Posted on 02/03/2014 1:36:37 AM PST by markomalley
They do, but in both instances, man sinned in rejecting what God had provided with the manna and the authority of God when He had already placed Aaron to rule. Ultimately, they had come to the Lord but only after God had come to them, which is reversed from our proper relationship with Him.
We are reconciled to God, rather than God being reconciled to man.
I notice he didn't say "get to heaven" or "be with the Lord". "Move on" may have simply meant to grow in knowledge of the principles of either faith.
Nothing in what the Church teaches about Mary does anything but point TO God, as our Creator and Father. HE chose Mary to be the vessel through which His Son, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity would come to earth in human visage. The Church venerates Mary precisely because she is that vessel, and if God thought enough of her to do this, shouldn't we show her the same honor?
SuziQ, thanks for your comments.
“Nothing in what the Church teaches about Mary does anything but point TO God, as our Creator and Father.”
Unfortunately, we will have to disagree - and I add sadly. Even the wresting of the plain meaning of this passage turns it to be about Mary as an “ark”.
“HE chose Mary to be the vessel through which His Son, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity would come to earth in human visage.”
Yes. He did it all. Not because she was worthy, but because HE favored her with grace.
The later Catholic Church was not satisfied with what God proclaimed and sought to make Mary born without sin (as Christ was), perpetually a virgin (in violation of the meaning and commands of marriage), assumed into heaven (as Christ was, but without the Biblical testimony), etc. There are some who carry it even further, portraying her suffering as His, her shed blood in birth as His, and making her into a “co-Redemtrix”.
God’s words through the angel, that she is favored “among women” has been twisted into “favored above everyone” - every person, every angel, all creation. All wrong, sadly.
“The Church venerates Mary precisely because she is that vessel, and if God thought enough of her to do this, shouldn’t we show her the same honor? “
God never venerates Mary and thinks less of her (as He clearly states in Scripture), than many Catholics and Orthodox, who claim all kinds of honors and exaltation that God never gave to Mary. It is as foolish and un-Biblical to make too much of Mary as it is to make too little. What God proclaimed to this young Jewish woman is sufficient in the estimation of God. We should accept it without adding to it or taking away from it.
Either way he is applauding Islam and paving a dangerous path for those listening. To an untrained ear he makes Islam and Christianity seem equal.
I don't understand why that idea is scandalous or upsetting to anyone. God favored Mary, just as the Angel Gabriel proclaimed, and God has the Power to do whatever He wishes, to make His will known on this earth.
“The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is the only human created sinless,”
Oh, I am aware of what they teach. It just isn’t Biblical. There is One Person who is sinless and it isn’t Mary, the sinner who needed a Savior.
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