Posted on 01/24/2007 8:41:04 AM PST by Joseph DeMaistre
Strange how the RCCers go silent when confronted with irrefutable Scripture.
I'm still awaiting an answer to my "praying to dead people" post.
Perhaps they are searching for answers from the other side, and the other side has gone silent on them.
Maybe they've got to put together a quick "tradition", and they're working up all the supporting documentation to show that it's been that way since Peter was hit with that rock.
At times like these they can often be found at their "traditional" retreat in the Caucasus Mountains, or at the Caucusus Threads, or somewhere around there.
Amen!
What a great word -- "fungible."
Yes, but it should only be used "vicariously".
LOL.
I like fungibles fried with butter and a little garlic. 8~)
Oh yes, butter and garlic fungibles, especially when eaten vicariously.
All of those citations you gave me are from letters of Paul (written before the Gospels were), or one from John.
The "Scripture" that they were referring to, and that Jesus was referring to, was the Old Testament. There was no New Testament to be Scripture when Paul wrote his letters. In fact, there were only a few of his own letters. Nowhere does Paul ever refer to his OWN WRITINGS as Scripture. He is not so arrogant. The ALL Paul is referring to is ALL of the Jewish Bible, the only Scriptures that existed at the time he wrote.
What the Scriptures were to First Century Jews is obvious enough: the Jewish Scriptures.
That we Christians have put together a book of Christian writings, called it the New Testament, and call it Scripture is good, but it's not what the writers IN the New Testament are referring to. THEY weren't referencing their own letters and calling them "Scripture". Jesus certainly wasn't referencing the letters of Paul.
Now, who was it, precisely, who identified what the New Testament canon would be, and thereby defined what the new Scriptures would be? Who had the authority to decide what WAS new Scripture, to be added to the old Scripture, and authoritative in itself?
Beyond that, it is very clear in the Old Testament itself, and from the content of what Jesus actually cited to when he specifically referred to "Scripture", that the hierarchy of authority within Judaism between the Torah (the HIGHEST authority in Scripture) and the Prophets (second highest authority) was followed by the apostles and Jesus himself. Jesus refers to "the Law and the Prophets", which is to say, the Jewish expression for the Torah and the Prophetic books. If JESUS was following the conventional Jewish hierarchy of Scriptural authority, how in the dickens can any of US say that it's "unacceptable and ungodly" to view different Scripture with different authority.
That's a made up rule, asserted with authority that you do not have.
I will.
But I am going to do it carefully.
Remember when Jesus says that God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living, in the context of the God of Abraham and of Isaac?
Apparently Isaac and Abraham are still living, somewhere, and are not dead at all. That's the point.
Remember Jesus' parable of the man who dies and speaks to Abraham? Is Jesus making up a story?
Anyway, a proper, more fleshed out response will follow in time. The short answer is that the holy dead are not dead.
Yes, and a little bit in Revelation (although that is trickier because a vision).
Acts is part of the hemeneutic. In truth, it was probably once all one piece with the rest of Luke anyway.
You had a short answer, just above, given as a placeholder until I can get to the place where my Bible is and give a proper answer.
Don't bother to fight with the short answer. Wait for the longer one. Obviously if one is going to cite specific scripture, chapter and verse, one has to have the book in front of him, which I do not this weekend.
But you'll get your answer. Silence here is the silence of being able to unanswer on your terms - which is to say, with specific Scriptural references - because I am not in a place where I have access to my books at this moment, not because I am dumbfounded and quivering in shock and awe. If you want a bookish response, you have to give your interlocutors time to get their books.
In regards to tradition, I was running through some word studies today and revisited Matt 15 which speaks to the issue where tradition makes God's commandment of no effect.
In regards to the dead and death,..I've found Scripture to make far better sense when describing dead or death as having a meaning of "a state of existence involving separation" as opposed to the 20th century philosophical perspective of death as a state of non-existence.
Then when considering man is made in body, soul, and spirit in rebirth, but in body and soul prior to salvation, the issue of death focuses more upon the separatio of soul from the body, or possibly spirit from soul and body.
In other contexts it might be the separation of man from God or possibly our spirit from God (this latter interpretation might not be consistent due to God having create spirit life in us).
Insofar as God being a God of the Living and not of the dead, this also nicely explains how we as men with an old sin nature, might fail to properly understand Scripture if we interpret it without being in fellowship with God through faith in Christ.
For example, God doesn't need us to perform His plan or His Will. If we are separate from Him, He is a God of the Living and His Word is only clearly understood through faith in Him, by the enabling work of God the Holy Spirit in us. He isn't sanctifying us when we fall out of fellowship with Him, so until we rreturn to Him by His protocols as provided in 1stJohn 1:9, He still isn't sanctifying us.
This doesn't mean He is less in control, but merely that serving the dead to Him, has no utility or good, i.e. it might be considered PONEROS, good for nothingness, a type of evil, alien to His nature.
In regards to Isaac and Abraham, they were indeed in paradise, and now that the perfect sacrifice has been made, reside in heaven with Him, indeed alive in the spirit and with some type of transitional body recognizable by others.
Hope this helps.
Ditto Mark 7
So... it seems that you don't consider the New Testament as Scripture. If you did, then you'd realize that the Holy Spirit DID KNOW that the writings were Scripture, and that the words of Paul, SCRIPTURE, are applicable regardless whether he knew them to be or not, and are, therefore, applicable. However, I do not believe that Paul did not know he was penning Scripture, given the number of times he directed folks to heed his commands, examples, and doctrines. In any case, it makes no matter whether he did or not. Unless you don't accept his writings as Scripture.
Sounds great... doesn't mean you should pray to them.
Very interesting postulate. Indeed, Paul mentions the concept if being "dead to sin", and being "made alive in Christ". Do you have more indepth Scriptural support to offer?
I picked up that particular interpretive translation a few years ago, I believe from some studies in Hebrew on the meanings of nephesh and association with life.
I haven't stumbled back over them, but they seem to be consistent. i.e. in our scarred thinking, we too easily associate death with simply not being around anymore, whereas it is much more appropriate, IMHO, of simply asserting a state of separation.
Accordingly, once we are reborn, we are actually given a newly created spirit life, only possible by the Creator, God Himself.
This changes the perspective from perceiving postsalvation sin from a manifestation that one doesn't have eternal life, or that one really isn't yet a believer, thereby removing the enticement of works based salvation or visa versa slavation without any real volition being involved, or confusing the volition of man with the predestination of God.
Accordingly, the thrust of postsalvation life prior to the first death is to remain in fellowship with God, which only happens thrugh faith in Christ.
Passages such as "Let the dead bury the dead" also take on meaning. It also reveals a considerable depth in the mechanics or processes which transpired on the Cross. The spiritual death, the separation of soul and spirit, the separation of the body from spirit, and separation of body and soul. This also leads to which person of the Godhead was active in each step and the significance of that same person in our walk with Him.
When spaking to loved ones regarding a death in the family, the emphasis then becomes upon loving our fellow man as ourselves, recognizing the separation of a loved one from us here on Earth is indeed painful, but absent the body, the believer has essentially been promoted to be face to face with the Lord in a more glorious place.
It also nicely explains the perspective that we are saved by faith alone and faith without works is indeed dead, but not to imply without eternal life, rather dead from the flesh or body or physical domain.
Mike Nifong would be jealous of this evidence.
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