Posted on 03/05/2008 8:13:07 PM PST by Dajjal
The first complete, printed Bible in German was published in 1466, 17 years before M. Luther was even born, and only 11 years after the first book (Gutenberg's Latin Bible) was printed with movable type.
The earliest translation of parts of the Scriptures into a Germanic language was done by Ulfilas in the 4th Century.
so you are saying that the Catholic faith does embrace some scriptural truth... thanks for the clarification...
The single verse in James has been used to challenge the hundreds of verses in Scripture that say faith is a gift from God by grace, and not something men do on their own or even with a little help from their friends.
Scripture tells us over and over that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ's atonement. Thus it is His righteousness that saves us; His work that heals us; His glory that is reflected in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." -- Ephesians 2:4-9
"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" -- Romans 9:11
"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. -- Romans 4:4-5
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." -- Romans 9:16
"For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" -- 1 Corinthians 4:7
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." -- John 1:12-14
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." -- Philippians 2:13 "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
James is speaking to fellow believers, imploring them to remember Christ's instruction that a good tree planted by God always produces good fruit, and so we press on through the struggles of our lives, secure in the knowledge that Christ died and was resurrected and thus, has paid for our sins in full. As Christ tells us, all good trees will bring forth good fruit, and all those corrupt trees not planted by God will be cut down.
From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." -- Hebrews 10:12-18"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
There reallly is a Christian liberty the RC misses because the RCC tells its members that the Holy Spirit works through the magisterium and not directly into your heart and mine, changing them from stone to flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." -- Ezekiel 36:26-27
"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." -- 2 Corinthians 6:16"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Christ has paid the price for our transgressions in full. He has set us free by grace alone. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." -- 1 Peter 2:24
And this freedom by and for and through Jesus Christ is not because men will it, but because God, who declared the end from the beginning, willed it from before the foundation of the world for His glory alone.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." -- Ephesians 1:4-6"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
You wrote:
“Please cut and paste accurately. It says, “Indulgences were degraded almost entirely into financial transactions.””
And that still proves I am right. Thanks again.
” Common English usage dictates that this sentence means that almost all indulgences were financial transactions — not that an individual indulgence was mostly financial but still partly spiritual.”
What? No. English usage dictates that indulgences were made into ALMOST entirely into financial transactions. Which means they were NOT almost entirely financial transactions. They weren’t when first given and they aren’t now. And the Church NEVER sold indulgences.
“Secondly, do you mean to imply that the Pope didn’t know what was happening with indulgences?”
No. Popes knew that indulgences were abused by some people. That doesn’t mean that it was popes who abused them, or that all popes abused them or that the Church sold them. You are writing as if one thing is another here.
“Just because the Pope wasn’t out personally shoveling ducats into his coffers doesn’t mean a thing.”
It means the pope wasn’t selling indulgences personally. And the Church never sold them either.
“It was still done under his orders and with his full approval.”
Nonsense. You have yet to show any evidence that any pope approved of the sale of indulgences.
Everytime you post on this, you will just prove me right. I’ve already done the research.
“How do you believe they were degraded almost entirely?”
Simple. They were not properly preached. Some people were confused as to how they could receive an indulgence. Some came to believe - and were at times mislead by individuals to believe - that they could acquire the indulgence without the proper process having been completed. After all, the process included: making a good and thorough confession with genuine contrition, receiving a penance from the confessor priest, beginning to complete the penance and then using the indulgence or having received permission from the priest to use the indulgence from the beginning. No money was actually needed to acquire an indulgence then or now. People were expected to donate according to their means. Notice that proper and fitting term - DONATE. There were expectations according to station in life. If a man was wealthy, he was expected to donate an amount in proportion to his wealthy status. If a man was too poor to donate anything, he was to be given the indulgence anyway. I never knew this until I did the research. I came across the letter of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz who made this abundantly clear in Bettenson’s Documents of the Christian Church.
Even today there is a great deal of confusion about indulgences on the part of those in and out of the Church. Some outside the Church actually think indulgences are sold in the Church TODAY. Nothing like that has happened in more than 400 years. Once you do the research it is impossible to ignore the facts:
1) The Church never sold indulgences.
2) Church canon law squarely stood against the sale of indulgences.
3) Since people donated money, rather than actually “bought” the indulgences in 1517, if the instruction letter of Albrecht was followed, then even in Tetzel’s case there may have been no sale of indulgences. Again, those who could donate anything, still got the indulgence. That doesn't sound like any “sale” I ever heard of.
There were at least 14 German Bible translations produced before Luther’s.
See Kenneth A. Strand, German Bibles before Luther; the Story of 14 High-German Editions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), and Kenneth A. Strand, Early Low-German Bibles; the Story of 4 pre-Lutheran Editions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967).
With these facts long published - for centuries really - isn’t strange that many Protestants still known nothing about them when even Protestant publishing houses put books out about them?
Also, there is plenty of reason to think Luther plagiarized his Bible from portions of some of these other Bibles.
Also, Luther wasn’t an honest translator. I love his comment when confronted with the fact that Catholics knew he had added the word “alone” to Romans 3:28 even though it wasn’t in any mss. ever known to exist:
“If your new papist makes much ado about the word ‘alone’ just say straight out to him: ‘Dr. Luther will have it so, and says, papist and donkey are one and the same things; thus I will and am determined to have it; my will is the reason’.”
Lovely, just lovely.
To be fair, I think that was standard practice in Bible translation of the time -- it certainly was in England. It wasn't quite like the Middle Ages, when almost no one signed anything, because anything written belonged to everyone! On the other hand, there were no copyright laws -- and nothing like today's royalties and residuals.
You wrote:
“To be fair, I think that was standard practice in Bible translation of the time — it certainly was in England. It wasn’t quite like the Middle Ages, when almost no one signed anything, because anything written belonged to everyone! On the other hand, there were no copyright laws — and nothing like today’s royalties and residuals.”
True, but Luther claimed to be translating out of the Greek, while the other Bibles were from the Vulgate. In other words, Luther may have fibbed.
Wow. Where to begin?
•Regarding Mary as "co-redeemer" and "dispensatrix of all grace."
•Praying to dead people for intercession when there is only "one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus."
•Believing in baptismal regeneration. Baptism doesn't regenerate; the Holy Spirit regenerates at a time of God's choosing.
•Presumptuously calling their priest "another Christ."
•Believing the Lord's Supper actually morphs into the blood and body of Jesus Christ at a certain elevation when it is raised by "another Christ."
•Creating fantasies like limbo and purgatory out of thin air to further keep people in line.
•Denying the sacrifice of Christ on the cross effectively and once for all time paid for all the sins of His flock, and instead believing Christ's atonement must be re-administered with each new unconfessed sin.
•Erroneously believing "another Christ" can forgive sins when we are told to bring our sins to the foot of the cross.
•Falsely identifying a man on earth as "infallible regarding religion" when there is only one infallible man, Jesus Christ.
•Compounding that error, the RCC blasphemously refers to that man as the "head of the church on earth," when Scripture tells us there is only one head of the church on earth, Jesus Christ.
•Believing tradition to be equal to and even surpassing God's holy word, forgetting that the only time Christ ever referred to tradition was to denounce it.
•Believing that relics themselves have intrinsic holiness which is idolatry...
And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:15-20"Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. 16 He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
2) Church canon law squarely stood against the sale of indulgences.
LOL. Rome has always written in pencil.
#82
82. To wit: — “Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”
Darn good question, Martin!
And yet, the popes commissioned people with the ability to go out and sell indulgences. It did occur. You may be quibbling with technicalities, but popes did commission people to travel around certain areas and sell indulgences.
I know you weren’t writing the first two points, I should have replied to the prior post. My bad!
You wrote:
“LOL. Rome has always written in pencil.”
Canon law was always written in ink.
Try again.
It just goes to show you that if you’re considered a heretic today just wait 500-600 years for the Church to soften their stance.
Yes, before I began to read the posts, my initial reaction was that it is good that the Pope isn't a Freeper, as he'd really get flamed by some of the Papists for saying that.
'When the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.'
You wrote:
“’When the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.’”
That is what Tetzel supposedly said. But was the money a donation as demanded by the Archbishop of Mainz in his instruction letter or was it a sale?
My point still stands:....even in Tetzel’s case there MAY HAVE BEEN NO SALE of indulgences.
Well, since indulgences can’t be sold, there was probably no sale. It was just simple fraud by Tetzel, who should be named the patron saint of televangelists.
You wrote:
“Well, since indulgences can’t be sold, there was probably no sale.”
Indulgences can’t really be sold, but people were in some cases conned by unscrupulous men into buying pieces of paper that were indulgence certificates. Sad, but true.
“It was just simple fraud by Tetzel, who should be named the patron saint of televangelists.”
Could be. I wish we knew more about exactly what he did and why he did it.
http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2006/06/indulgences-and-treasury-of-merit.html
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