Posted on 07/01/2015 7:13:05 AM PDT by RnMomof7
Recently there has been a surge in prominent Evangelicals calling for unity with Roman Catholicism. In one sense there seems to be strong foundational similarities that would justify these calls to unity. Catholics are baptized in the name of the Trinity. God’s revealed word in the Bible -- setting aside their addition of the Apocryphal books, for argument’s sake -- is foundational to their worldview. Catholics love Christ and believe that he died on the cross and rose again to provide grace for sinners.
Obviously there are theological differences associated with the specific teachings of each one of these perceived similarities, and I do not want to minimize the importance of these differences. But for argument‘s sake, at least on the surface, there is some common ground.
There is also a strong agreement in ethical standards. Both Roman Catholics and Evangelicals ground morality on God’s holy nature as revealed in the law of God. This means that on the hot button moral issues of the day; the murder of the unborn, human sexuality, the sanctity of marriage there is solidarity between Roman Catholic and Evangelical ethics because they are coming from the same source. Again, this seems to justify a call to some sense of unity.
Are these good enough reasons to publically stump for visible unity with Roman Catholics? That question is beyond the scope of this post. But there is a more fundamental question that must be answered first. That question serves as the dividing line between followers of Christ and the world, which separates biblical Christianity from every other worldview; does Rome possess and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
The author of the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 contrasts the gospel with that which is but a shadow of the gospel. He argues:
"And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." -- Heb 10:11–14
The argument being presented here makes it clear that Christ’s singular sacrifice, his death on the cross, perfects those for whom it is made for. This is the gospel. It is contrasted with the shadow of the gospel in which sacrifices were repeatedly made year after year because though they symbolized the atoning and perfecting sacrifice of Christ, they never themselves perfected those for whom they were made. The gospel of Jesus Christ perfects and any other religious strategies cannot.
This principle is directly applicable to the question of Roman Catholicism and the gospel of God. Roman Catholic worship centers on the mass. The mass is a series of liturgical practices that culminates in the Eucharist which according to paragraph 1068 of the Catholic of the Catholic Church (hereafter CCC) is a divine sacrifice. Paragraph 1367 of CCC calls the Eucharist a “truly propitiatory” sacrifice. This sacrifice is performed repeatedly in the life of a Catholic.
The reason the Eucharist is performed repeatedly is because even though it is claimed to be a propitiatory sacrifice that can make reparation for sins (CCC, 1414), it is a sacrifice that never perfects anyone. According to the Catholic message grace is something that you get from God by performing certain acts. First, God gives you the grace for faith in Jesus (CCC, 2000). Second, when you are baptized God graciously erases the sin of Adam from your record (CCC 1257). From that point on you get more grace by doing things like participating in the sacraments, including the Eucharist. The problem is that when you commit sins, you lose some of the grace you have gained and now need more lest your grace be found wanting at final judgment. This forces the Catholic into a position where they need to return day after day, week after week, and year after year to a priest who serves to repeatedly re-present the same sacrifice which never perfects those for whom it is made, since it only offers grace to cover some sin.
This is not the gospel.
Roman Catholics need the gospel for the same reason we all need it. We are all sinners with such a messed up and low view of how holy holiness really is that we think somehow through our own efforts we can attain it. If we just had enough time and willpower we could somehow have our good deeds outweigh our bad, and this will please God just enough for me to be acceptable to him. This is a satanic lie. A satanic lie that to some degree or another we have all bought into at some point in our life.
But the truth is glorious. God is good and God is holy. He is more good and more holy than we can possibly imagine. God is so good and so holy that anything less than absolute perfection is unacceptable in his presence. It is because of God’s awesome goodness and awesome holiness that in his wisdom he has offered us grace, through faith in Christ. A good and holy sacrifice that absolutely without question completely perfects everyone for whom it is made.
I think a better question is whether the non-Catholic who says unambiguously that Catholics are not Christians really is one.
Read the entire chapter six of John. Then read the first few verse in John 3, up through verse sixteen and seventeen. There is a common thread to those sections of John's Gospel. Jesus is teaching that salvation, being born from above, is by believing in Him. Nothing else. Baptism is an outward sign that you have taken the death of Christ as your propitiation and the Risen Christ as your eternal promise.
In John 3 Jesus explains the vital lesson of healing via the brass Serpent Moses placed upon a pole, to deal with the poisonous snake bites. The Jews, being prone to literal foolishness --like thinking eating Jesus gets God's life in them is what He was teaching, so they turn from following Him-- were so blind that a few generations into the Promised land and the Jews were making brass snakes and worshipping the idols! Jesus taught Nicodemus that it was the belief that they would be healed that allowed looking at the Brass snake to get healing! Jesus did not teach Nicodemus that the actual brass snake healed the people bitten.
Moving on to John 6, Jesus sets the stage for this crucial lesson of 'by faith do you have eternal life', by first miraculously turning a few loaves and fishes into a huge repast for thousands. That is the displayed Power of God to do the Miraculous.
Then, He tells the folks who pursued Him to the other side of the lake that they were running after Him not for the Life God is sending to them from Heaven, Life in Jesus by God The Father Almighty, they were running after Him because they had witnessed a great sign and eaten miraculously provided food which filled their stomachs not their souls. This Jesus dealt with using sarcasm.
He did that sarcasm thing on special occasions to shut off the foolishness of yada yada yada Jews were prone to engage in when they should instead look for spiritual truth. [John 6:32 Jesus therefore said to them, "Most certainly, I tell you, it wasn't Moses who gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven.] Jesus just told them two crucial clues: 1. it was God Who provided the manna/bread from Heaven in the desert; 2. Jesus is the true bread from Heaven as contrast to the belly bread in the desert ... thus He differentiated the manna/bread given by God in the desert with the real life giving SPIRITUAL Bread Who is Jesus The Christ. If Jesus had meant He is also physical bread to be eaten and run through to the draught bread, He would not have contrasted real manna with Himself, instead he would have explained it as the same.
[ John 6: 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."] This is Jesus sarcastically telling them that the real bread form Heaven is a person, not manna, and this person gives life to the world. Have catholics forgotten that it was the entire of Creation which fell cursed with the fall of Adam and Eve, thus Jesus reconciled more than just human spirits to God, He came from Heaven and gave Himself the perfect propitiation sacrifice in order to redeem ALL OF CREATION, cats and rats and elephants aren't eating Jesus and drinking His blood yet they are being reconciled to the Father God via The Cross of Christ, the Shed Blood of The Christ!
And finally, let the ones who were present when Jesus taught this show you the meanings: John 6: 27 "Don't work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him." 28 They said therefore to him, "What must we do, that we may work the works of God?" The Jews listening knew He was teaching about something other than the breads and fishes and miraculous expansion to feed thousands. They heard what he was teaching, 'don't work for the food which perishes' ... that's bread and wine, which do spoil. Their response was focused upon work not foods, because they knew He referred to something other than the bread and fishes of the recent miracle!
When the Jews asked 'what work must we do' Jesus told them plainly, "The work of God is to believe on Him Whom God has sent." The entire lesson in John 6 is about 'what must I do to be saved?'.
The Passover was only days away then. If He had established a cannibalistic rite as a new covenant then at Passover, why would He be so plain teaching these eager Jews that believing on Whom God Has sent is the work, the Real work, the Only work that God requires for eternal life? ... And the catholics said, oh yeah, He would have told them then that they had to eat his flesh and drink His blood to get God's Life in them. And he did, can't you read what the Bible clearly says? and God will say to them, 'Depart from me. I never knew you because you spurned my commandment to all their generations to never ever eat the blood because the life of the creature is in the blood and I offered to you eternal Life, not creature life.'
Jesus sent disciples out on two occasions. The chapter 20 sending is after the crucifixion. There was a sending to the Jews prior to the crucifixion, 70 of them if I remember the number. After the crucifixion He breathed the Holy Spirit upon they who were left of the initial seventy. He imparted His Life into them, just as God imparted His Life into Adam. You are cherry picking to conflate dispensations having different reasons for different people.
I just check back into another thread and find I am in error. You, Petrosius, did not refer to the ones sent out before the Passover, it was another apologist who did that. My mistake and you have my apology for making a stupid error.
ping to the John 6 apologetics
I stopped reading right there; it tells me all I need to know about personal Protestant theology.
Post number 564. The one some catholic apologists cannot allow themselves to read, so they find an excuse to not read it all.
Again, the answer
Follow the thread back.
Discuss the issues all you want, do not make it personal.
Other posters, this applies to everyone.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I haven’t observed it. Try to have fellowship with God through faith in Christ first, then perform your membership in the Church, instead of placing the authority of the RCC ahead of simple faith alone in Christ alone.
(John 10:32-36)
Jesus tells the Pharisees, who want to stone Him, that since God in the Old Testament said to the men to whom the word of God came "I have said you (plural) are gods (plural)" (Psalm 82:6), how can they stone him for claiming to be God's son?
God calls men gods in a certain sense in Psalm 82, and Jesus uses this to defend his divinity. So here's nothing wrong with the word "gods." It's the Biblical word that God spoke, Himself.
It's all tied in with the Incarnation of Christ. The Incarnation is the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of the Word.
(2 Peter 1:4):
"Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire."
God does not say that we become part of the Trinity.
God does not say that we become divine Persons like the Father and the Holy Spirit.
God does not say that we become 'gods' in the pagan/polytheistic sense.
But indeed God does He calls us 'gods' in the sense of being partakers in His divine nature. It is only by being united to Christ that we share in His divine nature. (John 6:51-69) We are not participants (partakers, sharers) in the divine nature apart from Christ.
The Eastern Churches, teaching the exact same doctrine but using different terminology, speak of participating in the 'energies' of God, as opposed to his 'essence'. We don't become one in being (consubstantial) (one in esence) with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; we don't join the Holy Trinity. Rather we participate in their 'energies'. We become saved by being transformed into his likeness from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). In other words, we become more and more like Him, until finally we see Him face to face:
(1 John 3:2)
"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."
"I have said you (plural) are gods (plural)" (Psalm 82:6).
This is the doctrine of the Church because this is the doctrine of the Bible.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.