In Christ Alone (Happy reformation day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExnTlIM5QgE ^ | Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;

[RnMomof7]

In Christ Alone lyrics

Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;

In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save

?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Suffering for a flawed human organization is different than suffering for God.

Amen. Christ did not say we were going to suffer for Mary or for statues or for "another Christ" or for "other mediators."

We will suffer for Christ alone.

[getoffmylawn]

Don’t ping me.

[presently no screen name]

It takes a lot of convoluted mind twisting to get a messiah out of that verse, imo.

No. It's takes spiritual discernment.

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned".

[Dr. Eckleburg]

A man has either been or will be given grace or he is without grace.

Life is ultimately that simple.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I do not preach another faith, so there is no reason to anathematize me.

You don't think believing the miracles of Jesus Christ are "magic" is "another faith?"

If not, what do you base that opinion on? Whip cream?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

His nature is love, best expressed in self-giving.

That is a perfect sentence.

[presently no screen name]

if you think you know better than the Early Christians Catholics.

Why are you posting what Catholics say as proof of anything concerning God's Word? Perhaps you can dig up one, also, that it's deemed honorable to kiss the Koran.

Go back to when Jesus spoke about who His mother is and who His brothers are? And Matthew and Mark who said, Jesus, your mother is outside with your brothers and the other Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures from them concerning the names of Jesus' brothers.

Don't you think Jesus knows better than the men He created; such as the ones you list? Being so desperate to prove the RCC doctrine/tradition right and God's Word wrong is certainly not unique - but it does prove that it will be done according to God's Word as..."Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.." Mark 7:13

You think the ALL KNOWING GOD might have known that man would try to override His Word with their doctrine/traditions?? If He said it - we know it will happen. And the RCC fulfilled Mark 7:13.

[Cronos]

"Her perpetual virginity is totally irrelevant to His work of redemption" --> You of course mean perpetual virginity after Christ's birth, correct?

Because Mary had to have been a virgin before His birth to fulfil Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel."

This Old Testament prophecy (where Isaiah uses the term almah and it is clear from the Septuagint which translates the Hebrew almah into Greek as parthenos. That is: almah = parthenos = virgin.) is quoted in the gospel of Matthew (Mt 1:23) and specifically applied to the virginal conception of Christ.

As to her virginity AFTER His birth, True and we The Church KNOW that His work of redemption was separate act and this has no impact on it. Jesus died for our Redemption, THAT is Church teaching "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Heb. 4:12).

Mary's perpetual virginity AFTER Christ's birth does not contradict scripture in any way, does it?

Mary’s womb was compared by Early Christians to the Eastern Gate mentioned in Ezekiel 44: "This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut." Mary had become the dwelling place of the Almighty, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament

This enhances the Christian teaching that Christ was/is/will always be God. Mary bore God, not just a man who became God, not a spirit but a real man-God. She did not create Him (no more than our mothers create us), but she bore Him, like the Ark bore the first covenant.

Let's summarise:
1. Christ's work of redemption was separate act and this has no impact on it. Jesus died for our Redemption, THAT is Church teaching.
2. Mary's virginiaty AFTER his birth does not in any way "affect" or have any relevance to Christ's freely given salvation
3. We view it as something the early Christians believed that does not contradict scripture and only serves to point out the uniqueness of Christ as 100% God and 100% man. It's all about the glory and power and might of God as reflected in His only Son Jesus. Just as God commanded a beautiful Ark for His first covenant, so He fashioned a beautiful Ark to hold for 9 months His greater covenant, His Son.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

God does not lack anything in Himself that would prompt Him to create beings that would fall into sin. He wasn’t lonely or bored. He is eternally self-sufficient and perfect and doesn’t need anything. The answer lies within God’s nature; God is love (1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love ;…”) and the nature of love is to give, to be other-centered, (John 3:16, “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son...”). Jesus said love is to give of one’s self to the point of death, (John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”)

Without this fall, ultimately no death would be necessary to atone for them and without that death, the greatest act of love could not be demonstrated and the truest and most perfect quality of love would not be fulfilled. God may very well have made a universe in which sin existed so that He Himself could show the greatest and most perfect act of love by laying down His life for His friends.

Glad I didn't miss this post.

[presently no screen name]

an attack on Christ

The attack is on HIS WORD - remember He said for My name's sake. He is JESUS, THE LIVING WORD - The HOLY SPIRIT Inspired Word of God.

Anything/ANYONE that goes against HIS WORD is doing the attacking and the root of that is satan. He will use anyone/anything (doctrine/tradition) to do his dirty work. Nothing new under the sun.

[presently no screen name]

Life is ultimately that simple.

It is that simple. Grace, grace wonderful grace!

[Cronos]

Actually the celibacy of priests is:
1. Purely/only a discipline, not a dogma -- hence married men can become Eastern Catholic priests
2. This is more derived from the early Middle Ages from the observed piety of (more detail given below) monks

Following Paul who said wished those to whom he was writing were, like he, unmarried (1 Cor. 7:7–9), Paul said he thought celibacy was the more perfect state (1 Cor 7:28), noting that "[t]he unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife" (1 Cor. 7:32–33). An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord.

This was taken up especially by monks, who came to be respected for their lack of worldliness (let's be honest, it's more difficult for the vicar with a wife and even more, even if he's good and his wife is good, there are always tongues wagging "ooh, she wore a nice dress, where did she get THAT money from?" -- and 1500 years ago, people were the same!

And it became traditional discipline until the Council of Trent which decreed that marriage after ordination was invalid.

The holiness of marriage makes celibacy precious; for only what is good and Holy in itself can be given up for God as a sacrifice. Just as fasting presupposes the goodness of food, celibacy presupposes the goodness of marriage. To despise celibacy, therefore, is to undermine marriage itself—as the early Fathers pointed out.

[Cronos]

Ha ha — non-Christian cultists from the OPC cult want to debate Christianity. Hilarious!

[Cronos]

Semper reformanda as a “slogan” is not Lutheran

I don't doubt that. In fact I think it's something met made up

Do note that the translation is Always reforming -- that can't be the beliefs of Lutherans, can it? You don't toss out the beliefs in the True Presence, in the sacrament of Baptism, etc. just because you want to keep reforming, correct?

What you have described is continually trying to emulate Christ, not always reforming, changing.

There is no modification of the Book of Concord. Truth remains truth. --> so then the slogan Always reforming is as silly to you as to me. You as a Lutheran will also reject the extreme groups that toss out all orthodox belief (who could never recite the Nicene creed) like the Unitarians or JWs or OPC or LDS.

The post as I noted before, was directed at met who stated that slogan and it being apt for her group, an always reformating group

[Cronos]

kosta

Even other (mainline) Protestants take the same approach, Cronos, which is of course the Christian approach.

These fringe groups, the various freak cults you mention (Unitarians, English-Israelism, OPC, etc.) who are louder than their miserable numbers, are the ones who get their satisfaction by burning someone (an agnostic, atheist, Arminian, Catholic, doesn't matter) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a daily basis. To them a debating forum is a sacrificial altar.

Unless they label someone satanic, threaten them with hell, draw blood or flame anyone who disagrees with them their day isn't done. Nietzsche called people, who preach Christianity and love, but hate the whole world, the people or sessentement. How fitting.

Exactly -- Lutherans like those in the LCMS will reach out to bring people to Christ. They (and Anglicans and Methodists etc) will rejoice when anyone learns more about Christ.

The cults (Unitarians, English-Israelism, OPC, etc.) ARE louder than their miserable numbers and when they come on board any of these forums, instead of having a debate, we have them slinging insults.

I name Lutherans because we have lutherans here who debate and who strongly believe what they believe, but they do NOT toss mud around, they believe in actually telling us what they believe instead of just insulting. We can listen to them, they listen to us and we can actually learn.

With OPC cultists and others, they do not seek to explain their beliefs because they believe they are upper-caste Brahmins who have no need to do anything but insult the lower-castes.

[Cronos]

death of all Christians?

Ah, now Dr. E, I take it no-one from your cult the OPC has read the Bible or the Koran. Nowhere does that mish-mash of Christian, Arian, Gnostic, pagan Arabic and Zoroastrian beliefs, the Koran say death to ALL -- you can accuse it of a lot but not that, it does have plenty of "kill -these- non muslims" which of course can be interpreted as the former if killing is what gives one wet dreams

[Cronos]

“Education, information, science, social and political changes all contributed their share. “ —> true, and there must be more than one simple root cause. Have you ever read Technopoly by Neil Postman. His arguments are very, very readable.

[Cronos]

I had a step-grandfather that was a Baptist, and he was one of the most Christian people I've ever known. He would attend his Baptist services every Saturday nite, and then go to the Divine Liturgy every Sunday with my grandmother. He was so taken with the depth of the Orthodox faith he asked to be, and was burried by the Orthodox Church. I would never want to condemn all Protestants.

your grand-dad sounds like a very true believer. Of course we have a lot of Christian Baptists, etc. -- we should always remember that the worst posters on this thread, the ones who use every slur and picture against us, are really from non-Christian cults (like Unitarians uu.org, opc, lds etc)

And you're right that Calvinists are the most spiteful folks -- they act like Brahmins cursing lower-castes.

the worst is when folks take these teachigns of Calvinism and merge it with non-Christianity (like the OPC, JW's idea of a super-special saved caste)

[Cronos]

You are wrong in claiming that adelphos can only mean sibling in the New Testament. In Matthew 13:55-56 four men are named as brothers (adelphoi) of the Lord: James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude. You conclude wrongly that these are at least some of Mary's other children. The New Testament proves otherwise.

In John 19:25 we read, "Standing by the foot of the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary of Magdala." Cross reference this with Matthew 27:56: "Among them [at the cross] were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee." We see that at least two of the men mentioned in Matthew 13 were definitely not siblings of Jesus (although they're called adelphoi)they were Jesus' cousins--sons of their mother's sister.

The Bible is simply silent on the exact relationship between Jesus and the other two men, Simon and Jude, mentioned in Matthew 13. This proves two important things. First, it proves that the Greek word for brother is sometimes used to mean something other than sibling, and it proves that Matthew 13:55-56 in no way demonstrates that Mary had other children.

[count-your-change]

and none too soon.