that Abraham would not just hear his instructions, but obey them (Heb 11:8), and that he was given the promise before took one step of what proved to be quite an undertaking. He had to OBEY to fulfill that promise.
Likewise, by predestination, those that hear and obey the call to “Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”, were predestined to do so. The effort on their part is miniscule compared to Abraham’s journey. But, we have to OBEY to fulfill that promise. (Rm 6:17)
I forgot the MOST important witness:
By predestination (he was slain from the foundation of the world), Christ knew the foreordained plan, yet it had to be OBEYED for it to be fulfilled (Thank God!)
This is a very stupid statement. Of course obedience is meritorious. If it is not meritorious, then it isn't pleasing to God. Do you even know what "merits" and "works" even mean? You also ignored the vast majority of what I wrote, then repeated yourself, and then took the time to distort my position. It's annoying to have to respond and then repeat myself over and over again. Respond to my post instead of repeating yourself, and maybe then I will respond to you again.
That is not what i see Reformers teaching, and thus the classic quote of what no less a RC than Manning resorted to:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity....Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. . — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.
For as also said, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
Also, as Pelikan found ,
"Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity.. ."
“The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology...
… All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”
“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.
Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….”
“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. — Jaroslav Pelikan [Lutheran, later Orthodox] , The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 46),the Reformers looks to history is that Jaroslav Pelikan, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, pp. 46,47)
It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought, which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past.
Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings–she judges them more than she is judged by them .” — Catholic Encyclopedia: “Tradition and Living Magisterium;” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm, emp. mine.
And as Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. finds,
When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the "˜unanimous consent of the Fathers´ as the guide for biblical interpretation.(fn. 23) But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so.
Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a " unanimous consent of the fathers" is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, " nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous." (fn. 24) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.
Well, let's see...haven't you gone to bat aplenty thru the years for the Mormon Church, 1010RD?
So tell us 1010RD:
(1) If Jesus had 12 apostles in Israel, as the Mormon Church portends...And then, as the Book of Mormon claims, he came to the Americas and set up another 12 apostles, doesn't that make (at least) two dozen apostles world-wide?
Why doesn't THEN the Mormon Church have two dozen "apostles" as part of their Apostles' Quorum?
While the Mormon Church attempts to "hearken" back to the Biblical Scriptures, if it was truly hearkening back to ALL that the Mormons claim as "Scripture," it would have at least 24 apostles, not 12. Maybe even 25 given Paul's addition. Yet it doesn't. It fails the "hearken" test.
Perhaps the Mormon apologists should stop this lying (or to give them the benefit of the doubt, they should stop bandying about false numbers as some sort of "proof" of its authenticity).
(2) And, hey, since we're on this sasme topic, we know the New Testament church had pastors (Eph. 4:11)...so where are the titled "pastors" in the LDS church if it indeed is a "restoration?"
The same Ephesians 4 section talks about titled "evangelists"? Where are the titled "evangelists" in the contemporary Mormon church if its a "restoration?"
We also know that Anna was a New Testament prophetess (Luke 2:36) and that Philip's daughters were also prophetesses in Acts 21:9. If the LDS Church is a restoration where are its titled prophetesses?
Guess we can agree that the Mormon Church flunks having "the same organization" as the New Testament church, right?
1010, you've regularly defended Mormonism on FR...so same question as last post:
...tell us 1010RD:
(1) If Jesus had 12 apostles in Israel, as the Mormon Church portends...And then, as the Book of Mormon claims, he came to the Americas and set up another 12 apostles, doesn't that make (at least) two dozen apostles world-wide?
Why doesn't THEN the Mormon Church have two dozen "apostles" as part of their Apostles' Quorum?
While the Mormon Church attempts to "hearken" back to the Biblical Scriptures, if it was truly hearkening back to ALL that the Mormons claim as "Scripture," it would have at least 24 apostles, not 12. Maybe even 25 given Paul's addition. Yet it doesn't. It fails the "hearken" test.
Perhaps the Mormon apologists should stop this lying (or to give them the benefit of the doubt, they should stop bandying about false numbers as some sort of "proof" of its authenticity).
(2) And, hey, since we're on this sasme topic, we know the New Testament church had pastors (Eph. 4:11)...so where are the titled "pastors" in the LDS church if it indeed is a "restoration?"
The same Ephesians 4 section talks about titled "evangelists"? Where are the titled "evangelists" in the contemporary Mormon church if its a "restoration?"
We also know that Anna was a New Testament prophetess (Luke 2:36) and that Philip's daughters were also prophetesses in Acts 21:9. If the LDS Church is a restoration where are its titled prophetesses?
Guess we can agree that the Mormon Church flunks having "the same organization" as the New Testament church, right?
Ya know, 1010, I agree with the import of baptism...
The question is...IS it an absolute aspect as you seem to claim it to be.
Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in paradise...
Sorry...but no Mormon temple baptism pool was available for Jesus to baptize said thief.
1010...I am not not your typical Evangelical who tends to downplay baptism...
I think passages like 1 Peter 3:19-21, Acts 2:38-42, Titus 3:5 etc. need to be taken quite seriously.
STILL...
...show me ANYWHERE in the Bible where baptism is referenced as an "ordinance."
Sorry, but Joseph Smith borrowed that term from the Baptists & other similar denoms who mistakenly applied "ordinance" to Sacraments.
"Ordinance" just means decree. What God has ordained.
Yet NOWHERE is baptism referenced as an "ordinance."
It's a generic term...which doesn't intersect with the NT practice of baptism...at all...
Matthew 18:2: 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Greek word for "little child" here is brephos -- and it's used interchangeably in the NT Gospels for both a born infant (like here)...as well as preborn infants... like John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb:
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1)
IoW, the NT Gospels -- by definition -- describes born and pre-born infants the same...as infants...
Hence, any harm coming to either is by very definition: Infanticide.
If you can't recognize this in the authority of the Gospels themselves, and must superimpose some mere man to make some doctrinal statement re: abortion, I'm sorry for such limited understanding and overeliance upon edicts from Rome on your part.
FREEPER Mark17 references "Protestants" and then you cite "Mormons" as if they were part of the umbrella of "Protestants."
SORRY. But ALL of the Mormon Church literature steadfastly says they are NOT Protestant; they are not a "tree" from the "trunk" of Protestantism.
Straw man "proof" that needs weeding out by a gardener not taking very good care of his comments here...
Jesus is the only church father I need
Jesus: 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
(So much for Padres, eh?)
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