If Satan has a will that can take people captive, but God says they can be recovered by teaching, and by acknowledging the truth, does that mean that the person can choose? Or not? Is the will of Satan stronger than the will of God here? What about the person's own will?
Mom ping this to your calvin list.
BigMack
Personally, I don't think so. The well-known "Trail of Blood", for example, has to embrace incredibly heretical (by the standards of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox!) sects in order to maintain continuity. I see no means by which to establish a claim of a "pure" church, "untainted" by popery.
So how does one solve the obvious problem, from a reformed standpoint? Quite simply by realizing that the truth never "died": while the Church had many problems, and was in need of reform, vital truths lived on, though they may have been limited to individuals. I can gather a number of individuals, mostly monks, whom one might easily consider "semi-evangelical": but still very much within the Church. Were there any that espoused fully Protestant ideas? Probably not- and one must be careful not to strain the beliefs of medieval individuals so as to make them "Reformed".
"Martin Luther, the famous German Augustinian monk turned Reformer, disagreed on a number of points of faith and practice with the Roman Catholic Church and so began the Reformation and the Lutheran Church.
Luther was actually very well disposed toward the Eastern Orthodox Church. For example, he esteemed the way the Orthodox Church held services and read the Bible in languages understood by the people, distributed Holy Communion in both Kinds and had a married clergy.
During a debate with his Roman Catholic theological opponents, Luther chided the Roman side for casting a slur on the Eastern Orthodox Church. He reminded them that the Eastern Church was half of the Church of Christ and that, as far as he was concerned, it was the "better half" (which is where that popular term comes to us from!).
In terms of the differences between Orthodox Christianity and Lutheranism, that is sometimes difficult to determine.
For example, if we say that the Orthodox Church is different from the Lutheran Church because the former honours the Virgin Mary and the Saints, that would not be true for the entire Lutheran tradition and Church.
As you know, Martin Luther himself venerated the Virgin Mary throughout his life, as did the early Lutherans. He was often portrayed holding a Rosary by the early Lutherans and he wrote movingly about Mary and the "Hail Mary" prayer!
There are High Church Lutherans in Europe and elsewhere who likewise venerate the Virgin Mary and the Saints. There is the "Die Sammlung" movement in Germany which seeks church unity and a revival of Lutheranism's Catholic heritage, as is the case also in Sweden and Finland.
I have also corresponded with Lutheran Ministers (who prefer to be called "Priests") who share with Orthodoxy almost every single point of faith - or at least I found it difficult to determine where they weren't "Orthodox" save for the fact that they were not in formal communion with the Orthodox Church.
And there are Lutherans who, once they've studied the early Luther's writings and the vision of early Lutheranism, become Orthodox themselves e.g. Jaroslav Pelikan is a recent example of a famous Lutheran scholar who became Orthodox.
Orthodoxy differs from Protestantism in general in a number of ways. One way it differs is in its faith concerning the way in which Christ saves us.
Protestantism (and I'm not necessarily equating all of the Lutheran heritage with it - that would be unfair and untrue) believes that Christ died by way of substitution e.g. taking our place to placate God the Father for the offense given by Original Sin and our other sins.
Orthodoxy believes that God became man in Christ to heal us of the disease of sin and sinfulness that is in our nature. Christ's death on the Cross destroyed the record of our sins before God. By dying, Christ gave us life. He rose us from the death of sin by His Resurrection and He gave us the opportunity to participate, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, in Him and through Him in the life of the Holy Trinity and the Communion of Saints. We are called to become transfigured by the Divine-Human Christ through the Holy Spirit and become Christ-like - something that Martin Luther actually affirmed himself when he said we are called to become "little Christs."
By no means!
Sounds familiar:
And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. - I Kings 19:13-18
In other words, God is always preserving a remnant for Himself. This will also be true during the Tribulation, of which Jesus said: Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? - Luke 18:8b (For those who need a little help, Jesus is saying that things will look so bad that it will appear to the unenlightened that the Church is non-existent, it will be that bad. Yet, Christ is King, and as King He is both rewarding His loyal subjects, and executing His wrath against His enemies. So, when it comes to the Tribulation, just as in the dark ages of pre-Reformation Europe, He will be destroying a proportionately larger number of His enemies compared to the number of His beloved saints.)
These discussions assume the basic premise that God's Church must exist within (and only within) some earthly bureaucracy. Christ never headed an "earthly kingdom," although that is what the Jews wanted. They wanted someone to be "King" and liberate them from the power of the Romans. Catholics have always claimed that Christ's Church must exist in some earthly bureaucracy, and they are the only one with a 2000 year history.
Christ's kingdon is "not of this world." Christ's Church, all true believers, has existed from NT times.
Church was used in two ways in the NT. Usually as a local body of believers (i.e. The Church of Ephesus, the Church that meets in your home, etc.) but it occasionally meant all believers.
Examples:
...because I persecuted the church of God. - Paul persecuted believers.
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, - Christ is head of all believers. If it were some earthly organization, the head would be someone like the pope. Not Christ.