How some Catholic doctrine is created...
Posted on 07/01/2015 7:13:05 AM PDT by RnMomof7
Recently there has been a surge in prominent Evangelicals calling for unity with Roman Catholicism. In one sense there seems to be strong foundational similarities that would justify these calls to unity. Catholics are baptized in the name of the Trinity. God’s revealed word in the Bible -- setting aside their addition of the Apocryphal books, for argument’s sake -- is foundational to their worldview. Catholics love Christ and believe that he died on the cross and rose again to provide grace for sinners.
Obviously there are theological differences associated with the specific teachings of each one of these perceived similarities, and I do not want to minimize the importance of these differences. But for argument‘s sake, at least on the surface, there is some common ground.
There is also a strong agreement in ethical standards. Both Roman Catholics and Evangelicals ground morality on God’s holy nature as revealed in the law of God. This means that on the hot button moral issues of the day; the murder of the unborn, human sexuality, the sanctity of marriage there is solidarity between Roman Catholic and Evangelical ethics because they are coming from the same source. Again, this seems to justify a call to some sense of unity.
Are these good enough reasons to publically stump for visible unity with Roman Catholics? That question is beyond the scope of this post. But there is a more fundamental question that must be answered first. That question serves as the dividing line between followers of Christ and the world, which separates biblical Christianity from every other worldview; does Rome possess and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
The author of the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 contrasts the gospel with that which is but a shadow of the gospel. He argues:
"And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." -- Heb 10:11–14
The argument being presented here makes it clear that Christ’s singular sacrifice, his death on the cross, perfects those for whom it is made for. This is the gospel. It is contrasted with the shadow of the gospel in which sacrifices were repeatedly made year after year because though they symbolized the atoning and perfecting sacrifice of Christ, they never themselves perfected those for whom they were made. The gospel of Jesus Christ perfects and any other religious strategies cannot.
This principle is directly applicable to the question of Roman Catholicism and the gospel of God. Roman Catholic worship centers on the mass. The mass is a series of liturgical practices that culminates in the Eucharist which according to paragraph 1068 of the Catholic of the Catholic Church (hereafter CCC) is a divine sacrifice. Paragraph 1367 of CCC calls the Eucharist a “truly propitiatory” sacrifice. This sacrifice is performed repeatedly in the life of a Catholic.
The reason the Eucharist is performed repeatedly is because even though it is claimed to be a propitiatory sacrifice that can make reparation for sins (CCC, 1414), it is a sacrifice that never perfects anyone. According to the Catholic message grace is something that you get from God by performing certain acts. First, God gives you the grace for faith in Jesus (CCC, 2000). Second, when you are baptized God graciously erases the sin of Adam from your record (CCC 1257). From that point on you get more grace by doing things like participating in the sacraments, including the Eucharist. The problem is that when you commit sins, you lose some of the grace you have gained and now need more lest your grace be found wanting at final judgment. This forces the Catholic into a position where they need to return day after day, week after week, and year after year to a priest who serves to repeatedly re-present the same sacrifice which never perfects those for whom it is made, since it only offers grace to cover some sin.
This is not the gospel.
Roman Catholics need the gospel for the same reason we all need it. We are all sinners with such a messed up and low view of how holy holiness really is that we think somehow through our own efforts we can attain it. If we just had enough time and willpower we could somehow have our good deeds outweigh our bad, and this will please God just enough for me to be acceptable to him. This is a satanic lie. A satanic lie that to some degree or another we have all bought into at some point in our life.
But the truth is glorious. God is good and God is holy. He is more good and more holy than we can possibly imagine. God is so good and so holy that anything less than absolute perfection is unacceptable in his presence. It is because of God’s awesome goodness and awesome holiness that in his wisdom he has offered us grace, through faith in Christ. A good and holy sacrifice that absolutely without question completely perfects everyone for whom it is made.
The critical and fundamental insistence that justification is a process like sanctification is entirely negated by the mouth of God as Jesus Messiah is entirely eradicated by the following Scriptural passage:
"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luk 18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Lk. 18:10 -14 AV)
The response to a saving faith is instantaneous justification, and in this passage it is in the perfect tense: The repentant confessing faithful stands saved and justified instantaneously, with everlasting effect, while the works-doer cannot earn his way into Jesus' favor, and Jesus clearly points this out to his disciples.
So be it, and take heed. You can scratch out Post #24 on this.
I will be using this as an example of displaying false salvation doctrine to my students, actually today.
A bit of life giving food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0waGNif2_g
Catholics have many beliefs that don’t come from scripture and some that outright contradict scripture.
Getting the ‘number’ will give one pause for reflection...
That’s the idea. It’s something that I reflect on. I am interested in how different believers through the ages have struggled to come to an understanding of what Jesus meant by the words that He spoke during the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. It truly is a hard saying.
The article at the link below gives a good description of different understandings of the Catholic Church, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrich Zwingli.
http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/calvinonthelordssupper.html
Yeah, you are right. And since contradictions seem to threaten their church and family ties, sadly they cling to their errors even more strongly.
No question that Roman Catholics are judaizers..and can not understand the scriptures... Please read Galatians
Lutherans believe in con substantiation .. .the bread is the bread,it remains bread but Christ is present along side the bread..
Orthodox are semi-pelagian and hold to many of Romes teaching ... ..
Not all Anglicans hold to "real presence" it depends on the branch ... any church that re-sacrifies Christ is heretical and blasphemers
1 Cor 11:27 is Paul's warning to the believers at Corinth that taking the communion REMEBRANCE of bread and wine unworthily makes the one guilty of the body and blood of Jesus. This warning only is understood by the GENTILE believers at Corinth because Paul would have taught them the Levitical laws, which include Lev 3:17.
In the Upper Room discourse, Jesus instituted a REMEBRANCE of what He was about to do with His Body and Blood at Calvary. By partaking of the bread and wine IN REMEMBRANCE of His sacrifice, the partaker connects spiritually to the SPIRIT LIFE Jesus came to offer to those who will believe in Him, not eat Him, believe in Him.
God's Life does not, repeat DOES NOT, get into the believer via the gastric system. That Life is Spirit and is ONLY placed into the believer by God's Spirit, not a human priest holding up a 'transubstantiated wafer'. God's Life is Holy Spirit Life as the earnest of our inheritance, our inheritance of adoption into God's family headed by Christ. God puts THAT LIFE spark into the believer at the moment they believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
The Corinthian believers had a History they would know of eating the food sacrificed to idols and in eating the food they were told to believe they ingested their idol's life into them. Paul would have taught these previous idol worshippers that God has condemned the cannibalizing of the blood of the creature, for the Life of the creature is in the blood of the creature ... the creature life is in the blood, and when Cain slew his brother and shed his blood upon the Earth, the curse went to the earth. That curse would heap up in those who would drink the blood of any creature offered to God.
Paul used that lesson to warn the Corinthians that if they brought enmity to the communion REMEBRANCE of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross then they would not receive the spirit life conveyed through the remembrance (not the idol worship eating of the idol god), instead they would be guilty of violating the law in Leviticus 3:17, spiritually heaping upon themselves not Spirit life but condemnation for cannibalizing the creature life in the blood.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. So Jesus shed His blood ONCE for ALL Forever at Calvary. His blood had no fallen nature, so His creature life in His blood was the pure sacrifice for the laws of sin and death. That blood is not ingested to receive God's Life in us. It has already been applied to the intended purpose. To even imagine one eats God's divinity and soul in a wafer is blasphemy, at once heaping condemnation for cannibalism upon the soul of the offender.
Meant to ping you, too. Sorry
Have no ping list, but meant to ping you, too.
Meant to ping you too @708.
You can take this post @708 as my answer to your insistence on the other thread that Catholics must drink the blood of Christ to have His Life in them!
Sorry, meant to include you in the “to” line at post @708 ... pingalingaling
I find your comments to be an example of both antisemitic and anticatholic ignorance and bigotry, which inevitably leads to hatred.
So THIS is why you hate Protestants?
Nobody knows exactly how the glorified, resurrected body operates (like, after His resurrection, Jesus ate fish. But did He digest it?) but since he appears in John's Revelation, as a Lamb upon the throne, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," I'm assuming He can take any shape He wants and be in any time He wants. And since He walked through locked doors, I'm assuming he has what the philosophers call "subtlety." which means the ability to pass through things.
Completely transcending the laws of physics and biology and chemistry, outside of the bounds of space and time, yet ever-present in an eternity where all time is Now.
"And God will be all in all."
Even as man, He made blood all His life, just as we do, even from the time He was an embryo. So I'm thinking if He were bled dry, koshered, if He wanted to have blood, he could have made more blood. That would be easy-peasy. He could look like a Lamb if He wanted to. He could look like the Sun if he wanted to. Myself, personally, I don't assume He wanted to look like a corpse.
The first great church council seen in Acts 15 addressed this pagan foolery directly, contrasting it with the Laws of Moses as seen in Leviticus. Lev 3:17 says to not consume the blood of the creature because the life of the creature is in the blood. The letter James authorized also said not to eat the food sacrificed to idols because that too was a pagan cannibalistic form of worship.
The letter from James to the newborns from above specified the very things to be avoided, yet Catholics have incorporated these very pagan practices as their Mass! This blasphemy is so blatant and yet the blind see it not because they have not the spiritual eyes to see nor the spiritual ears to hear The Truth of what The Word of God declares.
God's Spirit will not always strive with man/woman. He has a limit to His patience with those who insist on pagan idolatry.
The better question is whether the person denying forgiveness is denied salvation.
No, once again you're saying stuff that isn't there, and falsely attributing it to St. James. St. James never used the word "cannibalism" or even alluded to the concept of "cannibalism."
But you're calling eating the meat of animals "cannibalism" if it has blood in it? That's your term, not St. James's.
Do you keep kosher?
Do you think Jesus' blood is unclean?
Hebrews 10:29
"How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
"Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you shall not have life within you." - John 6:53
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Tagline from Hebrews 10:29
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