Posted on 05/24/2016 6:49:46 AM PDT by Salvation
Many of you know that I write the Question and Answer column for Our Sunday Visitor. Given the celebration of Trinity Sunday this past Sunday, I thought I might reproduce here on the blog a question/answer regarding the Trinity. It is a fairly common question; perhaps you have it, too. Remember that my answers in the column are required to be brief.
We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1, 2016) that Jesus says that the Father is greater than He (Jn 14:28). Since we are all taught that each Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity fully possesses the nature of God, equally to be adored and glorified, what did Jesus mean by such a statement?” – Dick Smith, Carrolton, TX.
Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-equal, and equally divine. But the Father is the Principium Deitatis (the Source in the Deity).
Hence, Jesus proceeds from the Father from all eternity. He is eternally begotten of the Father. In effect, Jesus is saying, “I delight that the Father is the eternal principle or source of my being, even though I have no origin in time.”
Devotionally, Jesus is saying that He always does what pleases His Father. Jesus loves His Father; He’s crazy about Him. He is always talking about Him and pointing to Him. By calling the Father greater, He says (in effect), “I look to my Father for everything. I do what I see Him doing (Jn 5:19) and what I know pleases Him (Jn 5:30). His will and mine are one. What I will to do proceeds from Him. I do what I know accords with His will.”
So although the members of the Trinity are all equal in dignity, there are processions in the Trinity, such that the Father is the source, the Son eternally proceeds from Him (Jn 8:42), and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principal (Jn 15:26).
St Thomas speaks poetically of the Trinity as follows:
Genitori, Genitoque … Procedenti ab utroque … compar sit laudautio
(To the One Who Begets, and to the Begotton One, and to the One who proceeds from them both, be equal praise.)
The Athanasian Creed says the following regarding these processions:
The Father is made by none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but he proceeds from them.
So although equal, processions do have an order. The Father is “greater” (as source), but is equal in dignity to Son and Holy Spirit.
Please consider subscribing to Our Sunday Visitor. I also write for the National Catholic Register. These are two great publications that deserve your support.
And while I am pointing out my “extra-blogical” activities, I also ask you to consider coming to the Holy Land in March of 2017 with me and Patrick Coffin of Catholic Answers.
Interesting how Catholics follow their church and Christians follow Christ and then they tell us with a straight face that following a church is where it’s at spiritually, when Christ told us to follow HIM.
What if they say it truly?
Thank you for the interesting correction.
The comment I posted to you was not intended with the sense of "correction" at all. It was not a criticism, but just an observation of the equally reasonable interpretation that the bread of the upper room supper was leavened bread, not unleavened bread. Many, if not most, of the casual Bible readers assume the bread of that meal would be the same that would be prepared for the Pharisee's Passover, when it need not be. I was just apprising you of that possibility, not insisting on it.
Apparently you assumed that, though my words were carefully chosen to be neutral, you read them as an attack, and apparently replied combatively:
Is there some reason for the insult?
Of course, if one reads what I said with an open mind, willing to search the scripture to see if it be so, this kind of response would not even be on the horizon. There was no offense intended or expected.
Regarding formulating one's own doctrinal platform, I personally hope and expect that fellow spiritually-minded Christians will have done so, for themselves, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, with affirmation by its agreement with the overall context of Biblical testing of it (not as a catechumen reading the error-laden accumulations of fallible men). Furthermore, I count that such an observer will test anything of a scripturally-based answer that I give on this site; and if he/she has a different or expanded view, their reply will be rendered in that sense also. Why I take this view is to comply with the Lord's admonishment:
"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. " (Mt. 24:23-24 AV).
"And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many" (Mk. 13:5,6 AV).
I do not expect that a solidly founded regenerated mature regenerated believer-disciple will dogmatically take what I say, or that of any other fallible human, as his/her only advice, but rather act as a Berean learner would have. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (Jn. 14:26,27 AV).
"These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him" (1 Jn. 2:26,27 AV).
Beloved Brother, let not your heart be troubled. Keep a more noble mien than the spiteful mindset that the Romanites seem to be trying to egg you into. They won't read our responses nor believe in checking them out if you and I don't address them from a higher plane (which they can't attain, being without heavenly help). Remember the Proverbs on this.
Regarding the leavened bread (like today's pita bread) versus crackers (matzoth) in the Remembrance, for some sects this is a little bit dicey and debatable, so it takes a careful approach, with the investigator having the need to check one's teaching on this with respect to scripture, language, and history.
To me, the bread represents (1) the body of Jesus on the cross, bearing (leavened with) our sins on the Tree of Calvary, and (2) also symbolizing His local assembly(s), none of which visible earthly gatherings is yet purified in our dispensation. (This is a problem that the Bishop of Hippo found great difficulty dealing with and arrived at, to me, an unsatisfactory answer.)
We might also consider that the scripture makes no defensible account that fermented liquor of crushed grapes was in the cup shared by Jesus with the disciples. That itself is worth a study, eh?
The problem is those "Protestant" RCs who create division by ascertaining the validity of church teaching by examination of historical teaching (even if Scripture is not the supreme standard, as with true Prots), and thus do not let Rome "interpret" what such really teaches at any given time.
Among other examples of why this is needed for cultic unity:
Council of Constance 1414-18; SESSION 13 - 15 June 1415: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, Father and Son and holy Spirit, Amen. Certain people, in some parts of the world, have rashly dared to assert that the christian people ought to receive the holy sacrament of the eucharist under the forms of both bread and wine. They communicate the laity everywhere not only under the form of bread but also under that of wine, and they stubbornly assert that they should communicate even after a meal, or else without the need of a fast...
although this sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds in the early church, nevertheless later it was received under both kinds only by those confecting it, and by the laity only under the form of bread....To say that the observance of this custom or law is sacrilegious or illicit must be regarded as erroneous. Those who stubbornly assert the opposite of the aforesaid are to be confined as heretics and severely punished by the local bishops or their officials or the inquisitors of heresy in the kingdoms or provinces in which anything is attempted or presumed against this decree, according to the canonical and legitimate sanctions that have been wisely established in favour of the catholic faith against heretics and their supporters.
...when the one bread is broken, the unity of the faithful is expressed and through Communion they "receive from the one bread the Lord's Body and from the one chalice the Lord's Blood in the same way that the Apostles received them from the hands of Christ himself. (USCCP: "Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion")
Edit: Last quote is from the USCCB - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - regarding the option of the distribution of Holy Communion under both kinds in the ordinary form of the Mass, which usage has become a daily occurrence in many countries.
At a party, you have to have something to pin the tail to, or a pinata to bash . . .
Or true conciliation with the Heavenly Father.
This is leading into an interesting study. Again thank you.
The adjective, adzumos, is a definition describing whatever it is applied to. Literally, the Passover feast (one day) is "unleavened" and the period after is entirely "unleavened." The "feast of weeks" fifty days after, becomes the first day of the rest of the "unleavened" portion of the year.
The bread for the Jewish passover meal (which was conducted on the wee hours of 15 Nisan, on which day Jesus' body had just been entombed but not spiced with myrrh and aloes) had to be baked just moments before that meal, and not on the day before the evening of the upper room supper meal, which had commenced at nightfall of the eve of the day before--14 Nisan--in which the lambs are killed (as was Jesus, the Lamb of The God), just before sundown of the 14th while the preparations for the Jewish passover were taking place.
You might want to look these up:
Mat_27:62 Now the next day*, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,
Mar_15:42 And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,
Luk_23:54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.
Joh_19:14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
Joh_19:31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Joh_19:42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
* = "the next day" had to be the week's Sabbath; that is, 15 Nisan
=======
Note that the Passover feast--a sabbath--in this particular year fell on the ordinary last-day-of-the "week" of seven days Sabbath. Therefore it was s double sabbath, a very special Holy Day, with three events, according to Adam Clarke, the commentator:
For that Sabbath day was a high day -
1. Because it was the Sabbath.
2. Because it was the day on which all the people presented themselves in the temple according to the command, Ex. 23:17.
3. Because that was the day on which the sheaf of the first fruits was offered, according to the command, Lev. 23:10,11. So that upon this day there happened to be three solemnities in one.(ref. Lightfoot.) It might be properly called a high day, because the passover fell on that Sabbath.
And that is whe the crucifixion could only have taken place in the year reckoned by our calendar, in 33 Anno Domini.
=======
Since the preparation did not begin before the ninth hour, 3:00 PM our reckoning, and must be finished before the 12th hour (6:00 PM), the bread had to be made and instantly baked in that time to BE "unleavened," or technically more properly "unrisen" (since some form of leavening must have indeliberately incorporated during its unsanitary mixing); otherwise if it stood around even a bit, it was then considered as having been acted on by the airborne , water-borne, or hand-borne microorganisms apart from intentionally and usually leavened with starter dough; and was therefore unfit for the meal to be conducted later after dark.
Remember, the killed lambs still had to be bled out and cooked before sundown, 6 PM, after which "picking up of sticks" was a deadly activity.
So there is no reason that the LORD's Upper Room Supper would not have comprised starter-dough-raised pita bread, Jesus blessing The Father for it, broken, and passed around to everyone there.
Hope this helps understand why the eneucharacterization of the wafer does not sound feasible or representative of the Last Supper.
Judgment Day is indeed coming, but more importantly, the day we suffer the first death is coming and if a person has not come to Christ prior to the first death, he has no more opportunity for salvation.
We are ALL condemned prior to salvation. When we remain in fellowship with Him, through faith in what Christ provided on the Cross, we remain on His path. We know many categories of people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God, but we also know that if we simply remain in Him, there is no doubt of our salvation.
There are many Catholics and Protestants who will inherit the Kingdom of God. There also are many in both camps who only treat those organizations and their thinking in either worldly or fleshly domains, who still are not known by Christ.
The only thing on us is to accept what God provides us. Our salvation is only available when God the Father makes His call of the elect and we respond favorably through faith in Christ. Like little children, we simply need to accept Him in faith and believe in Him.
Some people think it is hard to believe. It's only as hard as we make it.
The beauty in God's Plan is that arrogance is kept out of the Kingdom of God, by first condemning us all, then only allowing into salvation, those who accomplish the simplest of all things imaginable. We simply place faith in Him. The rest of it is all His work in us. We rejoice in the blessings of the work of God the Holy Spirit in guiding us to and through faith in Him in all things, always glorifying the Son, which in turn is the glorification of God the Father.
Matt 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.Explain?
Adzumas is derived from dzumay, which is a noun.
=====
String's G2219
ζύμη
zumē
Thayer Definition:
1) leaven
2) metaphorically of inveterate mental and moral corruption, viewed in its tendency to infect others Part of Speech: noun feminine
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: probably from G2204
Citing in TDNT: 2:902, 302
=======
It's from zeo, verb for boiling. I suppose that means because the fermenting causes bubbles from the CO2 making (alcohol?) from the flour.
Yep. You got it. It is Sunday morning here, so I just got up, to see the latest posts. 😀😄😇
There is one holy catholic apostolic church, from the time the Messiah built it on the apostles and prophets with himself as the chief cornerstone until this day. This is the Catholic faith.
The OHCAC sure didn't do much EDIFYIN' with her 7 Asian churches found in Revelation chapters One thru Three!
Perhaps they were just too far away.
Yes, I agree. I only realized that, after I left that certain religion, that claims to be the OTC. I object to that elitist exclusive attitude, that claims I must be a member of their church to be saved.
Salvation is through faith in Jesus, not by membership in some elitist religion.
Concur.
Religion is worship of God.
We are saved not by our worship, but simply by our acceptance of what He has already provided at the Cross, the Judgment of all sin for all eternity past and present and future. Sin is no longer the issue.
Salvation is all His work in us. Our faith(His work) in Him, allows God the Father to exercise salvation by regenerating the human spirit in us by God the Holy Spirit, which now provides a temple for His indwelling and further sanctifying our souls.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.