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[This is the second installment of a three part series.]
As we have elsewhere noted, the Roman Catholic religion teaches that the bread of the Lord’s Supper literally becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, and therefore must be worshiped. The worship of the bread, the Eucharist, is the highest form of worship a man may offer to God. Therefore, the Roman Mass is the highest form of worship, and the moment when the bread is transubstantiated into “Jesus” is the highest point in the Mass. The “True Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist is what makes Eucharistic Adoration obligatory, and Eucharistic Adoration, therefore, is the chief objective of Roman religion. Roman Catholics worship the Eucharist. Everything else in the religion is merely prologue to the act of adoring the bread. That is not to say that every Roman Catholic has been persuaded of this doctrine on its merits. Sometimes a miracle—a Eucharistic Miracle—is required to reinforce the practice.
One such miracle occurred in 1263 when a German priest, Peter of Prague, doubted the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but when he was saying Mass in Bolsena-Orvieto, Italy, as he uttered the words of consecration (“This is My Body”), “blood started to seep from the consecrated Host and trickle over his hands onto the altar.” A year later, “Pope Urban IV … instituted the feast of Corpus Christi,” due in no small part to the miracle, but also due to the visions of Juliana of Liège in the 1200s in what is modern-day Belgium. “Jesus” appeared to her, instructing her “to plead for the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi,” which is Latin for “the Body of Christ.” “Jesus,” so it seemed, wanted very much to be worshiped in Eucharistic form, and Urban IV in 1264 obeyed the vision, and “instituted the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.” The Feast of Corpus Christi was “the very first papally sanctioned universal feast in the history of the Latin Rite.” That is how significant the feast is to Roman Catholics. During the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Eucharist is carried reverently in procession and is worshiped, as shown in the figure, below.
Because the worship of the Eucharist is the core of Roman Catholicism, some Roman Catholics believe that when Jesus returns to reign on earth for 1,000 years, He will do so in the form of the Eucharist: “Christ will reign gloriously on earth, not physically, but in the Eucharist.” Yes, the Eucharistic idol is that significant to them.
Another Miracle which ostensibly attests to the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is that of the Bleeding Host of Santarem, a miracle that took place early in the 13th century. The miraculous host is still on display at the Church of the Holy Miracle in Portugal, and has received validation from medical professionals:
The Host is somewhat irregularly shaped, with delicate veins running from top to bottom, where a quantity of blood is collected in the crystal. In the opinion of Dr. Arthur Hoagland, a New Jersey physician who has observed the miraculous Host many times over a period of years, the coagulated blood at the bottom of the crystal sometimes has the color of fresh blood, and at other times that of dried blood. This miracle… has endured for over 700 years.”
Such also was the case in Alatri, Italy in 1228 when a young girl was surprised to see the bread turn into flesh and blood before her eyes. “To her horror she saw that the Host was no longer like bread, but had turned the color of flesh—which she knew to be alive.” When the miracle was reported to Pope Gregory IX, he approved it, and thus began the veneration of that particular host, which continues to this day. The miraculous host is placed on display for adoration and worship twice yearly, and in 1978, the 750th anniversary of the miracle, the wafer was carried in worshipful procession through the streets of Alatri. (Joan Carroll Cruz, Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles and Eucharistic Phenomena in the Lives of the Saints, ©1991), pp. 30-37,300-301). Not insignificantly, Pope Gregory IX instituted the Inquisition shortly after the miracle.
But not all Eucharistic Miracles are from the middle ages. Some are more recent and have also been documented scientifically. In 1996, when Pope Francis was still Cardinal Bergoglio, “Fr. Alejandro Pezet was saying Holy Mass [when] a woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church.” Fr. Pezet put the bread in the tabernacle and planned to deal with it later. “Upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who gave instructions that the Host be … scientifically analyzed.” The analysis was performed in a blind test by Dr. Zugiba, a cardiologist and forensic pathologist who was not informed of the origins of the sample. The scientific analysis showed that sample was from a human heart which had been alive at the time it was extracted:
Zugiba testified that, “the analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. …The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.”
If the report is to be believed, Dr. Zugibe also saw the flesh moving while he was examining it. The full story is available online here. Another Eucharistic Miracle is currently under investigation in Guadalajara, Mexico. In that case, the priest heard a voice tell him to prepare the Eucharist for Adoration and that a miracle would occur to confirm the faith of Roman Catholics:
“Ring the bells so that everyone comes,” Father Gudino alleged the voice had told him. … With local people gathered at 3pm, the priest said that he “approached the tabernacle, and upon opening it the host consecrated by Our Lord Jesus Christ was covered in blood.”
The list of Eucharistic miracles goes on, and on. Bleeding hosts, pulsating hosts, hosts that turn to flesh. Of significance here is not merely that the Eucharist bleeds, but that it appears to be alive, for “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). By these and many such Eucharistic miracles, the idol that is central to the Roman Catholic religion has actually come to life.
There is, however, yet another from of Eucharistic Miracle: that in which the Eucharist actually speaks to those who are worshiping it. According to Joan Carroll Cruz, “Many saints have had the privilege of hearing the voice of Jesus speaking from consecrated Hosts” (Cruz, p. 249). For example, when Clare of Assisi feared that the German heresy being led by Emperor Frederick II in the mid-1200s would adversely affect the nuns at the Convent of San Damiano, she bowed in desperation before the Eucharist, imploring God to protect her. At that moment, she heard the voice of Jesus saying out loud from the consecrated host, “I will have thee always in my care.” (Cruz, p. 249-50). When Roman Catholic mystic, Anna Maria Taiga ( 1769-1837), was in adoration of the Eucharist, she experienced a vision in which she saw a lily appear in the wafer. At the same time, she heard a voice saying, “I am the flower of the field, the lily of the valley. I am thine alone” (Cruz, p. 254). When Paul of the Cross was about to participate in a crusade against the Turks in the 18th century, he heard a voice speaking from the tabernacle where the Eucharist was kept. The voice instructed him not to participate in the crusade, but rather to establish a new religious order in Jesus’ honor (Cruz, p. 249). Alan de la Roche, a Dutch visionary through whom the apparition of Mary gave the Rosary to the Catholic Church in 1463, also experienced a similar encounter with a speaking host:
“One day when he was saying Mass, Our Lord, Who wished to spur him on to preach the Holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host: ‘How can you crucify Me again so soon?’ ” (de Montfort, Louis, The Secret of the Rosary, (NY: Montfort Publications, ©1965-92) pg. 23)
The visions of Mary are closely involved in the perpetuation of Eucharistic Adoration. Hardly an apparition of Mary occurs which does not also insist that we adore “her son” in the Eucharist. The Fatima apparitions were preceded by a visit from “an angel of Peace.” According to the visionaries, the angel of Peace taught them to bow down and adore the Eucharist. This connection between the apparitions and Eucharistic Adoration is well known and propagated within the Roman Catholic religion. Reading from Fr. Eymard’s Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, we note not only that he connects Mary to the Eucharist, but he connects the Apparitions of Mary to the Eucharist:
“It is Mary who multiplies Churches. … In how many places, indeed, has Mary wrought prodigies, appearing in marvelous apparitions, most frequently to request the building of a church in certain places, where crowds of pilgrims, … find the Holy Eucharist, and glorify It by the numerous Masses there said … . Such is Mary’s aim. Ah, how well does this most prudent Mother know how to attain it! Who can say the glory that the Blessed Sacrament has received, and does receive, every day in the sanctuaries of Loretto, of Laus, of La Salette, of Lourdes, of Notre-Dame des Victoires, and of so many other celebrated pilgrimages?” (pp. 244-45)
Note that when Eymard refers to Loreto, Laus, La Salette, Lourdes and Notre-Dame de Victoires, he is referring to sites of famous apparitions of Mary. In each place—and in so many more—the apparition leaves behind perpetual adoration of “her son” in the Eucharist. Fr. Eymard himself “had a special devotion to Our Lady of Laus,” and was persuaded to establish the title of Mary as “Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament” due in no small part to the influence of the apparitions there.
What are Christians to do in response to these many miracles? Shall we reject the miracles because we do not believe in Transubstantiation? Or shall we worship the Eucharist because these miracle are real? Hardly. We ought to see these miracles for what they are, and recognize from whom they come. As we noted last week, we were told long ago of a False Prophet that can make fire come down from heaven. That False Prophet is fulfilled in the apparitions of Mary which have on multiple occasions caused fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men. We are also warned that the False Prophet will set up an image for the world to worship, and that image will come to life and have the power to speak (Revelation 13:13-15). The Eucharist—the unleavened bread of the Roman Catholic Mass—that comes to life and has the ability to speak and is set up to be worshiped, is indeed the fulfillment of that prophecy.
This should not surprise us, for the Scriptures themselves testify that the False Prophet would require men to worship an image made of unleavened bread. Revelation 19:20 tells us that the False Prophet “deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image,” and Revelation 14:9, 11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20 and 20:4 all link the worship of the image to the receiving of a mark “in his forehead, or in his hand.”
But there are only three activities in Scripture that result in a mark on the hand and forehead. Notice that only one of them involves something that is made by human hands:
- Redemption of the firstborn (Exodus 13:12-16): “…and it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes…”
- Teaching God’s Word to our children (Deuteronomy 6:6-8, 11:18): “…And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes…”
- Use of Unleavened Bread at Passover (Exodus 13:6-9): “…And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes…”
We note that when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, He was celebrating “the day of unleavened bread” with His disciples (Luke 22:1-20). The Roman Mass is ostensibly the continuation of that passover meal in which the unleavened bread is “transubstantiated” and worshiped. Of the three activities in Scripture which involve a mark on the hand and forehead, the unleavened bread is the only one that involves an object that is made by human hands and therefore can be worshiped as an idol. And this is the image that the Apparitions of Mary have in mind when they say “to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast” (Revelation 13:14). And this is the image that has been coming to life and speaking for hundreds of years—since before the Papal Inquisition. Yes, it is the very image, the Image of the Beast, that Roman Catholics worship every week throughout the world, when they kneel to worship the bread, by which they receive the Mark of the Beast.
The Scripture also says that because of these miracles, the image will have the power to “cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Revelation 13:15), and to prevent them from engaging in economic transactions (Revelation 13:16-17). One need only study the history of the Inquisition, established under Pope Gregory IX, to see that the Mass, the Eucharist, Transubstantiation and the True Presence were all at the center of that awful persecution of God’s holy people. We conclude this installment with five accounts of the persecution:
- “Although the king was willing and able to protect individuals when their views seemed to him orthodox, the growing scale of Protestantism in France and the assault on a number of doctrines that Francis I held to be absolutely essential to religious orthodoxy—notably the doctrine of the Eucharist—diminished the king’s role over the next several decades and heightened that of parlement and the faculty of theology at Paris. The king himself appears to have followed the custom in France since the late thirteenth century of appointing an inquisitor-general from the Dominican Order. (Peters, Edward, Inquisition, ((New York: The Free Press, a division of Macmillan, Inc., ©1988) pg. 141-142).
- Miles Phillips, a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisitions from 1568 to 1575: “During which time of our imprisonment… we were often called before the Inquisitors alone; and there severely examined of our faith… Then did they proceed to demand of us, upon our oaths, ‘What we did believe of the Sacrament?’ and ‘Whether there did remain any bread or wine, after the words of consecration, Yea or No?’ and ‘Whether we did not believe that the Host of bread which the priest did hold up over his head, and the wine that was in the chalice, was the very true and perfect body and blood of our Saviour Christ, Yea or No?’ To which, if we answered not ‘Yea!’ then there was no way but death.” (Eyewitness to History, John Carey, ed., (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ©1987) pg. 112. Emphasis added)
- “Jacob Birone, a schoolmaster of Rorata, for refusing to change his religion, was stripped quite naked …and was led through the streets with a soldier on each side of him. At every turning the soldier on his right hand side cut a gash in his flesh, and the soldier on his left hand side struck him with a bludgeon, both saying, at the same instant, ‘Will you go to Mass? will you go to Mass?’ He still replied in the negative to these interrogatories, and being at length taken to the bridge, they cut off his head on the balustrades, and threw both that and his body into the river.” (Fox’s Book of Martyrs, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, ©1926,1954,1967), Forbush, William Byron, D.D., ed., pp. 110-1. Emphasis added)
- Ann Askew, English Martyr, final testimony before being burned at the stake: “There be some do say that I deny the Eucharist, or sacrament of thanksgiving. But those people do untruly report of me. For I both say and believe it that, if it were ordered like as Christ instituted it and left it, a most singular comfort to us all. But as concerning your mass, as it is now used in our days I do say and believe it to be the most abominable idol that is in the world: for my God will not be eaten with teeth, neither yet dieth he again. And upon these words that I have spoken will I suffer death.” (Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook, John King, ed., pg. 239).
And finally, a link to Spurgeon’s Simon the Pedlar, from the January 1866 Sword and Trowel.
The doctrine of the Eucharist is the core of Roman Catholicism, and worship of the Eucharist is her primary purpose. All they that kneel before the Eucharistic idol receive thereby the mark of the Beast, and will perish with it. It is the Image of the Beast.
[Part 3 will follow shortly this week]
(Updated May 4, 2014): We provide the below videos in order to illustrate the worship (“latria”) that Roman Catholics give to the wafer.
In the first video, see Roman Catholics proceed to the front of the Church, bow to the Eucharist to worship it before receiving it: Sunday Mass at EWTN
The second video is a worship video in which Roman Catholics adore the wafer, to the tune of “You are my God.”: You are My God
Wow
This is putting the Question directly to Catholics. To worship the Eucharist is to receive the mark.
Thanks, Kevin,
It is interesting that on occasion when I present this to Roman Catholics (that the Papacy is is established in Rome on the city of seven hills, that he claims to be infallible, that the Apparitions of Mary exercise power with the Pope by affirming doctrines and contributing to doctrinal development, that they preach the same false gospel as the Popes, and that they are capable of bringing the fire of heaving down to earth in the sight of men, and that they set up an image to be worshiped and cause the image to come to life and have the power of speech, which image is derived from the feast of unleavened bread which results in mark on the hand and forehead, etc, etc, etc…) they respond by going back to their Axiom: “Wow, that just shows how when Antichrist comes he will do everything he can to imitate the True Church, which is the Roman Catholic Church under the pope.”
That’s how deep the deception runs…
Well, more on this next week. Thanks for your comments.
Tim
Jesus commanded you to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, but you say, “How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink?” Jesus said that you must gnaw on His Flesh and drink His Blood, but you despise His Commandment. Jesus reveals that the Eucharist is really His Flesh and Blood, yet you still do not believe. Jesus begs you to adore and eat Him, but instead you blaspheme Him and slander His faithful ones as idolaters. You are like the Sanhedrin, who heard Jesus claim to be the Son of God and condemned Him to death for blasphemy, though they had seen His works. By the Power of the Eucharist, demons are cast out, but still you call the Eucharist the work of demons. Witches and Satanists know that the Eucharist is Jesus; on account of their hatred of Him, they steal the Eucharist from Catholic churches (and never from Protestant churches) that they may desecrate Him, mocking His Passion and subjecting Him to all manner of abuse, even though He cannot be physically injured because He is risen.
What would it take for you to believe? Would you believe if a dead man came back to life upon being touched by the Eucharist? Would you believe if Moses and Elijah came back from Heaven and personally testified to the Real Presence? Would you believe if demons trembled saying, “I know who You are, You are the Holy One of God!” Would you believe if Heaven opened and the Father said, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?” Or will you choose to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, referring to even the most obvious works of God as works of the devil, and thereby condemning yourselves to Hell?
Andrew, Your whole post here is about worshiping the Roman Eucharist, even asking us what would it take for us to believe this. But what you don’t realize is Jesus told the woman at the well that God is looking for worshipers who worship him in “Spirit and truth” At the end of the passage in John 6 He specifically says the words I speak to you are Spirit, the flesh profits nothing. We are told at the Lord’s supper at the table ( not a sacrifice on an altar) to do this in remembrance of Him. He said He would not eat again with us until he returns. His body is in heaven and He left us the Spirit, the word and has called us to faith which saves us. There are only 4 verses on the Lord’s supper in the Epistles, they are dominated by justification and salvation by faith, and yet Rome has put up sacramental efficacy in the place of the atonement and a piece of bread up in the place of our savior. Listen to Revelations 1:17 ” I was dead and now I live forever more” Paul said christ died once and is never to die again, and yet you have him strapped to the altar and keep breaking his body to merit extra righteousness. ” The RIGHTEOUS shall live by faith” Paul calls us righteous because Christ became righteousness to us sanctification and redemption 1 Corinthians 1:30. Faith covers all of salvation. Full orbed faith by which 1 John 4 tells us we have overcome the world. In fact Romans 5:1 says we are justified by it and have entered into eternal life with “Abraham the believer”, not Abraham the human flesh eater and the human blood drinker who merits increase in his salvation by the work of the mass. “Abraham the believer” He is ” just and justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.” A sacrament is a sign and seal of God’s grace, just like the trees in the Garden, or circumcision, or the rainbow for Noah. Romans 10:9-10 ” For if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead YOU WILL BE SAVED. for with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.” Andrew can it be any clearer than this. Quit worshiping the bread repent and believe the gospel and inherit eternal life. Revelations 18:4 ” come out of her my people.”
Andrew, Give it up. kelvin is lost. You won’t make a dent in his ignorance.
I agree with your comment. Very disappointed to read how this article ended. What sacrilege!
If you believed that, you would not bother trying to convert Catholics, for Revelation plainly states that no one whose name is written in the Book of Life will take the Mark of the Beast, and that everyone who receives the Mark shall be damned. You would, therefore, have to despair of the salvation of anyone who has EVER been Catholic. Since you do not do this, you either do not believe that the Eucharist is the Mark of the Beast, or you are subtracting from the Book of Revelation, bringing upon yourself the curse of being blotted out of the Book of Life.
That’s not a question Kevin, it’s an assertion. ( Speaking of marks, questions require a question mark. It looks like this “?” and can be found on you keyboard if you look.)
Tim,
I think your analysis is very interesting. I’m not yet convinced that you used Scripture to interpret Scripture as other historicist interpreters would require, but it seemed to be more reporting of events. It is what I have problems with pre-mills is that use history and modern headlines to interpret Scripture. This happen with the Late Great Planet Earth…to interpret.
Nevertheless, your summary is very well done, and very interesting to me as a former Roman Catholic. When I was at my peak indoctrinated in Roman Catholicism, I too could see the critical doctrine of transubstantiation. I knew, when I would ring the bells, when the priest lifted the bread and wine, something was important. While others might be sleeping in the pews at mass, there was no way I was ever going to miss ringing those bells at the time. It was my job to stay awake.
So much of your writings are bringing back memories (and even some nightmares) as to my childhood as a Roman Catholic, and how so many are totally convinced of these miracles.
It is equally as bad today in what I see, in fact more so, with all the crazy “protestant”, evanglical, pentcostal miracle crusades and money machines. Rome at least seeks to get third party verifications on its miracles…the protestants don’t want anything to do with verification testimony, but only cash flow from these alleged healings.
I look forward to Part 3.
Thanks, Walt,
You are quite right to examine my analysis in the light of Scripture rather than examining the Scriptures in the light of my analysis. If all I have is headlines and secular history, I am no better or different than Ellen G. White who thought America must be the False Prophet because America “brought the fire of heaven down to earth” through the use of nuclear weapons, and established Sunday worship as the image of the beast. Certainly our analysis must be better than that.
I do plan to read Price and look into his analysis, as well.
In any case, it is of no small interest to me that the Eucharistic bleeds (i.e., “comes to life,” for “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11, Deuteronomy 12:23), and further that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34), and the biopsies done on the flesh of multiple Eucharistic miracles show that it is the heart muscle. See, for example, the Miracle of Lanciano, and the Buenos Aires miracle, in which it as determined that “the analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves,” and the 2008 eucharistic miracle in Poland in which “Two medical doctors determined that the spot was heart muscle tissue, church officials have said.” Coupled with the Scripture’s identification of the Mark with something that goes on the hand and forehead, one might be able to make the case from Scripture that the image would be unleavened bread that comes to life by bleeding and turning into a heart muscle that talks. Nevertheless, it is Jesus’ words, and not my personal analysis, that are Spirit and life (John 6:63).
Thanks very much for your participation and your testimony. When I was a boy, my mother gave me a copy of a book called the Mass, in which I learned about “the secreta,” which is the prayer the priest says during the mass. As an altar boy for many years, I was fascinated by this. Later when I read the Scriptures, and started coming to my senses, I encountered Deuteronomy 27:15 from my own Catholic translation which said, “Cursed be the man who makes a carved or molten idol—an abomination to the LORD, the product of a craftsman’s hands—and sets it up in secret!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!'” I remember thinking, “Uh, oh.”
Jason Stellmen confessed (inadvertently) to this same sin when he acknowledged that even as a PCA minister he would secretly go to Mass to worship the “True Presence.”
Uh, oh, indeed.
Thanks so much for the extra information you have provided.
Tim
Tim,
While scrolling aimlessly around your site I saw this little goody,
“This should not surprise us, for the Scriptures themselves testify that the False Prophet would require men to worship an image made of unleavened bread. ”
Oh C’mon! Get outa’ town! Where does the Bible actually say this?
By the way, thanks for saying in your article that in all of her apparitions, Mary tells us to adore her Son.
Have a delightful feast of the Holy Name of Mary.
Jim,
I am pleased to know that you are taking the time to read some of my older posts.
Regarding your question,
I will simply recite the “offending language” in context:
In two weeks, when we complete our analysis of the Early Church Fathers on Baptismal Regeneration, we will be returning to the Eucharist, which I unashamedly identify as the Image of the Beast. Your visit to this post was quite timely, indeed.
Thank you, and you are always welcome here.
Tim
Walt, its interesting that the charismatics and the Roman Catholics came together. Maybe some of the same affinities.
The doctrines are united in many respects between Protestants and Catholics. It is hard to see until you read the National Covenant of Scotland and see what they were protesting over, and go through all the doctrines being disputed in that document. Today, many of those are adopted by Protestants.
Thanks, Walt, this is quite true. Without revealing any personal details (unless you want to), can you recommend a denomination in the US that aligns with the Scottish reformers? Their National Covenant is just terrific. I’d be interested to know if there are any congregations nearby.
Hear, hear!
Tim
Tim,
The issue of who aligns with the Scottish reformers are called Covenanters. You can learn about them briefly here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enSBMqFblLI#t=26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka0eDfhySyc (I disagree with the conclusion at the end of the video, but it is interesting)
The identification of the Covenanters in America are subject to dispute, but there are three main groups in America “basically” that subscribe as follows:
1) One group is a large denomination called the RPCNA across America, but they do not subscribe to the original Terms of Communion. There is a lot of toleration granted among individual churches and liberty to ignore Terms of Communion that some believe (e.g., myself) are key to “true unity and uniformity”.
The other two groups I will not mention publicly as they are working toward a more close unity where several reformed ministers who are well known could soon come together to form a much larger, and more visible unity in the original Terms of Communion. Those who are involved worship among local congregations, but many that are outside these local congregations stream live video into their homes to worship weekly.
This is the great thing about Presbyterian form of church government. We are not bound by “ordinary” local churches as are the Independents, but we have a biblical right to worship in an “extraordinary” outside the local congregation as members. This was demonstrated by Rev. James Renwick who preached during the Killing Times in Scotland, and traveled from congregation to congregation preaching. Today, many do the same.
http://www.truecovenanter.com/bio/howie_bios_renwick_james.html
More to the point Tim, I think Walt is referring in part to the remnant of this group, the
Reformed Presbytery in North America , General Meeting RPNA(GM).
If not, I ‘d be interested in hearing who his other two groups are besides the RPCNA.
(Spoiler alert, I along with about a third of the RPNA(GM) was excommunicated for in part refusing to acknowledge the authority of a irregular session that in so many words, regularly “met” via international long distance phone lines, though they couldn’t come quite out and say so.
Yeah, it was messy. These things usually are.
FWIW a RPNA to RPNA(GM) Chronology/Timeline)
Hi Walt!
cheers
Tim
There is a lot to also be said about the Cardinals here:
http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/cardinals.htm
Tim, Since I did make such a big deal how none you Three Musketeers bothered to address my post on Peter, and then you did such a meticulous, point by point rejoinder of my 26 points, fairness demands I not ignore you.
Also, as young, weak minded and highly impressionable Kevin was so moved by what you wrote, for his sake, I should say a word or two. He idolizes you like I did my uncle as a kid. Be gentle with him and not lead him astray.
I could give a point by point response to your point by point response but since I have been posting so much on Peter elsewhere, I am a bit Petered out (tsk tsk ).
Most of your points are weak, downright pathetic, some corny, a couple almost clever. But suffice it to say, you missed my overall point.
Tim, taken collectively, the stuff on Peter is overwhelming. How much do we have, lets say in the Acts of the Apostles, on anybody but Peter and Paul? James the Elder is beheaded, but nobody seems concerned, John accompanies Peter around, James the Less says no rare steak for a while so as not to scandalize weak in faith Jewish converts. But other than that, Barnabas has more print than the 12.
Skim through Acts. Look at Paul’s half and think about his epistles.
Now, skim the first half about Peter and think about the Gospels. Who has jurisdiction over the ENTIRE Church? Paul? Ha!
Thanks for the honorable mention of Santarem. I was there last week. The next berg, Catarxo, is a great place to stock up on wine for a good price. Your readers might like to know that.
In your final installment on the Eucharist, are you going to get in some of the saints who lived on nothing but the Eucharist for years? Please get a word in about a Portuguese girl, Alexandra, whose cause is under investigation. In order not to be violated, she jumped from a window. As a result, she was paralyzed for the rest of her life and spent her days making reparation for sinners like us. She lived on Holy communion for years. I think there are still people around who actually knew her.
Okay, Tim, I will be lurking. So mind your Peas and Qarrets.
Thanks, Jim,
As I noted, some of my answers were “tongue in cheek.” The important take-away is that an interpreter can make each proof text prove whatever he wants, depending on his initial assumption.
If you start by assuming that Peter was the first pope, then each list of apostles is proof that Peter had singular authority in the early church.
If you assume, instead, that “Deference was paid to age,” as Jerome did (Against Jovinianus, Book I.26), then each list of apostles is proof that Peter was the eldest in the early church, and as Jerome continues, “the strength of the church depends upon them all alike,” for “they all receive the keys of the kingdom.”
Why may Jerome not take the lists to prove that Peter was the eldest?
And if it is significant that people thought Peter could heal with his shadow (Acts 5:15), why is it not more significant that Paul actually could heal without even being present (Acts 19:11-12)? It’s because of your assumption. Which is to say that you are attempting to prove the very thing that you are assuming, which is circularity.
Thanks, as always, for your participation.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim, Peter called himself a fellow elder and Mary called herself a sinner and a bondslave. Need we say any more.
No, Mary called herself the handmaid of the Lord. She never called herself a sinner, but Gabriel called her, “Full of Grace.”
Tim,
Have you seen this list of “super saints”:
http://www.bobandpennylord.com/ssaints.htm
Do you have a private email I can send you message?
Thanks, Walt, great info. You can also e-mail me at the “Contact Us” page. Those e-mails are private.
Best,
Tim
What the Catholic Church says about the Eucharist is almost as amazing as what Jesus said about the Eucharist.
“I am the bread of life. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
And this is the holy doctrine of the holy Catholic Church believed by the body of Christ now and since the beginning.
Catholics believe in miracles. Not just Eucharistic miracles but many other miracles. We believe in empty tombs. We believe in the resurrection of the dead. We believe in the Virgin birth. We worship the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist because Jesus said, “This is my body.” Christians everywhere, all over the world, have believed this for thousands of years. What a shame that some of those that came out of the Reformation have lost this truth to the point that they disparage it.
Lord have mercy.
Thanks for your comment, SP,
You’ll get no argument from me on the many Eucharistic miracles. It is their origin that I doubt, not their reality.
I will disagree with the implication that Christians everywhere “worship the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist” and have done so “since the beginning.”
Augustine denied that we literally eat His flesh and drink His blood when he interpreted Jesus’ words in John 6: “Understand spiritually what I have said; you are not to eat this body which you see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth.” (Augustine, An Exposition of the Psalms, 99.8).
Pope Gelasius (490 AD) also acknowledged that after the consecration, “yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them.” (De duabus naturis in Christo, adversus Eutychen et Nestorium)
John Chrysostom (d. 407) said of the Sacraments, “though the nature of bread remain in it” (Ad Cæsarium, book iii).
If these men believed the nature of bread remained in the Eucharist, would they still worship the Eucharist? Yet Roman Catholicism teaches that the nature of bread ceases to be in the Eucharist (e.g., “what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different,” Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 46), and that we are to drink the blood that literally poured forth from His side (e.g., “and the true blood of Christ—which flowed from His side,” Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 52).
Clearly, the early Church did not believe what Rome now proclaims to be the belief of all Christians “since the beginning.”
Thanks for your participation,
Tim
Augustine also said of the Eucharist, “Not only do we not sin by adoring, we do sin by not adoring.” He said this referring to 1 Corinthians 11:29 “If anyone eats or drinks without discerning the Body, he eats and drinks damnation on himself.”
Andrew,
Augustine concluded what he did, not because of an underlying belief in the True Presence, but because he mistakenly thought the Word was teaching him to worship what is created. As Augustine himself wrote,
Yes, we sin by not adoring at God’s footstool, for the Psalm so commands us. But Augustine did not have a good translation and therefore thought we sinned by not worshiping the footstool itself. Knowing full well that such worship was owed to God alone, Augustine reasoned that he could only worship Christ, as Christ in the flesh was of earth, and that’s as close as Augustine could come to worshiping the earth. That’s it. And therefore, when Paul VI uses Augustine’s comments on a mistranslation of Psalm 99:5 in Mysterium Fidei, he is relying on an Augustine who was confused by a bad translation. Even with that bad translation, Augustine concluded in the same letter, that Jesus was not teaching that the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of Jesus:
This is the same letter that was quoted in Mysterium Fidei, and from which you quote above. It is a dubious reading of Augustine, indeed, to quote him as saying we need to adore the Eucharist, and that from the very same letter in which Augustine denied that the Eucharist is literally Jesus’ body and blood.
Thanks for writing,
Tim
SP, said” Catholics believe in the resurrection of the dead.” No you don’t. You have Him an eternal victim still tied to the cross and the altar. He is Risen!
SP, Let Him off the cross. It is finished! Thats the good news. Thats the miracle. The lord’s supper is a celebration and a gift, not a a work of meriting more salvation to get into Purgatory. The biggest miracle you won’t realize, Romans 4:25 ” he was delivered over for our transgressions and raised for our justification. When he was raised so were we according to Ephesians we are seated with him in the heavenly places, sealed in the Spirit. God did not remove all barriers between him and man to put sacraments ex opere operato in between us.
Christ the Paschal Lamb has been slain, yet He lives. However, you have no part in the Paschal Lamb unless you eat the Paschal Lamb.
Timothy,
Augustine merely said that he Eucharist was received spiritually, which it is. JND Kelly writes, concerning Augustine’s view of the Eucharist that a “balanced view agrees that he accepted the current realism[…]thus preaching, “That bread which you see on the altar, sanctified by the Word of God, IS CHRIST’S BODY. That cup, or rather the contents of that cup, sanctified by the Word of God, IS CHRIST’S BLOOD. By these elements the Lord Christ willed to convey HIS BODY AND BLOOD, which He shed for us.”
This dialog contains many statements of Augustine about the Eucharist which is worth attention. Suffice to say, you could find many statements from Pope Francis or Pope Benedict which also speak of the spiritual meal of the Eucharist. Understanding the meal spiritually and the real presence are not mutually exclusive.
Besides, more to the point, Augustine also said that it is a sin to not adore (worship) the Eucharist which is exactly what you complain about in your article here.
“…AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord’s feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING.” (Psalms 98:9)
For that reason I am surprised you would call St Augustine to your defense in this article. Augustine’s teaching on the adoration of the Eucharist is well known and well regarded.
As for the passage you quoted from St Galasius, WR Carson writes:
…it is assumed wrongly that by the words “nature” and “substance” the Fathers cited, writing centuries before heresies had made accurate definition and precise terminology necessary, intended to mean what the Tridentine Fathers meant by them. This is demonstrably untrue. The words ‘substance’ and ‘nature’ are synonymous with what at Trent were called the ‘species’ or ‘accidents.’ This is surely evident (a) from the context of the various passages, where a conversion (metabolen), to use Theodoret’s word, of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is mentioned; (b) from the fact that they constantly and uniformly speak of such ‘nature’ and ‘substance’ as symbols; (c) from Leibnitz’ (a Protestant authority) well-known observation that the Fathers do not use these terms to express metaphysical notions. (d) As regards Theodoret, from the confession of the Lutherans of Madgeburg that he is opposed to their doctrine and cannot be read with safety. It should be added that the passages attributed to Theodoret and St. Gelasius occur in works that are considered spurious by many competent critics Source (W.R. Carson also discusses Chrysostom’s quote that you cite within the linked article.)
Kevin Failoni,
Catholics do not believe that Christ is still hanging on the cross.
SB, you said,
That is true. Nor are the terms necessarily univocal. In any case, the two statements—”you are not to … drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth” (Augustine, An Exposition of the Psalms, 99.8) and you are to drink “the true blood of Christ—which flowed from His side” (Mysterium Fidei, 56)—are indeed mutually exclusive. The Church was not simply waiting for the true meanings of “you are” and “you are not” to be progressively revealed through the Magisterium, only to find out that they mean the same thing.
Further, you cannot deny that Eucharistic Adoration is idolatry on the grounds that “it is no longer bread,” while at the same time claiming that the early church worshiped the Eucharist believing it was still bread (as their words plainly testify).
As regards Augustine, I’ll invite your attention to an earlier post here, In Vain Do They Worship Me, in which we showed that Augustine’s statement that “we sin by not adoring” is based on a mistranslation of the Scriptures, in which the translation has the Psalmist saying “worship His footstool for it is holy,” instead of “worship at His footstool, for He is holy” (Psalms 99:5). We think Augustine reasoned his way back out of the box quite well (knowing full well he was not to worship the earth), for no Protestant would deny that we must first worship Christ as a condition of partaking in the Lord’s supper. Of course we worship “His flesh.” He is God, the Lamb Who was slain, Who even now bears the scars of His sacrifice for us. What we do not do is worship the elements of the Lord’s supper, for they are not His flesh, nor are they His soul and divinity.
That aside, Augustine is hardly compelling support for Transubstantiation considering his own struggles with the translation, which was a bad Latin translation of the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Using Augustine to support Transubstantiation here is like using Nancy Pelosi to prove that the Constitution has always taught that “all men are created equal.”
Thanks so much for writing,
Tim
Tim,
Thanks for letting me write.
It is true that the meal is both spiritual, in a sense to be received spiritually and yet still the true body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church of all sources refers to the eucharist a ‘symbol’ in various places (CCC 1323) as did the Council of Trent.
Of Augustine, Ludwig Ott says, “The Eucharistic doctrine expounded by St. Augustine is interpreted in a purely spiritual way by most Protestant writers on the history of dogmas. Despite his insistence on the symbolical explanation he does not exclude the Real Presence. In association with the words of institution he concurs with the older Church tradition in expressing belief in the Real Presence. (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma)” Ott’s views are the majority among Patristic scholars whether Catholic or Protestant. Again, see the link I provided. Augustine left many strong statements about the real presence that do not align with the view that he believed the eucharist to be just ‘bread.’
What we are talking about, in terms of whether the eucharist is appropriate to worship is not the precise mechanics of Transubstantiation and substance and accidents. We are talking about the real presence. Is Jesus Christ truly fully present in the Eucharist? This is what the early church believed. This is what Jesus taught in John 6. This is why the Catholic Church worships the Holy Eucharist. The Protestant tradition, only after about 1,500 years of church history, ended that for themselves.
You will find no church father or evidence to suggest that the early church believed that the Eucharist is mere bread like any other bread to the exclusion of the real presence. On the contrary, from the very beginning, those closest to the apostles affirmed it.
“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.”
Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Smyrnaeans
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” – Jesus Christ (John 6)
SP,
As to your comment,
He may well have, but what we were discussing was his statement that “we sin by not adoring.” What Ludwig Ott cannot change is the fact that Augustine concluded what he did, not because of an underlying belief in the True Presence, but because he mistakenly thought the Word was teaching Him to worship what is created. As Augustine himself wrote, ”
Yes, we sin by not adoring at God’s footstool, for the Psalm so commands us. But Augustine did not have a good translation and therefore thought we sinned by not worshiping the footstool itself. Knowing full well that such worship was owed to God alone, Augustine reasoned that He could only worship Christ, as Christ in the flesh was of earth, and that’s as close as Augustine could come to worshiping the earth. That’s it. And therefore, when Paul VI uses Augustine’s comments on a mistranslation of Psalm 99:5 in Mysterium Fidei, he may as well be deferring to Nancy Pelosi on a matter of US Constitutional principles.
You continued,
No, what we were talking about was Eucharistic Adoration. Roman Catholicism claims that Eucharistic Adoration can be traced from the times of the Apostles, and yet all the proof we have of Eucharistic Adoration that far back is that loaves have been found in the catacombs with frescoes depicting loaves and fishes—as if the mere presence of these could signify nothing else than worship of the elements, and the image of fishes and loaves could not possibly be a reference to the miracle of the multiplication of fishes and loaves. Next we have the early practice of Fermentum in which a piece of the consecrated bread is transported from one diocese to another “as a token of unity between the churches,” as if untransubstantiated bread could not possibly serve such a purpose.
You may cite Ignatius of Antioch, and there is much to discuss there. But when Ignatius himself says, “be ye renewed in faith, that is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, that is the blood of Jesus Christ,” (To the Trallians, ch. 8) he is merely appropriating the metaphors that Jesus established in John 6—namely that “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (v. 35). Later, Jesus says, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” (v. 54). Eating His flesh is a metaphor for believing, and in that context, no Christian would deny that we must eat His flesh if we would live forever, and so does Augustine interpret John 6: “Understand spiritually what I have said; you are not to eat this body which you see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth.” (Augustine, An Exposition of the Psalms, 99.8).
Does Ignatius “want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ”? So do I. But he goes on in the same sentence, “for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed” (To the Romans, ch. 7). I, too, want to drink the blood of Christ, which is to believe on His name, for Jesus says, “he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Clearly Ignatius is using figures and not referring to the Eucharist. In his epistle to the Romans, Ignatius is about to die and the heavenly city is in view, and “there is no fire in me desiring to be fed; but there is water within me, a water that liveth and speaketh, saying to me inwardly, ‘Come to the Father.'” (To the Romans, ch. 7). Fire, water, flesh, blood, bread, drink—all figures, and Ignatius is speaking figuratively throughout.
Yes I could go on about Ignatius, but I hope you see my point. If you set out to find Eucharistic Adoration in Ignatius, you may think you have found it. But all you find is the assumption you carried in with you, for there is no evidence of Eucharistic Adoration here.
Thanks for writing,
Tim
“Adoration” is divine worship. Adoration is rendered only to God. Yet, Jesus Christ is True God and True Man, and His Body is a part of Creation. The Divine Word that spoke the world into existence took on human Flesh and became part of His Creation. He is now and forevermore a human being, with a created Body and Soul in union with and inseparable from His Divinity. You therefore cannot worship His Divinity without also worshiping His Body, Blood and Soul, even though they are part of Creation, for He is one Person, though He has two natures: human and Divine.
SP, Christ isn’t Lord and Savior in the Catholic system, He is a perpetual and eternal victim. The incarnation is finished and the church witnesses to that truth and sings the Amen. Not in Rome, the incarnation is still going on thru the acts of the church on an treadmill of doing sacraments to merit increase in salvation to inherent perfection. But God doesn’t save good people but people who know they are bad. In rome justification is a recognition of an intrinsic qualification for a reward. But for Paul it was the opposite, it was a declaration about someone who is intrinsically and utterly unqualified. Romans 4:5
Anyone who says, “The incarnation is finished,” denies the Resurrection of the Dead. Jesus rose from the dead in the same human Body He died in, and Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more. At the resurrection, our bodies shall be changed to conform to His Glorified Body. Therefore, to deny that Jesus is still human is to deny the Resurrection. Verily, if Jesus is not still a human being, then you are still in your sins and have no hope of eternal life.
Kevin.
Your understanding and view of the Catholic Church and what the Catholic Church actually professes about Jesus and the sacraments is malformed. That is about all I can say to everything you just wrote.
SP, learn your own doctrine. Trent says you can’t be saved without doing the “sacraments of the new Law” Scripture says that salvation is always and forever by faith. Ephesians 2:8 ” For by grace you have been saved thru faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not a result of works” Cooperation by your works won’t get you in SP, but proceed at your own risk. “Not of yourselves” not of works” those words constrain Rome.
James 2:24 “See that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”
Kevin.
I do know the Church’s doctrine. I spent years studying the doctrines of the Church and those of my former church before seeking full communion. And this is how I recognize that virtually every one of your statements is a disfigured and malformed characterization of what the Church professes. Get Jesus off the cross? Come on.
The sacraments are given by Christ and made possible by the Holy Spirit. God is working in the sacraments, Kevin. If God is working, it cannot be said that Christ is not our Lord or that we believe the incarnation didn’t work or whatever else it is that you think we believe.
I really don’t have time to spend much time blogging these days. I also have four children (expecting our fifth). I found your blog, Timothy, through Jason Stellman’s blog. I believe you once lived in Houston and know my brother or knew him? Christ the King Presbyterian or maybe BSF? At any rate, man, I’ve met some former Catholics before but I’ve never seen anybody equate the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Eucharist of Jesus Christ, as the ‘mark of the beast.’ That is a pretty remarkable and lamentable position. I truly pray that you find peace with the Church and remember your baptism and your confirmation.
Sean,
Thank you for writing. Yes, I attended Christ the King PCA in Houston from November 1998 – March 2000. I was in a group with other men, a group called The Attic, named for the location of our theological discussions that often carried us into the wee hours of the morning. Just to be clear, I do not “equate the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Eucharist of Jesus Christ, as the ‘mark of the beast.’” If you will revisit the last few paragraphs of this entry, you will see that I consider the Roman Catholic Eucharist to be the Image of the Beast. Of the three rituals of the Old Testament that were “a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes” (that is, as a sign on your hand or on your forehead), only one involved something man-made: the unleavened bread ritual used at Passover. That is what you worship.
Thus, I believe that the Eucharist is the Image of the Beast, which image comes to life and has the power of speech. Based as it is upon the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but illegitimately erected for worship, it is as “a token upon the hand, and for frontlets between the eyes” of those who partake of it and worship it. The Eucharist is not the Mark. It is the Image of the Beast. Participating in the idolatry is the Mark of the Beast.
Thanks for writing, and please give my regards to your brother,
Tim
Sean, Trent anathematizes anyone who says the mass is NOT a real sacrifice. Do you deny this?
Sean, Like I tell all my Catholic friends, seeking full communion in the RC is code for working my way to heaven.
Sean, Hi.
My name is Jim. I feel your pain. Do not waste time trying to get through to Kevin. Go for walk. Eat some fruit. Play with your kids. Vacuum out the car. Buy a washer for that leaking faucet your wife has been pleading with you to fix. Say some ejaculatory prayers. Maybe see how many push-up you can do. Do something.
But Please! Please! Don’t even try to argue with Baloney Falloni.
He is having sport with you. He enjoys frustrating Catholics with his absurd allegations and silly questions. You won’t win. Better men than you have tried. Better men than you have died.
Or at least cried. And pulled their hair out. And pounded the table. And have hit the bottle. Kevin is like the Everready Bunny. He just keeps on going.
Jim wrote:
Kevin is like the Everready Bunny. He just keeps on going.
That’s his charm
No, you are right to say, “died.” There have been men who were martyred by the heretics because they refused to deny the Real Presence.
Jim, Its always the same thing with the ones who go to Rome. The whole fuller communion thing. It really is the warning the writer in Hebrews makes to the Jews about the need for the physical being shrinking back in one’s faith. You see Christ’s altar, Priesthood and Sacrifice are in heaven. the scripture says we have been sealed in the spirit and sit i the heavenly places with Him. The veil has been ripped away and we commune with God at his altar in heaven. It does not get any fuller than that. But Catholics, modern day judaizers need the physical altar, the physical Priesthood, the Physical sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews warns them this is a lack of faith.
Hi Kevin,
It’s interesting that you say “Catholics, modern day judaizers” above. I had not seen this before, but I think you are quite correct.
In the following quote, (which is a tad long, 6 paragraphs, but emphasises your point very well) the author outlines the sins of the Jews and I was amazed at how many are the same as what you say about Romish teaching. Sadly too, these same errors have crept in to many Protestant churches also.
Thx again for the corrections you keep making in the comments sections.
THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
An Outline of its History in the Church and of its Exposition from Scripture
JAMES BUCHANAN, D.D., LL.D.
http://www.evangelical-library.org.uk/ebooks/justification.pdf
“The errors which prevailed among the Jews, before, and at the time when, the Gospel was first proclaimed, have been classified and arranged according to their historical origin and development; but, in a mere outline, we cannot enter into details, and must confine ourselves to the most prominent and characteristic features of corrupted Judaism…. In the Old Testament, they are described as resting in mere ceremonial observances, and sacrificial offerings, while they neglected the weightier matters of the Law.’ In the New Testament, our Lord speaks of the Pharisees as men who ‘trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others;’ and Paul ascribes their rejection of the Gospel to their ‘being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness.’ Their grand error, therefore, consisted in Self-righteousness,—and this error implied defective views both of the spiritual requirements of the Law, by which is ‘the knowledge of sin,’ and also of the free promise of grace, by which is the knowledge of salvation.
But while this general statement sufficiently marks, and brings into due prominence, the most characteristic feature of their religious profession, their self-righteous confidence rested on some peculiar opinions which were inherited by tradition from their elders, and are expounded and defended in the Talmudical writings. From these we learn that, such was their ignorance of the spiritual meaning and extent of God’s Law, which requires perfect obedience, and holds him who ‘offendeth in one point to be guilty of all,’ that their Rabbis were in the habit of dividing men into three classes,—the righteous, whose good works preponderated over the evil,—the wicked, whose evil works preponderated over the good,—and a third class who were neither righteous nor wicked, but neutral, since their good and evil works exactly counter balanced each other, and thus produced a perfect equilibrium. It was admitted that all the three classes needed the pardon of sin,—the wicked most of all, for they had more evil actions than good,—the neutral next, for they had good and evil in equal proportions,—and the righteous least of all; but still, to whatever extent they fell short of perfection, they were guilty, and, as such, stood in need of the divine forgiveness. They held that such forgiveness was attainable, but that it depended in every instance, not on the free grace of God through the expiatory work of a Divine Redeemer, but on the actions or the sufferings of men themselves. They thought little of the legal or judicial standing of moral agents, as being either simply righteous or guilty in the sight of God; or even of their radical spiritual character, as being either ‘good trees, bringing forth good fruit,’ or ‘evil trees, bringing forth evil fruit:’ they looked rather to particular actions, as being in themselves either virtuous or vicious, according to their mere external conformity, or want of conformity, to the letter of the divine precepts; and they were thus involved in two fundamental errors,—the error of overlooking the effect of any one sin in changing a man’s whole relation to God, by forfeiting His favour and incurring His curse,—and the error of supposing that actions might be morally good and acceptable to God, while the agents were still chargeable with the guilt, and subject to the power, of sin. The one error lay at the root of their erroneous views of Justification; the other prevented them from feeling their need of Regeneration; and both proceeded from a defective apprehension of the spirituality and extent of God’s Law. This was their radical want; but the peculiar feature of their doctrine consisted in their looking to actions apart from the agent, and in their holding that every good work is meritorious, just as every evil work is deserving of punishment,—that no sin can ever extinguish the merit of any good work, and no good work extinguish the guilt of any sin,—and that, consequently, all sin must be expiated by suffering, while the sinner, nevertheless, may have a meritorious title to eternal life by reason of those good actions which he has done, and which all his sins have no power to cancel, or to deprive of their just reward. Nominal Christians sometimes think that their good works may be set over against their sins, as a sort of compensation for them; but the self-righteous Jews, even in their blindest infatuation, never ventured to count on this. They held, indeed, that no good work is ever lost, and that its merit can never be extinguished by any amount of sin; but they held, also, that sins and good works cannot neutralize each other,—that both must be dealt with according to their respective deserts,—and that all sin must invariably, and without any exception, be first punished in the person of the sinner, in order that his good works may then come in for their merited reward. Forgiveness of sin, therefore, could only be obtained by expiatory suffering, and eternal life secured by works of meritorious obedience.
In the way of obedience, they required such works as these: Repentance, or ‘a turning to God,’ which was supposed to have such an efficacy as to raise the penitent, in some respects, even above the innocent,—Prayer, which was supposed to be expiatory and meritorious, especially when it included confession of sin, and was accompanied with outward signs of grief and humiliation,—Almsgiving, for ‘he that giveth to the poor lendeth unto the Lord,’ and makes God his debtor,—the diligent use of ceremonial observances, such as the diverse washings and lustrations, prescribed in the Law,—the due celebration of sacrifice,—above all, the sacrament of Circumcision, which was held to have such sovereign virtue that no circumcised person could finally perish, since Abraham himself would secure his exemption from hell, and his admission into heaven. They ascribed a certain efficacy to the due observance of morning and evening sacrifice, and especially to the services of the great day of Atonement, but chiefly, it would seem, because they were offered in obedience to the divine Law, and were, on that account, acceptable to God. It was not the sacrifice that secured the acceptance of the worshipper, but rather the obedience of the worshipper that secured the acceptance of the sacrifice. Faith was required as one of the chief means of meriting eternal life, for they knew from their own Scriptures that ‘the just shall live by faith;’ but by faith they meant a meritorious virtue, which consisted in acknowledging the divine authority of the Law, and trusting in God, without reference to the promised Messiah, at least as a suffering and atoning Redeemer. The only Messiah whom they now expected, was a human and temporal deliverer,—not a divine and spiritual Saviour; and thus their whole salvation was left to depend on their observance of the Law of Moses, and their trust in the general mercy of God.
While the merit of good works formed an essential part of their doctrine of Justification, the indispensable necessity of some satisfaction for sin was also recognised. The satisfaction to which they looked, however, was not a vicarious one,—such as had been symbolized and typified from the beginning in the rite of sacrifice, and revealed in the writings of their own prophets; it was strictly personal, and consisted entirely in their own sufferings, whether these were inflicted by God as a punishment, or imposed on themselves as a penance, for sin. In both forms, penal satisfaction was expressly recognised. It was one of their fundamental principles, that every sin deserved punishment, and that no sin could pass with impunity; and, as good works could not remove its guilt, it could only be expiated by the sufferings of the offender. These sufferings might be self-imposed,—by voluntary castigation,—by fasting,—by sitting in sackcloth and ashes; or they might be divinely inflicted, in the shape of disease,—poverty,—bereavement,—and death itself, which were regarded, not as paternal chastisements, but as parts of the satisfaction due to divine justice on account of sin; and if at the hour of death its guilt had not been fully expiated, there was a Rabbinical purgatory, which was mercifully limited to twelve months of torment, at the end of which, all sin being fully expiated, the good works of every Israelite will come in for their due reward in heaven. Such was the Pharisaic doctrine of a sinner’s Justification; and its general prevalence among the Jews, at the time of our Lord’s advent, affords a key to the explanation of many passages in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles.
The Gospel was addressed equally to Jews and to Gentiles; and we are now to consider how they were dealt with respectively, by our Lord Himself, during His personal ministry, and afterwards by His Apostles. The Gospel was designed to counteract the errors on this subject which then prevailed among both. These errors assumed different forms as they appeared, respectively, in the Gentile world, and in the Jewish Church; but some of them were, in substance, common to both, and sprung from the same prolific root,—the natural blindness and depravity of all men as fallen creatures; while others were peculiar to the Jews, and arose out of their traditional notions in regard to the nature and value of their special privileges, as a people in covenant with God.
The errors which were common to Jews and Gentiles alike, may be reduced to these two: first, to reliance on what they were, or had done, or might yet do; and secondly, to reliance on mere rites and ceremonies in the formal observance of religious worship”.
John, Aquinas said that a man was predestined to heaven according to his merit in some way instead of just the goodness of God. And I believe Tim pointed out that Romans 10:4 says Christ is the END of the law for righteousness to all who believe, where in the Catholicism Christ is the beginning of the law for righteousness to all who believe. Paul says we are justified FREELY by his Grace and Rome says men are justified COOPERATING with his Grace. I don’t want to misquote Tim, but I think he summed it up well in a recent article comment section to me, Catholicism is a return to the system of sacrifices under the law.
Kevin said: “Catholicism is a return to the system of sacrifices under the law”.
Thx again Kevin. I’m starting to see this more clearly now.
Sean, think about my last post, and why I say you won’t let him off the altar or the cross, an eternal continual victim in Rome. Your mass is a continual sacrifice and re breaking of the Lord’s body efficacious for those who do the work of the mass and their dead friends. You say you know RC theology but you fail to acknowledge what even Bryan Cross has acknowledged to me and Trent says definitively, that it is a true sacrifice. Sacrificium. In fact did you know that Trent anathematizes anyone who says it isn’t a era sacrifice. You have Him strapped to the altar. Let him off the cross, he is risen. reconciliation has been made. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 if he hasn’t been raised we are still in our sins and our faith is useless. He has been raised and we are no longer in our sins. This isn’t true for Catholics, he still is on the cross and his incarnation isn’t finished.
Sean,
Fellow catholic Jim here,
Unbelievable what Kevin says, isn’t it? I have explained to him multiple times that although Christ is in a perpetual victim state, that does not mean suffering or re-breaking. His Body is glorified.
He actually preaches to us about the Resurrection as if we deny it applies Bible verses eat the Jews as applying to us
He said to me,”The veil has been ripped away and we commune with God at his altar in heaven. ” as if we don’t know the veil separating Jew from Gentile” has been removed. He thinks all physicality is done away with. He is basically a Docetist or a Manichean. Elsewhere he goes so far as to rave that the Incarnation is over. WOW!
Tim actually knows Kevin is wrong but has never, not once, weighed in to correct him, to keep the record straight. He puts a nickel in Kevin and lets him spew. It really says a lot as to wear Kauffman is coming from. He would let Kevin go to hell if it would further his agenda. No brotherly love on Kauffman’s part. I actually wonder if both men are demon possessed. Walt too.
Kevin,
Tim won’t try to keep you orthodox so let me try. Please explain what you mean by your repeated assertion that the incarnation is finished. Maybe it is just a matter of misusing a term. Do you mean the Redemption is finished?
To say the Incarnation is finished implies Christ no longer has a human body. I’m sure you don’t mean that. Do you?
Tim has let you post this bizarre statement on his blog and never has bothered to have you retract or explain where you are coming from ( Perhaps I just haven’t seen Tim do so? ). Why hasn’t he? You should ask yourself why your bro doesn’t care enough about you to be straight with you. He knows Christ retains His humanity now and forever.
So, what do you mean the Incarnation is finished?
Jim, I’m talking about the veil that wouldn’t let the people into where only the Priest’s could go.
Jim, Christ has a human body but its at the right hand of the Father. The sacrifice was once at the consummation of the ages and it put sin away and perfected all those for whom it was meant. This is the message of Hebrews. “It is finished” hebrews 10:18 ” where there is forgiveness of these there remains NO MORE sacrifices for sin. Roman Catholics missed the message . They are finishing his incarnation thru the acts (sacraments) of the church. A sacramental system of works ( cooperation with grace) for a lifetime on a virtue elevator to inherent perfection. This is the antithesis to a life of faith where sacraments are merely the gifts of god that tie us by faith alone. Catholics call their system of works salvation ” a fuller communion” get it.
Kevin,
Okay, so you are butchering the terminology as I suspected. The Incarnation ( God taking an assumed human nature ) is not finished. Understand? Stop saying it is. You sound like an idiot saying such a thing.
Now, as for the sacraments being an extension of the Incarnation, yes. If God had not become man, there would be none.
Next, Hebrews 10 does say ” by one offering”. You are correct, sir. However, Hebrews 9:25 says. ” He would have to suffer over and over…”. Here is the key. Hebrews is talking about the one sacrifice where Christ suffered, where He shed blood. That was the absolute sacrifice of Calvary. The Mass is a relative sacrifice. There is no suffering, no blood shed. As it is relative,it is dependent of Calvary. No Calvary, no Mass.
Relatives sacrifices are seen in scripture. On Passover, the Lamb was killed ONCE ( each year ) and it’s blood applied to the door post and its flesh eaten.
However, for 8 days ( an octave represents continuous time ), the Passover sacrifice was extended by e unleavened bread. The lamb was extended by bread.
All this was a shadow of the reality to come.
Back to Hebrews now. In 9:23 it should read “sacrifices”, plural.
Kevin, Revelation 5 says the Lamb is standing as slain. Standing ( alive ), As (slain). He is not being slain. He has been slain but is standing. Think of the Risen Christ who appeared to the Apostles in the upper room. He still bore the holes in His hands and side. Yet He was not in pain. He was standing as slain.
Every High Priest needs something to offer. Christ is both Priest and Lamb. Forever. His wounds no longer hurt but, according to the mystics, are like jewels or trophies of His struggle and victory.
At each Mass, the priest ( who is a priest IN Christ’s one High priesthood ) says the words, ” This is My Body” and then, “This is My Blood”. This does not actually separate Christ’s Body and Blood. It just represents the one sacrifice where Body and Blood were separated. Yet, it is not just a show like a picture or a film. Why? Because Christ is Really Present with the same dispositions of offering Himself as at the Last Supper and on Calvary. Those dispositions of offering Himself to the Father for us. He still has them now and forever.
In the Host, Christ is completely present with His Body, Blood, soul and divinity because, in heaven His Body, Blood, soul, and Divinity are intact. In the Chalice, under the appearances of wine, Christ is Really Present, Blood, and Body, soul and Divinity because, once again, in heaven all four are intact.
St. Paul says if one receives the Bread unworthily, that person is guilty of the Body AND THE BLOOD of Christ. ( Not just the Body ).
I gotta run but want to continue this ( my wife has already gone out the door miffed because she is tired of waiting. I have to catch up to her ).
Jim,
The statement “There is no suffering, no blood shed” in the Eucharist probably needs some analysis. If there is no suffering, what precisely are the Eucharistic miracles intended to show us? They pulsate, they bleed, and their flesh is analyzed to be heart tissue that was traumatized.
If there is no blood and no suffering—why do these Eucharistic Miracles reveal to us a “still suffering, bleeding savior”? If there is no bleeding and suffering in the Mass, why do Roman Catholics parade bleeding and suffering hosts through the streets of Santarem?
Thanks,
Tim
They reveal Real Presence Tim
Where is the Protestant Lourdes? No talking Bibles? No miracles? No cures? Nobody raised from the dead?
You got Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn. So don’t be jealous.
Traumatized by the Passion. Christ still bears the wounds He received on the Cross. He showed these wounds to the Apostles, and even invited Thomas to touch them. He lives, yet He bears the marks of His death.
Jim, said” it just represents the one sacrifice” Do i have to yeah you your doctrine. Trent anathematizes anyone who says it isn’t a true and real sacrifice. It is a sacrifice that is efficacious and by the very act of a Catholic doing it he earns an increase of grace and justice for himself and his dead friends and relatives. Not only this but it is a sacrifice by the participant to propitiate his own sins. Learn your doctrine and don’t run from it kimosabi.
Do i have to yeah you your own doctrine that should read
Jim, incidentally Hebrews 10:18 as John Knox says constrains rome and there abominable work of the mass. You have to admit this money making scheme and the selling of indulgences is one of the most clever schemes in history. It has bewitched the gullible world. I don’t know how anyone who knows what the mass is and participates can in any sense be saved.
Kevin, again thanks but just as you don’t care what St. So &So says, or Pope So& So says, I don’t put much stock in what Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Fort Knox, or Hard Knox have to say.
Kevin, Trent is correct ( of course ). The Mass is a REAL sacrifice.
I don’t recall saying otherwise. A real RELATIVE sacrifice.
Your problem lies in thinking sacrifice means to kill. Not so.
In every sacrifice two elements are required. The Immolation ( destruction ) and the Oblation.
The Immolation was done by the Levites and the Oblation by the priest. It can precede or follow the Immolation.
Without the Oblation of the Supper/Mass the Immolation of Calvary would not have been a sacrifice. It would have been an execution.
Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think you are up for teaching anyone Catholic sacramental theology. Why don’t you take the cotton out of your ears, put it in your mouth and listen for a while. I will teach you. ( PS. I wonder why Tim, who I am sure understands our thinking on this, has allowed you to say such erroneous things for weeks. He must not care about you, huh? )
Moving right along, I should mention that John says Christ Baptized. A little later, the same John says that Christ didn’t actually get wet but His Apostles did.
Hmmmm? Both passages are inspired scripture.
It means the Apostles Baptized in Persona Christi.
The Catholic priest acts in Persona Christi.
Kevin, Of course you will want to object by saying that Christ SAT DOWN at the right hand of the Father.
A couple of things; St. Stephen saw Christ in heaven STANDING as he was being stoned.
Besides, to sit according to the rabbis was a position of exercising authority as the judges who sat at the city gates. They weren’t resting. They were working.
Calvary was ONCE. The Mass is that one offering applied down through time.
Just as Calvary is applied by Baptism down through time to individuals.
Kevinster,
Jesus said ” Do”. sacrifices were “Done”.
In “MEMORY” of me. The Greek word Anamneusis is used 5 times in the OT. It means “memorial sacrifice”
Jesus says the cup of His Blood will be Shed or Poured Out. ( Sacrifial languages ).
He also say this is the New Covenant. More sacrificial terminolgy.
A night or two ago Debbie pasted to you and Robert on Jason’s blog the 4 cups of the Pasch theory. You must have seen it.
The 3rd or Cup of Blessing was at the Supper. The 4th or final cup before the Hallel Psalms were recited was conspicuously missing in the Gospel narratives. The 4th was consumed on the Cross linking the Supper to Calvary as two movement s of one drama. Pretty powerful stuff.
Kevin, Represent = Re Present or to make present. It is not a show of Calvary. We have crucifixes for that.
Kevin, As you are getting feisty, I think I will sign off as you can take it or leave it.
I merely intended to present you with what we Catholic believe to dispel you of the nonsensical caricature you like to attack.
Tim could verify what I have put is is indeed what Trent teaches.
The things you have been accusing us of believing ( Christ is dying on cross and altar is not what I nor the Council of Trent say ). You have been presented with the truth. I rest my case.
Should you, from this day onward, continue to say we kill Christ over and over on cross or altar will prove you to be not merely mistaken but a liar for misrepresenting us when you know better.
Tim, I am signing off now as I don’t intend to argue the point with Falloni.
I told him what Trent means. He says he knows Catholic theology better than I do so I am not about to argue with a lunatic.
I bet you know ( although you don’t accept it ) Catholic doctrine better than Kevin does.
For the sake of accuracy, why not set him straight?
Sean, Keep an eye out for how Kevin butchers what I have so carefully tried to explain to him.
Within an day he will be back to asking why we don’t let Christ off the cross.
You will see that the man is impossible and posting on this blog is an exercise in futility.
Jim, Jim you go from bad to worse. You are showing your have little theological background. You said” the problem is thinking sacrifice means to kill.” Oh Jim, hello, scripture says WITHOUT the shedding of blood there is no sacrifice for sin. Oops that leaves unbloody mass in quandary. Maybe your not getting that .0000017 percent of justice you just earned.
Kevin, The Blood was shed. Once for all.
Kevin, Burning incense was a sacrifice. Sacrifices could be of flour, wine and oil too.
If some one couldn’t afford a lamb a dove would do. If a dove was too expensive, flour would work.
Kevin, Penal substitution is based on the mistaken idea that sacrifice mean to kill.
Jim, I agree the blood was shed once for all.No need for the sacrifice of the mass.
Jim, wrote:
“I actually wonder if both men are demon possessed. Walt too.”
Ouch, Jim. That was a little bit harsh.
Walt, Harsh? Pleaeaesze! Did you get a gander at Tim’s picture of the Host saying, “worship me”? My wife looked over my shoulder and saw it. She gasped and walked away. Bingo! That’s Tim’s desired effect. Does anyone think Tim’s motives are from God?
No “politics of victimization” as Tim says. You are”one o’ them”. I see the back slapping and shoe shining you three dudes have been doing each other.
Jim,
I don’t know why it offends you for me to portray the bleeding host as speaking. Is the Eucharist not worshiped? Does the Eucharist not speak? Does the Eucharist not bleed? Does “Jesus” in your Eucharist not demand to be worshiped? Of course “he” does.
Every day we are bombarded with requests that we worship the bread because the Eucharistic miracles—the bleeding and speaking hosts—show that worship is owed to it. Do you reject the miracles of the speaking hosts?
Thanks,
Tim
It’s the goofy cartoonish art Tim.
Jim wrote:
“My wife looked over my shoulder and saw it. She gasped and walked away. Bingo! That’s Tim’s desired effect. Does anyone think Tim’s motives are from God?”
I think you wife looks to you Jim to help her understand these issues Tim is raising. Of course, no Roman Catholic wants to believe or hear that the Eucharist is the image of the beast, or anything remotely sinister. They don’t like to even hear or claim ownership of the inquisition or all the blood that has been spilled by the Church during the dark and middle ages. My dad as a devoted Roman Catholic used to be happy and discuss why what he believed Luther did was GOOD for the church. My dad, and many Catholics I know, believed Luther forced a lot of changes to the excesses of the Church.
As you said, ” I don’t put much stock in what Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Fort Knox, or Hard Knox have to say.”
While Roman Catholics don’t like what Priests, nuns and brothers have done to children in the global sexual charges, I have heard that some have been thankful for the persistent criticism and persistent victims who have come forward to expose these events. While I know there are some Catholics who live in denial that any of these things could ever be true and the victims are just money grubbers, I have heard some church authorities not simply seek to bury the information and move the priests to other congregations and different children…but actually support the victims and even Priests who have written apologies.
While some hold Rome to be the only “holy” universal church, I think the vast majority of Catholics see their Church as a sinful historical demonstration of what a true church is really suppose to look like. The problem, is that they are so indoctrinated with the pomp, glamor, buildings, interesting history and wealth of the church that any signs, miracles, newly confirmed saints, etc. are overwhelming to give them a home. When you read about those who come back home to Rome, they almost universally say it is the history they adore, the buildings and the global footprint of the massive church. Few, if any, have experienced such amazing “tradition”…their baptist “tradition” or their pentecostal “tradition” could not even compare, so they are coming home.
Sad to read these stories, and watch their testimony on TV.
Walter, My 3 brothers and 1 sister went to Catholics schools. The Hi school I went to was all boys with priests as teachers. I am hear to testify none of us were molested. We never heard of a kid being molested
I know it fits your narrative to say otherwise, but the Church isn’t as nasty as you would like it to be.
I also tried my hand in the Mental Health Dept. But…
I would say ministers, married guys, offend on about a 3 to 1 scale with priests. That’s my observation. I read public school teachers offend on a 14 to 1 ratio,
Anyway, It’s all Maria Monk stuff.
Jim,
So you deny any molestation took place between priests and children…and it was all just a conspiracy against the Roman Catholic Church because your 3 brothers, your sister, yourself and myself did not see this first hand?
All of these children and now adults are just lying?
It is sad how little detailed study you do on any topic.
Jim, you wrote:
“I am hear to testify none of us were molested. We never heard of a kid being molested. I know it fits your narrative to say otherwise, but the Church isn’t as nasty as you would like it to be.”
While most of these have settled out of court, do you dispute all of their testimony, especially women?
http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/spotlight.htm
Anyone who worships the Image of the Beast is irreversibly damned, per Revelation. So why bother trying to convert Catholics?
Jim wrote:
“Kevin, again thanks but just as you don’t care what St. So &So says, or Pope So& So says, I don’t put much stock in what Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Fort Knox, or Hard Knox have to say.”
That was cute…I had to smile. However, if you put a lot of faith in historical uninspired testimony, you should consider both sides of the arguments to make a neutral informed decision. Don’t put all your faith in one side only.
Wlat.
I gotta tell you, your fixation with a group pf Scottish heretics who met in the 16th century or whenever is absurd. They had no Apostolic succession. no authority other than themselves.
Shame on you for bending your knee before them.
Sean wrote:
“At any rate, man, I’ve met some former Catholics before but I’ve never seen anybody equate the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Eucharist of Jesus Christ, as the ‘mark of the beast.’ That is a pretty remarkable and lamentable position. I truly pray that you find peace with the Church and remember your baptism and your confirmation.”
I think that the study of eschatology is worthy of one’s time. The idea that one should limit their study of Scripture and/or church history to the focus of the Eucharist is sad by some Roman Catholics. I read these blogs and everything written by my former Roman Catholics seems to be focused on abortion, the Eucharist and feeding the poor more generally. I don’t mean everything, I mean that seems to be the most important things to the average Catholic in our generation.
The research Tim has done on this living, talking Eucharist is simply incredible. I never knew any of this growing up as a Catholic. I knew the importance of the Eucharist, but I never knew that it was shown to be living and talking as some have professed in history.
I suspect most Roman Catholics would ignore these facts, or deny them, if they heard about them and were put under pressure. You can see how both Sean and Jim have a hard time dealing with this Church position where they promote these living and talking Eucharist events. I cannot see the majority of Roman Catholics running to the front of the church to fall on their knees and bow to the Eucharist, but there is no doubt that they worship the Eucharist and eat the real body and drink the real blood of Christ in their communion.
I know as an alter boy how critical it was to handle any fragments of any converted bread to Christ’s actual body, and the same with the blood. These were not insignificant issues after mass was over. The idea the Eucharist is the image of the beast to be worshiped is not my current view, but it certainly can be perceived this way now that I know it has been living and talking in some parts of the world in history.
I recommend all Roman Catholics to flee this system as soon as they can. I’m afraid of more miracles coming and continued massive deception of those who don’t know Scripture, but only love Rome’s tradition as “proof” she is the only true church.
Thanks, Walt,
Your comment was: “I cannot see the majority of Roman Catholics running to the front of the church to fall on their knees and bow to the Eucharist, but there is no doubt that they worship the Eucharist and eat the real body and drink the real blood of Christ in their communion.”
To better illustrate the phenomenon of Eucharistic Adoration in which all Roman Catholics participate weekly, I have updated this post to provide two videos (very end of the post) to show the adoration Roman Catholics offer to the bread. The video of people walking forward to worship the Eucharist prior to receiving it is not considered standard practice, but it is considered the ideal, as the Magisterium would prefer that this reverence be paid to the Eucharist by all.
Thanks for your comment.
Tim
Walt , said ” I cannot see the majority of Catholics running to fall on their knees and bow to the eucharist.” Really, I turn on ewtn and see this all the time.
Kevin,
I cannot remember if everyone in the church kneels during the transubstantiation or if they are seated. Do you remember? I seem to remember we were all kneeling at that time.
What I was referring to was like the Pentecostals who all race to the front of the room to fall on their faces when any minister tells them to come forward to give their life to Christ. This crazy cultism promoted by Pentecostals is what I think of when people run to the front of the room to worship anything to see miracles, at the sound of brain washing music.
Kneeling is normal, though a few parishes stand instead. Only those who are weak from age, illness, or injury sit during the Consecration.
Thanks, Kevin. I have updated the post to show the video of that very phenomenon.
Tim
Tim,
I cannot seem to get the EWTN video to work. Hmmm. I have tried several players, and even quicktime.
Do you have a link on YouTube?
The other one “You Are My God” seems a bit of a stretch, or extreme to me, but when I read the comments below on that video I’m shocked at how many people love it. I’ve been away from the RCC for so long I am more shocked at how they view this as worship. It is so counter productive that it reminds me of watching a Benny Hinn show.
Ok, I’m working on getting it into the right format now.
Tim
Walt, you probably already know to take what Jim says tongue and cheek. He is a couple bricks shy of a load. LOL
Walt, oh i’m sorry, i misunderstood you. I will defer to you on that . You know more than i, you were there. It seems when i watch or have attended Catholic services they are always down worshiping the Host.
Yes are a very astute observer. It appears so because we are.
Kevin, you wrote:
“It seems when i watch or have attended Catholic services they are always down worshiping the Host.”
As Jim said, they are. But I was thinking more of running to the front of the church bowing like the Benny Hinn shows. I don’t see that happening with Catholics. They kneel during the transubstantiation and when I used to ring the bells, they would take notice of the event. Once they see the Real Presence is taken place, they line up for communion to receive the alleged real body and real blood of Christ.
The video, as Tim mentions, is something every Catholic should be doing is really falling to their knees, weeping and crying and worshiping the Real Presence, and going crazy over the bread and wine…but I don’t see it happen very often. I never saw it in the local mass I attended, but I’m sure things are changing where many are going to be worshiping it at such an extreme that it might start coming alive and speaking more and more. I could see it happening more and more convincing people through miracles it is truly alive and talking.
That would make people do what I have not seen before.
Walt, I agree, I don’t know who is worse, the Pentecostals or the Catholics. Much of it is based on emotion, self, miracles, everything but correct and true worship. Whether worshiping the Host or the running around in the front of Pentecostal churches, it is false worship.
Tim,
I found one that looks exactly like what you are saying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoEj4jA-XZ0
The music is just like a Benny Hinn healing meeting.
This is much different that the 50 hail mary’s and 20 our father’s I usually had to say…so I understand what you are saying.
Walt,
Here’s a good one from RealCatholicTV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pA-kLY2CkY
The video is only 7m 30s, and is called “Kneel before God!” It’s about kneeling while taking the Eucharist—emphasizing that it is the preferred method because the Eucharist is God and is to be adored. The video is largely a criticism of those who prevent Roman Catholics from receiving on their knees, because they are separating the form (kneeling) from the function (worship), and they really need to go together. While noting that the American church has received an exception and is allowed to receive in the hand while standing, the preferred method is kneeling, because reception of the Eucharist is an act of adoration of the Eucharist.
Very few Christians know that when Roman Catholics genuflect, kneel or bow to the Eucharist, it is because they have been commanded to “kneel before God!”
Thanks,
Tim
Tim, Silly man. Is this supposed to be an expose? Everybody knows Catholics adore the Blessed Sacrament. What new about that?
As for me, when a priest gives me Communion, I receive on the tongue. When I receive from a nun or a lay person, in my hands. ( Their hands are no more consecrated than mine so why not? )
How does your mom receive? How does she feel about your “ministry” by the way? I could call her up and chat with her if you send me her number. I will try to get to Fatima before my annual Haj to Portland in the Summer. I like to bring a bag of El Cheapo little wooden rosaries to hand out. They only cost a euro or two and for folks who never get the time or are able to scrape together the funds to go to there, rosaries from Fatima are like gold. I bet she might like one.
Tim,
Watch this video. I’m on my second time through trying to figure out how the Eucharist is tied to Judaism rather than Scripture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P45BHDRA7pU
This could help me understand the origin and epistemology of the RCC Eucharist. Much of the RCC is based upon the old testament, and Judaism, and this is helping me a lot.
Walt, what was your take on that video you provided? Are we to eat increases in our salvation?
Kevin, Walt and Tim, By all means watch it. Watch it several times. Then you Walt and you Tim, get to a priest and confess your sins and then spend the rest of you lives doing penance.
Jim, hopefully Tim will give his mom the gospel before he gives her a Rosary from Fatima. Jim what do you tell them when you hand them the plastic Rosary from Fatima, Mary loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
Mind your tongue Kevin. If I come on this blog I wear hip boots to wade through the manure. I swear I will raise hell over on Jason’s if you want to truck it over there though. Capisce?
How is the rosary contrary to the Gospel? Is meditating on the life of Christ contrary to the Gospel? Is saying the Lords prayer or the words of Elizabeth in Luke’s Gospel contrary to that Gospel?
What do you say Tim? I am dropping my wife off at the airport on Saturday morning and since I will already be on the road, I might zip towards Fatima to meet up with some pals who are walking from Lisbon to the shrine to get there in time for the 13th.
Does your mother want the rosary or not? You won’t be beholding as it’s no big deal. I will get it, drop it in an envelope with her address and post it. It will be our secret. I won’t tell anyone on this blog. I will keep it in pectore and you can keep your image of hating the Church. Email me address by tomorrow.
Jim,
I am sure my mother would love a rosary from Fatima, but I’m not going to arrange for her to get one. I believe the vision of Mary at Fatima was demonic, and the apparition of Mary that introduced the Rosary to the Roman Catholic church through Alan de la Roche was demonic as well. I am not interested in facilitating her devotion to them.
To your point,
Jim, Satan quoted Scripture to Jesus, and demons were only too happy to acknowledge Jesus as the “son of God” (Matthew 8:29), “the holy one of God” (Mark 1:24). Use of the Scriptures does not preclude or disprove demonic origins.
It is true that those who recite the Rosary meditate “on the life of Christ” and the Lord’s prayer and “the words of Elizabeth.”
But that is not all the rosary includes. Of the five “glorious mysteries,” two of them are based on tradition: Mary’s assumption into heaven and Mary’s coronation as queen of heaven. In addition, the second half of the Hail Mary is extrascriptural: “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
It has Mary interceding for us before God, and because in that role she is alleged to perform the functions of a mediatrix, the Rosary is contrary to the Gospel.
Further, those who pray the rosary are promised certain benefits, including that it is “a powerful armor against hell,” and that those who recite it “shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise.” These teachings, too, are contrary to the gospel.
Thanks, as always, for writing,
Tim
Fine Tim, It was just an offer from one bastard of a son who broke his mother’s heart to another. No sweat of my nose. It’s your mom, not mine. Mine is dead. If she were alive one day, I swear I would do all I could to undo the heartbreak I caused her.
Thank God I can pray for my mom. Unless you snap out of your nasty attitude towards the Church and quit sulking, you won’t be able to even do that much when you mother leaves this vale of tears.
( Sorry Tim, but I don’t have you categorized as a real Protestant. You have too much of a personal vendetta against your Mother to be a normal Protestant guy).
Would a demon teach children to pray, “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy?” Would a demon teach children to pray for the conversion of sinners? Satan does not fight Satan, nor ask for Christ’s mercy. Friend, you are walking through a minefield, for whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.
Andrew,
I’m glad you added this comment to the conversation. I will restate here what I have stated elsewhere on this blog, and that is that demons can say a lot of things. Here are some things demons can say:
• “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Matthew 4:6)
• “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17)
• “Thou art the Son of God.” (Mark 3:11)
• “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” (Acts 19:15)
• “there is one God” (James 2:19).
• “Thou art Christ the Son of God.” (Luke 4:41).
• “I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” (Mark 1:24).
Just something to keep in mind. The devil does not deceive by outright rejection of the truth. The devil deceives by appearing to affirm the truth outwardly, while introducing error to those who will listen to him. Do you understand now why it makes little sense to ask whether demons can induce someone to pray for sinners? They can if it suits their objectives. They honestly don’t care about the salvation of sinners. They care about deceiving, and they are happy with whatever method is most effective. If they can get you to bow down and worship them, they’ll be happy even to acknowledge that God has His angels looking out for us.
Tim
Jim, go back to your hole, you big windbag LOL. Tim isn’t going to buy your act. Go back to being disruptive and getting me thrown off Jason’s site.
con mucho gusto senhor! I am trying. You don’t think you deserve it?
Have you noticed a new protestant guy on the block? A lutheran. Why don’t I want to kick him in the groin every time he posts? But you, well, a kick in groin seems quite well deserved.
I am not trying to get the Erics, Robert or Jason L. off the blog. Why? They aren’t sweet on Catholicism. What is it about Kevin that just makes a guy want to retaliate?
Oh, I know why, They are soft on the Whore of Babylon while you are on fire with the Holy Ghost. Yeah, that’s what it is. You are the true Christian and they are pussy cats compared to you.
Jim, you are one of those guys one grows up with that is always shooting off their mouth until I would walk up to them ( I’m 6’4″ 225 and a black belt) and they would get real quiet then. You know. I say this to you in the love of Christ Jim, shut your piehole and respect others and engage in discussion no matter what their views. You have called me every name in the book and I don’t care. God bless
Jim, I’m just wondering after every Catholic takes the Host, do you genuflect to one another since you are all a tabernacle? Seriously?
No we don’t but your principle is correct. Until the Host is dissolved, we are indeed living tabernacles.
I am a former Roman Catholic, and I consider myself to have been devout in Eucharistic devotion and Marian devotion. My parish church from childhood was run by the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. The church was named after “Our Lady.” I was at peace in my faith until I was confronted by members of the International Church of Christ (“Boston Movement”). Everything I had held dear came under attack. I wrote to Fr. Benedict Groeschel on EWTN. He told me to get Karl Keating’s book (Roman Catholicism and Fundamentalism). The attacks by the ICOC continued, including handing me materials by Jack Chick and Loraine Boetnner’s book on Roman Catholicism. I actually found Keating’s tone and arguments to be offensive and often based on weak and faulty biblical exegesis. I eventually left the Church I had loved. Being of an Italian-Catholic family, it was especially difficult. Looking back, my devotion to Mary exceeded hyper-dulia; it truly was latria, and this was the case with many practicing Catholics I knew (and still know). I bowed to Mary and prayed to her; I wore the brown scapular; I carried a prayer to Our Mother of Perpetual Help with me at all times; I prayed the rosary for the intentions of the pope and for the plenary indulgence of loved ones in purgatory. Leaving the Eucharist and transubstantiation was the hardest thing in my life. I wish I had never met the ICOC. It scarred me for life. I often struggle with returning to Rome. I really do. I think Jim and Sean Patrick argue here better than anything I’ve ever seen from Keating or other Catholic apologists. I believe in the Real Presence, but in the sense that Christ is present by the Spirit at the Table, that the Table is a special means of grace and the Table is the hightest expression of corporate worship. I once thought relying on receiving Communion violated sola fide, but I see Communion as the greatest expression of our faith. There are still reasons I cannot return to the Catholic faith, and the office of a NT sacrificial priesthood – notwithstanding Jim’s compelling argument in this thread – and the papacy do keep me away. I once desired to go to Medjugorje but though I revere and love Mary, the mother of Jesus, I have no desire to visit any location of apparitions. It grieves me when Protestants/Evangelicals misrepresent RCC teaching. The crucifix does NOT deny the Risen Christ, nor does it perpetuate His sufferings. This is one example. The crux of the matter here, as I see it, is that worship of the host is either the highest expression of worship on earth or it is blatant idolatry. I wrestle greatly with this struggle. I apologize for this flowing stream of consciousness, which must appear as jumping all over the place, but it was my desire to share some personal thoughts. If I could make one suggestion: I see Kevin and Tim as brothers in Christ, but I also see SP and Jim as brothers in Christ – for that reason, where there is an urge to be biting or ill-mannered, try to refrain and remain civil and irenic. I have seen too much rancor within Catholic-Protestant online debates. Harsh attitudes do not glorify our Lord. Peace, Michael
Michael,
I am very glad you provided this comment. I, too, believe that much of the online debates can be quite rancorous, and I do all I can to moderate my tone. Your comment is dead on, for you wrote,
It really is a black or white issue. Either it is acceptable to worship the Eucharist or it is not. I guess you could say that I do not struggle with it any more. I have concluded beyond return that it is blatant idolatry. For this reason, and for others that have been elucidated here on this blog, I do not regard practicing Roman Catholics as brethren in Christ. I have heard a great many evangelicals object, saying “I know some good Roman Catholics who rest in Jesus Christ alone, by faith alone, for their salvation.” This is a terrible misappropriation of the English language. A Roman Catholic who claims “faith alone in Christ alone” is not a “good Roman Catholic.” By definition, he is a “bad Roman Catholic,” for his own religion says as much:
Thus, by definition, a Roman Catholic “who rests in Jesus Christ alone, by faith alone, for his salvation” is a “bad Roman Catholic” — the Roman religion has declared as much, and that emphatically. He is also a disobedient Christian who, claiming to be justified by faith alone in Christ alone, continues bowing to the Eucharist, for the worship of graven images is forbidden (Exodus 20:4-5).
I understand your desire that there be unity within the Church. I agree, and desire it as well. That is why I implore any of my fellow believers to come out of Rome, for Christ Himself says to them, “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4). It is my desire to be one with them, but not with Rome.
Thanks for writing, and please stay in touch,
Tim
Michael, Get back to the Church while you still can! You have a computer. You have the world at your finger tips. Start studying and talk to your Catholic friends.
If you are doubting, this is not the blog to be on. Go to Jason’s or Called to Communion. Kevin and Tim are the last guys you should be talking to.
Now, so you are Italian too. Can you cook? Do you live out west? (No, I’m not going to barge in unannounced so don’t worry ). My Italian nephew owns the best pizza place on the west coast right off the beach in Newport, Oregon. Italian men cook with no embarrassment or shame like some other guys.
Michael V, I just wanted to say Hi and God bless you. ” i once thought receiving communion violated sola fide” May you know the reason that the Roman mass violated sola fide, in fact is an abomination and the antithesis of it, is because Trent says that the mass is a real sacrifice that is propitious for sins, it is a re breaking of our Lords body thus reducing the sufficiency of the one time, perfect sacrifice, that put sin away Hebrews 10:14-18,9:24. And maybe worst of all it is a work on the part of man to earn increase of justice and grace to final justification. It is also a sacrifice for sins on the part of the participant. This is in direct contradiction to ” the righteous shall live by faith” faith alone in Christ alone. Only god knows how many souls were lost and are lost thru the Popish mass. Those souls will be on their hands, the very antichrist. Welcome to tim’s site, a bastion of truth. K
Kevin, You gotta come up with some evidence. Show us a body or a smoking gun. I want to see the document that says Christ is rebroken on our alters.
You aren’t going to get a conviction on hearsay.
Michael V, Mathew 11:12 ” From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” This is a very interesting verse in scripture. Jesus said it. Very few Protestants are willing to call Roman catholicism what it is, a false church, apostate, a front for the kingdom of Satan. To stand against it and to stand for the gospel one encounters much pushback and suffers violence. It takes men of strong resolve like Tim, John MacArthur, RC Sproul, Michael Horton, Spurgeon, and many others I’ve had good friends pray 5, 2000 year old exorcism prayers over me, and Catholic friends come unglued because I have told them they are in a false religion which basically says if you want to get to heaven its up to you, and if you don’t get there, you don’t get there. Ya you get the the special medicine, juju to help you, but your on your own. Michael faith covers the entire sphere of salvation. Romans 10:9-10, 5:1, John 1:12, 5:24, 3:16 etc. A life of doing Sacraments to earn increases of Salvation flies in the face of a a life of trust in Christ. Calvin said Sacraments are God’s free gift to seal and confirm his grace in our life. As you rightly said thru faith and the Spirit, and the Word, Christ is truly present to us. But JC Ryle was correct when he said Roman catholicism is one gigantic system of church worship, Mary worship, Sacrament worship, saint worship, relic worship, bread worship. I stand with Tim, Catholics are not brothers and sisters in the Lord. There are obviously believers in that church, but they should be urged to come out of that communion ASAP. K
Michael/Kevin/Tim,
The Church is a front for Satan? ONLY the Catholic Church defends marriage. Only the Catholic Church is 100% prolife ( No the PCA is not! ) Only the Church sits in the U.N. and fights for God. The PCA doesn’t.
Michael, Also , its not the issue of the Crucifix, its that Rome has made our Lord an eternal victim, they won’t let him off the altar or the cross. “He is risen”. For Christians the incarnation is finished, and Jesus said he accomplished all the father gave him to do. Hebrews tells us by one offering, once, at the consummation of the ages he perfected for all time, all those for whom he died. 10:18 says there are no more sacrifices for sin. Thats why it is called” Good news” For Rome the incarnation isn’t finished but it is still going on and being finished by participants in the acts of the church. You will often here RC say we have a fuller worship than you. That is code for we are as busy as a bee cooperating our way to heaven thru the sacraments. The truth is Michael, Hebrews says the veil has been ripped away and we go right into the throne room with Christ where his altar, sacrifice, and Priesthood is. Ephesians says we are sated with Him in the heavenly places, sealed in the Spirit, with all the blessings and spoils of fellowship with christ thru the spirit. See Michael the Roman church substitutes itself for the historical, natural body of Christ, it collapses the head into the body in an over realized eschatology. One big hierarchy of saints. But we know that Scripture teaches us that the church is the recipient of god’s grace, not the provider. The church can lead us to Christ, but it is the Spirit that brings fiducia to the heart, brings Christ to the heart of man. It is the Spirit who delivers all of god’s graces to us , not the church. Rome can’t substitute itself for the Trinity. For God has jurisdiction on mans’s conscience, not the church. Jesus said the Spirit blows where and how he wills. Grace isn’t rationed out by a church based on merit and good works, its free. Romans 5:17 calls it the “free gift of righteousness” an it comes by faith, not a life of doing sacraments ex opere operato. What you will find is Roman catholicism is a replay of OT judaism. The first thing Jesus confronts with them was their traditions, and how they had left the sacred scriptures. The word Priest heirus is mentioned 400 times in the OT, it does not appear in the New. The romish Priesthood and their sacraments are just a replay of the OT Priesthood and their OT sacrifices ( mass) and they were imperfect and could not save, instituted by sinful men, just like Rome. But we have a perfect high Priest in heaven, who is the only mediator, and who says come unto to me all your of bevy burden , and I will give you rest, my yoke is easy, and my heart is light. We have a sympathetic high Priest. No need to go to Mary to soften him up. The writer of Hebrews Michael called the need for a physical altar, sacrifice, and Priethood, shrinking back in one’s faith.
Kevin, why do you keep saying the Incarnation is finished. That sounds like the Witnesses saying Christ is no long man but spirit.
Christ made Himself the Eternal Victim; for this reason, the Scripture calls Him, “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Michael, can I suggest Cramner’s book on the Lord’s supper. He destroys transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass, and proves the early church’s position and scripture.
Michael,
To balance out Kevin’s suggestion, I will suggest you read “Cranmer’s Godly Order” by Michael Davies.
You know, there is something spooky about Cranmer. Luther and those guys were up front about what they were doing. Cranmer flew under the radar and monkey with the ordinal and Mass to leave the appearance but gut it of reality.
Cranmer, it seems, believed in the Mass yet hated it. He hated the priesthood but tried to make his ordinal look like it was ordaining Catholic priest but all the while destroying Holy Orders and there fore the Mass.
Look at Anglicans today. They think they are Catholic and often believe like Catholics. But their orders and Eucharist are false though.
No way do I think Cranmer and the Continental Reformers were the same. Cranmer seems to have been consciously working with the dark side. The others just sorely mistaken.
Capter vii Trent justification” For faith, unless hope and charity are added to it neither unites men perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of his body.”
Ephesians 2:8 ” For by grace you have been saved thru faith; and that not of yourselves,, it is a gift of God, not a result of works”
Let the reader decide. One is a false religion, and one is the gospel. Which do you choose?
Kevin, Faith is the root or anchor.It’s necessary but not sufficient. It is always assumed loved is with it. Faith to move mountains is zero without love.
“See how a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” -James 2:24 More bluntly from the same chapter, “Faith without works is dead.”
Jim, I thought Jason Loh has a great post today on Jason’s blog and its been much of the subject of Tim’s posts IMHO here, and that is the role of mysticism and what the Reformers called enthusiasm in the church and being separated from the deposit of faith, which is the word of God. Jason Loh is exactly right on when he says the infallible apostolic tradition passed on is the proclamation of the infallible gospel. Its the word of God that is infallible and has god’s desired effect, to save souls. We must see anything outside of this as not only added revelation, but we must reject anything that does not measure to the word of God. For instance we must reject the Assumption of Mary because it can find no support biblically. Roman catholics and Charismatics, who as John MacArthur says in his recent book “Strange Fire” have contributed to the majority of wrong doctrine in the Protestant church, have an affinity for one another for the very reason that they are climbing Jacob’s ladder to merit, mysticism, and speculation, which can only lead to a false gospel and error. It is i this way Confessional Protestantism has played the same role with Charismatics as the Reformers played with Rome. A serious rebuking against mysticism and speculation founded on traditions outside the word of God.
Kevin,
I don’t know about Jason Loh. I can understand 99% of what he says. He is from Malaysia and so English may or may not be his first language. Sometime when a person learns English well, they speak and write in a way that native speakers don’t.
The Mary, stuff. I have come to be so impatient with people who demand proof of the Marian doctrines when some things are common sense. Think it through, even if there was zero support in the Bible, do you think Christ would let the only person he had a blood tie with rot in a grave? As for the Virginity, the rabbis say Moses remained continent after the Burning Bush. After touching the next world, people never stay interested in this one.
Jim,
Abraham had sex with his wife (Genesis 21) after multiple encounters with the Lord (Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19), and therefore your statement is incorrect when you say, “After touching the next world, people never stay interested in this one.” Thus, your inference that Mary would remain a virgin on account of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit is invalid. In regard to your comment,
Yes, I do.
As Jesus demonstrated on multiple occasions (Luke 8:20-21, 11:27-28), blood relations are inconsequential to Him in matters not regulated by the Law. Under the Law, he had no obligation whatsoever to prevent Mary from rotting in the grave. Also, Jesus loved Lazarus deeply (John 11:3,5,36) and He let him die and rot (John 11:39) twice. There is no basis for the belief that He loved His mother so much that He could not let her die and rot. He loves all His people deeply, and “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” (Psalms 116:5). If we are going to reason from the lesser to the greater, why not say that if the death of His saints is precious, how much more precious is the death of His mother? And if God is glorified by Jesus raising His saints “at the last day” (John 6:38-40), how much more will God be glorified by Jesus raising His mother at the last day.
The problem with your reasoning is that you start with what you want to conclude, and then consider all evidence as if it supported your conclusion, and then, voila!, you arrive at the conclusion for which the data was precisely tailored in advance. That is the fallacy of “asserting the consequent.” As you can see, that logical fallacy works both ways. Best to start with the assumption that the Scripture alone is the Word of God and then believe whatever can be logically deduced from it. Mary’s assumption cannot.
Thanks as always for your participation here.
Tim
Tim,
You might have a point with Abraham. Maybe not as we are not all that sure about the nature of those encounters. Were they locutions, visitations, or what? Even in the case of the 3 visitors, were they seen as men or angels?
In the case of Moses, he was told to take off his sandals as he was on holy ground. His face had to be covered as it was so transformed.
But, your gripe is with the rabbis on this and not with me.
Think of Bernadette and the Fatima kids. ( One of the reasons Medjugoria is doubted is because if the seers. Not that they are so sinful but rather so secular and mundane.)
Tim, how do we really know Luther didn’t have it right when he said Christ had carnal relations with Magdalene and others?
The Bible itself says Jesus did a lot of things not written down.
Maybe they were married as the Gnostics say. huh? To think a healthy young man not to have a normal sex life makes Jesus to be weird, huh?
Tim, I don’t understand why you guys have no sense of the sacred. Nothing wrong with beer guzzling to a point. None at all.
But I wouldn’t use a chalice to do so.
Mary is a sacred vessel too, you know?
Jim,
I do have a sense of the sacred, which is why I can neither venerate the saints of God, nor worship what He has created. He is so Holy, that we must not adore Jesus’ mother. He is so Holy, that we must not adore the Eucharist. He is so Holy, that we must not seek to approach Him by any other than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is so Holy, that our offenses against Him cannot be repaired by any but Him. I could go on and on. I have such a sense of the Sacred that all of your traditions of veneration of images, worship of the Eucharist and the mediation of Mary appear earthly and profane to me.
Your view of “the Sacred” is not far removed from Zoroastrianism, in which “ethereal spirit and physical manifestation are not separable, and that a reverence of any of Ahura Mazda’s creations is ultimately a worship of the Creator.” As their own prophets have said,
Thus Jerome’s Vulgate translation of Psalm 99:5, “And worship His footstool, for it is holy,” bears more in common with Zoroastrianism of the Persian Empire than it does with Christianity. The correct translation is “worship at his footstool; for he is holy,” as even the Roman Catholic New American Bible translation seems to acknowledge: “bow down before his footstool; holy is God!”
My point is that venerating objects is not evidence of a “sense of the sacred.” It is only evidence of venerating objects.
Thanks,
Tim
Abraham’s face didn’t turn radiant due to his encounters with the Lord, but Moses’ did. Really, this shouldn’t surprise you, considering that Moses instructed the Israelites to abstain from sex for three days before the Great Theophany. Does it really surprise you that Moses believed he had more important things to do than have sex with his wife?
Kevin,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uQI-Bboo0A
I was listening to Mac and I noticed he forgot part of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. He forgot to say “WATER”.
He also skipped the word ‘Baptism”. Why?
Jim,
You may not have really listened to the video, but only heard what you wanted to hear. Mac mentions Jesus exactly as it states in the Scriptures and uses the word “water” at 11:50-:11:54 in the video.
If you are then implying that man must be born in water, or baptized in water, to be born again…that is another issue.
We are saved through water, just as Noah was (1 Peter 3:21).
Michael,
St. Theresa of Avila said something you should know’
” Don’t be attached to the consolations of God. Rather, cling to the God of consolation”.
Mother Theresa went through a dry time too. Hang in there with the Church. Get that Scapular back on and renew your Consecration. Estou a torcer e rezar por ti.
Tim, just got Geese in their Hoods, can’t wait to read it. K
Jim, you say Faith is necessary but not sufficient. Not sufficient for what?
Not sufficient to stand before God or walk through them thar pearly gates.
If you say it is, show me where? I see folks who clothed the naked or gave cups of water in Jesus name, kept the Commandments, took up their crosses, repented were Baptized and confessed Jesus, forgave others as they themselves would like to be forgiven, provided for widows, etc. etc.
I don’t see anyone pleading faith in Jesus’ Blood being applied to their ledgers on Judgment Day.
Michael wrote:
“He told me to get Karl Keating’s book (Roman Catholicism and Fundamentalism). The attacks by the ICOC continued, including handing me materials by Jack Chick and Loraine Boetnner’s book on Roman Catholicism. I actually found Keating’s tone and arguments to be offensive and often based on weak and faulty biblical exegesis. I eventually left the Church I had loved. Being of an Italian-Catholic family, it was especially difficult. ”
and:
“I think Jim and Sean Patrick argue here better than anything I’ve ever seen from Keating or other Catholic apologists. I believe in the Real Presence, but in the sense that Christ is present by the Spirit at the Table, that the Table is a special means of grace and the Table is the hightest expression of corporate worship.”
Michael, if you continue to believe in the Real Presence, and that corporate worship involves worshiping the Eucharist in the mass, I would agree that you are still Roman Catholic at heart.
While you have taken a step to hear the gospel, and a short time to consider the gospel, I think that you have rejected it to fall back into the sin of believing in a false gospel on worship. If Jim and Sean Patrick has become your best exegetical examples to why to return to Rome, I share a warning with you from Scripture.
“Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.” (Lk8:12-14)
The Scripture speaks directly to Roman Catholics here:
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Rev.18:4)
If you are looking to Jim and Sean Patrick as your defenders of true biblical exegetical argument, and defining eschatology on that passage, than you are safe to return to Roman Catholicism. They will welcome you back with much joy and I suspect you could even be interviewed on EWTN as you are the perfect case study to say you left the church physically, but never left the church mentally or spiritually. Those are the best cases I’ve seen on EWTN interviews…they leave for a while to go out into the insane (really, truly) Protestant church, and become highly confused. Indeed, I went through 5 different denominations and church ministries before I finally settled on one final 15 years ago. There is some really crazy teachings out there coming from Protestants.
I’m surprised you have lasted this long outside Rome if you have based your separation upon Jack Chick and Loraine Boetnner. I think you need to dig further into some authors that are not of this generation before you return.
Many departed from Jesus because they could not abide the instruction that they had to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. Not only did Jesus not chase after them, He turned to His Apostles and asked, “Will you also leave?” Now, the Apostles no more understood the Bread of Life Discourse than the crowds did, but by faith, Peter, on behalf of the Eleven, said, “To whom would we turn? You have the words of everlasting life.” As for Judas, while he remained silent, the Lord noted that he had already apostatized, and for that reason said, “Is not one of you a devil?”
Michael, I can send you a list of authors that you may want to consider reading before you return to Rome. While I would not agree with you that Jim and Sean Patrick are making powerful arguments on this blog, I would say that compared to Jack Chick and Boettner, they must be very persuasive to you if you truly believe in the Real Presence.
I was asked to send a well known lawyer (consistently rated among the top 3 international lawyers in the world) who I will not name here my top 3 authors. While I have about 20 lawyers that work with me around the world, I am not a fan of lawyers as being the best biblical exegetical students. I firmly believe that the best exegetical minds came out of the high water mark in Christian church history known as the second reformation.
Therefore, I share with you what I shared with him. I’ll not share with you the other two as they are long messages and detailed, but it least you might find a book or two by this author and compare his arguments with Jim and Sean Patrick…if you really do desire to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, MIND and strength.
I know the post is long…but I do hope you find something in it that is helpful to get you to go even further that the authors you have listed that gave you a basis to leave Rome, and those two here that are giving you hope to perhaps return.
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Dear John,
I mentioned in a previous message I would send you my three most favorite Christian authors. The first was George Gillespie, as you received, and the second is Hugh Binning.
Below is some information on him, as well as some arguments at the end of this message, which I feel are relevant to his life and how ultimately I would tie together the Protesters (Covenanter Presbyterians) vs. Resolutioners (“Presbyterian”/Independents). This is the issue at hand:
“The Royalists (whether of the Anglican or Resolutioner “Presbyterian” variety) represented one form of covenant breaking and Cromwell (and his independents and sectarians) represented another. In fact, I call Charles II “the devil of the covenant” and Cromwell “the Judas of the Covenant.” Only the Protesting Presbyterians (Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, James Guthrie, James Renwick, etc.) remained faithful to their vows to God. And many among the faithful remnant of Protesters were called upon by the Lord to seal their testimony with their blood.” http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/crom.htm
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Hugh Binning was son of John Binning and Margaret M’Kell, daughter of Matthew M’Kell, minister of Bothwell, and sister of Hugh M’Kell, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. His father’s worldly circumstances were so good that Hugh was given a very liberal education. Before the age of fourteen, he entered upon the study of philosophy in the University of Glasgow. By the age of nineteen, he became regent and professor of philosophy. After three years as a professor of philosophy, he was called to be minister of Govan, which is adjacent to the city of Glasgow. When the split occurred between the Resolutioners and Protesters, Binning sided with the latter. It is said that the Presbyterians and Independents, disputing before Cromwell while he was in Scotland, Mr. Binning, being present, so managed the controverted points, that he silenced Cromwell’s ministers. After labouring four years in the gospel ministry, Binning died of consumption, in 1653. http://www.covenanter.org/HBinning/hughbinning.htm
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Hugh Binning 1627-1653
Hugh Binning was born at Dalvenan in Ayrshire. His father was a landowner and wealthy enough to give him a liberal education. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1641 at the age of thirteen. A student of exceptional ability, he was taught philosophy by James Dalrymple (subsequently Viscount Stair), and graduate MA ‘with much applause’ in 1646. He then began to study divinity, but when James Dalrymple resigned his post as regent, Binning was strongly encouraged to apply for the position. As was customary at the time, anyone who had ‘a mind to the profession of philosophy’ was invited to make a competitive presentation before the University Senatus. The college masters favored Binning, but the Principal, Dr John Strang, preferred one of the other candidates on grounds of age. When a member of the faculty proposed to resolve the matter by extempore public debate, the alternative candidate withdrew in acknowledgement of his meagre chance against ‘such an able antagonist’. So in November 1646, at the age of only 18, Binning was elected regent in philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Though he had little time to prepare, his lectures were well received, and notable for their sustained attempt to free philosophy in Scotland from the jargon of the schoolmen.
For Binning philosophy was the servant of theology, but this implies that the two be taught in parallel. He thereby forms an important bridge between the 17th century, when philosophy in Scotland was heavily dominated by Calvinism, and the 18th century when figures such as Francis Hutcheson re-asserted a greater degree of independence between the two and allied philosophy with the developing human sciences.
Binning taught at Glasgow for three years before ordination in the Church of Scotland. He resigned his university position to become minister of the parish of Govan near Glasgow and married at the same time. He continued his philosophical and theological studies, and published a highly regarded Treatise on Christian Love. Binning is said to have played a significant part in an open debate between Presbyterians and independents which took place in the presence of Oliver Cromwell in 1651.
Just two years later, in September 1653, Hugh Binning died of consumption, his infant son subsequently inheriting the Fairly estate in Ayrshire. His Collected Works ran to several editions up into the 19th century.
This biographical note is based on the entry for Binning in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography written by Paul Tomassi, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, who died in September 2005 at the age of 43 after a short illness.
http://www.scottishphilosophy.org/hughbinning.html
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http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/binning/biography.html
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Hugh Binning
Scots Worthies by John Howie
Hugh Binning was son of John Binning of Dalvennan, and Margaret M’Kell, daughter of Matthew M’Kell, minister of Bothwell, and sister of Hugh M’Kell, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. His father’s worldly circumstances were so good (being possessed of no inconsiderable estate in the shire of Ayr) that he was enabled to give his son Hugh a very liberal education; the good effects of which appeared very early upon him. For the greatness of his spirit and capacity of judgment gave his parents good grounds to conceive the pleasing hope of his being a promising child. While he was at the grammar school, he made so great proficiency in the knowledge of the Latin tongue, and the Roman authors, that he outstripped his fellow-scholars, even such as were by some years older than himself. When they went to their diversions, he declined their society, and chose to employ himself either in secret duty with God, or conference with religious people, thinking time was too precious to be lavished away in these things. He began to have sweet familiarity with God, and to live in near communion with Him, before others of his years began seriously to lay to heart their lost and undone state and condition by nature; so that before he arrived at the thirteenth or fourteenth year of his age, he had even attained to such experience in the ways of God, that the most judicious and exercised Christians in the place confessed they were much edified, strengthened, and comforted by him. Nay, he provoked them to diligence in the duties of religion, being abundantly sensible that they were much outrun by such a youth.
Before he was fourteen years of age, he entered upon the study of philosophy in the University of Glasgow, wherein he made very considerable progress; by which means he came to be taken notice of in the college by the professors and students, and at the same time advanced remarkably in religion also. The abstruse depths of philosophy, which are the torture of a slow genius and a weak capacity, he dived into without any pain or trouble; so that, by his ready apprehension of things, he was able to do more in one hour than some others could do in many days by hard study and close application; and yet he was ever humble, and never exalted with self-conceit, the common foible of young men.
As soon as his course of philosophy was finished, he obtained the degree of Master of Arts with great applause; and began the study of divinity with a view to serve God in the holy ministry. At this time there happened to be a vacancy in the chair of Philosophy at the college of Glasgow, by the resignation of Mr James Dalrymple of Stair, who had for some time been his master; and though Binning was but lately his scholar, yet he determined, after much entreaty, to stand as a candidate for that post. According to the usual laudable custom, the masters of the college emitted a programme, and sent it to all the universities of the kingdom, inviting such as had a mind for a professorship of philosophy, to sist themselves before them, and offer to compete for the preferment; giving assurance, that without partiality the place would be conferred upon him who should be found most worthy and most learned.
The ministers of the city of Glasgow, considering how much it was the interest of the Church that well qualified persons should be put into the profession of philosophy, and knowing that Mr Binning was eminently pious, and of a bright genius, as well as of solid judgment, requested him to sist himself among the other competitors. They had difficulty to overcome his modesty, but at last prevailed upon him to declare his willingness to undertake the dispute before the masters.
Among others, there were two candidates: one of whom had the advantage of having great interest with Dr Strang, principal of the college at that time; and the other, a scholar of great ability. Yet Mr Binning so managed the dispute, and so acquitted himself in all parts of his trial, that, to the conviction of the judges, he distanced his rivals, and threw them completely into the shade. But the doctor, and some of the faculty who joined him, though they could not pretend that the person they inclined to prefer had an equality, much less a superiority, in the dispute, yet argued, that this person they intended was a citizen’s son, of a competency of learning, and a person of more years, and by that means had greater experience than what Mr Binning, who was in a manner but of yesterday, could be supposed to have. To this it was replied, that Mr Binning was such a pregnant scholar, so wise and sedate, as to be above all the follies and vanities of youth, and what was wanting in years was made up sufficiently by his more than ordinary and singular endowments. Whereupon, a member of the faculty, perceiving the struggle to be great (as, indeed, there were plausible reasons on both sides), proposed a dispute betwixt the two candidates extempore, upon any subject they should be pleased to prescribe. This being considered, soon put a period to the division amongst them, and those who had opposed him, not being willing to engage their friend with such an able antagonist a second time, Mr Binning was elected.
Binning was not quite nineteen years of age when he became regent and professor of philosophy; and though he had not time to prepare a system of any part of his profession, as he had instantly to begin his class, yet such was the quickness and fertility of his invention, the tenacity of his memory, and the solidity of his judgment, that his dictates to his scholars had depth of learning, and perspicuity of expression. He was among the first in Scotland who began to reform philosophy from the barbarous terms and unintelligible jargon of the schoolmen.
Binning continued in this profession three years, and discharged his trust so as to gain the general applause of the university for academical exercises. And this was the more remarkable, for, having turned his thoughts towards the ministry, he carried on his theological studies at the same time, and made great improvements therein; his memory being so retentive that he scarcely forgot anything he had read or heard. It was easy and ordinary for him to transcribe any sermon, after he returned to his chamber, at such a length that the intelligent and judicious reader, who had heard it preached, would not find one sentence wanting.
During this period, he gave full proof of his progress and knowledge in divinity, by a composition from 2 Cor. 5:14, “For the love of Christ constraineth us,” which performance he sent to a gentlewoman who had been some time at Edinburgh, for her private edification. Having perused the same, she judged it to have been a sermon of some eminent minister in the west of Scotland, and put it into the hands of the then provost of Edinburgh, who judged of it in the same manner; but when she returned to Glasgow she found her mistake, by Mr Binning asking it from her. This was the first discovery he had given of his dexterity and ability in explaining the Scriptures.
At the expiration of three years as a professor of philosophy, the parish of Govan, which lies adjacent to the city of Glasgow, happened to be vacant. Before this time, whoever was Principal of the College of Glasgow, was also minister there; but this being attended with inconveniences, an alteration was made; and the presbytery having a view to supply that vacancy with Mr Binning, took him upon trials, in order to be licensed a preacher. Having preached there to the great satisfaction of the people, he was some time after called to be minister of Govan; which call the presbytery approved of, and entered him upon trials for ordination about the twenty-second year of his age. These he went through, to the unanimous approbation of the presbytery; who gave their testimony to his fitness to be one of the ministers of the city upon the first vacancy, having a view at the same time to bring him back to the university, whenever the professorship of divinity should be vacant.
He was, considering his age, a prodigy of learning; for before he had arrived at the twenty-sixth year of his life, he had such a large stock of useful knowledge, as to be philologus, philosophus, et theologus eximius (philologist, philosopher, and excellent theologian); and might well have been an ornament to the most famous and flourishing university in Europe. This was the more surprising, considering his weakness and infirmity of body, as not being able to read much at a time, nor to undergo the fatigue of continual study; insomuch that his knowledge seemed rather to have been born with him, than to have been acquired by hard and laborious study.
Though he was bookish and much intent upon the fulfilling of his ministry, yet he turned his thoughts to marriage, and did espouse a virtuous and excellent person, Barbara Simpson, daughter of Mr James Simpson, a minister in Ireland. Upon the day he was to be married, he went, accompanied with his friend and some others (among whom were several worthy ministers), unto an adjacent country congregation, upon the day of the weekly sermon. The minister of the parish delayed sermon till they would come, hoping to put the work upon one of them; but all declining it, he tried next to prevail on the bridegroom, with whom he succeeded, though the invitation was not expected. It was no difficult task to him to preach upon a short warning. Stepping aside a little to premeditate, and implore his Master’s presence and assistance (for he was ever afraid to be alone in this work), he entered the pulpit immediately, and preached upon 1 Pet 1:15, “But as He that called you is holy,” etc. At which time he was so remarkably helped, that all acknowledged that God was with him of a truth.
When the unhappy differences occurred betwixt the Resolutioners and Protesters, Binning espoused the cause of the latter party.
[This serious division is so often referred to in the present volume, that a few explanatory remarks regarding it may here be introduced with advantage. The origin of the controversy may be traced as far back as the year 1647. In that year, when it became known that King Charles I. was a prisoner in the hands of the English, the tide of feeling, which had run strong against him for a considerable time, began to turn in his favour. A party was formed, headed by the Marquis of Hamilton, and supported by almost all the nobles, except Argyle, for the purpose of delivering the king from his unworthy bondage, and restoring him to his constitutional rights and privileges. The best of the Covenanters foresaw the danger, and sounded the alarm; but nothing could resist the tide of loyalty which had now set in, and already swept with mighty force over the land. The Marquis of Hamilton was soon at the head of an army, consisting not only of the old Royalists, but of many who had signed the Covenant. With this army he entered England, but was soon totally routed by Cromwell at the battle of Preston. This defeat, while it extinguished the hopes of his party, also widened the breach which had already been made between them and those who had stood aloof from their movement, and whom they not unnaturally blamed for their want of success. The once united body of Covenanters was thus split into two great parties: the Engagers, so called from the engagement which the Marquis of Hamilton had entered into with the king; and the strict Covenanters, who were under the leadership of Warriston and Argyle. This breach was still further widened by an Act passed in the Parliament of 1649, called the “Act of Classes,” according to which the various classes of Malignants (as they were called) or Engagers, were declared incapable of holding any office of public trust or employment for a longer or shorter period. The immediate result of this Act was to throw the entire management of public affairs into the hands of the strict Covenanters. But these, having taken up the cause of King Charles II, and having been defeated by Cromwell at the fatal battle of Dunbar (Sept 1, 1650), the Engagers returned to power, the “Act of Classes” was repealed, and a new army was levied, which to a great extent was commanded, officered, and filled by Malignants or Anti-Covenanters. Strange to say, this met with the approval of the Church. Forsaking her proper sphere, and forgetful of the spirit by which hitherto she had been animated, the Church now issued Resolutions in favour of these proceedings, against which, however, a large and influential minority boldly and strenuously protested. Such was the origin of the controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, a controversy which raged with unabated animosity for many years, and which bred most disastrous results to the Scottish Church and nation. – EDITOR]
Binning saw some of the fatal consequences of these divisions in his own time, and being of a catholic and healing spirit, he wrote, with a view to the cementing of differences, an excellent treatise on Christian love, which contains very strong and pathetic passages, most apposite to the subject. He was no fomenter of factions, but was studious of the public tranquillity. He was a man of moderate principles and temperate passions, never imposing upon or overbearing others, but willingly hearkened to advice, and always yielded to reason.
The prevailing of the English sectaries under Oliver Cromwell, to the overthrow of the Presbyterian interest in England, and the various attempts which they made in Scotland on the constitution and discipline of the Church, were the greatest difficulties which the ministers had then to struggle with. Upon this, he hath many excellent reflections in his sermons, particularly in that from Deut 32:4,5.
It is said that the Presbyterians and Independents, disputing before Cromwell while he was in Scotland, in or about Glasgow, Mr Binning being present, so managed the points controverted, that he not only nonplussed Cromwell’s ministers, but even put them to shame; which, after the dispute, made Cromwell ask the name of that learned and bold young man; and being told his name was Hugh Binning, he said, “He hath bound well indeed,” but, clapping his hand on his sword, said, “This will loose all again.”
After he had laboured four years in the ministry, serving God with his spirit in the gospel of His Son, he died in 1653, of a consumption, when he was scarcely come to the prime and vigour of his life, being only in the 26th year of his age; leaving behind him a sweet savour, and an epistle of commendation, upon the hearts of those who were his hearers.
He was a person of singular piety, of a humble, meek, and peaceable temper; a judicious and lively preacher; nay, so extraordinary a person, that he was justly accounted a prodigy of human learning and knowledge of divinity. From his childhood he knew the Scriptures, and from a boy had been much under deep and spiritual exercise, until the time, or a little before, that he entered upon the office of the ministry; when he came to a great calm and tranquillity of mind, being mercifully relieved from all these doubtings which for a long time he had been exercised with.
Though he studied in his discourses to condescend to the capacity of the meaner sort of hearers, yet it must be owned, that his gift of preaching was not so much accommodated to a country congregation, as it was to the judicious and learned. Binning’s method was peculiar to himself, much after the haranguing way. He was no stranger to the rules of art, and knew well how to make his matter subservient to the subject he handled. His diction and language were easy and fluent, void of all affectation and bombast, and had a kind of undesigned negligent elegance, which arrested the hearers’ attention. Considering the time he lived in, it might be said that he carried the orator’s prize from his contemporaries in Scotland, and was not inferior to the best pulpit orator in England at that time. While he lived he was highly esteemed, having been a successful instrument of saving himself, and them that heard him; of turning sinners unto righteousness, and of perfecting the saints. He died much lamented by all good people who had the opportunity of knowing him. That great divine, Mr James Durham, gave him this verdict: “That there was no speaking after Mr Binning;” and truly he had the tongue of the learned, and knew how to speak a word in season.
Besides his “Works,” and a paper written upon occasion of the already mentioned dispute between the Resolutioners and the Protesters, some other little pieces of his have been published since. There is also a book in quarto, said to be his, entitled, “A Useful Case of Conscience, learnedly and acutely discussed and resolved, concerning association and confederacies with idolaters, heretics, malignants, etc,” first printed in 1693, which was like to have had some influence at that time upon King William’s soldiers while in Flanders; which made him suppress it, and raise a prosecution against Mr James Kid for publishing the same at Utrecht, in the Netherlands.
This article on Hugh Binning is from John Howie’s Scots Worthies, first published 1775, revised and enlarged 1781. Revised from the author’s original edition, by Rev W H Carslaw, (Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter and Company, 1870), pp 207-214.
Editorial notes in square brackets were inserted by Rev W H Carslaw, who stated in his preface:
“Nothing new has been inserted without being carefully marked; and even these insertions have been made as few and brief as possible, their principle object being to supply important historical links for the reader’s information and guidance. A few of Howie’s notes have also been put into the text where this could easily be done, and several verbal corrections have been made.”
FOLLOW THIS LINK FOR MORE SCOTS WORTHIES: Scots Worthies – John Howie
http://www.reformation-scotland.org.uk/scots-worthies/hugh-binning/
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If you further study the document called “The Grand Debate Concerning Presbytery and Independency by the Assembly of Divines convened at Westminster by Authority of Parliament” (1648) it will give you the biblical arguments that effected the life of Hugh Binning later before his death (1653).
The Grand Debate settled for me in my own biblical understanding the difference between Independent form of church government, and Presbyterian form of church government. After the second reformation came to an end in 1649, and the Independents/Erastians took control to a large degree from the true Presbyterians. If you want to study the arguments, this is a good document here for the summary:
http://www.covenanter.org/RefPres/actdeclarationandtestimony/acttitle.htm
Arguably one of the greatest Independents ever is Dr. John Owen (1616-1683). It is alleged that he may have been persuaded at the end of his life that Presbyterianism is in fact divinely appointed biblical church government. Certainly it is my view, but I will leave you to your own research. Here is a quote on Owen which is subject to debate:
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Owen himself (Works XVI:2) told several men that he could readily join with Presbytery the way it was exercised in Scotland. Moreover, historian Wodrow in his own [1716] Analecta (1842 ed. 2:263 & 2:309) records:
“Blackwell tells…he had this account of Owen at his death from persons who were with him — that he expressed himself very much in favour of Presbyterian Government, and said he was persuaded that Presbytery was the way to God….
“Redpath told me…he visited Dr. Owen on his deathbed, and Presbytery and Episcopacy came to be discoursed of…. The Doctor said how he had seen his mistake as to the Independent way, and declared to him a day or two before his death that after his utmost search into the Scriptures and antiquity, he was now satisfied that Presbytery was the way Christ had appointed in His New Testament Church.”
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The influence of John Owen on the growth of Independent church government cannot be underestimated, and most have never read the debates between the Resolutioners and Protesters, let alone the Covenanter Presbyterians and Independents (e.g., Grand Debate). Owen was a major influence in Oliver Cromwell’s life.
“Thus, when Richard Cromwell succeeded his father as chancellor, Owen lost his vice-chancellorship. In 1658 he took a leading part in the conference of Independents which drew up the Savoy Declaration (the doctrinal standard of Congregationalism which was based upon the Westminster Confession of Faith). On Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658, Owen joined the Wallingford House party, and though he denied any share in the deposition of Richard Cromwell, he preferred the idea of a simple republic to that of a protectorate.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Owen_%28theologian%29
If interested, I have included a “summary” of the Grand Debate between the Presbyterians and Independents for your own consideration. That is all for now.
I’ll send the third and final favorite author shortly. Thank you for your kind patience.
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Jim wrote:
“Michael, Get back to the Church while you still can! You have a computer. You have the world at your finger tips. Start studying and talk to your Catholic friends.
If you are doubting, this is not the blog to be on. Go to Jason’s or Called to Communion. Kevin and Tim are the last guys you should be talking to.”
While I’m sure that Jason blog or called to communion are just amazing Catholic blogs, I would encourage anyone to ignore the blogs, and go to the heart of the first and second reformation authors and read what they said about Roman Catholicism. You will not find ANY and I mean ANY excellent arguments against Roman Catholicism from ANY modern author in our generation.
The ONLY authors that represent the truly biblical position on Scripture come out of the first and second reformations. These men were “within” the Roman Catholic system, learned in it and had to come out of it knowing their blood would be shed. It is one thing to leave a church knowing you might have family upset, but another knowing your life would be taken.
Those Catholic blogs cannot hold a burning candle to the works written by great Christian ministers of the first and second reformations. I would encourage Michael to get off the blogs, and get into the real meat as written by great ministers.
Luther himself believed in the Real Presence. Do not be as the Pharisees, who cross the sea to win a convert, and when he is won make him twice the child of Gehenna as themselves.
Michael,
If you don’t have the time or patience to read the entire background on Binning above, here is a short quote of some key points I thought that might fit with your own soft personality toward Christian love.
“He was, considering his age, a prodigy of learning; for before he had arrived at the twenty-sixth year of his life, he had such a large stock of useful knowledge, as to be philologus, philosophus, et theologus eximius (philologist, philosopher, and excellent theologian); and might well have been an ornament to the most famous and flourishing university in Europe. This was the more surprising, considering his weakness and infirmity of body, as not being able to read much at a time, nor to undergo the fatigue of continual study; insomuch that his knowledge seemed rather to have been born with him, than to have been acquired by hard and laborious study.
Binning saw some of the fatal consequences of these divisions in his own time, and being of a catholic and healing spirit, he wrote, with a view to the cementing of differences, an excellent treatise on Christian love, which contains very strong and pathetic passages, most apposite to the subject. He was no fomenter of factions, but was studious of the public tranquillity. He was a man of moderate principles and temperate passions, never imposing upon or overbearing others, but willingly hearkened to advice, and always yielded to reason.
After he had laboured four years in the ministry, serving God with his spirit in the gospel of His Son, he died in 1653, of a consumption, when he was scarcely come to the prime and vigour of his life, being only in the 26th year of his age; leaving behind him a sweet savour, and an epistle of commendation, upon the hearts of those who were his hearers.
He was a person of singular piety, of a humble, meek, and peaceable temper; a judicious and lively preacher; nay, so extraordinary a person, that he was justly accounted a prodigy of human learning and knowledge of divinity. From his childhood he knew the Scriptures, and from a boy had been much under deep and spiritual exercise, until the time, or a little before, that he entered upon the office of the ministry; when he came to a great calm and tranquillity of mind, being mercifully relieved from all these doubtings which for a long time he had been exercised with.”
Jim, said ” if so show me where?” Romans 5:1 ” having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Aorist past participle that brings peace not a cease fire or a wait for a final exam. John 5:24 says those who believe pass out of judgment, from death to life. At the moment we believe we are adopted sons. adoption doesn’t happen at the end but the beginning.
Kevin, Adopted sons, sons, can be sent away from the father’s house if they beat the mother and siblings. Still a son but not in fellowship.
And what about my statement that we do store up treasures (merits) in heaven?
Our good works do earn a reward.
And our sins store up judgment against us. If we turn away from righteousness and return to sin, we shall be worse off than them who never believed. Now, it is impossible that anyone in Heaven could ever be worse off than the damned; it follows then that anyone who is worse than an unbeliever must be damned, and not only damned, but condemned to suffer worse than the unbelievers. For indeed there are degrees of suffering in Hell, and for this reason Jesus warned the unrepentant towns that Judgment Day will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them.
Jim, the only problem with your stance is Jesus says he loses none that the father gives him.
Our worlds earn a reward but not our justification before God, that is always and ever by faith. ” Abraham believed god sand it was counted to him as righteousness.
Tim,
Your new article on mysticism won’t hook a lot of comments. Too…, I don’t know..esoteric maybe. Nobody can affirm or deny another’s experience. And we aren’t supposed to seek them. Nobody on this blog knows enough about that stuff to get worked up.
Were you just reacting to my quotes from Theresa of Avila? Never read her stuff but I have been to the walled city in Spain.
The guy who translated her stuff into English for the Penguin Classic, Roy Campbell, is buried close to me. He was a writer, poet and bull fighter. C.S. Lewis loathed him as a Catholic drunk and loud mouth. Big Franco supporter ( as I would have been ). His very old daughter ( Theresa )was a neighbor of mine til she died.
That’s all I know about Theresa of Avila other than she floated in the air and used a block of wood as a pillow. Wasted your writing skills I think on this one Tim.
Thanks, Jim. I wasn’t reacting to your comments on Teresa of Ávila. I was responding to evangelical ministers who are so eager to commend counter-reformational mystics to their flock. I’m not too worried about generating comments.
Thanks!
Tim
Tim,
You mean I am going nutty? I post comments to two people in which I quote St. Theresa and the very next day…
How about Santarem? C’mon! You learned about it from me.
Fr. Most? My guy!
And don’t tell me you had ever heard of Dominico before I mentioned him.
Prove me right. Write about Franco. I read that he made Mary the General of his army and commissioned a convent to make scapulars for his crusaders to reconquer Spain. Please. A few lines?
I also read he gave orders to have every mason of the 18th degree shot without a trial. A very controversial fellow.
Jim,
I presented a paper at a conference a couple years back in which I highlighted the fascination Tim Keller had with the Spanish and French mystics, Ignatius, Teresa, John and Francis. Also, I addressed the Eucharistic Miracle of Santarem in my 1994 book, Graven Bread, to which book you have objected occasionally in this forum. I also am familiar with Fr. Most, as you can see in my 1996 article, Quid Pro Canon.
That said, I do take your comments seriously, and I occasionally include references in my blog posts either because you said something on a relevant topic, or in anticipation of what you might say in response. So I won’t deny that I occasionally include items in my posts based on your comments. However, in this case, I had just exposed Keller’s and Warren’s adoption of the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, and a sequel on their fascination with counter-reformational mystics seemed to flow naturally.
It is true. I did not know of Fr. Domenico before you mentioned him. I have found his book on St. Joseph to be full of interesting material.
Thanks, as always, for your participation here,
Best regards,
Tim
Tim, did you turn off the comments on your new post?
Not intentionally. I have updated it to include comments. Thanks for asking–I didn’t realize it until you asked.
Tim
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1024091952130
Summary for the testimony above:
An amazing testimony from former Roman Catholic priest, Richard Bennett, chronicling his journey from the very belly of the Roman Catholic beast, to the marvelous light of God’s free and sovereign grace.
Knowledgeable in languages, history and theology, Richard Bennett, who is now a Calvinist, demonstrates how Arminianism is essentially Roman Catholic heresy — while showing how the errors inherent in Arminianism and Arminian preaching, especially concerning evangelism, greatly confused and hindered him as he was leaving the Roman Catholic Church. The decisional regeneration heresy of modern Arminianism is cited as being particularity potent in Satan’s hands. The section against Roman Catholicism and Arminianism starts about 17:38 into this testimony.
Free will has long been the mainstay of the Romish Antichrist, but our Reformed forefathers were not fooled by this humanistic lie of the devil.
For example, both Martin Luther (in his debate with the Roman Catholic scholar Erasmus, see Luther’s Bondage of the Will) and John Calvin (see Calvin’s response to the Dutch Roman Catholic theologian Albert Pighius, in his Bondage and Liberation of the Will) faithfully defended the teaching of Scripture against the Roman Catholic (and Arminian) belief in free will.
In his testimony in this MP3 Richard Bennett does the same, illustrating how the same great battles of the First and Second Reformations continue to rage in our day.
Walt,
Ahem! Yeah. Well I actually knew the man. He is not “knowledgable”. He was a student of lapsed Catholic layman Bill Webster. A priest who has to be taught by a layman is hardly the smartest priest on the block.
Jim,
Can you provide to me a really smart priest to hear speak so I might evaluate their theological arguments? I’m leaving town on Monday early morning out of town for a week, but I will be back for 2 weeks afterwards and would be more than happy to research your recommendations.
I would very much like to listen/learn from someone you think at the top of their game so to speak in debunking Protestant views about Catholicism, or even someone who debunks Bennett above. So far, your arguments have not been persuasive as they were to others here on the blog, but I’m more than willing to read or listen to someone you think is persuasive. Maybe he will get me to return to Rome!
Except Genesis 4 affirms free will, for God Himself said that Cain was capable of choosing to reject sin. “Sin is a demon lurking, his urge is toward you, but you can be his master.”
http://www.truecovenanter.com/gospel/arminianism_another_gospel.html
“Arminianism is the very essence of Popery. Christopher Ness of St. John’s College, Cambridge, a Puritan divine, in his treatise “An Antidote Against Arminianism,” recommended by the great Dr. John Owen, writes, “As blessed Athanasius sighed out in his day, ‘The world is overrun with Arianism; so it is the sad sigh of our present times, the Christian world is overrun, yea, overwhelmed with the flood of Arminianism; which cometh as it were, out of the mouth of the serpent, that he might cause the woman (the Church) to be carried away of the flood thereof.’ [Rev. 12.15.] He quotes Mr. Rous, Master of Eton College, as saying, ‘Arminianism is the spawn of Popery, which the warmth of favour may easily turn into frogs of the bottomless pit,’ and Dr. Alexander Leighton who calls Arminianism ‘the Pope’s Benjamin, the last and greatest monster of the man of sin: the elixir of Anti-Christianism; the mystery of the mystery of iniquity; the Pope’s cabinet; the very quintessence of equivocation.'”
During the Arminian regime of Archbishop Laud, the persecutor of the Puritans and the Covenanters, zealous Arminians were promoted to the best bishoprics. A famous letter written by a Jesuit to the Rector of Brussels and endorsed by Laud himself was found in his study at Lambeth. A copy of this letter was found among the papers of a society of priests and Jesuits at Clerkenwell in 1627. The following is an extract: ‘Now we have planted the Sovereign Drug Arminianism which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresy; and it flourisheth and beareth fruit in due season… I am at this time transported with joy to see how happily all instruments and means, as well as great or smaller, cooperate with our purposes. But to return to the main fabric: OUR FOUNDATION IS ARMINIANISM.’ (S.G.U. Publication No. 173, p. 142).”
Walt,
Why would a Calvinist want to be a Bishop?
JBFA is anti sacramental.
I’m not sure I understand the question. Can you be more specific?
Calvinists reject the episcopacy and the ministerial priesthood. They have to, else they would have to confess that Confession and the Anointing of the Sick effect the forgiveness of sins, which is antithetical to their doctrine, but is taught by Scripture.
Walt, I’ve heard Bennett before, great stuff, thanks for the link.
Jim, JBFA isn’t anti sacramental. But the sacraments are given their rightful administration. Which isn’t ex opere operate meriting of increases of salvation, but simply gifts of God as a sign seal and confirmation of god’s grace. Faith has always been the entry point for Jesus and Paul into this holistic salvation. In fact John says in 1 John by our faith we have overcome the world. The whole sphere of salvation is by faith and JBFA undergirds the whole of it including sanctification and glorification. Anyone trusting their works, even their grace enabled works to get them to heaven will find outer darkness according to scripture. In fact anyone trusting is anything or anyone other than Christ alone is in a false gospel. If a Romanist wants to be saved by grace alone. it will have to be by faith alone. Romans 4:16.
The Scriptures put the lie to that claim: “Is there anyone sick among you? Let him call for the presbyters, and they will anoint his head with oil and pray over him, and the prayer of faith will save him, and the Lord raise him up, and if he has committed any sins, they will be forgiven.” -James 5:14-15
Now there are a few things to note about this passage:
1. The sick person is told to call the presbyters, not just anyone.
2. The prayer of faith will save him- it is the presbyter(s) who are praying this prayer of faith, not the sick person.
3. The Anointing effects the forgiveness of sins.
Walt, truly this world is overcome by Arminianism which is nothing new as we see the serpent raise his head as the semi pelagian gospels have raised up over the history of the church. We must smite it. It is the source of so many lost souls. And as Charismaticism and Popery are strange bed friends, the arminian threat is as real today.
With Tim’s new post on counter reformation mystic theology out of the Jesuits, it makes me want to tie together Arminianism with the Jesuit counter reformation if that can be linked. I don’t know, but I would like to find the source documents if the Jesuit quote above is sourced correct.
This could be the key to the link between what literally destroyed the Protestant churches as the Jesuit claims above. I just don’t have the research yet on the links between them.
According to your doctrine, you speak the impossible, for them that believe the lie were destined to believe the lie and be damned from the foundation of the world.
You can see why they hated Calvin so much…see his commentary.
“As to the pretended example, they were so blind as not to distinguish between themselves and Abraham; for he was commanded to offer his son, (Genesis 22:2;) but they, without any command, attempted to do the same thing; this was extreme presumption. As to Abraham, he obeyed God; and he could not have been led astray, when he knew that such a sacrifice was approved by God. But when the Jews emulated his zeal, it was an extreme folly; and they were especially culpable, because they neglected God’s command and wholly disregarded it. They were, however, so far carried away by their own wantonness as to cast their own children into the fire, and under the pretense of piety: so great and so savage a cruelty prevailed among them.
We hence perceive that there is no end of sinning, when men give themselves up to their own inventions; for God surrenders those to Satan, that they may be led by the spirit of giddiness and of madness and of stupidity. Let us therefore learn ever to regard what God approves: and let this be the very beginning of our inquiry, whenever we undertake anything, whether God commands it; and this course ought especially to be observed with regard to his worship; for, as it has been already stated, religion is especially founded on faith, and faith is based on the word of God: and hence it is here added —
Which I commanded them not, and which never came to my mind. This reason ought to be carefully noticed, for God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, “I have not commanded them,” whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions, than that they are not commanded by God: for when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to his commands, they pervert true religion.
And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship, in which they absurdly exercise themselves, would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears.
Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet’s words then are very important, when he says, that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind; as though he had said, that men assume too much wisdom, when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.”
http://m.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom17.xvii.xxvi.html?device=mobile
Boys,
Did you happen to read on the other blog Mikel’s post asking why God didn’t just create us in heaven or hell. In a monergistic system, it would sure save a lot of hassle by cutting to the chase.
Jim, Mikel is 2 bricks shy of a load. How would God be glorified if he would just create us in heaven and hell. Monergism is about God’s glory. Romans 4:16 says he guarantees salvation to all who believe, that so he get immediate glory. “With man its impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This is what he said to the Apostles after talking to the Rich Young ruler. Catholicism is about man’s glory, and Christianity is about God’s glory. Without inherent grace and merit the RC would fall. You have made a savior out of inherent grace and merit. Salvation comes from the Lord Psalms says, and it is god who justifies. Salvation for the Reformed is about the good news that comes from outside us and it is by faith, which is god’s gift to us. Words like called, chosen, predestined make life hard for your false religion which is about you and the rubbish Rome has piled on to obscure god’s glory. Tell Mikel to come over and read this, and she can have her bank account full. K
Kevin, Mikel’s gotcha’! Your answer is silly.
Monergism says God is going to put you in heaven. Period. Why not fast forward past this life? How does spending 70 years on earth or 7 seconds more one bit of difference?
Walt, great post.
Tim, do you believe the worship of the wafer with the sun rays in the Jesuit cup is worshiping the pagan sun God? Thx
Kevin
I meant to answer you on this some time ago, and it slipped off my radar. It is an interesting proposition, and certainly worth exploring, especially in light of the many pagan practices incorporated into Rome’s worship. Rome did, after all, “receive the Roman Empire,” as Taylor Marshall has informed us in his recent book, Eternal City: Rome and the Origins of Catholic Christianity.
To that end, it is interesting that Marshall makes some hay with the celebration of “sol invictus,” one of several Roman sun gods. But Marshall doesn’t link it to the Eucharist. He links it to the alleged dating of Jesus’ birthday, December 25th. Marshall says “Emperor Auralian introduced the cult of the Sol Invictus or Unconquered Sun to Rome in 274 AD.” He goes on to explain that Aurelian had not set a date for celebrating the birthday of the unconquered sun, and the date of Dec 25 was not established until 354. He then shows that there was evidence of Dec 25th being the celebration of Jesus’ birth prior to Dec 311. All this is an interesting stretch of the imagination, and looks to me like a faltering attempt to baptize a pagan holiday and call it Christian.
All that is to say that adopting rituals and festivals of pagan sun deities is not out of character for Rome, and there may be a link between wafer worship and sun worship.
Thanks,
Tim
Well you could fool me, Tim. The ostensorium/monstrance sure looked like a stylized representation of the sun with a little glass door for the wafer in the middle of it.
Bob, How many montrances have you NOT seen?
I have scene some that are crosses, little castles with saints in the window, a crown of thorn and my favorite, Mary with the Host in her womb.
Thanks, Bob,
My only point was to differentiate between practices that are known to adopted from pagans outright (e.g., the office of pontifex maximus, the geographic unit of a diocese, the basilica, etc….) and those which are not so easily traced. In the case of the former, Roman Catholics not only acknowledge that they adopted Roman practices—they actually revel in them. I just haven’t seen the detailed data on the link between the wafer and the sun god, aside from the point that the sun and the wafer are both round.
Thanks, and I’ll certainly be happy to look further into it.
Best,
Tim
Tim,
So there is no Christmas tree, no Nativity scene, no carols, no joy at your house?
Jim,
At my home, “believing, [we] rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Yes, we do. Although in December I rarely hesitate to point out that Jesus was probably born during, and in fulfillment of, the Feast of Tabernacles (or literally, Sukkot, meaning stable (Genesis 33:17)), during which is it customary to live for eight days in a stable. Because the Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated in September, 9 months after December, December is the likely month of His conception, the first moment of His incarnation.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim, I got great news for your kids! Hanukah, was celebrated at in winter. And Jesus seems to have kept the feast as He was in the temple at that time.
OOPS! Sorry Tim, I was too hasty on the send button. March 25 is when the Incarnation took place so it is only logical Dec 25 is the nativity.
Jesus commanded you to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, but you say, “How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink?” Jesus said that you must gnaw on His Flesh and drink His Blood, but you despise His Commandment. Jesus reveals that the Eucharist is really His Flesh and Blood, yet you still do not believe. Jesus begs you to adore and eat Him, but instead you blaspheme Him and slander His faithful ones as idolaters. You are like the Sanhedrin, who heard Jesus claim to be the Son of God and condemned Him to death for blasphemy, though they had seen His works. By the Power of the Eucharist, demons are cast out, but still you call the Eucharist the work of demons. Witches and Satanists know that the Eucharist is Jesus; on account of their hatred of Him, they steal the Eucharist from Catholic churches (and never from Protestant churches) that they may desecrate Him, mocking His Passion and subjecting Him to all manner of abuse, even though He cannot be physically injured because He is risen.
What would it take for you to believe? Would you believe if a dead man came back to life upon being touched by the Eucharist? Would you believe if Moses and Elijah came back from Heaven and personally testified to the Real Presence? Would you believe if demons trembled saying, “I know who You are, You are the Holy One of God!” Would you believe if Heaven opened and the Father said, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?” Or will you choose to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, referring to even the most obvious works of God as works of the devil, and thereby condemning yourselves to Hell?
Andrew, You would make a great Politician. You forgot to tell us what we already know that the mass is a work on the part of man to merit extra righteousness on your treadmill to inherent perfection, is a re breaking of Christ’s body efficacious for the participant and his dead friends, and an opportunity for you to propitiate your own temporal punishment. Trent anathematizes anyone who says it isn’t a real sacrifice, sacrificium. So don’t tell us its a re presentation, because you would be disagreeing with your own doctrine. All this when the bible clearly teaches there is one sacrifice for sins at the consummation of the ages that put sin away and perfected all those for who Christ died. And Hebrews 10:18 says NO more sacrifices for sin. It is blanket across history. You see Andrew He said it was finished. Christ didn’t come to make salvation possible if your good enough, He came to save us. He didn’t come to put us in a redeemable state, He came to redeem a people for himself. We are said to be justified by His blood and by faith. Both in the Aorist past tense. For you the good news it isn’t finished, you have to save yourself, and if you get there you get there, and if you don’t, you don’t. You can never know your saved, the threat of a mortal sin throwing you out. And frankly without Purgatory Romanism is hard sell. You make Him an eternal victim and you won’t let Him off the cross. You have Him tied to the altar. Let Him off please. He has Risen and He said he accomplished all that the Father gave Him to do. He redeemed us, saved us, and justified us. Thats why its called Good News. Paul says if He wasn’t raised we are still in our sins and our faith is useless. His point is He was raised and we are no longer in our sins. Our righteousness isn’t derived from His, it is His righteousness. Philippians 3:9.
Andrew said” you must know on his flesh and drink his blood.” How can you do this? His physical body is in heaven. Augustine said Christ isn’t in the bread but the one taking the bread. Christ feeds our faith thru the Spirit and faith and the Word. Incidentally how are your Priests able to separate the blood in the cup from the body if it is substantially Him? Hocus Pocus? the words said by the Priest in Latin at the mass? If the mass is an unbloody sacrifice, how can it be his substantial blood? Hocus Pocus? O’brien says the Priest pulls Christ down from heaven and offers Him up. Wow what power. Unfortunately Christ said no one takes his life from Him, He offered it of his own volition by the Spirit. You can go to 10000 masses Andrew and not have enough justice or sanctifying grace for heaven. So your abominable church has rendered Christ imperfect and his sacrifice imperfect. Sounds like the OT system of sacrifice. The scripture said He offered himself ONCE and for all epiphax, never to be repeated or continued. Christ’s incarnation is finished and it accomplished and applied what was intended forgiveness of sins and salvation. You are finishing His incarnation thru the acts of the church, thru an ontological virtue climb to perfection. But Paul says in romans 4:5 God justifies the UNGODLY, apart from works, thru faith, by crediting the faith as righteousness. We don’t eat increases of justice and grace thru the work of the mass, we are saved by faith alone and Christ alone. The Sacrament becomes what it was intended to be the confirmation of God’s free grace and the remembrance of his sacrifice. He truly feeds our faith the meal at a table, not a re sacrifice at an altar. Jesus said God was looking for worshipers who worship in SPIRIT and in truth, not someone who worships the elements and follows the monstrance around in the street. Christ left us the Spirit and said He would not eat again with us until He comes again. We partake of the bread and the fruit of the vine spiritually. We don’t eat increases of grace and justice ex opere operato as we cooperate our way to heaven. A sacrament is not a work of man to merit extra righteousness, it is gift of God to confirm his grace and strengthen our faith. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to believe, John 6. At the end of that passage He tells his disciples the words I speak to you are Spirit, the FLESH profits nothing. All of John is in this analogal language. Jesus said He is the vine, it does not make him a tree. He said He is the shepherd, does not mean he is going to show up at your door and sheer little Suzzy.
Andrew, Corinthians 11: 23 ” that the Lord Jesus in the night that He was betrayed took the BREAD and when He had given thanks , He broke it ( didn’t store it in a tabernacle) and said” this is my body, which is for you, do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after the supper, saying “this cup is the New covenant in my blood” ( Was the cup literally the New Covenant); do this, as often as you drink it ( the cup, not as often as you drink my blood) in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this BREAD and drink the CUP, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. If he is the bread He won’t have to come again Andrew. He is there. It is a remembrance and a proclamation as we feed off his flesh spiritually by faith and the Spirit. Rome demolishes the incarnation ascension parousia with an over realized eschatology. The Roman church substitutes as the natural body of Christ and collapses the head into the body into one Totus Christus. The church the believer the Eucharist are collapsed into the historical body of Christ and they usurp the place of the Spirit of Christ who mediates the relationship between heaven and earth in the already/ not yet. It is God who has dominion on the Soul not the church. The church can lead us to Christ but only the spirit can bring fiducia to the heart. Only the Spirit can bring Word to the Heart which justifies us.
Andrew,
“Witches and Satanists know that the Eucharist is Jesus; on account of their hatred of Him, they steal the Eucharist from Catholic churches (and never from Protestant churches)”
Bingo! Nobody has ever heard of a “Black Bible Study” either. Only Black Masses.
Tim knows the Eucharist is Jesus. I really believe he does.
Ever hear that gay activist named Dan Savage rant against the Catholic Church? I get the same feeling from Tim’s anti Eucharist and anti Mary stuff. It’s a case of “Methinks thou dost protest too much”. Tim has issues. Kevin is just nuts.
Jim, you are offering all the lurkers here salvation on the installment plan, lay away for all those who have done enough work in penance, the mass to merit enough increase in justice. Do you ever think to yourself I belong to a church that sells Christ’s merits and the saint’s merits ( indulgences), that sells masses for the dead. Can you see Jesus walking around selling his merits to build a basilica. Peter and Paul said gold and silver we have none. That first Pope or cardinal who came up with selling Christ’s merits to build the gold basilica, you think he is burning a little right now. The very thing Christ died for to offer as a free gift by faith, your bozo’s are out selling for a price. Selling their soul. I mention this to my friend Lynn on Jason’s site and she hid under a rock. I would too.
Andrew Patton said ” No Mary never called herself a sinner” Do you own a bible. In her Magnificat she says “my lord and SAVIOR” If He is her savior then she is a sinner. Incidentally I have done an extensive study on Mary in Scripture. Here are some irrefutable facts for you. She is called the mother of Jesus and never the mother of God in Scripture. Jesus goes out of his way to deflect any undo honor her way one time saying “woman what has this to do with me” This was a Jewish custom of politely separating oneself from another. He was in his ministry and in a nice way he said you have no place in this. When the crowds tried to give her some recognition saying behold your mother, Jesus squelched it saying “rather these are my mother, brothers etc. She plays no role in the early church, only being mentioned once by Paul in the Epistles “born of a woman”. She was a humble woman who was a model Christian, but she wasn’t queen of anything. The only mention of Queen of heaven in Scripture was with Paganism. She would be embarrassed and sad at the worship she is given in Rome and her caricature. See its like this Andrew in your church, God is transcendent a tough guy, and Jesus He is tough to, always mad, so you go to his mother and she gets on his case and softens Him up. She usurps Christ’s position as mediator and loving and sympathetic mediator who reconciled us to God and took away the enmity between us and God. By Rome putting Christ in the position of always being mad and needing to be appeased they rob Him of his loving mediation and ascribe it to his mother. Mary didn’t die on a cross and is not qualified to mediate grace and salvation. There is only one who did that and reconciled us to God, Christ. The scripture is crystal clear Andrew, We are to worship God with all of our heart, soul and mind, thru Christ. To worship Mary is to put your soul in peril. It is idolatry.
Jim, Tim does not believe that in the Jesus Wafer and neither did Pope Gelasius of Rome” The sacrament of the body and blood Christ which we receive is a divine thing because in it we are made partakers of His divine nature, Yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine does not cease. And assuredly the image and the similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the performance of the mysteries.” Augustine Faustus 6:5 ” While we consider it no longer necessary a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many various ways they pointed to the sacrifice which we now COMMEMORATE, now that the sacrifice has been revealed , and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship.” So Jim why don’t you repent of worshiping the bread God and re breaking our Lord’s body and listen to Augustine and Gelasious.
Your homey Eric has reared his ugly head on the other blog.
Jim, Ya I saw Eric is back.
Eric is a liturgical Baptist and an anglican that doesn’t believe in Holy Orders.
He says he is confessional.
I wonder if there exist one more person who believes what Eric believes.
Unlike you Kelvin, Eric is a true Protestant. ( You are a Calvinist ).
Eric picks and chooses from various denominations. He is his own pope.
Jim, Eric is saved by the blood f the Lamb, a dear brother who is trusting in Christ alone for his salvation. He is a bit schizophrenic and chameleon like in his church hopping. But he is a knowledgable cat. But you think I’m crazy because I believe the bible teaches one is saved by believing the gospel. And I think you are in one big Roman system of church worship, sacrament worship, Mary worship, relic worship, saint worship etc. That has put sacramental efficacy up in the place of the atonement and a piece of bread up in the place of the Savior, and a few drops of water in the place of the Holy Spirit. You are in salvation on the installment plan as you get on the Roman treadmill doing the penances and the masses and the pilgrimages etc. Christians are saved by faith alone thru the Spirit regenerating us thru the Word. And sacraments are what God always intended them to be signs and seals and confirmations of God’s grace. Paul is very clear on what justifies and saves a man, faith alone in Christ alone. and he supplements our faith thru the Lord’s supper. God gives us grace and we do, Gospel. You do your level best and God gives you grace. False Gospel. In Galatians 5:1 they were trying to add one thing to faith, one work, and Paul called them “you who are trying to be justified by law”, you have been severed from Christ, fallen from grace. I am on this site to do exactly what Tim is trying to do with our Catholics friends who are lost in a false church and a false gospel, snatch them out of the fire. Because Scripture is not ambiguous if you are trusting in your works in any way to save you, you will not find heaven. Galatians 5:1-4, Romans 9:30-10:4, Romans 11:6, Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8. It couldn’t be any clearer. May God lift the veil on your eyes Jim and you put all the prayers to Mary, cooperating for justification, Pilgrimages, plastic rosaries, scapulars, indulgences, satisfactions away and believe the gospel. Galatians 2:16″ knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but thru faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law NO flesh will be justified.” Jim it can’t get any clear.
I feel like I am understanding the book of Revelation for the first time. Thanks for writing. Coming out of the Catholic religion I knew that I had been brought out of a false church that preached a false gospel but I didn’t know it was all prophesied in the book of Revelation. This is eye opening. I just have a clarifying question. What happened first? Was it the apparitions of Mary or the development of the Eucharistic adoration? In Revelation it sounds like the second beast brings forth the image of worship but I thought historically the Eucharistic adoration preceded the apparitions. I only read of the apparitions in the previous post and I might have missed some of the dates. Again, thank you for writing.
Tim
Tim, that is an excellent question. Of all the doctrines that emerged at the end of the fourth century, as we noted in The Rise of Roman Catholicism, Transubstantiation came up least convincingly, and Eucharistic Adoration cannot be found until the end of the 11th Century. As we noted there, one of the strongest evidences that Transubstantiation was not believed in the early church is that Eucharistic Adoration (which Roman Catholics argue is simply the logical implication of Transubstantiation) cannot be found until the late 1000s.
When you read Fr. John Hardon’s History of Eucharistic Adoration, you will note that he struggles to find any evidence at all before then. Then the late 1000s arrived, and suddenly there was a revolution in Eucharistic Adoration. Until then, “the real presence” was allegedly “taken for granted”:
This points to a very late rise of Eucharistic Adoration—to about the time of the Crusades. As we well know, “taken for granted” is not a viable proof for such a doctrine.
Thanks for the very important observation.
Tim
Tim and Tim,
It’s what we call development of doctrine.
By the way, did Fr. Hardon actually “struggle”? Was he sweaty and breathing hard?
Jim,
I am aware that Rome develops doctrine. I am also aware that Hardon has no firm evidence of Eucharistic Adoration until the end of the 11th Century. If there is evidence of Eucharistic Adoration any earlier than that, you are free to provide it here.
Most of Rome’s traditions are usually traced to the end of the Fourth Century, and then conjecture is applied to fill in the missing three hundred years. In the case of Eucharistic Adoration, Hardon had not three hundred missing years to account for, but 1100. Thus, he fills it in with this implausible historical gloss: “Until then the Real Presence was taken for granted in Catholic belief…”. That’s quite a stretch.
Thanks,
Tim
kelvin,
By the way, you are hilarious! That little “Veil” you tried to pull over every one’s eyes on Jason’s was beautiful.
The shout out to Eric W. gave it away. Only someone like you would think the man makes any sense at all.
Although you forgot to say “death wafer” or “smuggle” is was so transparent. So corny.
Jim, Faith and Veil have brought some serious truth to that site. Eric finally told Debbie in so many words ( and she still does not get it ) that Roman Catholic Doctrine grace is completely opposite of the gospel and God’s truth. Debbie is so in love with a church she can’t can’t see how it wounds Christ, putting sacramental efficacy up in the place of the atonement and a piece of bread up in the place of our savior. How it makes one go thru Mary to get to Christ, making our loving compassionate savior into a mean condemning person, and making his mother the savior of the world. If catholics only knew praying to Mary could very well keep them out of heaven. Finally talking about the gospel over there which can save a man. Jim, tell those new people Veil and Faith great job. When God pulls the veil off and one has faith alone in Christ alone instead of Mary, works, doing sacraments, pilgrimages, satisfactions, penances, scapulars, indulgences. staring at the Jesus wafer etc, they will be saved. Roman catholicism is a man made religion, and the Reformers came to rescue the Apostles and the early church from their hair splitting academics and to do away with the ecclesiastical machinery that was mostly of human origin and content.
Kevin,
I pictured you sitting at your key board, wearing a woman’s wig, sunglasses and lip stick as you posted.
You forgot the stogey, garlic breath and the 5 o’clock shadow though.
And you said, “smuggle” too many times.
The name’s were poorly chosen too. Everyone could tell they were codes.
Kevin, you have a distinctive style. You only talk about one subject ( the gospel ) despite what everyone else is discussing. But the worst was your compliment to Eric W. Only you would give a shout out to him.
But it was great for a laugh.
Jim, I’m not an old man. I’m 56 years old. I’m 6″4 240. Not that that means anything. Trust me you there would be 2 hits, me hitting you and you hitting the ground. But I have been a believer for 35 years and have nothing but the love of God in my heart for you. K
Jim said ” You only talk about one thing the Gospel” Duhhh? ” What profits a man to gain the whole world and forfeit her soul” Go read Debbie’s response to Eric about how good and perfect she and her family are. God came to save sinners, people who know they are bad, not people who think they are good. Luther said ” I got saved from a church of saints” Sola Scriptura, Sola grazia, Sola fede, Sola Christus, Sola Gloria. All glory be to God. If Paul said Abraham had nothing in his works or goodness to boast about, I sure don’t. ” But to the one who DOES NOT WORK, but BELIEVES in Him who justifies the UNGODLY, his faith is credited as righteousness. What People like you and Debbie don’t understand that until you humble yourself and see your utter sinfulness and spiritual bankruptcy, and place your trust solely in Christ, you will not be saved. Believing you and your family is some bastion to goodness is being deceived. ” I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” He says it is not the well who need a doctor, but the sick. Roman catholics are the ones up in the front of the temple in Luke 18 praying to themselves, how good they are. And christians are the man outside the Temple beating his chest saying ” God be merciful to me a sinner” Jesus said one man went home justified ” THAT DAY” it was the man who cried out for mercy and BELIEVED” For that day God counted his faith as righteousness” , not because he was inside. but because Christ became to Him that second, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. You do your level best and God gives you grace, reward God gives us grace and we do our best, gift. Thats the difference between Roman catholicism and Christianity. Cant you see you are in a false system!
Kevin, I can see God hates contraception and you people use it.
You mock the real Gospel with your antinomianism.
Jim, Your convictions about contraception are your business. But people are saved by the Gospel and not their view on contraception. And keep charging me with antinomianism, because this is the charge Paul faced of whose words we adopt. You have been told many times by Reformed that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Truly saved people will desire to obey God’s law, although not perfectly. We desire to be Holy but we are justified by another’s righteousness and not our own. You are justified by faith as it is activated by love, your doing, your being. This violates Paul’s words in the most antithetical way. ” If its by grace , it is NO LONGER by works, or grace is no longer grace. Grace is no longer grace in the Roman Catholic church because your doctrine makes it a reward, something earned that elevates your nature. For us it is the free gift God intended it to be , and it redeems us and renews us. This is the great doctrine of justification by faith, the one that has freed souls and given joy, and given peace, and given one assurance of salvation. This is the great shalom Paul speaks about in Romans 5:1. I just read Augustine’s commentary on John and he is so clear in 5:24 we have already passed out of judgment and out of death to life. We have been resurrected, although not bodily yet. Our assurance is is in the sure resurrection of our blessed savior who was declared the Son of God with power. His resurrection was my resurrection. There is no fear of pending judgment of the believer based on the the star of affairs at the end of our life. ” Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God” You have no peace Jim. Not knowing if your saved, a mortal sin throwing you out again, the expectation of Purgatory, your good works being meritorious in your salvation. And you shouldn’t have any peace. Because you cannot believe Roman Catholic doctrine and live eternally. You hate me because of what I stand for, the hinge, the very thing men of the Reformation suffered for at the hands of your wicked Popes. Salvation by grace alone try faith alone in Christ alone. Today you said on Jason’s its you hunt me down to shoot me with a silver bullet. I don’t care. I will send my entire life fighting against your false church and its wicked leaders. If the ruth offends let it, Rome has offended it enough in their history, and would not permit men to be saved. As you come to the end of your life Jim, you must think about how much you want to trust in your own goodness. Paul said Abraham had no right to at all. Your church says you are to. Which will it be Jim, Christ for righteousness, to partly yours and partly his. Don’t make the fatal decision. I say this in all love for you and the truth.
Kelvin,
Is murder okay if one is trusting in Jesus? Robbery? Are they just “my opinions”?
I am not talking about jay walking. I am talking about Gn 38:10.
You know zero about salvation if you think sin won’t keep you out of heaven, Gospel or no Gospel.
You are missing the fun on Nick’s blog. I am educating a guy about how the Sacraments are not magic.
Jim, Yes a Christian can kill someone and still be saved.
A few months ago I posted a comment after reading Tim’s blog. It produced a flurry of responses from “both sides” above. Someone posted that I never left the Roman Catholic Church, at least not in my heart. Another mentioned that if I believe in “the Real Presence,” then I am still a Catholic. Another said that I should not have relied on Chick and Boettner in leaving the RCC, as they did not offer the best arguments. The truth is: my heart still tugs back to the Catholic Church; I believe one can believe in the Real Presence without necessarily equating that to mean belief in transubstantiation; ultimately, leaving or returning to the Catholic Church should not be based on what men write but on what God has said in His Word. If I was never indoctrinated by the Boston Movement and Kip McKean’s brand of discipleship if I would be a devout practicing Catholic today. Would my allegiance to the Virgin Mary be what it was then? Would I adore the Eucharist as if the consecrated host were Jesus Himself? I believe the answers to both of these questions would be yes. But I must also ask, Would my dependence be on myself and my reception of the Church’s sacraments (and on the intercession of the Virgin Mary) or on Christ’s merits alone in the Last Day? What would my understanding of the Gospel be like today? Horatious Bonar wrote, “Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die – Another’s life, Another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.” As a devout Catholic, I never could say that was my belief as I was sure that my piety, my faithful reception of the sacraments, and my devotion to Mary (including the wearing of the brown scapular) were my surety for God welcoming me into Heaven. Blindly, I thought of myself as being a good person. I could say I loved Jesus and the sacraments and Mary and the communion of saints, including those in purgatory for whom I prayed and to whom I asked for prayer. But I never saw myself as a wretched sinner deserving of hell. I never saw myself as one utterly without hope apart from being covered by the righteousness of Jesus, and Him alone, in the Last Day. Over the years since leaving my childhood church, I have attended many Catholic funerals, including those of my parents. I have heard at each one the priest presiding over the Mass place hope and confidence in the baptism of the departed, as that being the point of entrance into the family of God. In all of those funeral Masses, I never once heard the Gospel. Yes, my Catholic brothers here (and, contrary to Tim Kaufmann, I do call them my brothers) would say that the Gospel is preached in the Mass; it is preached through the actions of the priest; it is preached at the Eucharistic table. And while I would no doubt agree that the Lord’s Table is a visible proclamation – and commemoration – of the Gospel (Christ died for sinners and rose from the grave to give us eternal life), I nevertheless see my large, extended Catholic family left, for the most part, clueless as to the holiness of God, His just hatred of sin, His just demand for payment of sin, our place of condemnation before a holy God apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (leading to repentance and faith in Christ), and of personal need of salvation through what Jesus has done in our place. I wanted to appeal to the large gathering at my father’s funeral; I wanted to reveal my heart’s passion for them and of their need to repent and turn to Christ for salvation. But that was not “my place” and I could not “evangelize” or “preach” even though it was likely the last opportunity I would ever have to speak before all of those people, and for some, the last chance I would see them or they would see me in this lifetime. What grieves me, as a former Catholic who has attended Mass over 2000 times in my life, is that rarely have I heard the Gospel clearly articulated. Some have told me over the years that, “the Catholic Church took the sacraments and the Protestant Church took the Bible.” Well, that hardly suffices, for a true Church must have both the proclamation of the Word of God and the faithful administration of the sacraments, or ordinances, of the Church to be true and faithful to Christ and to the early Church. Others have said that the Catholic (and Eastern) Church has been properly sacramentalized but not evangelized. If that is true, I am sure my Catholic brothers here would counter that the Protestant Church (of all its various denominations) has perhaps been evangelized but not sacramentalized. I, personally, do not know how to reconcile this for my life. I know, however, at this stage of life, I want to be a man of peace and a man who can love my brothers “on both sides” and yet who also loves and yearns for truth. Yes, I carry great guilt over leaving the Eucharist. I do not feel regret or guilt over leaving behind the RCC’s Marian dogmas or the RCC teachings on purgatory, infant baptism, the papacy, etc. I have read John 6 more than any passage of Scripture. I believe that those in the Evangelical camp who teach that sharing in the Lord’s Table or in being baptized is a “work” are in error, and perhaps this error stems from a desire to protect and defend sola fide. Instead, I see, saving faith (the faith which justifies) as being a living and obedient faith – a faith which submits to the Church’s Master and follows Him in baptism and in commemorating His Death in the Table. These are not works of righteousness but instead the obvious responses of a person who trusts in Christ, has been regenerated by His Spirit, and who seeks to follow the Lord in obedience. The sacraments do not violate sola fide but demonstrate true fide. I earlier said that worship of the host is either idolatry or the highest expression of worship – and what I meant, as was probably correclty understood, is that if transubstation is not true, then we find ourselves worshiping bread (something created by the hands of man), but if transubstantiation is true, then we find ourselves worshiping God (Jesus being present in the element of the bread but hidden by the accidents of the bread itself). I would like to back up a little from that statement because I am not sure if this is as much a black and white issue, per se, as I first said. That is, would God judge a devout Catholic who loves and follows Jesus for idolatry if he were wrong, and would God judge an Evangelical who loves and follows Jesus but views the elements as holy symbols of Jesus’ Body and Blood but does not bow down to them if he were wrong? Would God not look on the heart of the believer – whether Catholic or Protestant – and instead see a heart that loves Jesus, has acknowledged and repented of sin, and which strives to live for God, though failing and needing to always repent, even if the person does not have all of his or her doctrine correct? If that is the case, then I wonder if professing Christians of every stripe will ever be able to set aside the doctrinal fighting and focus on Jesus. If I could see one change in the RCC it would be far more emphasis on individual need of repentance and trust in Christ alone for salvation. If I could see one change in Evangelicalism it would be a higher view of baptism and the Lord’s Table, as means of grace and visible signs of the New Covenant. I think “both sides” could learn much from the other. Thank you. In Him, by His grace alone, Michael
Thanks, Michael. I appreciate your comment. As you may know, I understand the Eucharist in an eschatological sense, in that the bleeding, speaking host before which people must bow down, erected by the Apparitions of Mary which are “the false prophet,” an image based upon an unleavened bread ritual that is “a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes” (Exodus 13:9), is the image of the Beast that is to come to life, have the power of speech and leave a mark on the hand and forehead—the image of the beast of which we were warned in Revelation 13. That said, I read your question, “would God judge a devout Catholic who loves and follows Jesus for idolatry if he were wrong?” and rephrased it: “Would God judge someone who wandered after the beast and worshiped his image?” The answer is yes: “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name” (Revelation 14:11).
Roman Catholics do not worship the Eucharist because they love God and His Word. They worship the Eucharist because they do not know Him and do not love Him.
I say this not because you don’t know that is my position. You clearly know what my position is. I say this because I do not believe the Gospel and idolatry can find a peaceful reconciliation in the Eucharist, and there is no reason to work for one. To worship the Eucharist is the antithesis of the Gospel, and the Gospel drives us away from the idolatry of the Eucharist.
Thank you again for your comment,
Tim
I would pray every Roman Catholic in the world could read this post by Tim to Michael. There is no middle ground. You cannot worship the true God in an unacceptable way. We must come to Him on His terms. I wholeherartilly agree that to knowingly participate in the Roman Mass is to send ones soul to hell. If it is the Summit of the Antichrist, then it is everything that is opposed to the Gospel. It is the mark of the beast. It is a work to earn increase of salvation. It is a denial of His one time perfect sacrifice. It is without effect because Christ is still on the cross. It is idolatry of the highest order. It is contrary to Christs gospel which says a man is saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Unless we are willing to deny Fatger, mother, bother, sister, and yes one must abbandon the idolatry of the Roman Eucharist to belive the gospel and be saved. He came to incorporate us into His body by the Spirit, not by the flesh. Revelations 18:4 ” come out from her my people” and be saved.
Michael, you wrote:
The truth is: my heart still tugs back to the Catholic Church…
May God sanctify you in the truth. Sometimes our hearts return to places where the knee bowed. Always remember to kneel before the Father (Eph.3:14) when you feel a tug. His promises are sure for those who trust in Christ alone as Head of the Body.
Michael V,
You said, “; ultimately, leaving or returning to the Catholic Church should not be based on what men write but on what God has said in His Word”.
By Word I assume you mean Bible? Michael, without the Church, you can’t even tell me which books comprise that Bible.
You also wrote, ” If I could see one change in the RCC it would be far more emphasis on individual need of repentance and trust in Christ alone for salvation.”
Do you remember how to make an act of Hope? Our Hope as Catholics is in God’s mercy and promises.
By what you write Michael, you have drifted far from your Catholic moorings and have imbibed much Protestant error. As you have a computer and a radio, I suggest you start listening to Catholic Answers radio call in show everyday.
Christ founded the catholic Church. You belong there. You won’t be fulfilled anywhere else.
Good luck
Michael, an incredible post. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like to me God has chosen you to believe His gospel. Its interesting Michael that the great Reformed theologian Peter Vermigli said that the reason faith alone justifies is because faith is the only thing that can receive Christ and His perfect righteousness and bring Him to the heart. Love always reaches out,stretches out to neighbor and is second in natural order. But Hebrews says without faith it is impossible to please Him. I really believe God sent the Luther and the Reformers to rescue the early church and the Apostles form the hair splitting academics who made the gospel unrecognizable. They came to disassemble the ecclesiastical machinery that had developed in the church, that was mostly human in origin and content. When all these things that Rome has piled on the cross is taken off we can see the cross and the true simplicity of the gospel Romans 10: 9-10, John 1:12, John 3:16. Having come from where you do I hope you realize that the battles that have taken place over justification were well with it. And if you will read Romans 9: 30- 10:4 it is clear why. There are many true believers in the Roman church, but Michael they can’t be the one following Roman doctrine, but those like yourself trusting not in yourself or your works, but in the righteousness of Christ, whose only righteousness can save us. A tremendous testimony on your part. When approaching the Mary thing always remember 2 things. Paul says there is one mediator between man and God, 2 Isaiah 48 says ” my glory I share with no other” not even the mother of Jesus. Good to see you here Michael. God bless
Tim, I think Michael post is incredible and should confirm to us that the Spirit of God convicts us of our utter sinfulness and our need for His righteousness alone. It gives me hope in the call from heaven in Revelations 18:4 ” come out from her my people.”. K
Leonard,
Mary is your motherly queen and your queenly mother. Put your hope and trust in her intercession with her Son.
Check out the discussion going on at this moment on Green baggins between myself and kevin. Over there he can’t slur as Tim isn’t there to give him carte blanche. You can see how I correct kevin on his errors on salvation and the Bible.
Michael, a good example is to ask Jim how a true Roman Catholic is saved? Maybe Jim will answercthat question.u
Michael, just my suggestion to you as my brother. Calvin said that the true church is where the Word is preached rightly and the sacraments are administered rightly. I believe that best to be the Reformed church. Sacraments are a gift from God, a visible confirmation of His grace, and a strengthening to us, spiritually. Christ came to incorporate us into His body by the Spirit, not the flesh. So by the Spirit, the Word, and faith, God strengthens us. Rome has has perverted them by making them a work on the part of the people to earn a merit and increase in grace and justice. But the Reformers returned us to the true free gift of eternal life thru faith by Word and Sacrament.
Michael,
Who care what Calvin said? Who care what Peter Vermigli said? Or any of those other silly men who lost their way?
From the cross, with His dying breath, as His last act, Our Lord gave you to Mary and Mary to you. You Michael, are His beloved disciple. You are Jesus’ brother sharing the same Mother.
That is how much he loves you. He ( and she ) want you in heaven more than you want to go there.
Say this prayer that the early Christians said in the time of Roman persecution’
“WE fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.”
Michael, if you are trusting in Christ alone for your salvation I believe you can have the assurance that God offers for salvation 1 John 5:13, Romans 5:1, 8:1, 8:28-. Maybe this will help. When Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well He told her that the father was seeking worshipers that worship Him “in Spirit and in truth” In John 6 we know that eating His body and drinking His blood is coming and believing. He says at the end of that passage ” the things I say to you are Spirit, the FLESH profits nothing.” We aren’t saved by eating anyone but by faith alone. To eat Christ is to come to the Sacrament in faith, in the Spirit, with the Word. He nourishes us spiritually. He gives us all the His spoils including His body by the Spirit. The Roman sacraments the writer of Hebrews calls a shrinking back in faith . The need for a physical altar, a physical Priesthood, a physical sacrifice isn’t faith. Christ’s altar, sacrifice, and permanent Priesthood are in heaven where we are transported to worship in the presence of God. The scripture says blessed are those who don’t see and believe. When you come to to the Supper know that Christ offers us true food and true drink for our souls spiritually. Augustine said christ isn’t in the bread, but the one taking the bread. Without fair, the Spirit, and the Word, its just bread. And no transubstantiation is not true. What Aquinas never realized is that the very person from whom he got transubstantiation never believed that the accidents could look like anything else but the substance. IOW you can’t have a large, white, without the dog. Rome wants to keep Christ in a box, in the prison. They want to keep Him on the cross and the altar, an eternal victim. But an Christ who hasn’t risen can’t save anyone. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ isn’t raised our faith is useless and we are still in our sins. But in fact Michael He is risen and we are no longer in our sins past, present or future. THE church sings the amen, He SAVED us, and now is applying that perfect sacrifice on our behalf as we call on Him for forgiveness. There i now no condemnation for those in Christ. He has set us free and remembers our sins no more. Catholics can’t have this peace. You can never know your saved. He didn’t come to make salvation possible, He saved us. Hallelujah!
Tim and Kevin,
Since your discussion with Walt on church government is such a sleeper, could I ask a big favor?
Although Kevin appears to have been dumped from Green Baggins, I bet he can still post on “Beggars All” site. I know Kevin knows about the blog. James Swan really dislikes Catholic Marian doctrine and devotion so you guys should be pals. ( Sorta’. )
I mentioned to him your views on the Eucharist being the Mark O’ the Beast but he has never heard of Tim K.
Maybe you should click on his site and introduce yourself and tell him about Graven Bread. That discussion would be more fun than hob-knobbing about the Scottish divines with Walt.
Thanks, Jim. As you know, I do not believe the Eucharist is the “mark of the beast.”
Tim
Tim,
You know what I mean.
Now go tell James Swan how it is not just Catholics who commit idolatry. Start by telling him how you feel about Catholic Marian doctrine to make him a friend. Then tell him about Graven Bread.
Jim, I haven’t been dumped from Greenbaggins. I just haven’t posted over there in awhile.
Kevin,
I am on to you. You would never let a catholic get the last word in . Not in a million years. But DeMaria and I posted a few times without you response. on Romans 4 and imputation. You must not be allowed to rant so you have stomped off the blog, right?
Jim, I believe Tim’s position is to take the Roman Catholic Eucharist is to receive the mark. You know the one that talks and bleeds and its substance is different from its accidents, something Aristotle would have rejected. The one that supposedly has Jesus in the box. The bread God. The idol/ The death Wafer. The one that is continually broken for the efficacy of your sins. The one that Mary sits high above and gives hearty approval to. The one that gets adored for hours on end. The one when after taken allows other people to genuflect to each other. The Roman Eucharist. Don’t mistake that for the bread a Christian takes in faith who is fed by our dear Lord as a means of grace.
Kevin,
Don’t tell all this to me. Go on Beggars All and comment.
Here is the link. Go for it.
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.pt/2014/09/luther-christwas-only-son-of-mary-and.html
Tell James Swan about Graven Bread.
Tim,
I asked you why anti-Catholic James Swann does not use the phrase “death wafer” or “bread worship” in his articles against the Mass. I haven’t seen your reply.
Tim, I hate Islam. I also know several habib wearing women and girls who have minimum wage jobs at my mother in law’s retirement home. They have bad English, wage like slaves and are the sweetest people I know.
Yet they are Muslims. They may or may not know zip about their own religious system.
Now, as much as I hate Islam, I would never button-hole them and call them devil worshipers, followers of a demonic cult, argue with them about whether the follow God or satan and tell them, against their protestations, that they hate god and love the devil.
If I were to try to convert them, I would do it with respect and gratitude for the way they treat me and my mother in law. I respect them as women God loves too much to take delight in watching their faces as I laugh at them and call them idolaters.
Tim, you and Kevin are mean SONS OF B—— and your blog is hateful S—. ( Walt, pay attention).
You rend your garments about obscene language yet you purposefully hurt feeling with your Bread Worship BULLS—.
Does my USMC language hurt your feelings Tim? Does it offend? Why should I care about your feelings? You don’t care about mine.
You don’t give a DAMN about your language and you wind up your mean friend to say hurtful things and then hi-five each other for your presentation of the “gospel”.
Tim, you are a phony. A sanctimonious, mealymouthed hate monger who delights in cruelty yet cares about naughty words on this heavenly blog. YUCK!
Jim, I answered your question on James Swann two days ago at Leaving San Francisco. I have copied it here again for your benefit. The Ark gave no quarter to Dagon in the temple of the Philistines (1 Samuel 5). No quarter is given to the Eucharist here:
Jim,
James Swan is approaching the matter from an ecclesiological and historical perspective, while I am approaching it from an eschatalogical perspective. That is the difference. One does not entitle a book “Graven Bread” and then shilly shally on the implications of worshiping the Image of the Beast. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Adoration of the wafer seemeth right to you, but it is the way of death.
“For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. … And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.” (2 Kings 17:12,20)
The eucharist is death to you, Jim.
Tim
Let’s see. Since Kevin is back after a long hiatus. I dare him to go on Swan’s blog and do his thing. Let’s see if Swan puts up with him for 5 minutes.
Swan ain’t no Catholic lover. He just doesn’t put out bulls–t strictly for the purpose of giving offense. He is a son of a b—h, but not like you two. I respect him.
Same for Layne (?) on Green Baggins.
And how about the ministers at Kevin’s own church?
He is your pet Tim. You couldn’t get rid of him if you wanted to. He really adds a bit of class to your blog.
Tim,
Months ago I told you how I mocked and belittle Joe Smith and Mormonism to two young Mormon missionary boys here. After my fiery delivery, they were speechless for a few moments. Then one of them broke down sobbing. He loved the religion handed on to him by his parents back in America. He was far from his home and mother and missed his family. I was an insensitive bastard. I repent of my lack of understanding and charity to this day. Just as I hate what I did, I hate your blog.
I hate Mormonism but God loves Mormons, Tim. And I am commanded to do likewise.
Nowhere in the Bible do I see St. Paul mock the pagans for their belief in gods copulating with swans or their other weird mythologies. He doesn’t ridicule their sacrificing to demons.
You are a bastard Tim, way beyond Falloni. He is an ignorant blowhard. You are worse as you are an ex Catholic and know how his words cut deep. Who is guiltier, the mad dog or the owner who unleashes the cur on others?
Do you need smelling salts Tim? Are you swooning like an old woman at sailor talk? Do four letter words cause you to shriek?
My words are crude indeed. They are low class. like burping at the table or wearing white socks with a black suit. But they aren’t sins. And they are cruel.
Your “death wafer” bulls— is not only a blasphemy against God, but s—ty to me. You are one s—ty dude, Tim.
Over on Green Baggins they don’t like Catholics or Catholicism. But they deleted Kevin’s “trough” remark when I told them how offensive it was.
Green Baggins and Beggars All are blogs for non, even anti- Catholic scholars. Scholars, Tim. They don’t traffic in “death wafer” sleaze like you do.
Your blog is only hate. Your scholarship makes Jack Chic Comix look erudite. You theories of the apostasy are laughable. You are mean to your mom and corrupt your own children. You are a phony who pretends to be concerned about charitable, clean, and respectable Christian speech. What a mockery of Christianity! Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses will make it into the kingdom before this blog does.
Tim, there is nothing on the internet worse than your pigsty of a blog. A mean pigsty.
But you don’t allow no nasty talk! No siree. This is a godly blog, eh Tim? No cigar smokin’, no snuff chewin’, no whisky drinkin’ and no girls that do. ain’t that right, Tim? This is a family blog rated G.
You should delete every article, every comment, and start fresh. This blog should not be allowed on the internet. Some society of evangelical blog owners should give it an F rating and call you before the bar for a reprimand.
Mr. Christian phony,
Even if I was so stupid as to worship bread, who gives you the right to mock me for it? Do you make fun of cripples and blind men? Do you laugh at mental defectives?
Show me THAT in the Bible!
Jim, you may be interested in 1 Kings 18:27,
“And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.”
That term, “pursuing” literally means “to move away the dross,” and is a euphemism for going to the toilet. I have been gentle and respectable toward you, but I will pay no reverence to your god of bread.
Tim
Tim, I asked to be shown where Paul ( not Ezekial ) mocked the pagans didn’t I?
Jim, you said, “Even if I was so stupid as to worship bread, who gives you the right to mock me for it?… Show me THAT in the Bible!”
You did not specify that it had to come from Paul. In any case, Ezekiel and Paul are both authoritative, so I don’t understand your objection.
It appears to me that you are characterizing a “differing opinion” as “mockery” so you can object to the mockery and silence the opinion. All I did was voice a different opinion. It is a rather consistent trait in Rome to respond to dissent by suppression. Thus, the constant calls to shut down the blog, shut down individual participants, shut down opinions, etc…
If I were to categorize your Romanism as “offensive” and “vulgar,” would you cease your opining here in order to avoid offense? If I said it hurts my feelings each time you refer to Mary as Immaculate, or to baptismal regeneration, or Eucharistic adoration, would you cease mentioning them? If I said it was personally insulting to me each time you denigrate sola scriptura and justification by faith alone, and that each time you invoked the “deformers,” that it isolates me culturally and makes me feel inferior, would you cease altogether? If not, why not?
In Rome, all Roman Doctrines are normative, and therefore by nature, unoffensive; but all dissent is abnormal, and therefore offensive by nature. Thus, all dissent must be silenced lest the delicate ears of Rome’s sheep be scandalized by “offensive” language. But the Reformers must be preached to under force of arms—it’s just the right thing to do, as with Fenelon’s mission to the Huguenots:
Surely, you can see a double standard here, Jim. It’s the same old story—Protestants must be silenced lest their preaching infect the minds of Catholics, but Protestants must be forced to listen to Roman Catholics without criticizing them or offending them in the slightest way, and in debates must acknowledge that Roman Catholicism is not fatally and eternally flawed as a condition entering the conversation. It’s a game I won’t play.
Jim, you are welcome here, but your feigned offense and your histrionics over the language Protestants have been using to describe the Eucharist (e.g., Popish abomination) for 500 years will find no purchase.
Tim
Tim,
Go to hell. You are game playing and you know it.
Tim, Haven’t I beeen your buddy? Haven’t I done more to get the guys on CCC to pay attention to your blog than anybody? Jason and Jonathan have both demanded I stop referencing you or referring to your blog and posting your link.
Tim, I really think Catholics need to check you and Kevin out. And I don’t mean on CCC. I mean here where you two are so transparent. ( C’mon, you know your run a low profile over on CCC ).
Anyway, what I want to say is, I am going to badger jason into blocking you out even though I really appreciate you exposing your hysteria there ( at least to some degree anyway ).
You see Tim, you sic your dog Henry on us over there. He chews up the rug and eats out of the kitty litter box. He makes us sick. He won’t stay away as he wants to be seen with you there. You know he trails after you and only you can make him respect blog rules but you encourage him to be a jerk there as you do here.
So, since you are salt and pepper shakers, you should be banned. Sorry.
Jim,
I find it intriguing that you goad Protestants into posting inflammatory comments on other blogs, and then howl to their administrators that they should cut off access because they are so inflammatory. You have repeatedly sworn like a sailor here, yet you complain that your feelings are hurt by the “slurs” of Protestants as they explain why they disagree with Rome. You have alternately complained that I am too polite and that I am mean and hurtful.
In the end, what you seek is to silence all opposition. Is your religion so weak that it cannot stand to be examined in the light of day? Are the ears of a jarhead so tender that they cannot hear the words “bread” and “god” used in the same sentence in such close proximity to each other? The answer is yes to the first question and no to the second. You are welcome to maintain the charade as long as you like, but a charade is all it is.
Thanks,
Tim
Jim said to Tim ” even if I do worship bread, what gives you the right to mock me for it” it isnt a right Christians have to expose false doctrine, false gospel, and idol worship, its an obligation we have to the truth and the gospel. So please dont take it personally. Think of it this way. The British are coming to kill us and we are Paul Revere on the horse riding thru towns yelling the antichrist is coming, the antichrist is coming. And what right do you have to tell a man what to write on his site. This isnt Russia, or the Papacy. We live in America and have religious freedom. Most of all we have the obligation to warn people of Babylon. If the truth offends let it, you and your church have offended out Lord and his gospel, the sufficiency of his atonement, and power of his resurection for 1000 lifetimes. Churches dont connect us to Christ by joining them. Jesus is the mediator and no church owns Him. We meet Jesus in the gospel in the power of the Spirit as God chooses. Churches arent identical with Jesus in the world and churches dont dispense Jesus like a product by earning increase. And Jesus never called us to worship Him thru a piece of bread, or the mitiatorship of His mother. We must come to Christ on God’s terms and if we dont, He will reject us. Your idolatry Jim and salvation by one’s works will keep you out. God bless.
Kevin, we missed you. You were gone for so long. Ha!
Kelvin,
Tim is playing you. You are such a willing dupe. Do you think Tim is a normal Protestant like. lets say James White or R.C. Sproul? Or Spurgeon the sturgeon?
Death wafer says it all. The words come out of your mouth with your noisome breath ( did I use the word correctly Tim? ) but Tim is the master mind behind you. You are a puppet, a gopher, a stooge.
White and Sproul would never permit the phrase to be used in their presence. Tim craves to have you say it.
You are the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Kevin, Tim just may repent. Where does that leave you? He will leave you to go to perdition alone and save his own hide..
When he gets thru working through his mommy issues, he is going to disassociate from you. Like when you move house and leave behind the old broom. It happens all the time. One crime partner turns himself in and confesses. The other is left out.
By the way, you actually stayed away for about 18 hours. That is longer than I figured. I though you would be back in under 12.
You are such a buffoon. I love it when you streak CCC and then get shouted down ( even by Eric and Robert ) only to to apologize and say how much you love and miss everyone. The you streak back through a day or so later under another phony name. Even Eric is embarrassed by you. Please do it again soon so I can throw it in Eric’s face.
Just do me one favor. Don’t be such a milquetoast. Be as bold as you are on Tim’s blog. Take off your mask. Be yourself. I really want everyone who was born after 1970 to see what an old time Know-Nothing bigot looks like. They really need to see you at your best. I have tried to get them to click on here but they won’t ( not even Eric and Robert ). They are sick of you. But I want them to see how much sicker they can be if they see you let it all hang out.
Tim, tell Kevin to unmask when he goes over on CCC. He will do whatever you tell him. Please?
Kevin,
Although you promised Nick and Jonathan you would not crash the blog again, nobody believes a damn word that comes out of your mouth. ( Lying is covered by the Blood, right? So you can do it. )
The next time you burst in, why don’t you give Eric and Robert hell for throwing you under the bus? After all, you are the one who leads the attack and those two yellow bastards hang back and get to stay on the blog. You are banished. They are darlings. Everybody wants to direct their comments to them.
You are supposed to be Calvinist brothers, right? Look how the judases treat you. They even asked you to go away as you embarrass them. Embarrassed of the Gospel!
Tell ’em off. Don’t be a pussy cat. Even Kenneth turned on you. And he says he loves you.
Kevin, you accused Bob of being soft on Rome. He should be shrieking death wafer too, right? But he refuses to.
What do you expect from a damn Methodist? He denies the doctrines of grace but you would be willing to forgive him and accept him as a Protestant bro if he would only denounce Romish wafer worship, wouldn’t you. He is not fit to be on the same blog as you.
Worse by far are the two jackals who call themselves “Reformed”. Eric and Robert are lower than Bob. They think they are elect but they don’t show any fruits, do they? They deny you like Peter denied Christ, huh? Are you going to take it?
You are a man Kevin. A real man. They are hyenas. Rabbits. They are going to kiss the pope o’ rome’s dago arse any day now, trust me.
If you light into the turncoats, I will back your hand. I will tell them to get off the blog if they don’t stand up and be counted.
Why, they must be pedophiles, both of ’em. They never denounce it do they? What does that tell you?
You are the only Calvinist with guts on the internet. Yes, I loathe you. But I admire you. I consider it an honor to have you as an adversary.
Eric and Robert are mice. Cut ’em lose. You don’t need ’em.
But I think they need to have you tell them how they have betrayed the Reformation. They have fallen from grace as the Galatians did ( assuming those yellow bellies ever were saved in the first place. ).
Kevin, Tim wants you to. He gives you authorization. He is disgusted with them too. If you blast the traitors, he will follow suit. He just needs you to go first as you are the one who was sold out to Jason and Jonathan.
Krista will see a man in action Kevin. So will the other folks from Jason’s old church. They just need a strong leader. That’s you. Do it today! Maybe Robert and Eric will repent. They need you to preach the Gospel to them.
Jim, I will say this was one of your more enjoyable posts.
Jim said you are Tim’s puppet, goof, stooge.” Just a fool for Christ Jim. Your reputation is what other people think of you, you cant change that. But your character you can do something about each day. Horton says men go between self righteousness and self condemnation. Everyone needs the gospel Jim, even you. Why do you continue to defend a church who says grace isnt freey given of God? Why Jim ?
Don’t tell it to me Devon,
Go tell it to those make believe Calvinists who told you to get off the blog so they could keep having fun and getting all the attention.
Eric needs the Gospel. Robert too. Thay can”t ever have been regenerate, born from above. They sold you down the river. The don’t hate Rome and love Geneva like you do do.
They should be thrown off and Jason should have kept you. But you were destroying our romish arguments so you had to go. Eric and Robert can stay because they are not threats to the Roman juggernaut like you are Kevin.
You are the man Kev.
Jim, you are correct those 2 sold me down the river. The only time the year talk to me is when they thought I was being a bad reflection on their character. But they are my brothers in Christ and I have promised Jason not to go on his site.
Groovy, man! The Jim and Kevin show is back on the air.
you guys are FUNNY!
Bob,
Kevin just said he promised Jason not to back on his site.
Ha! He has been posting all day under the assumed names of Larry and Tom. ( But it appears they are deleting his comments out now ).
Kevin is a fibber. I guess if you are covered by the Blood you will not enter into judgement for lying and promise breaking.
That is Calvinism for you!
Tim,
I merely want you and Kevin to be up front. Be yourselves on other blogs Tim. Is that goading?
I used some vulgarities. You use profanities. Which is worse?
You do it to offend, to show disrespect for Catholics. I do it so you know how it feels to be treated contemptuously.
Stop the slurs. Treat Catholics as people. Then you just may get some respect too.
( Do you call that swearing like a sailor? Ha! )
JIM–
Well, it didn’t take long for him to come back here. I think you bring that out in him. You and him are just flat entertaining!
I think I will go back over to CCC and see what’s going on.
Sounds like the spice is back.
OOPS! Bob, sorry but I just got done posting something about Arminianism and Calvinsim. I didn’t realize you were going to read it.
Bob,
I just left you a note over on “Mediocrity of the New Covenant” on CCC. ( It’s about Tim ).
Bob,Jason the blog owner, Nick the moderator and all the bloggers, Catholic and Protestant have made a pact not to respond to Kevin over there.
He is blogging under several false names but notice the style, the spelling and stupid logic before responding to someone as it may be Kevin.
I personally think Tim should be banned as well because he have Kevin are a duo. I wish Tim would acknowledge his friendship with Kevin over there but he won’t as he is as embarrassed by Kevin as Robert and Eric are.
Okay, enough chummy talk. We are adversaries again.
Jim, you said you want Tim and I to be ourselves and that you had used vulgarities here. Why did you lead the charge to silence me on Jason’s site if you want me to be myself? If you can curse people with vulgaities and attack me and other Calvinists with impunity, why wouldnt you want us to have the liberties you enjoy here when we simply confront your doctrine? You get where Im coming from. You can say anything you want, curse people, denegrate them, yet you dont want that same freedom for us when we say bread god, death wafer, Hocus Pocus, things you consider vulgarities to you? Iow Jim would you consider yourselfva hypocrite? Ill await your answer. God bless.
Kevin,
I think you should be banned from every site. In order for that to happen, the other bloggers need to see you as the mad dog you are. You are not just an irritating troll. You are possessed.
If you are going to crash Jason’s site ( which I most vehemently disapprove of ) don’t be false.
Look at Tim. Such the gentleman on Jason’s yet so outspoken here.
Over there, James and CK are engaging Tim as if he were anything but a hate monger. A man devoted to satan.
The blog owner and moderator don’t want me to mention this site. I however think everybody should check it out.
Then Ck and James will understand the sick mind behind the polite and scholarly Protestant gentleman they mistakenly think they are addressing. People really should understand your motive. In order for them to do that, they need to see Tim screech death wafer. They need to see Tim as insane as you.
Some of my fellow Catholics are rather lukewarm. They need you and Tim to throw some ice water on them.
There is nothing to really be learned on this site other than the demonic nature of a certain strain of anti-Catholicism.
Does that clear things up? No. I hate to see you post. I especially hate to see my fellow Catholics answer you thinking you are a normal person. If you are going to post, give them the same show you give me here. ( I don’t know what woke Kenneth up but he sure is wise to you now).
What is so hard to understand about that?
No stupid. Those are not vulgarities. Those are blasphemies.
You and Tim need to differentiate between vulgarities, obscenities and profanity. The Bible contains some rather vulgar statements, don’t you thing. Paul says dung which is s–t . Both words are legitimate.
I try not to say such icky words. But I make an exception for this blog. It is a s–t house . You say death wafer unnecessarily. Just to offend me and Tim snickers.
And I never say obscenities. Profanities can be a major sin. Think about it.
Jim,
There are several things you should think about, since you are so vocal about other people’s sins:
1) You tend to blame other people for your sin, i.e., “I only say disrespectful things because Kevin does, and I had to do it to show him how it feels.” That is like Adam blaming Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:12). You should repent of this.
2) You have said things like “Tim and his subscribers ‘high-five’ each other back on Tim’s blog for posting offensive comments on other blogs.” Assuming by “high five” you mean “congratulate,” that has never happened that I know of. You are bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16), and you should repent of it.
3) Jesus instructed that if someone offends you, you should turn the other cheek (Luke 6:29). Have you ever considered doing this?
4) You spend a great deal of time here provoking contributors to offend people on other sites—something that you consider to be wrong. Since the Scripture condemns those who know something is wrong, yet “not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:32), you should consider whether or not such provocations are the fruit of the Spirit or are coming from the flesh of an unregenerated heart.
5) You have a very narrow view of acceptable behavior (only that which does not offend Roman Catholics is acceptable), but a very broad view of your own license to offend others. This is what the Scriptures call unequal weights and measures (Proverbs 20:10), and such things are an abomination to God. You should consider finding the Scriptural standard for interacting with your neighbor, and apply that to all men, and not just to Roman Catholics.
6) You consider the term “death wafer” a sin, and yet I have shown you that Elijah mocked false gods, even suggesting that they were not answering because they were going to the toilet (1 King 18:27), and God mocked idols that had to be carried around by their devotees, and in particular in Isaiah 44:17-20, He criticized a man for bowing down and worshiping the very thing that he appeared to be bowing down to and worshiping—a tree—because he did not have the sense to know that he was worshiping a piece of wood: “a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” You point out that other sites don’t criticize the Eucharist the way I do, but those other sites don’t believe that the Eucharist is the Image of the Beast. I have been up front about identifying the Eucharist as the Image of the Beast, and if it is, then the logical conclusion is that you are just worshiping bread, and should repent of it. Your response is constantly that because you do not believe it is bread, therefore you are not worshiping bread. Your response does not offend me, because I know “a deceived heart hath turned you aside.” However, you are intolerant of the opposite opinion, which is, “because I do not believe in Transubstantiation, therefore what is being worshiped is bread.” Your insistence that I modify my vocabulary and my eschatological position in such a way that it does not clearly say that Roman Catholics are worshiping an idol is essentially a demand that I accept your idolatry and stop preaching against it. I cannot do that. The Eucharist is the Image of the Beast, and you are worshiping it. There are consequences. You may accept or reject the opinion, but constantly demanding that the opinion be silenced is not an intellectually defensible position.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Are you offended by my Luther talk?
Tim, it’s Jim you are talking to. Please, don’t deny you know simple minded Kevin wants to show off to you.
You have never hi-fived Kevin? No? Kevin hasn’t come to you to boast of his exploits disrupting a certain Catholic blog we know of? He never turns to you for approval after giving me a knee in the groin on this blog? What was your response? Did you tell him, as you now tell me, how a Christian should act?
You have never enjoyed a snicker on me with kevin? Never? Not even when you showed him that you could say the same icky expressions as he does?
Kevin sure took it as a Hi-five by his responses.
Do you seriously mean to say that I am responsible for Kevin’s shenanigans on CCC? Oh Tim, Oh Tim, Oh Tim!
You are hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, if I tell Kevin to stay off CCC, he will comply? Really?
Are you high on drugs right now Tim?
Tim, don’t play the “politics of victimization” with me. Catholic devotions offend you? Then don’t put them up on the net for ridicule.
We are talking the WORD WIDE WEB, Tim. Don’t slur anyone’s religion on the internet if you don’t want the feed back.
Turn the other cheek Tim? How many times? Jesus didn’t always turn His cheek. He got angry, remember?
Tim, you don’t have to believe in Transubstantiation. You can hate it all you want. That is your prerogative.
Just as I can talk like Luther as a guest on your own blog.
I can laugh at your request to show respect and refrain from using language that you find objectionable, language I don’t even normally use unless I hit my finger with a hammer. I cannot be forced to show you the respect I would give anyone else. You cannot reach through cyber-space and punch me in the face any more than I can reach Mr. Falloni, safely sheltered behind his keyboard somewhere in Arizona.
You see Tim, I am a guest on your blog. Kevin is always reminding me of that. ( Although he rides roughshod over Jason’s blog ).
Because I am a guest, it is even more important that you treat me with more respect here than you would show me on CCC.
So, don’t act like my rudeness as a guest has reached the level of your being a ungracious host.
Every thing Falloni has said on this blog I lay at your feet.
You have been disrespectful. Falloni has been empowered to insult me everyday under your grinning approval.
Now you appeal to my sense of fairness, of decency, not to turn your blog into a latrine?
Oh, Tim, you sure can dish it out but …
Jim, Tim has never done zany of those things. He has never disparaged you to me. Ti is one of the few men I know above reproach. He would not consider himself this way but we should act like him. The Lord is really working on me Jim. Without love we are a clanging symbol. And to be honest Jim i regret any bad behavior. I don’t regret my stand against Roman doctrine. I don’t have the dada googoo need for acceptance that some Reformed have because they see themselves as separated brethren. I see the true invisible church as always being marked out by God. And i see Rome as a false church. So I have no need for restoration with the physical Roman church. Jim, I’m guessing you are in your 70’s maybe. But at some point you have to stop berating people that don’t agree with you. I’m ashamed of my wrong behavior and want to change it. I understand its hard, but even at your age you can change it. God bless
Jim,
No, I am not.
No I have not. If you believe I have, please provide the evidence.
If he has, in what way have I ‘high-fived’ him? Because Kevin may have provided the opportunity does not mean that I took the opportunity.
Has he? Provide the evidence.
Yes, that’s exactly what my response was. In fact I told him that in the past I had responded in the flesh and I regretted not taking from other men the advice Walt had given him.
You tell me. Have I? You think that I am “reading minds” when I say Roman Catholics worship bread, but here you are accusing me of something you think I may have done in my mind.
If you are referring to the “death wafer,” I merely pointed out that your offense is feigned in order to silence a countervailing opinion.
Did he?
No, as you always do, you have changed my words in order to deflect criticism. Kevin is responsible for any “shenanigans” in which he engages. What I said to you is that it is wrong for you to provoke him to do so. You are responsible for provoking him. He is responsible for acting on it. Because he is responsible for his actions does not mean you are not responsible for yours.
Only in the sense that they are offensive to the sensibilities of the regenerate people of God, to the holiness of God and to the righteous requirements of the Law. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Exodus 20:4). But I am not emotionally offended at the expression of another man’s opinions, as you are.
I take this to mean that if I object to a sinful practice, I should not object to it. That makes no sense, Jim.
Have I ever asked that people not respond to my posts?
I see. Is there any other instruction of His that you would like to dismiss because it does not suit your preferences?
Thank you.
Yes, but as you know, you consider Luther’s language to be sinful and offensive. If you believe his language sinful and offensive, you ought not use it.
I have never asked that you do.
That is true.
I have always treated you with respect, Jim. It’s your doctrines that I reject, and I will continue to do so.
This is what I mean by unequal weights and measures. If Kevin acts on Jason’s site as you do here, you want him kicked off because he is a guest there, and should play by house rules. If you act here like Kevin acts at Jason’s site, you demand that your antics be tolerated because you are a guest, and guests should be tolerated. You should repent of this.
You may impute to me whatever you will. It has no bearing on anything I write. When Mikel implored Kevin to commit suicide on Jason’s site, was that Jason’s fault for empowering him? Have you raised that objection to Jason?
I most certainly have not.
How do you know if I am grinning?
No, I appeal to your knowledge of the Law that you may see your sin for what it is and repent of it instead of blaming others for your behavior.
And as you know, I can take it, too. Since you believe Roman Catholicism is the true religion, and that I am lost in my heresy, why don’t you model Christ to me. What would that look like?
Thanks,
Tim
Jim said I try not to say vulgar things but make an exception for your blog.” You just called me stupid. Jim I don’t call you names. But Jim, remember the saying you can give it out but you can’t take it. Tim has been instrumental in showing me that we must treat people with love. I’m a fighter in my sinful nature like you Jim. There were times in my life that if I met a guy like you, you would have hit the ground in short order. I am a physically imposing person. But Jim I am a believer and we are called to love and the truth. You can’t expect to berate people and then chide them for the same. K
You don’t think idolater is a name? You don’t think you called my mother a bread worshiper?
You bastard. Piss off.
Jim, Im going to forgive you for calling me that name. When your on your knees tonight thank God that you dint say that to my face when I wasnt a believer. Growing up you wouldnt have lasted in my neighborhood with that mouth. But I forgive you. K
Tim.
You don’t think the “p word” naughty? Have you thought about he differences in vulgarity, obscenity, profanity and it’s extreme form, blasphemy, as is practiced here on this blog routinely ?
Some things offend. Yet you posted your crude blog about baby Jesus swimming in poop.
Tim,
Since you can delete things, how about deleting every reference to death wafer?
You are liar when you say you are “offended” by adoration of the Eucharist. Are you really Tim?
Are you offended by Islam? By Mormonism? “Offended” Tim?
Bulls—! I don’t agree with Protestantism, Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism etc, etc, but I am not offended. Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t insult me or spit in my face by their errors. You are playing me for a fool.
You say you were a Catholic. I will take you at your word. If you were a Catholic, you know damn good and well you and Kevin’s slurs are the ultimate in offensive language.
When was the last time either of you two sweethearts told a muslim how offended you are? To his face?
Tim, go back through your crap blog and delete out all sleaze, starting with Hocus Pocus.
Jim said to Tim ” Failoni has been implored to insult me” are you confusing me with you. You want me to list the names you have called me. S.O.B., Igor, troll, jacka..s, stupid, anus head, and under the name of Mikel you told me to hang myself and you would supply the rope. You have continually tried to turn Tim against me because thats your modus operandi. You have succeeded on other sites. One difference. Tim is my brother in Christ and we share the same blood all believers share, the blood of our savior that justified us. You come from a false system of merits and demerits proportional reward/punishment based on your do gooding or do badding. And from what I’ ve seen Jim, you ought to embrace Calvinism soon! I know I have no chance if my works justify me in someway. I believe the closer we get to God, the more we see our sinfulness. Look at Paul in Romans 7, the most mature Christian in scripture. After all he was an Apostle and he considered himself foremost of all sinners present tense. Is it any wonder he wanted to be found in anothers righteousness. Jim, if you dont run to the Reformed gospel(biblical gospel) you got no chance staring at the wafer and praying Rosaries. I say this out of love. Our works cant stand under God’s standard of perfection unless they come from jbfa.
Kevin,
“There were times in my life that if I met a guy like you, you would have hit the ground in short order. I am a physically imposing person. ”
You Goof ball! How I would relish the opportunity to prove it! You are physically imposing on the other side of cyber-space. Me too. Just ask me.
I am a real ass kicker from this side of my keyboard.
Two old men sitting at their computers, shaking their fists and thumping theirs chests. Get a life, you chump.
By the way Tim,
you have mentioned Mikel’s statement before. Do you remember what I said?
1. Kevin wasn’t supposed to be on that blog, now was he?
He had been told to get off it but wouldn’t.
2. Kevin had made some pretty off colors remarks to my friend Mikel.
3. Jason immediately cut off all comments. Kevin would not go and he was bringing out the worst in us.
Don’t defend Kevin. Blame him for inflaming people.
Kevin, Ha!
I wouldn’t have lasted in your neighborhood?
Listen Paisano, I went to a school full of Italian kids. How do you think you would have fared among them as it was a Catholic school?
Get a life. People are lurking. This would be comical if not so pathetic.
Are you gonna give me the old Falloni haymaker? A forearm smash like Hulk Hogan gives? An airplane spin and then a flying drop kick?
Okay, then I am gonna grab your nose and twist it like Moe used to do to the other stooges. Then I am gonna stomp on your foot. While you are hopping around on one foot, I am gonna give you 6 or 7 uppercuts. Then I am gonna throw my secret headlock on you and put you into a full nelson until you say uncle.
Scared yet, Kelvin?
Tim, this blog gets classier by the day!
Tim,
“As we have elsewhere noted, the Roman Catholic religion teaches that the bread of the Lord’s Supper literally becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ…”
So, you do acknowledge this.
“and therefore must be worshiped. The worship of the bread, the Eucharist, is the highest form of worship a man may offer to God.”
OOPS! Tim, you now say, ” the worship of the bread”. But you just said in the previous that we don’t believe it is bread. A couple of things here;
1. We don’t think we are worshiping bread. That settles it. ( Again, I rest my case on the testimony of Methodist Bob. )
2. Until you disprove Transubstantiation, you are just giving your fallible opinion. Thanks, but no thanks.
2. You need
” Therefore, the Roman Mass is the highest form of worship, and the moment when…”
Keep going Tim.
“the bread is transubstantiated into “Jesus””.
Gotcha, Tim! You are record as saying this despite the quotation marks around “Jesus” to qualify whatt you mean.
” is the highest point in the Mass. The “True Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist is what makes Eucharistic Adoration obligatory, and Eucharistic Adoration, therefore, is the chief objective of Roman religion”
The “True Presence “of Who/what Tim? Bread? You just said, the “True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”, didn’t you? You did write this article, correct? No help from Kevin?
“Roman Catholics worship the Eucharist”.
And by the word “Eucharist” you mean the “True Presence of Christ”, right? That is what you wrote in the previous quote.
” Everything else in the religion is merely prologue to the act of adoring the bread.”
STOP! NOBODY MOVE OR LEAVE THE ROOM!
Now Tim, you just did a slight of hand. You pulled a switcheroo and replaced “True Presence of Christ” with the word “bread”.
I saw you do it. You slipped the phrase, “True presence of Christ” up your sleeve and replaced it with something else.
I want my money back. You are a charlatan. That type of carnival shell game doesn’t fool anyone ( but Kevin).
Jim, obviously the person worshiping a thing thinks that thing is their god. Thats what makes it idolatry. I dont say my trumpet is Jesus Christ thru transubtantiation. When Jesus sais this is my body, He was standing there with them. Do this in remebrance of me. Why? Because he went away. Augustine said Christ isnt in the bread but the one taking the bread. Apart from faith, the Spirit, and the Word its just bread. Paul called it bread. Jesus said I wont drink of the fruit of the vine………Christ death on the cross paid for our sins, not the bread at the supper is propitiatory. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Churches cant bee an extension of the Icarnation. Churches arent the same as Jesus in the world. Churches dont connect us to God by joining them. We meet Jesus in the gospel thru the power of the Spirit as God chooses. Romanism is a faulty view of the Trinity. Our church cant usurp what was a unique finished act by Him that obtained eternal redemption. Your sacramental system is just a jew attaing it as if were by works. Religious rituals dont have an automatic efficacy, material objects arent endowed with a sacred power, and human actions dont have a supernatural effect. The Reformation freed us from supperstious notions of the working of the world.
Kevin,
Pagans who worship Zeus think Zeus is their god. Catholics don’t worship bread and don’t think bread is their god.
Is that so hard for you to figure out?
You worship Tim, right?
Jim, I don’t worship anyone except Jesus in Spirit and truth.
Jim, dont act stupidly. Every idolator thinks the object they are worshiping is God. Thats what makes it idolatry. It doesnt matter that your church tells you the wafer is Jesus, its not, and thats why you bow to thecbread god, the Jesus wafer. You Priestcsays Hocus Pocus and poof the Priest pulls down Jesus from heaven sitting on the lap of the church, the Priest becomes His regent, and magically “the work of the people” becomes the efficacy for your sins. Like cows you are led to the salt trough and you eat the false god thinking it will give you life. But onlt faith alone in Christ alone will give you life. Get off your knees and worship God the way He asked you to in Spirit and truth thru faith. He went to make a place for us and He will return someday. ” blessed are those who dont see yet believe” As long as you think you have to knaw on the blood and bones of Jesus to get saved, you deny faith. The supper is a time to confess, remember, be spiritually fed, all by faith in the Spirit. The flesh profits nothing. We are incorporated into His body thru the Spirit not the flesh.
Tim,
“knaw”
( This is your ambassador over on CCC )
Jim, remember the rule, read Catholic doctrine, believe the oppisite, and arrive at biblical truth. For example Christian’s believe God confirms His unmerited grace at a sacrament. Catholics believe merit is offered at a sacrament. God calls us to worship Him in Spirit and truth, Catholics aimlessly follow bread around in the streets, The Lord says in Isaiah 48 that He shares His glory with noone, and yet Catholics worship and pray to Marry, saints, relics. Every Roman Catholic who has worshiped idols and given glory to others, whether Mary, bread, or one’s own works will not see eternal life according to my bible. After JPII died one cardinal said we prayed for him and now will pray to Him. Sad Jim, 26 years in that position and never knew the truth. He committed the whole church into tlhe hands of Mary and was the guardian of Catholic dogma. You, as my ex friend Debbie, are emboldened in your idol worship, thinking that your love will justify you, but the scripture is crysral clear, no one will be justfied by observing the law, and John warns in 1 John 5:21 to keep yourself from idols. You have been warned Jim. Catholicism is one giant system of church worship, sacrament worship, Mary worship, bread worship, saint worship, and you forgot to worship in Spirit and truth thru faith alone. You will deserve your just recompense. God will show no mercy to idolators. God bless.
Tim, I was re reading Graven Bread and it occurred to me if Jesus was going to stay with us in the bread of the altar substantially body, blood, soul and divinity, then why faith? Why tell us he goes to prepare a palce and wont eat with us until his returns? Why does He say now we see in a mirror? Do you not think the pagan philosophers who got heaven and earth turned upside down contributed to the view tha Christ renews himself each day in his youth in the Roman church in a continuing incarnation by the acts of the church? So to be saved one, instead of the assurance of thing hoped for and the conviction of things not seen(faith), it is antithetically replaced by this process of helping Him finish His incarnation by one’s doing, propitiating one’s temporal punishment? IOW Tim can their be a bigger repudiation of faith alone in Christ alone that this visible lie. What purpose did Christ’s death on the cross play, and what neccesity of faith would loom, if Christ never leaves but His historical body and atonement are here as the visible church which is helping Him finish it? If the head can be collapsed into the body and the kingdom is being played out now in the church as the physical body of Christ who is perpetually sacrificed( Trent anathematizes anyone who says the imolation isntva true and proper sacrifice, efficacious for sin), then why faith and why a second coming? Your thoughts?
Tim,
I have been thinking about Kevin, You know, I have to admit, it took a while but I think I am coming around. There is more there than meets the eye at first. The guy is one sharp cookie and I may have been harsh in my assessment of Kevin.
I have never had the Gospel preached to me with such eloquence and conviction. His arguments are compelling and his logic iron clad. His command of scripture, second to none. Most of all, I am humbled by his charity and patience. I have put him through a lot but he never gave up on me and I am eternally grateful.
The scales just might be starting to fall from my eyes after decades of Roman error. Kevin doesn’t mince words and cuts right to the chase. His phrase, “death wafer” is brilliant in its simplicity. All the theology and propaganda of the Harlot is like so much chaff compared to Kevin’s straight forward and hard hitting apologetic style.
You know Tim, have you ever thought about featuring Kevin in an article? Readers just might find it inspiring. You know, the story of a rock musician, a drummer in a band if I am not mistaken, caught up in the drugs and show business lifestyle, the sex, the booze, the money, life in the fast lane, the fame, etc. and how Kevin had to hit bottom in order to be saved much like St. Paul was knocked to the ground.
After Kevin’s moving testimony of being lost, maybe he could share with us what his life is like now. He was once blind and lost, but has been born anew and is now a changed person. He went from being a lost sinner, a man at enmity with the world to now being an obnoxious internet troll.
Whoa! Did Kevin say above that he was “re-reading’ Graven Bread’?
Kind of like Josef Goebbels rereading Mein Kamp?
Nothing like curling up with a good book, eh Tim?
We are what we read, aren’t we.
I love. This website just keeps on giving. Ha!
Jim, im going to guess that the greatest proof to you that the Roman Eucharistic worship Is to be worshiped and this doctrine is from God, is when the inquisition would kill and torture people for not believing it. Im guessing the masacre of the Waldensians for refusing to worship the Roman Eucharist confirmed that doctrine from God?
Tim,
You like to go over the same stuff again and again, don’t you?
I should just copy and paste the comments I made here over on your knew topic.
Did you ever see Dave Armstrong’s comment on you?
http://socrates58.blogspot.pt/2007/03/is-transubstantiation-idolatry.html
Anyway, since we have been beating the same dead horse for years now, why don’t you explain your understanding of Christ’s sacrifice?
Hi Tim,
Spurgeon’s relating of Simon the Pedlar is very convicting about compromise of the truth….. particularly sinful silence. Thx for highlighting it.
The existing link though seems broken. This one works.
https://archive.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/stp1866.php
Tim,
I’ve been reading Pierre Allix’s “Some Remarks Upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont”. He recounts how the Bishop of Meaux was trying to make the claim that the Waldenses originated from Peter Waldo and started out as schismatics only, that they only became Protestant heretics after Luther. So on pages 209 to 213 Allix cites Raynerius’s 33 errors by the Wallenses. It reads almost like a Protestant creed. Then comes this quote on page 215:
The irony, of course, is that many witnesses attested that the Wallenses/Vaudois/Waldenses did deny transubstantiation. It is astonishing that a Bishop in the church would consider any contrary beliefs to be of lesser concern, so long as they did not deny transubstantiation. To truly be a heretic, you had to deny transubstantiation. It’s as if all they cared about is …
…as you cited in the OP.
Peace,
DR