Posted on 05/25/2016 3:57:03 AM PDT by JosephJames
Once again, the first and only time I've heard that, is just now, from you.
Interestingly --- and I can't say I can grasp this -- Jesus says some two dozen times that if you ask anything in His name, in faith, it will be done for you, it will be granted. Check this out: ASK! (Cross-reference Links)
This is, of course, asking in *Jesus'* Name. But if Mary is asking in Jesus' name, the same would be apply, would it not?
Jesus didn't say "I will grant it to anyone who asks in My Name --- except for you, Mom."
It’s also difficult to ignore the words of Christ Himself, and the teaching of His Apostles. Were it not for the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, the communion meal might have ended up as a simple memorial meal through the course of history (as it is in many Protestant denominations today).
But we take our Lord at His Word when he says that “he who eats my Flesh abides in Me and I in him”. And He provided His Flesh for us sacramentally in the Eucharist, as was taught and believed by the Apostles and their successors, according to what has been verified historically through Scripture and their own non-Biblical writings.
Ha! You've stumbled upon it, but that's just the thing.
The mother of the Emperor Constantine, Helena, was a Christian. He gave her full access to the resources of the imperial treasury, and a royal diplomatic/security entourage, so she could go to the Holy Land and recover physical evidence of Biblical persons and events.
Naturally, some people probably saw this as their chance to cash in on a once-in-a-lifetime deal, so a certain amount of opportunism made its appearance. Like the equivalent of "George Washington Slept Here" signs popping up at many a wayside inn.
But the peculiar thing about Mary was, she would have been (theoretically) the gold standard for relics and such, a cornucopia of the prime merchandise--- and yet nobody ever claimed to have a physical relic of Mary. Never happened.
A kind of startling unanimous acceptance that she didn't leave any "remains."
She passed from this life sometime during the time of the Apostles --- which is to say, at most, sometime well before 100 AD. There were plenty of claims of relics for other people who died during this period. The head of John the Baptist. Finger-bone of St. James. A tooth from a martyr like Stephen. Whatever. People were avid for this type of stuff.
Nothing from Mary. All the locals seemingly agreed that such a thing could not exist.
The earliest religious archaeologists, like Helena, would have thought this very striking. It was certainly unprecedented. You could certainly find alleged graves with the bones of Moses, Abraham, Rachel. Nothing for Enoch, Elijah, Mary.
He said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me. The Father and I are One."
Think, Elsie. He in Heaven? Heaven is in Him!
Those born again are related to Jesus on His FATHER’S side, through the Holy Spirit who is the One who has given us life.
I post this more for Ultra Sonic’s benefit as I’ve posted this to you before and yet you’ve still disagreed. So I don’t hope to change your mind here.
You asked, “I ask you again, do you believe God would establish a New Covenant by violating His own laws against eating human flesh and drinking blood”
The command against drinking blood is found in Lev 17:12. We read though in the verse that precedes it WHY it was forbidden to “eat” (drink) blood (of an animal): “Because the life of the flesh is in the blood...”
So you ask: Would God establish a New Covenant that “violates” His own Law? Or really, would God command something that violates His own Law?
First of all, God wants us to have His life in us, through His Son. This is abunantly clear throughout New Testament Scripture, as we are constantly told He is the Life, and we are to die so that He may live in us. Thus, since we know that the “life of the flesh is in the blood” what better way to receive His life than to literally eat His Flesh and drink His Blood? It’s the method that He has clearly chosen to most commonly and effectively transmit His Life to us.
So what of the contradiction? First and foremost, the command is speaking of animal blood (Lev 17:11-14) and Jesus is not an animal.
Secondly, we are commanded not to kill, however there are instances where God has commanded His people to kill not only their male enemies, but also women and children from opposing peoples. God chooses when and how to apply His Law not us.
Clearly He chose that at the time, it was best for Israel to kill, even though He told them not to kill. One can certainly make a case for a “just war” here.
Similarly with the Eucharist. He has clearly chosen to make the Law in Leviticus about only animals, and also clarified that His blood is not mere human blood but the perfect blood from the perfect man, because it contains His Life, which He freely gave and IS free to give as He so chooses.
An animal’s (or any other human’s) life will not save, only Jesus’ life freely given saves. This is why it’s still forbidden to drink the blood of animals (and humans) but it’s not forbidden to drink His Blood, since as God He is free to give His Body and Blood as He sees fit, which fortunately for us is to give us His life, so that we may live in Him.
`It bears repeating..... :o)
And then He goes on to say, John 6:63 " It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."
He said it was SPIRITUAL eating.
HE recognized the the cup was only wine.
Matthew 26:29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Mark 14:25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 22:18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
Recall that when God instituted the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, He specifically commanded them to eat the lamb. (Exodus 12:8-10)
To anticipate the Lamb of God and show a spiritual truth. They weren't really eating Jesus then and the bread and the wine aren't really Jesus now.
It was looking forward, in a picture to the spiritual reality just as communion is looking back at the same spiritual reality.
Recognizing it as a remembrance causes NO conflict with consistent interpretation of Scripture.
Claiming they ate the actual blood of Jesus is totally inconsistent with the rest of reveled Scripture and is what requires all kinds of *interpretation* to make it fit and explain it away.
Recall that when God instituted the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, He specifically commanded them to eat the lamb. (Exodus 12:8-10)
Recall that the blood was NEVER, EVER to be eaten. It was poured out for atonement, just as Jesus' blood was.
Therefore, if Catholics are eating the blood, they are NOT participating in the same sacrifice. And a bloodless sacrifice is useless.
Nor did Jesus die on an altar. He died on a cross. And He giving His life and shedding His blood is not the same as what the Catholic church claims that He gives us Himself to offer to God for atonement for our sins.
See here before you parrot that again.
But honestly, I think one need only look at the fruit of Protestantism: over 30,000 different denominations, practically all of which claim inspiration by the Holy Spirit in their interpretation of Scripture.
They do? You mean they do not only believe in the inspiration of the Scripture by the Holy Spirit, but that of their own teaching? Sounds too much like what many RCs believe. Meanwhile your argument is simply specious, since it presumes that something that results in disunity invalidates it (thus the Lord Himself), and that the strongest unity is not seen within Protestantism - those who hold the most basic distinctive that historically resulted in believers being called "Protestants," that of Scripture as the accurate and supremely authorative wholly inspired word of God.
And it ignores that Catholicism also exists in schism and sects, and abounds in disagreements, with its professed unity being quite restricted and largely on paper, while in reality, Catholics are far less unified than evangelicals in the most basic beliefs.
Division as well as unity is seen under both the Catholic and Protestant model for determination of Truth, with the sharpest contentions as well as the strongest unity being seen in those who are the most committed to what they see as doctrine, but only one model is Scriptural. Thus the question,
What is the basis for your assurance of truth? For it seems that the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for determination and assurance of Truth (including writings and men being of God) and to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith, and authority. (Jn. 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:13; Mt. 16:18; Lk. 10:16)\
And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus any who knowingly dissent from the latter must be in rebellion to God.
Does this fairly represent what you hold to or in what way does it differ?
So this is the challenge: how can you tell which denomination has the fullness of truth?
Answer the above to pursue the answer.
And finding evidence of Mary’s burial would tatlly wreck the whole assumption of mary thing.
I could see why the church would not want the evidence to be found.
Or covered up if it were.
Absence of evidence does not support your position, no matter how it’s rationalized.
Thanks for that post of another aspect most are ignorant of, seen here in Swan's blog but is from Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand: A Life Of Martin Luther [New York: Mentor Books, 1950].
You simply cannot make something like the Assumption of Mary nor praying to her analogous to the Trinity! The former is so lacking on warrant from Scripture or early history that Rome's own scholars opposed it being taught as part of apostolic tradition. Meanwhile Scripture nowhere testifies to believers praying to anyone else in Heaven but the Lord, despite prayer being so basic a practice that the Spirit provides approx. 200 prayers in Scripture! And there were plenty of angels for OT believers to pray to, as well as a multitude of ascended believers in Heaven for the NT church to make supplication to. Spare us the refuted attempts at egregious extrapolation: it simply is not there and its absence is inexplicable for a most basic practice, while making supplication to invisible created beings in the Heavens is recorded - by pagans.
In contrast the Trinity is a demanded doctrine in the light of the abundant testimony to Christ being God in nature with the Father, and with the Spirit.
Those Constantine and Helena-era church people who transmitted to us the testimony that "There's nothing to see here, no bones and teeth of Mary, sorry folks" are the same ones who transmitted to us the written Scriptures. It was Constantine himself who ordered the production of 50 copies of the Bible for the churches in Constantinople, and Jerome says that the Council of Nicaea "counted the number of the Sacred Scriptures," which assumes the deterimination of a canon.
If they were such despicable liars that they would lie about Mary, why would you trust them for your canon of Scripture?
Moreover, there was no "doctrine" of the Assumption at that time, in the sense of something which had been proclaimed from the pulpits or defined in a Council. There was only an incipient doctrine in the form of the "sensus fidelium," the sense of the faithful, something they held as true, those of the flock of Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, who would have had a very lively religious as well as financial interest in the relics, if they were to be had at all.
The Empress Helena almost certainly heard of a "doctrine" called the Assumption of Mary. Can you imagine the sensation it would have made, if she had found relics of Mary? Can you imagine the prestige that would accrue to her, and the immense "propaganda" triumph of having physical remains of Mary to display and venerate?
The "advantage: Church" from a human point of view would have been overwhelmingly in favor of finding relics.
Believe me, they would have, if they could have.
But they couldn't --- couldn't even claim it, couldn't even fake it.
John 1:14
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
But the word "Incarnation" and the defined doctrine thereof, came after a lot of study and reflection of such things.
There were, after all, other opinions. One opinion was that Jesus Christ was two persons ---Jesus was one person, and the Christ another--- so that Jesus was a human person whose body was "possessed" by another person, God ("I'm your vehicle.")
And those who said Jesus had only one nature, the Divine Nature, and that his humanity was a kind of elaborate disguise. Still others said that Jesus was the first-created, not the only-begotten. And so forth.
This all sounds wacky to us now, but the proponents of these positions found their own Scriptural proof-texts, which seemed like a good idea to them at the time.
The truth of the Incarnation is rooted in the Scripture you cite. The defined doctrine of the Incarnation --- in all its details --- was articulated much later.
Feel free to use it.
It'll fit right in with...
Mary get mentioned in my church about as often as Rome included her exploits in the New Testament.
Fair enough.
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.