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Long before Jesus turned water into wine, He turned Mary’s amniotic fluid into meconium, and her breast milk into transitional stools. Anyone who has ever changed a child’s diaper knows that the resulting odor offends the nostrils greatly. As Jesus would later instruct us, “whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly” and ends up in the toilet (Matthew 15:17), or in His case as an infant, in the diaper. Thus did Jesus’ lower gastrointestinal tract operate as it must for all men, and thus did our Lord endure the gastrocolic reflex, as all we mortals do. We therefore have no doubt that Mary’s milk passed through Him according to the course of nature, and into His diapers in a common and necessary movement. And thus did Jesus come all the way down to earth to save us, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15).
If that opening paragraph offends you, you do not know why Jesus came to earth, and you have not understood the Gospel. Jesus did not come to seek the whole, for the “whole need not a physician” (Matthew 9:12). He “came not to call the righteous” (Luke 5:32), for the righteous have no need of a Savior. He did not come to avoid sinners, but to find them. He touched lepers and whores (Mark 1:41, Luke 7:39), asked for a drink from an adulteress (John 4:7), asked for lodging from a tax collector (Luke 19:5), was adored by prostitutes (Luke 7:37-38), feted by sinners (Luke 5:29) and pursued by the ceremonially unclean, and He received them (Matthew 9:20, Luke 17:14).
In short, He is the sinners’ Savior, and He came to earth to pursue them, not to avoid them (1 Timothy 1:15). To find sinners, He became a man like us. Not a man like us in all ways but sweat and dirt. Not a man like us in all ways but meconium. He became a man like us—”touched with the feeling of our infirmities”—in all ways but sin (Hebrews 4:15). And as if it were not enough that His feet were soiled to walk among us, He stooped even further and soiled His hands as well (John 8:6). Thus Jesus truly condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, say our Roman Catholic acquaintances, such condescension must have its limits. There is only so much stooping God can do without soiling Himself beyond what He can bear. Sure, He fixed his tabernacle among His people, but God ministers at the door of the Tabernacle (Exodus 33:9), and that tabernacle is Mary. And such a tabernacle would need to be sinless. But aside from having a sinless mother, Jesus condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, of course, being sinless, the womb of Mary was a step up, not a step down, from Heaven. He actually did not, and could not, condescend all the way to our level, say the Roman Catholics:
“The womb of Mary—I will not call it womb, but temple; … the more secret tabernacle, … Yea verily above the heavens must Mary’s womb be accounted, since it sent back the Son of God to heaven more glorious than He had come down from heaven.” (St. Maximus, Homily V)
Thus, while it is true that Jesus “humbled” Himself to become man, He did not so humble Himself that He actually came down from heaven. No, by the testimony of Rome’s saints, He actually went up into Mary’s womb! So aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was actually higher than the heavens that He had left behind, Jesus condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, of course, for the fact that He was raised in a perfectly sinless home. Someone as holy as Jesus could not come this far and then live in a household contaminated by the sins He had come to take away. Therefore, Joseph must have been preserved from sin, too. The Apparition of Joseph in 1956 assured Sister Mary Ephrem that “immediately after my conception … because of my exceptional role of future Virgin-Father … I was from that moment confirmed in grace and never had the slightest stain on my soul.” So, aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was higher, not lower, than the heavens, and aside from having a sinless step-father, Jesus condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, of course, for the fact that His cousin, John the Baptist, the herald of the King, also lived a life without sin. This “acceptable belief,” as you can read here, is freely accepted as true by Roman Catholics. As one member of the Catholic Answers forum explains, “It is crystal clear from Scripture that St. John the Baptist was baptized within his mother’s womb … [and] was free of all sin from that point on.”
So widespread is this “pious belief,” that even Pope John XXIII in 1960 taught the logical implications of it: namely that Joseph and John the Baptist must have been assumed bodily into heaven, just as Jesus and Mary had been. “So we may piously believe,” said John XXIII, that the grace of assumption into heaven, so recently and infallibly declared for Mary in 1950, was also granted both to John the Baptist and to Joseph (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 52 (1960) 456). So, aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was higher, not lower, than the heavens, and aside from having a sinless step-father, and a sinless cousin, Jesus condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, of course, the fact that all of the apostles were sinless, too. That this is “acceptable belief” in Rome is evidenced from another writer at the Catholic Answers forum, who holds that not only the apostles, but many, many Roman Catholics led perfectly sinless lives after encountering Christ:
“What is being said is that they led sinless, blameless lives with the help of God’s grace. … Not only the Apostles, but many Saints, Martyrs, Fathers, desert fathers, Confessors and other members of the Church led sinless, blameless lives.”
So, aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was higher, not lower, than the heavens, and aside from having a sinless step-father, a sinless cousin, and sinless apostles, disciples, saints, martyrs and other members of the church, Jesus condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, of course, that His maternal grandparents must have been “profoundly pure” as well. Consider this pious tradition of the conception of Mary in the womb of St. Anne. If Mary was housed in her mother, Anne, and Mary was the tabernacle, then that would make Anne “the inner sanctuary in which was formed the living tabernacle which was to house the Son of God made Man.”
It is thus difficult for Roman Catholics to picture in their minds that Mary had been conceived through normal, biological, copulative processes, including the physical pleasure and all of the attendant physical intimacy between man and wife. So taught Christopher West in his lecture, Theology of the Body and Our Lady of Fatima:
“In the east, do you know how they depict the Immaculate Conception? … The icon is of a chaste embrace between Joachim and Anne, with the marriage bed behind them. How is it possible that their marital embrace led to the immaculate conception, if their hearts had not also in some way been made profoundly pure.”(59:30-1:00:40)
It is apparently inconceivable to Mr. West that Mary might have been conceived in an intimate sexual embrace, her parents lying down in bed, naked, enjoying the sheer physical pleasure that, as Paul wrote, was the “proper gift of God” to each of them (1 Corinthians 7:7). No, their hearts had to be “profoundly pure,” and that level of purity does not countenance the horizontality of unashamedly pleasurable marital sex.
So, aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was higher, not lower, than the heavens, and aside from having a sinless step-father, a sinless cousin, sinless apostles, disciples, saints, martyrs and other members of the church, and “profoundly pure” maternal grandparents, Jesus was born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
The point we are making is that Jesus was incarnated to save sinners, yet Rome has built up a religion that is intent on saving Jesus from the sinners He came to save! We see this in the march of Roman Catholic tradition that is constantly expanding the circle of sinlessness that surrounds this Man who, so we thought, had come to dine with sinners, touch lepers and be worshiped by prostitutes. Is it unfathomable that Jesus, Who freely and deliberately dined and lodged with sinners, might have taken up His first residence in one, and received His first meal from one? Is it unfathomable that Jesus, Who left Heaven to find sinners might have included among them a mother, a step-father, a cousin and two grandparents who were as eager to be cleansed of their sin as the harlots and lepers? To Roman Catholics, the answer is yes—it is unfathomable. So far removed is Jesus from sinners in the religion of Rome, that to approach Him to be cleansed, one must already be clean.
But this not the only way Rome separates Jesus from the sinners He came to save. We are all too familiar with Mary’s alleged role as “mediatress.” Yes, Roman Catholics tell us, there is one mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5), but despite His incarnation, Jesus’ divinity is still a hindrance, not a help, to His mediation. Read as Roman apologist William Most cleverly transitions from Jesus being “the answer,” to Mary being the much better answer, because her humanity makes her better qualified than Jesus to mediate on our behalf!
“How then can I understand God, how [to] know what He wills, how to deal with him? But In Jesus we have the answer. … Yes, but His heart is the heart of a Divine Person. However, her heart is purely, entirely human, … So her Immaculate Heart can and does assure us we have in heaven an Advocate whom we can understand, who understands us, who loves us to the extent that like the Father, she did not spare her only Son, but gave Him up for all of us” (Most, William G., Mary’s Cooperation in Our Redemption)
But even this cannot be sufficient for Rome, who ever strives by remarkable ingenuity to separate sinners further from their Savior. It is true, says Rome, that Mary is the Mediatress of all graces, and every grace that flows to us from Jesus comes through Mary. But every grace from Mary must necessarily flow through Joseph. In his book, True Devotion to St. Joseph and the Church, Fr. Domenico, makes the case:
“It seems fitting then that by his intercession St. Joseph should now obtain all the graces that Our Lady dispenses to the human race. … these grace come through Mary first, and then through St. Joseph who obtains them only through her. … all the other saints rely on St. Joseph in their intercessions, just as St. Joseph relies on the mediation of Our Lady.” (True Devotion to St. Joseph, 381, 383, 400).
One Mediator can never be enough, nor two, nor three, so far removed is Jesus from sinners in the religion of Rome.
But there is yet another way Rome separates Christ from sinners, and that is by reducing Jesus’ death on the cross to merely a symbolic gesture. It was hardly necessary to die and bleed, or so much as suffer, they say, but Jesus did it anyway—not to pay for sins, but to demonstrate the horror of sin. A relaxing weekend at an all-inclusive resort, without all the blood, thorns and stripes, would have done the trick. So taught Fr. William Most:
“Really an incarnation in a palace with no suffering or death would have been an infinite reparation. Yet to show the horror of sin, and the immensity of His love, the Father willed, and He agreed, to go so dreadfully far.” (Most, William, Eschatology).
That, of course, is completely contrary to the Scriptures (Hebrews 2:14-17, 9:22), for “it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren … to make reconciliation for the sins of the people,” for “without shedding of blood is no remission.” Yet as it turns out, in Rome, the real sacrifice of Jesus was not what He offered on the cross at all, but the bread He offered the night before in the Last Supper. That, we are told, was the real sacrifice:
“Those who crucified Christ did so at the sixth hour. But Jesus our High Priest immolated the lamb which He took towards the evening [the night before], when He celebrated the paschal banquet with His disciples and imparted to them the sacred mysteries.”
Indeed, Rome teaches that Jesus’ death on the cross was not an offering for sin. They do not hide this, but say it proudly and openly as the Catholic Legate demonstrates:
“The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody. Without the Last Supper I defy you to find any reference to the Body and Blood of Christ being offered as a sacrifice for sin in the entire of the Passion Narratives.” (emphasis added)
Thus does the religion of Rome nullify the incarnation and “make the cross of Christ of none effect” (1 Corinthians 1:17)—as if Paul had not said we have access to the Father by the blood of the cross (Ephesians 2:13-19), and Peter had not said Jesus “bare our sins in his own body on the tree ” (1 Peter 2:24-3:18), and as if Hebrews did not instruct us that Jesus is “mediator of the new testament … by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions” (Hebrews 9:15). Rome would have Him mediate the new covenant, without blood, without death, without the cross and without suffering for our transgressions, for “an incarnation in a palace with no suffering or death” would have sufficed. Except for the extravagant and unnecessary gesture of the Cross, Christianity might well have preached the gospel of the time-share condo, and Rome would be displaying Christ on a tanning bed in her churches, offering His relaxing massage on their altars, and making the sign of lounge chair in their prayers!
Couple this with the visions of Mary, and what we find is an utter and absolute denial of everything the incarnation was to accomplish. The visions of Mary teach Roman Catholics that it is Jesus Who is angry at them, and that Mary is holding back His wrath, and she is suffering for them—contrary to Romans 5:9 which assures us that “we shall be saved from wrath through him.” The visions of Mary also teach that it is Jesus Who needs to be consoled by our sufferings—contrary to 2 Corinthians 1:5 which assures us that “as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” Compare these Scripture verses, above, with what the apparitions of Mary teach (Both of these visions and messages, La Salette and Akita, have the ecclesiastical approval of the Roman religion):
“If my people will not obey I shall be compelled to loose my Son’s arm. It is so heavy, so pressing that I can no longer restrain it. How long I have suffered for you! If my Son is not to cast you off, I am obliged to entreat Him without ceasing.” (Apparition of Mary in LaSalette, France to Maximin Giraud and Melanie Mathieu, 1846)
“Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates.” (Apparition of Mary in Akita, Japan, to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa, 1973)
So far removed is Jesus from sinners in the religion of Rome, that we are told that Jesus is angry with us, and that we must suffer to console Him and save Him from His Father’s wrath! Is not the sum total of Rome’s doctrines a material denial of the incarnation?
Consider Rome’s teachings in light of John’s instruction in his first epistle. 1 John, an anti-Gnostic treatise, is an exquisite magnification of the incarnation, “which we have heard, … seen with our eyes, … looked upon, and our hands have handled,” (1 John 1:1). If we have sinned, there is a Mediator for us, for “we have an advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). “God … sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” and “your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” (1 John 2:12, 4:10). “He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 John 3:1). All these speak of an incarnation that provided us with one Mediator, provided us with one propitiation for our sins, and let us boldly approach Him (1 John 4:17) not because we are without sins (1 John 1:8-10), but because He Himself has made propitiation for them. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11). But Rome denies this record. The Serpent attempted to prevent the incarnation from occurring (Revelation 12:4), and failing that, now every effort is made by Rome to undo all of the benefits to be gained from it.
Did Jesus come in the flesh to seek and save sinners? Rome responds by surrounding Him with as many sinless people as possible to make Him distant an inaccessible to those who seek Him.
Did Jesus come in the flesh to make a propitiation to the Father? Rome responds by relegating His sacrifice to the background—merely a profound gesture that was not strictly necessary—and making the real sacrifice an unbloody one the night before the crucifixion, when He “offered” bread and wine for sins of the world.
Did Jesus come in the flesh to die, making peace through the blood of His cross? Rome responds by teaching that every sin Jesus pays for just makes the Father and Jesus angrier and angrier, and it is we who must, by our sufferings, make reparation for sin and thus save Jesus from His Father’s wrath.
Did Jesus become a man to be a Mediator between God and His people? Rome responds by adding as many mediators as possible between Jesus and sinners, as if His incarnation had failed, and left Him incapacitated, unfit and unable to serve.
Was Jesus “made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9)? Rome responds by saying He was made higher than the heavens, so high is Mary’s womb above the children of men. The leisure of a palace, they say, instead of the humiliation of the cross, would have sufficed as a reparation.
Like the disciples, Rome would send away the unclean (Matthew 15:23), keep the simple from approaching Him (Luke 18:16), and rebuke Jesus for dying on the cross (Matthew 16:22)—for Rome has “taken away the key of knowledge,” not entering themselves, and hindering those who would (Luke 11:52).
When John wrote, “every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God” (1 John 4:3), he did not write this as an isolated formulaic incantation. He did not write this as if the mere recitation of the Nicæan Creed was sufficient as a substitute for faith in what had really been accomplished in the incarnation. John wrote this in the context of an incarnation that guaranteed to us a propitiation for sins and the favorable disposition of our heavenly Father, that provided us an Advocate who took on flesh to represent us and intercede before Him, that comforted us with an assurance of pardon for our sin through an accessible Savior Who hears us when we call upon Him. All these things are in practice denied by Rome, and we are offered no peace, no security, but instead are presented with an angry Father, an angry Son, a suffering Mother, and an endless line of mediators between us and a Savior unable to sympathize with our weakness, unapproachable and inaccessible except by those who are already “whole” and already “righteous.”
We hold therefore that when John wrote, “he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” (1 John 5:10), it is proof that the religion of Rome, at its core, is a rejection of the incarnation, for Rome has done all in its power to nullify it and make God a liar. Does Rome recite the Nicæan Creed? Well did Isaiah speak of her:
“Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:” (Isaiah 29:13).
The priests of Rome honor the incarnation with their lips, but by removing Jesus from sinners, they have denied the incarnation, and have removed their hearts from God.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Tim, This is such a timely post. Reading the posts on Jason’s recent thread it is certain to me they remove Jesus from sinners and replace Him with themselves.
Tim,
What do you know about Fuchsbau and Blutbad mingling DNA? Or Hexenbiests? I watch Grimm because it is filmed in my mother-in-law’s neighborhood. Lot’s of scenes of Union Station ( where I worked for 23 years ) too. In the mornings raccoons, possums and even coyotes are seen on the streets of residential neighborhoods of Portland. Something spooky is happening, Maybe the end of the world.
So no, I am not blown away by your opening paragraph.
Tim said ” that is intent on saving Jesus from the sinners He came to save. Tim, MacArthur once said that before you can know how saved your are you must understand how lost your were. When Romanism sets aside redemption for an ontological model which elevates nature outside of itself. When mans problem is concupiscence and not sin. When nature does not need redemption but just a little medicine, do you really thing they would understand that Jesus condescended to man to save him from his sins. Paul said this is a trustworthy statement that Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. In Roman Catholicism mans not so bad and God is not so mad.
Kelvin,
” When Romanism sets aside redemption for an ontological model which elevates nature outside of itself. When mans problem is concupiscence and not sin.”
WOW Kelvin. That’s deep. Really deep.
(What does it mean?)
Tim, another great article, keep them coming because you are truly doing what your claims with this site is to do, and that is to expose all the errors of Rome. And I will throw all I have to help you do this. They do what other false religions do, they reduce Christ to something less than He is and they base salvation on works in some way. People always say to me well they believe in the Trinity like we do. And I say so what. They reduce the one time sacrifice of our savior to imperfect, not fully effective, as not accomplishing what Scripture teaches it accomplishes, redemption. He did not come to make us salvable, He did not come to put us in a redeemable state and we have to finish the rest, He did not come to give us the mere possibility of salvation. He came to redeem a people for himself. They are striving for God’s approval and we are working out the approval we already have. But they don’t need a savior, they need idols and have made many for themselves. Bread, church, sacraments, saints , Mary, relics, pilgrimages. We worship the true God in spirit and in truth.
Tim,
Your commentary is so incredible and factual that I don’t know why it is so difficult for anyone to understand that the Papacy is Antichrist. Could it be more clear in what you just wrote for even those who are ignorant of Scripture, or that are ignorant of the different views on eschatology?
Reading what you just wrote made me almost want to cry and beg Catholics (and Evangelicals, Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.) to come out of her my people….quickly.
Tim, just an awesome article. Thanks again for this site and ministry, which has been such a blessing t me. K
Thanks, Kevin. I’m glad to hear it is of some benefit to you.
Tim
Walt, I agree, I dare say there is anyone else exposing clearly the errors of Rome than Tim Kauffman. He has a unique experience God is using to bring His people home.
Kevin, in addition to Tim’s work, I recommend the following ministers be studied:
1) John Knox (1510 – 1572) – 62 years
2) Alexander Henderson (1583 – 1646) – 63 years
3) George Gillespie (1613 – 1648) – 35 years
4) Hugh Binning (1627 – 1653) – 26 years
5) Samuel Rutherford (1600 – 1661) – 61 years
6) Robert Baillie (1602 – 1662) – 60 years
7) Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston (1611 – 1663) – 52 years
8) Richard Cameron (1648 – 1680) – 32 years
9) Donald Cargill (1619 – 1681) – 62 years
10) Alexander Peden (1626 – 1686) – 60 years
11) James Renwick (1662 – 1688) – 26 years
12) David Steele (1803 – 1887) – 84 years
Here are a few of my favorite websites for those interested:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/
reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com/
http://www.wildersmith.org/ (Wilder-Smith the “father” of the intelligent design movement)
reformed.org/index.html
http://www.puritandownloads.com/
reformedpresbytery.org/
covenanter.org/
http://www.sermonaudio.com/main.asp
http://www.apuritansmind.com/
http://www.aleppocodex.org/
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/index.html
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/puritan
http://www.scottishreformationsociety.org/
http://www.reformation-scotland.org.uk/
http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Responsa/
http://www.bible-researcher.com/links03.html
solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/
biblehub.com/commentaries/gsb/
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://www.genevabible.org/Geneva.html
http://www.jewishhistory.org.il/history.php
creationwiki.org/Main_Page
http://www.dr-fnlee.org/index.html
http://www.come-and-hear.com/
http://www.glaird.com/kiminter.htm
josephus.org/#mail
infomotions.com/alex/?cmd=search&query=covenanter
archive.org/details/texts
Walt,
Are any of your rogues gallery NOT Scottish?
Tim,
You have probably already seen this, but I’m just starting to get the picture.
If you can show me how the falling away around 350AD sent the true church to the shores of Scotland, and sent the unfaithful church to Rome, it would tie together a LOT for me that I have not been able to find before.
Please tell me there is a connection here that I am not reading into your comments or this research. I’ve tried to connect the true church into Scotland historically and outside the Culdees have not seen that connection. Are you saying that those excommunications by Rome could have been a key period of the falling away between the faithful (well-being) and unfaithful (being) visible church in history?
Walt, Will follow up on your suggested studies. Thx
Tim.
Knock it off, Your Jesus did not come to get down and dirty with sinners.
He came to get down and dirty with SOME sinners.
You are a Calvinist remember? Your God hates most men and made them for hell. Don’t be so sanctimonious.
The Mary of Catholicism is more loving than the God of Calvinism. Mary wants all men saved,
Jim,
Do you ever evaluate anything that is given to you in response to your questions? This crazy statement about Calvin is the standard slander and lies that is really old news. Can you please address some of the responses you are given with some degree of honesty, integrity and professionalism?
Did you understand the issue of order of salvation I gave you to review, or just ignore these things, and keep asking questions? Like Bob decided not to respond to you after your cheap shot at his mother, I think I am going to do the same and ignore your questions which I’m sure you won’t mind.
Boys,
Want to hear a shallow but nice sermon by a Baptist?
Of course I immediately tracked him down and emailed him. Here is my note to the gentleman;
Hello Dr. Knight,
I just listened to your video on Jn 19, ” Behold your Mother”.
I certainly did like most of it,( with one small exception ) as far as it went.
However, I must draw your attention to the salvific nature of all of Jesus’ 7 Last Words, especially this one.
Notice that Jesus did not so much provide for His mother’s physical needs as He did for John’s spiritual needs.
Jesus gave Mary a task to mother John first. The He spoke to John.
The interesting thing is the wife of Zebedee, John’s mother, was standing within earshot.
Think about this; would a good son have waited until the 11th hour to provide for his widowed mother’s household needs? Of course not. And he would not have handed her over to the care of a stranger if he had at least 4 brothers ( according to the Protestant view. Whether or not they were believers is irrelevant to the issue).
Besides, Jesus would be back in 3 days and could make provisions then if that is all this scene is all about.
The fact that the Beloved Disciple is not called by name is interesting. But more interesting is the word “Woman” as employed by John in the scene at Cana and later, in Revelation 12.
Mary is the Woman of Genesis 3:15. Here on Calvary, Simeon’s prophecy ( as you so rightly point out ) is fulfilled. Mary’s heart and Jesus’ are pierced together. For the salvation of the world.
Sir, let me sum up by saying, from the throne of His cross, in the process of redeeming mankind, Jesus Christ establishes Mary as Mother of all disciples. He charges her with a task before establishing John with his.
Just as Jesus called God “Abba”, He called Mary, “Mother”. He charges us to do likewise. From the cross.
Only after establishing Mary as Mother of all believers, does He drink the wine of the 4th cup of the last Supper and say, ” It is finished”.
Thank you for your time, James
Now, Kelvin, why can’t you be civilized like this man? While not a Catholic, he didn’t launch into a rabid diatribe against Catholics in his talk. Take a lesson.
Jim, My diatribes aren’t against Catholics, they are a against Roman Catholicism. The despicable anti biblical doctrines you and your cohorts defend.
Tim, this is from Horton’s book People and Place and you might find it interesting” For Thomas, Christ had bodily ascended, yet the omnipresent Logos could generate a eucharistic body that was nevertheless non spatial, further undermining the true humanity ( and therefore the real absence) of Jesus Christ. On one hand, this represents an over realized eschatology; at the same time, however, as Calvin noticed long ago, what is realized is something less than his specificity as a particular man. Christ everywhere is Jesus of Nazareth nowhere. The course of Christ’s descent-ascent-parousia in the flesh is transformed into the soul’s intellectual and moral ascent: transcending creation and history instead of redeeming it. IOW just when the gospel has taught us to think of salvation in concrete terms; as an act of God in the flesh and for the flesh, the story of Jesus is turned against itself. His humanity is betrayed and marginalized after all. Consequently, Farrow contends, ecclesiology also deteriorates into impersonal and indeed irrelevant. Down the church hierarchal pyramid flowed all heavenly grace , which was no longer disruptive but elevating; no longer coming to the church from outside but oozing from the church’s pores. The life of the monk reflected on an individual level the ascent of mind, to which the church was devoted, as it built towers to the heavens. It was the mass , culminating in the ringing of the bell, announcing the transubstantiation, that visually enacted this cosmology, with the focus of the church’s atoning offering to God rather than God’s communication of Christ and all his benefits to his people. In fact, the laity were mere spectators, receiving the bread without the cup, and that, only twice a year. The growing dominance of icons was also driven by the desire to overcome the absence of Jesus. By rendering the host ICONIC, it negated the real absence in an over realized eschatology, to which the likelihood of a church substitute for Jesus always attaches. Thus a diminishing Jesus and a larger than life church.” A great summary don’t you think Tim?
Jim, I listened to that baptist preacher. You forgot to tell us he said Mary was a sinner who needed her son to die for her. You can’t turn your back on the fact she calls Christ her Lord and savior which means she was a sinner JimMary. As his ministry went on Jim if you will do a bile study on Mary you will see Jesus distances himself calling her woman and you will also see he deflects any undo glory to his bondservant Mary. He gets all the glory Jim. And unless you are willing to abandon your Mary worship and give your whole heart to Christ in faith alone you will not see the kingdom of God. Once again Jim ” Come out from her” my people saith the Lord. Stop meriting your salvation, stop worshiping the bread God, stop worshiping Mary and the saints, stop buying indulgences, stop the pilgrimages, and come to Christ in simple faith and you will find eternal life. I’m praying for you Jim. K
Walt, do you consider all evangelicals and baptists unsaved? There are many baptist and evangelical churches that teach JBFA.
Kevin,
I would think that many Arminian’s are unsaved since they do not have a “saving knowledge” of Christ, but rather they believe it is there faith that saves them, rather than the judicial judgment that Christ took upon Himself for our sins that saves. The imputed righteousness of Christ is different than the infused righteousness that Arminian/Catholics believe they get from faith (and works).
For those who are saved that are Evangelical, Catholics and Baptists, for example, they need to correct their “destructive heresy” (not damnable heresy) on church government, form of worship and doctrine (e.g., like baptism).
However, I certainly want to be careful not to lump all baptists and evangelicals, or even some Catholics, into the unsaved category. They are subject to the Lord’s incredible mercy, and even with all these preachers proclaiming a false and heretical gospel, I think that those who the Lord churches come from every denomination and every corner of the world.
Walt.
Tim,
What is ironic about your post is that it seems as if you’re upset that in Rome’s view God’s grace was too efficacious, too Providential. It goes back to the irony of Luther, with God Providentially raising him up to save the whole Church, despite the fact Luther’s lifestyle/language didn’t reflect that of a sanctified man.
I’m surprised you are upset that figures like John the Baptist and the Apostles for being icons of holiness when it came to their testimony of Jesus before the public. Nobody says the Apostles were sinless, but surely the Apostles were radically changed after Pentecost? Even the Reformed state that the Holy Spirit works mightily in the believer to cause them to grow in *progressive* holiness.
Sadly, it seems that in your attempt to cut down Rome, you insulted the Providential work of the Holy Spirit. At best, you could say these things are simply not taught in Scripture, but you seem to be taking it beyond that, to the point that it’s an insult to God that key figures lived upright lives.
It seems to go all the way back to Luther’s jeaolosy and erroneous anthropology, wherein he concluded that everyone is basically equally holy in virtue of Imputation, almost as an excuse not to have to grow in holiness himself.
As for Rome reciting the Nicene Creed, I fail to see how that plays into your previous post of Rome being Antichrist, because the orthodox teaching on the Trinity isn’t being denied.
If anyone denies the Incarnation, it’s Protestantism’s Nestorian view of Christ’s work, both in their Pelagian idea of the Covenant of Works (wherein Jesus had to keep the Law perfectly by human ability alone) and in their view of the Atonement where the Crucifixion was incidental to the ‘real’ sufferings inflicted when God the Father allegedly poured out His Wrath on Jesus.
I’d love it if you want to go down the path of evaluating Christ’s work, because that’s where Protestantism (particularly Calvinism) crashes and burns. If you ever wanted proof that Protestants don’t really care about the Bible, see how their teachers “prove” Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience.
If you want to see me take a bulldozer to Christ’s Active Obedience, I’ll first point you to Jeremiah 31:33-34, Romans 3:21-26, and Galatians 2:21.
And for Christ’s Active Obedience, see particularly Luke’s account of the Crucifixion, along with every time the Gospel is preached in Acts (Acts 2:23-24; 3:13-15; 4:10-11; 5:10; 10:37-40; 13:27-30), noting that not once is God’s Wrath mentioned as being poured out on Christ.
Nick said ” where God allegedly poured out His wrath on Jesus. “Nick saying that God crushed his son for our iniquities doesn’t make the crucifixion incidental. On the contrary, it makes the crucifixion most pertinent. He forsook his son on the cross. He was numbered among the transgressors. The iniquity of us all fell on Him. He abandoned his son, as Jesus took the sin of the world on himself. He experienced the total separation and punishment that was due us. He didn’t make salvation possible. He saved us. By his stripes we are healed. Not in a healable state. He didn’t make us redeemable, He redeemed us. He didn’t come to put us in a salvable position, he redeemed himself a people. And this is the difference Nick. Hebrews 10:14 sys one sacrifice at the consummation of the ages perfected us, it was sufficient. Not for you, it was imperfect and you must finish it thru the acts of the church. Hope your well. And Nick I know you are a fair guy. I got railroaded off Jason’s site by Jim for doing nothing. I appeal to you to let my voice be heard on that site. God bless Kevin. You wrote a good thread on Jason’s site. Unfortunately baptism does not save someone, faith does. The writers of Hebrews does not say without baptism it is impossible to please Him, and he does not say without love it is impossible to please Him, but he says without faith it is impossible to please. God elects his people and regenerates them by faith, not the act of baptism. Galations 3:1-6. K
Nick, Kelvin,
“And Nick I know you are a fair guy. I got railroaded off Jason’s site by Jim for doing nothing. I appeal to you to let my voice be heard on that site. ”
Kevin, is the Eucharist a “death wafer”? Again, kudos to me for getting you 86ed. No apologies!
Should the three guys running the site let you back on Kelvin, they will dump you within a week as you cannot restrain yourself.
Jason made the mistake of assuming all adults who call themselves Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, would respect each other despite their differences in doctrine. Poor Jason had no idea you would pull the stunts you pulled. I know you were a blast of ice water in my face. I think you were to everyone else too. You managed to stay on that blog for months only because people were so shocked they didn’t know what to do and Jason was occupied elsewhere.
I implore the three blog meisters to keep you banned. Should they opt to give you some rope though, no problem. You will hang yourself again.
Nick, He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. God caused the iniquities of us all to fall on Him. This has substitution written all over it. He was punished in our place and we were vindicated. 1 Peter 1:18 says knowing you were not redeemed with perishable things, but with the precious blood, as a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. He says redeemed, not in the state of being redeemed, but redeemed by his blood. Jesus said He accomplished all that the father gave Him to do. Salvation is accomplished and we simply live by faith as Christ’s sacrifice is applied to us for the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness. Yes it is the covenantal obedience that he has worked out in his earthly trial that serves as the content of imputation. Paul’s analogy of having debts cancelled but also a full account by transfer of funds from someone else renders that wealth no more fiction than if it were the fruit of one’s own labors. As Paul looks over his ledger in Philippians 3, he places all of his own righteousness in the liabilities column and all Chrit’s righteousness in his assets column. Paul is teaching that the notion of imputing acts of obedience from one representative person or group to others is not foreign to Jewish thinking. If guilt can be imputed from one person to another, why not righteousness. Romans 5:12, Romans 5:19.Josh:7:10-26. Nick, if justification is not a matter of imputing righteousness, can one know now who will be vindicated at last?
Walt, I agree with Arminians. But, I wouldn’t say differing on infant baptism is the same as Rome’s false gospel of justification by faith plus works. I believe that those Protestant brothers who hold a different position on baptism are still my brothers because they believe in JBFA. Sproul and MacArthur differ on baptism, but they are dear brothers in Christ.
Kevin, you said, “Sproul and MacArthur differ on baptism, but they are dear brothers in Christ.”
Totally agree here. Both of them preach the true gospel, and differ in baptism. That is why I said that Baptists who forbid infant baptism are involved in a “destructive heresy” rather than a “damnable heresy”. Big difference.
Destructive heresy is damaging the unity of the Christian church, and cause schism in the church. Damnable heresy causes people to go to hell.
Baptism is the #1 most divisive doctrine in the church, and worship is the second and government is the third among the reformed. The #1 most divisive among reformed an arminian is the doctrine of soteriology.
Nick,
Kelvin wrote, “Protestant brothers who hold a different position on baptism are still my brothers because they believe in JBFA. ”
End of story.
Tim, Nick wrote:
“I’m surprised you are upset that figures like John the Baptist and the Apostles for being icons of holiness when it came to their testimony of Jesus before the public. Nobody says the Apostles were sinless, but surely the Apostles were radically changed after Pentecost? Even the Reformed state that the Holy Spirit works mightily in the believer to cause them to grow in *progressive* holiness.”
Tim, do you notice how they believe that progressive holiness equals salvation; or what is called infused righteousness? Noticed how he wrongly calls the “reformed state”…in error?
1. The Nature of Justification
a. According to Rome justification is a change in the moral nature of a sinner. According to Rome justification is not a judicial act of God whereby He objectively imputes the righteousness of Christ to the believing sinner and declares him to be righteous on the ground of Christ’s perfect righteousness, but rather a moral transformation by God whereby He subjectively cleanses the heart of sin and corruption and renews man within by giving to man the righteousness of God. This confusion blurs the biblical distinction between justification (an objective judicial act) and sanctification (a subjective moral transformation), thus removing the judicial nature of justification. Just as our sin was imputed to Christ, so His righteousness is imputed (not infused) to the believing sinner.
Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man (CCC, p. 536, #1989).
With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us (CCC, p. 536, #1991).
It [i.e. justification–GLP] conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy (CCC, p. 536, #1992).
Justification entails the sanctification of his whole being (CCC, p. 537, #1995).
Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man (CCC, p. 544, #2019).
b. According to Westminster justification is not a subjective moral transformation, but rather an objective judicial act whereby God imputes to the believing sinner the perfect righteousness of Christ and declares him to be righteous. Westminster correctly distinguishes justification and sanctification.
Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for
Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God (WCF 11:1).
Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for any thing in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners (WCF 11:3).
Walt,
You missed my point entirely. Under the Reformed view, we should expect to see TONS of Christians living lives that have increasingly less and less sin in them as the days go on. By the time the typical elect individual has died, he should have been been living a life of utmost sanctity. The Reformed tradition should whole-heartedly agree with the proposition that, at least after Pentecost, the Apostles were outstanding models of sanctity. Of course, Luther’s own life throws a wrench into all that, because nobody I know says Luther was a role model of sanctity.
Nick,
I got your point, but it was in error. That was my point.
Yes, very interesting. Compare these two statements:
Tim
Nick, In the life of a Reformed believer or any Christian there should be a decrease of sin and an increase of holiness. In fact I like late Augustine belief that one of the most mature christians in the bible is the Romans 7 man. He understands his struggle with sin. I believe as John MacArthur has pointed out the closer we get to God, the more we sees our sinfulness. When Isaiah, one of the most righteous men to walk the face of the earth, saw the glory of God, the first thing he said was Oh me a man of unclean lips. He saw his sin. And this is consistent with 1 John 1 which says if we say we have no sin we make God a liar and the truth is not in us. I really believe Nick that the reason we see Christ’s sacrifice differently than you has to do with our views of sin. For you man’s not so bad and God’s not so mad. But Calvin as well as Augustine rightfully said that our most holy works could not stand before God as meritorious because they are stained by sin.. Paul is very clear that cursed is anyone who does not abide in ALL things of the law. For Rome Jesus is a softer Moses with an easier law, as if loving god with all your heart and neighbor isn’t hard enough in itself. And this is the Roman error conflating two covenants into gracious law. But for Paul works and hearing by faith are opposed in justification. We can’t love our neighbor rightly and we can’t love God with all our heart, although that is our goal. But Paul had to deal with the antinomian cries, so when you make claims like this you are mistaken. As calvin said its allot easier to love your neighbor when you know you are not obligated to do so. Christians grow in holiness Nick, but where we fail we are covered by the righteousness of Christ. Just like Joshua is clothed with the white robes of righteousness when he was dirty and being accused by Satan, so are we clothed in the righteousness of Christ. When Paul uses Dikaiou he could have never ever meant the state of affairs in the life of a believer. Man is just because Christ died.
Kelvin,
“When Isaiah, one of the most righteous men to walk the face of the earth, saw the glory of God, the first thing he said was O…”
How righteous was Isaiah in comparison to Mary?
Kelvin,
“the reason we see Christ’s sacrifice differently than you has to do with our views of sin. For you man’s not so bad and God’s not so mad.”
Is that why sin is just swept under the rug or covered with a blanket of snow for you guys?
Kelvin,
Why are you hankering to get back on a blog where nobody wants you?
Is the sick need to insult Catholics so strong? It certainly can’t be because you want to dialogue as you don’t care what Catholics really believe. You like attacking the straw men you have erected in your totally depraved mind better than reality.
I prefer to keep you bottled up here on Tim’s blog. That way, whenever I want to go slumming, I know where to find you.
I also see visiting you here on occasion to be one of the 7 corporal works of mercy, (visiting the imprisoned ). I merit from it.
I also visit here to try and save Tim. You certainly can’t say you are trying to save Catholics, can you?
Please stop pleading with Nick to be allowed back on Jason’s blog. I enjoy your whining so much it is sinful. I “boast” in my righteousness whenever you bring out that it was I, single handedly, who badgered Jason into dumping you.
You see Kelvin, when you slur the Blessed Sacrament or Mary just to irritate me, I know you are drawing a fiendish pleasure from it. That is the same kind of wicked delight I get from your pleading. I love it so much! Just knowing how much you want to be over there but can’t ( because of me ) is so delicious.
By the way, as there is a new sheriff in town over there, I think your buddies Rubberband and Eric have quit. They know the party is over.
So, when are you going to address all those questions on Calvinism I have been putting to you?
Jim, Wow what a surprise that you want to muzzle me and keep my voice from being heard. In true Roman Catholic form which kept the word of God from the people and would not permit men to be saved. If you had the truth, which you don’t, you wouldn’t have the need to keep someone’s voice from being heard. And yes I have seen Jason’s site is just Catholics now who tell each other how holy they are. Jonathan the Christian Physicist, Jason the new Roman God, Mateo the Calvin hater, Debbie and Wosbald the Panthiests, and Jim the Fatherly cultured idolator. All one big happy family worshiping at the altar of the Roman Harlot. The only guy that I have respect for is Nick. Because although his axiom is sola eclessia, he is humble and respectful. And finally, Calvin came to finish what Augustine started to do. Unravel the greek philosophy from Christianity. Tell the philosophers, who were stuck in their little globe and got heaven and earth upside down, and Aquinas who attached a Christian faith ethic to a pagan philosophy of human autonomy, what really happened to man’s nature that it was corrupted thru the fall, that man apart from God was dead in sins and unable to come to the truth thru human wisdom. Aquinas tried to make the Gospel reasonable to natural man. Calvin went back to scripture and put natural man in his place, lost, dead in sins, without understanding, apart from the Spirit of God. And only understanding comes thru the Gospel, the Word by the spirit. He outed a man centered false religion and focused us on the predestined plan and glory of God. Romans 9:11 was his dynamite Jimboy. Listen carefully as you merit your continuance in grace. “for though the twins were not yet born, and had done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of WORKS but because of Him who calls” Jacob I loved , but Esau I hated.” Jim this your answer to all your questions. You cannot make this scripture go away Jimmy. It is the downfall of the Roman religion that is man centered and the justification of the Gospel which is always about the predestined plan of God and His glory. Rev: 18:4 ” My people, come out from her”
Kevin,
“Jim, Wow what a surprise that you want to muzzle me and keep my voice from being heard. In true Roman Catholic form which kept the word of God from the people and would not permit men to be saved. If you had the truth, which you don’t, you wouldn’t have the need to keep someone’s voice from being heard. ”
You rave blasphemies Kevin. Nobody should hear what you say.
Kelvin, Two nations were in Rebekah. What are you trying to say?
Kelvin, how do you know you are elect?
How do you know your faith is saving faith. Faith is in degrees. It waxes and wanes. It can even be made a shipwreck of.
Maybe your faith isn’t strong enough to move mountains or even save you. I think you have a false faith.
I think an hour before you die you just may realize you have never really believed or trusted.
God may have given you faith for a season. But you may not persevere.
Jim, the Spirit witness to my spirit I am a child of God. The bible tells me by faith I am justified, sealed in the Spirit, an heir and adopted child of God. My God actually saved me, not made salvation possible if I’m good enough. You said “faith is in degrees” I am not on salvation on the installment plan like you. My salvation isn’t a lay away plan. He purchased me with his blood, and to as many as receive Him he has given the right to be called children of God. I am trusting in Christ alone for my salvation, and not in my own righteousness. My righteousness is derived from His it is his righteousness. God gives the gift of perseverance to all his children, he loses none. He predestined and chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before him. Look at the first preaching of the gospel Jim. God killed and animal and clothed Adam and Eve with garments while they were naked.
Kevin,
What Jim does not understand is the order of salvation…and I don’t expect him (you should not either) to learn that doctrine.
What he is seeking is saving faith leading over time to regeneration and justification/sanctifying faith.
What Scripture teaches is regeneration first, then renewing of your mind to believe, and then faith which is a free gift. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph.2:8)
Faith is a free gift. He saved us by regenerating us first.
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour” (Tit.3:5-6)
You can see Jim (Arminian) vs. Kevin (Bible) understand below:
Arminianism teaches: ‘… and as many as believed were ordained to eternal life.’
THE BIBLE TEACHES: ‘AND AS MANY AS WERE ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE BELIEVED.’ (Acts 13:48)
So who is this that can believe?
“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn.3:15)
Who is this “whosoever”? Is whosoever the entire world? NO.
“As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” (Rom.9:33)
“For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” (Rom.10:11)
Thus, the WHOSOEVER is those who believeth! Who are those that believe? : ‘AND AS MANY AS WERE ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE BELIEVED.’ (Acts 13:48)
What about the Whosoever that are like Jim?
“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Gal.3:4)
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (Jam.2:10)
JIM, my dear brother, the Lord is calling you to reach out to Him at the end of your life, and not look to your obedience to justify yourself before Him, but to KNOW that your obedience is but filthy rages. He is the ONLY perfect shed blood, and it is NOW FINISHED. His atonement has fully satisfied your disobedience…you are guilty of all for violating one point.
Ignore yourself, deny yourself, repent and crawl to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords as His wrath in the seven vial judgements are coming near and soon to a city near you!
Walt,
“What Scripture teaches is regeneration first, then renewing of your mind to believe, and then faith which is a free gift. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph.2:8)”
Walt, I do indeed understand the Lutheran and Arminian ordo salutis as opposed to the Calvinists one.
Show me where they are wrong and you are right. In the Bible it goes like this;Faith, repentance, Baptism, Justification/regeneration.
Faith is feminine. Salvation is the gift of God. ( Actually, we Catholics say Faith is too).
For you Calvinists, Faith does not save. Rather, only the saved have Faith.
Walt,
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (Jam.”
Remember back to you Catholic days. One mortal sin kills your soul as much as many.
Walt, do you pray for your family members to be saved? Yes?
Why? Maybe they are not elect. Perhaps you are praying for people who God hates and wishes to send to hell.
Walt, Calvinism is diabolical. The Bible says God wants all men saved. It tells us to pray for all mean as God want us all in heaven.
Calvinism teaches 100% counter to this.
As for good works being filthy rags, remember, we are to “fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ”. We are to pray for and do good works and acts of penance not only for our own final justification, but to save those whom we love. St. Paul was knocked off his horse on the Damascus because Stephan, while suffering martyrdom, prayed for him.
Kelvin,
Sorry to hear you presume upon the Holy Ghost.
I, on the other hand, am working out my salvation with fear and trembling knowing that my enemy the devil, goes about like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
I am staying awake, with my lamp lit, not knowing when the Bridegroom will return to render unto every man according to his works.
Jim, that should say my righteousness isn’t derived from His it is His righteousness.
Kelvin,
My Lord Jesus said, ” Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees…”
Remember Kevin, “STRIVE (grit your teeth and try your best ) for that holiness without which YOU WILL NOT SEE GOD”.
Kelvin,
Pray as if everything depends on Jesus’ cross.
Strive as if everything depends on how well you carry yours every day.
Jim said faith waxes and wains” ” If we are faithless, he remains faithful” This is the grace of God.
But you can become WORSE than an unbeliever, according to Paul.
Of course, He is faithful. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not shipwrecks or lightning or nothing.
( Except sin ).
Walt, very well said. I knew this and agree with it all.
Jim, I do pray that you heed the words of Walt. They are spiritually appraised. K
Boys, I pray for all men, including you guys, as God wants all men, not just you guys, saved and to come to the knowledge of truth.
Jim, said ” My Lord Jesus said ” unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees…” Yes he set the standard which you can never fulfill to force you to the gospel. Full communion isn’t meriting your continuance in grace. You will find what the Jewish brethren found in Romans 9:30 ,hell. Full communion is trusting in Christ alone for your salvation. Christ did not come to make salvation possible if we are good enough Jim, he came to save sinners giving them forgiveness thru faith and repentance. He gave us the gift of eternal life. Telling you that you can get in if your good enough ain’t good news Jim. There is a terrifying fear of judgment. But knowing that we have eternal life and passed out of judgment John 5:24 and knowing we have been justified Romans 5:1, 5:9-10 we have peace with God. I know many sincere people in the RC trusting their righteousness to get them in, and as Walt said the bible is clear if you go down that road, you must abide in all things of the law and your righteousness must exceed….. Run to the Gospel Jim, leave the false gospel of Rome, run to the catholic church which preaches the gospel of scripture, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Salvation on the installment plan where you are eating increases of justice and salvation by your works is directly opposed to faith alone in Christ alone. We are saved by faith Jim. Paul is very clear in Galatians 5 that if you go down the road of works and law you will be severed from Christ and fall from grace. ” My people, come out from her” Jim come out from the medieval Roman church which perverted the gospel, and return to the true catholic church of the apostles and early church and the Reformers. Come home to full communion thru simple faith, and repent from your filthy deeds of earning justification and all the rubbish you are doing to earn your salvation, pilgrimages, Mary worship, scapulars, buying indulgences and forgiveness, propitiating your own sin, worshiping the elements, worshiping a church, worshiping sacraments, etc. God said burnt offering and sacrifice I desire not. But the sacrifices of god are a broken and contrite heart. Put all you pride and self righteousness away and come crawling to Him in repentance and faith and wear the crown of eternal life. ” For as many as receive Him, He has given the right to be called children of God. Quit working for your Salvation Jim and believe. I tried to tell many of my Roman friends this, but they think to much of themselves and their goodness. You must abandon all thinking that there is any good in us and see your utter sinfulness and cry out in faith, and He will forgive you and give you eternal life, NOW, not weighing up the goods against the bads at the end of your life, but now. John says we can know that we have eternal life. 1 john 5:13. Come out from her Jim!
Kelvin,
If a Christian goes back to Jewish law, he has fallen from grace.
Kelvin,
All through the NT believers, brothers, are exhorted to avoid sin ( “avoid” is a verb Kevin ), to stay ( another verb ) in the faith.
Think of the unforgiving servant. His debts was wiped out. He was saved. But he unsaved himself.
Think of the Lord’s Prayer. Forgiveness is conditioned upon forgiveness.
Take up YOUR cross Kevin. Don’t kick back and say Jesus did it all in your stead.
If you commit certain sins, you lose your salvation. The Bible says so Kevin.
It also says you are NOT saved by faith Alone.
You Calvinists are the worst of Protestants. Your absurd doctrine of election is rejected by most non Catholics.
You know Kelvin, I am getting tired of Jason’s blog. Why?
Because it’s all about Calvinism and Calvinism isn’t even the majority opinion among Protestants. Too much haggling over the stupid WCF.
Ever hear of Dan Corner? He hates Catholicism, especially Mary, as much as you do. Check out his website. I have had many email exchanges with him. He is, like Tim and Walt, an ex Catholic. But even more than Catholics, he loathes Calvinism.
I have learned lots of good anti-Calvinist stuff from him.
How about Dave Hunt. He is an anti Catholic maniac. And he opposes Calvinism too.
Kevin, please don’t preach Calvinism to me. It is a man made system that has been forced onto the Bible. Arminians, even the most anti Catholic, have a much better grasp of the Bible than Calvinists do.
They don’t pray for the dead, pray to Mary or the saints, believe in the Mass, obey the Pope, go to Confession or the other sacraments, contracept, have no religious art, and yet, the deny your system too.
Or what about the Church of Christ? Definitely anti-Catholic. You can hear them debate Matt Slick and other Calvinist Baptists on utube. They always win as Baptism is Biblical and Calvinism is not.
Kevin, Calvinism isn’t the only brand of anti-Catholicism. Listen to Steve Gregg cream James White in debate. He also debates Tim Staples. Calvinism is no more popular with Protestants than Catholicism is.
As for Tim’s wacky Whore of Babylon nonsense, listen to 7th Day Adventists. Or Dispensationalists.
Paul Washer, Doug Wilson, John piper, James White, Matt Slick,
John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Mike Gedron, Rob Zins, etc. etc. I have heard them all, read their books and corresponded with some of them . I know your system better than you do Kevin. And I reject it.
Yours is the worst form of Protestantism. It has warped the grace of God into something horrible. I dislike all forms of Protestantism, but yours, I actually doubt if it is really Christian. Your view of God is weird. Like the Muslims or Mormons.
No more non Biblical nonsense, please.
Jim, Romans 11:7 ” What then? What Israel was seeking it has not obtained, but those who were CHOSEN obtained it, and the rest were hardened.” All Romanists like yourself and all RC lurkers should think about this verse. 11:6 says ” But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” Grace isn’t grace in your system Jim. This isn’t talking about initial justification, its talking about all of salvation is by grace by faith and by christ alone to the glory of God. It is God who regenerates us thru his Word and his Spirit and who sanctifies us and glorifies us. Luther identified ” the righteousness of God” that comes apart from the Law by faith. This has set men free. Amen!
Luther thought works of the law=good works.
Come into her,Kevin!
Tim, Amazing the completely different statements on justification from Clement and the in 390 from Chrysostom. Tim, If Paul makes definitive statements in Romans 4:5 “to the one who does not work” Ephesians 2:8 :” not that of yourselves”” not a result of works” , how can they not resist the urge to smuggle their character in God’s work of grace. If we are told the “free gift of righteousness” and it is a gift of God why must they merit continuance in grace? Listen to Paul Tim 1 Timothy 1″15-16 ” It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom” I am” foremost of all.” He says “I am”, not” I was”. And Tim listen to the next verse, it is very important; 16 ” Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” We believe for eternal life. The righteous shall live by faith. Since Abraham had righteousness counted to him, he cannot have done works, but must have been the reception of grace. God is not crediting something intrinsic to us or properly earned by us or reflective of us to be our righteousness, but God counts us righteous, even though we are ungodly by crediting faith as righteousness. Tim, of course Nick is going to come in here and lay out justification on the installment plan based on the life lived. Watch.
Hog wash Kevin. God does not justify the ungodly as ungodly.
He redeemed the ungodly, all of them and not just some, on Calvary.
God is not a liar. He does not credit a wicked person as righteous.
Kevin,
Abraham had an interior disposition and not an external imputation. He was justifed by/because of his Faith.
Jim, there is a difference between positional righteousness and practical righteousness. At anytime in this life we stand condemned based on our inherent condition. But the scripture is clear for those who are trusting in Christ alone of for their righteousness, “there is NOW therefore no condemnation for those in Christ. ” Or another way to say that is there is now justification for those in Christ. Condemnation is not a statement about ontology or an inherent condition. It is a judgment. Romans 8:3-4 says Christ condemned sin in the flesh by fulfilling the righteous requirements of the Law “in us” not “by us” It is passive construction. Romans 7:6 says we have been freed from the penalty of the Law. He became a curse for us. He became sin and we became the righteousness of God in Him. Paul says in Romans 10 that Moses writes that men who practice the righteousness based on the Law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness that is based on faith is near you in your mouth and your heart that whoever confesses with their mouth Jesus as Lord and believes in their heart god raised Him from the dead will be saved. Two ways to be justified and you can conflate them Jim. If you are going to continue to merit your continuance in grace it is no longer grace and you must keep every jot and tittle of the Law. and no man has done it yet. Its very serious Jim, as Walt told you repent of your filthy works and believe, for the works that come from faith alone are pleasing too God.
Jim, Romans 4:5 says he does credit the ungodly who do not work but believe with righteousness. Rome can never get around this verse. Paul said Abraham had nothing to boast about before god in His works. Jim as I told Debbie, don’t buy Satan”s lie that you are good and righteous enough to get to heaven. When God shows you your total bankruptcy morally , you will run to the gospel in faith and not trust in your own works. This is the Roman lie. Aquinas tried to make the gospel more reasonable and user friendly to the natural man, but Calvin rightly pointed out that natural man is dead in sins and cannot get to the truth of the gospel thru human reason apart from the regeneration of the Spirit. Aquinas relied on pagan philosophers who had no understanding of the truth and tried to combine a Christian faith ethic with the anthropology of pagan philosophy, autonomous man. He came up with hair splitting mechanics not found anywhere in the bible. The Reformers came to rescue the Apostles and early church from all the hair splitting academics and to dispense of the ecclesial machinery that developed in the church that was human in origin and content. We were returned to the Word and the gospel and the church flourished because salvation come from the Word. the Roman Religion hijacked the early church and perverted the gospel, removing the word from the people. Killing men who translated the bible into English. Rome has been the greatest enemy of the truth and has suppressed the gospel. And the abomination of desolation is the mass which has sent so many soul’s to hell. The fact that you go to the death wafer and merit for yourself and others more salvation by your works, and that you make sacrifice for your sins is up-hauling. We are called to faith, not to merit our salvation thru doing a life of sacraments. Sacraments are the signs and seals of God’s grace, not the means of meriting increase in justice and grace. ” Come out from her, my people”
Kelvin,
Who are the ungodly in Rom 4:5? That was a term used for gentiles. Works are works of the law. Read before and after to see for yourself.
All through the Book of Acts we see St. Paul opposing Jews and Judaizers. Neither Paul nor Jesus ever lash out at people for doing good works.
Kevin,
Seriously, have you ever been treated for mental illness? Are you dyslexic? Attention deficit disorder? Any type of learning disorder?
The reason I ask is this,
“Sacraments are the signs and seals of God’s grace, not the means of meriting increase in justice and grace. ”
Kelvin, I unabashedly believe in merit. I am not trying to hide anything. Kelvin, how many times have I explained the difference between merit and sacraments? If I explained it to you again, would you remember? Do you care? I wanted you off Jason’s blog because of blasphemy. The other people wanted you off because of this. You disrespect people so much by disregarding what they tell you. You have been told so many times we merit by works. We don’t “merit” by sacraments. Does it matter to you to get it right? It’s like your ignorant use of ‘ex opere operato”. You never cared to get it right.
Kelvin, I know your system like the back on my hand. You, however, despite your ranting for years, have never bothered to understand what you rant against. You are hopeless. I am so glad I got you muzzled on the other blog.
Jim, “To the one who works well to the end and trusts in God salvation is to be offered, not only as a gift, but as a reward to their merits and good works.” This is a direct quote from Trent. Debbie used to accuse me of not understanding RC doctrine but it is your who don’t understand Scripture and justification. That is an exact quote from Trent. So don’t accuse me of not understanding ex opere operato. You merit increase of grace and justice thru the act of doing a sacrament. Quit denying it. Grace is the means of exchange in the Chrurch’s merit system. Own up.
Deranged Liar! Trent does not say we merit “ex opere operato”!!! Give me the quote.
The change of the elements of bread and wine is ex opere operato. No body receives sanctifying grace, whether through sacraments or meritorius good works ex opere operato,
Give me your quote from Trent or anywhere else.
We will go no further discussing any topic until you either give me a quote or admit you are wrong.
OOPS! Let me tweek that one before you start trying to address my challenge.
“No body receives sanctifying grace, whether through sacraments or meritorius good works ex opere operato,”
Let me be clear. ” Nobody MERITS sanctifying grace, whether through sacraments or meritorious good works {in spite of an intentionally heretical or sinful disposition } ex opere operato”
( Ignorance is not necessarily heresy and unrepented mortal sin blocks SANCTIFYING grace. No ex opere operato! )
Q. 72. What is justifying faith? A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation. – Westminster Larger Catechism, Question and Answer 72.
So Walt, I guess from this day onward, I will be confining all comments to you as Kevin is not going to find the quote I am demanding of him. It doesn’t exist. Since his arrogance will not permit him to admit he doesn’t understand the Catholicism he attacks like a rabid dog, it’s over between him and me. I have had it with his caricatures.
So, I will be lurking for a few days to see if he tries lying his way out of his dilemma.
Kevin,
Please don’t think that by quoting the statement in Trent condemning the error of those who deny SACRAMENTAL grace graces as long as no obstacle or obex is placed there will get you off the hook.
I want you to explain sanctifying grace, sacramental grace, ( meaning the Characters or seals given in Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination, the Real Presence, etc. that take place despite the state of grace of the recipient ). I have given you, about 10 times, the phrase “ex opere operantis”. Explain in your own words. ( If you copy and paste, I can tell ).
Sacraments are not magic, for the 50th time. Sanctifying Sanctifying Sanctifying Sanctifying grace can always be blocked and is not given in spite of the disposition of the recipient!!!!!!!!!!!
Tim,
If you jump in and try to save Kevin’s hash, I won’t bother to read your comments. I am sure you know what I am demanding of Kevin. I am sick of his inane pretense of knowing what he is talking about about by misusing certain key phrases. If the man can’t even take the time to read the nuances of which graces are given ex opere operato, and how they CAN BE BLOCKED AS WE DON”T BELIEVE IN MAGIC but he continuously says “death wafer”, he is a phony and not the hi brow scholar he pretends to be.
( Meritorious works give grace ex opere operato indeed!)
Walt or Kevin,
You can send K over to the other blog where the Presbyterian view of Baptism is being discussed. He can read my post there of how certain graces are given in the sacraments ( not meritoriously of course, as K claims ). Referring him to my post about how people who cross their fingers can obstruct not only sanctifying grace but the specific sacramental graces or seals even.
Kelvin,
Please read this before trying to refute me.http://ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/@books/Aumann/spir_theol/st09.htm
It explains how we INCREASE in grace. ( Notice the three ways;1 prayer, 2 sacraments 3 merit ) Scroll down to 7 for some crucial fine tuning on the term EX OPERE OPERATO.
( I haven’t read the article but to scan it to see if it addresses your errors but you will see nobody receives sanctifying grace in spite of an improper disposition. A baby cannot put up an obex so he always has the proper disposition to receive. No profession of Faith needed. He automatically receives the seal, the grace, the virtues and gifts . That is opere operato. A couple who committed the sin of fornication and have not Confessed it can present themselves to the priest for marriage and will be truly married but NO grace is given at that time. Go read the blog you are banned from ).
“To the one who works well to the end and trusts in God salvation is to be offered, not only as a gift, but as a reward to their merits and good works.”
If you think this quote you give from Trent saves you, it doesn’t. ( By the way, it doesn’t say “earn” a wage of salvation, does it? Meriting a reward and earning a wage are different. Can you explain that difference for the lurkers?)
“You {merit} increase of grace and justice thru the act of doing a sacrament. ”
No Kevin. We don’t technically. Christ merited the grace of the sacraments. As long as we are disposed ( ex opere operantis ) we FREELY and NOT meritoriously increase in grace.
Kelvin, I have done all your foot work for you. Read up and play it back so as to prove you know what you are saying when you babble about how we merit ex opere operato in doing the works of sacraments or whatever it is you say.
I will be waiting. No copy and pasting now. You own words.
Kelvin,
While out running errands I thought about the quest I have sent you on. A question one often comes across is this; If a priest walks past a bakery and says the words of institution, what happens?
If a bigamist says the right words in a wedding ceremony, is he twice married?
If a penitent lies to a priest but tricks the priest into saying,” I absolve you” is he forgiven? The sacraments work EX OPERE OPERATO right?
I just googled around and found this statement by your own PCA Peter Leithart,
“Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer grace. By contrast, Protestants insist that sacraments are not means of grace apart from the word and a response of faith in the participants. It is not my purpose here to examine these debates, which in all probability involve a great deal of caricature and oversimplification…”http://www.hornes.org/theologia/peter-leithart/sacramental-efficacy
I think you only study anti-Catholic stuff.
Please read this. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13295a.htm#V
Kelvin, the sacraments work ex opere operato. Yes indeed. The Church says so. ( Including the Council of Trent you think you understand ). However, the magical spin you put on them is dead wrong. And we are not meriting ex opere operato grace by doing sacramental works. The phraseology isn’t even anything I am familiar with. You sound like a clown when you try to impress me with your erudition. You glean your stuff from bigoted sources ( or, after scouring over those sources you click on a Catholic source and interpret it in light of the bigoted source.) And you mix categories. This is a perfect example.
Are you aware that we Catholics believe grace is given, received, merited, outside of the sacraments? If you say you do know it, could you tell me how? And is is it ex opere operato or operantis? How and why? Can we buy grace with money ex opere operato? Why or why not?
Ex opere operato is a perfectly legitimate term to use. You just don’t ever use it in the right context though. Please cease and desist in using it until you actually comprehend its nuances.
I will be lurking.
Kelvin,
As I am giving you no wiggle room on this, I googled around and see Dave Armstrong explains why you get it wrong on “ex opere operato” ( Because Calvin did too!)
“Elsewhere, Calvin explicitly rejects ex opere operato, and in so doing, shows that he scarcely even understands what it is that he rejects:
To show more fully the agreement between the doctrine of the Papists and that which Paul opposes, it must be observed, that the sacraments, when we partake of them in a sincere manner, are not the works of men, but of God. In baptism or the Lord’s supper, we do nothing but present ourselves to God, in order to receive his grace. Baptism, viewed in regard to us, is a passive work: we bring nothing to it but faith; and all that belongs to it is laid up in Christ. But what are the views of the Papists? They contrive the opus operatum, by which men merit the grace of God; and what is this, but to extinguish utterly the truth of the sacrament?”
You read calvin and misunderstand us. Dave Armstrong goes on To explain the Council of Trents words on ex opere operato:
“. . . we must now recognize that the Roman Catholic not only rejects this reproach of magic, but that he also faces a problem of subjectivity in the sacraments. This is already apparent in the pronouncement of Trent, which not only poses the ex opere operato, but also speaks of the problem of the obstacle. It is impossible, therefore, to speak simplistically of the Roman Catholic sacramental doctrine as “magical.” . . . a subjective disposition is necessary for the working of the sacrament. Rome never intended to rule out this disposition in an objectivistic manner, but only to deny that this necessary disposition is either causal or meritorious. . . . In spite of all the criticism from the Reformed side, Rome wants to defend the gratuity of grace.”
NOT MAGICAL RITUALS KELVIN!
Dave Armstrong goes on to say what I have told you so many times”
“Against all innovators the Council of Trent declared: “If anyone say that the sacraments of the New Law do not contain the grace which they signify, or that they do not confer grace on those who place no obstacle to the same, let him be anathema” (Sess. viii, can.vi). “If anyone say that grace is not conferred by the sacraments ex opere operato but that faith in God’s promises is alone sufficient for obtaining grace, let him be anathema” (ibid., can. viii; cf. can. iv, v, vii).
The phrase “ex opere operato”, for which there is no equivalent in English, probably was used for the first time by Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205), and afterwards by Innocent III (d. 1216; de myst. missae, III, v), and by St. Thomas (d. 1274; IV Sent., dist. 1, Q.i, a.5). It was happily invented to express a truth that had always been taught and had been introduced without objection. . . . “Ex opere operato”, i.e. by virtue of the action, means that the efficacy of the action of the sacraments does not depend on anything human, but solely on the will of God as expressed by Christ’s institution and promise.
“Ex opere operantis”, i.e. by reason of the agent, would mean that the action of the sacraments depended on the worthiness either of the minister or of the recipient . . . It is well known that Catholics teach that the sacraments are only the instrumental, not the principal, causes of grace.
Neither can it be claimed that the phrase adopted by the council does away with all dispositions necessary on the part of the recipient, the sacraments acting like infallible charms causing grace in those who are ill-disposed or in grievous sin. The fathers of the council were careful to note that there must be no obstacle to grace on the part of the recipients, who must receive them rite, i.e. rightly and worthily; and they declare it a calumny to assert that they require no previous dispositions (Sess. XIV, de poenit., cap.4).
Dispositions are required to prepare the subject, but they are a condition (conditio sine qua non), not the causes, of the grace conferred. In this case the sacraments differ from the sacramentals, which may cause grace ex opere operantis, i.e. by reason of the prayers of the Church or the good, pious sentiments of those who use them.
Posted by Dave Armstrong at 11:41 AM
Okay Kelvin? Did you kind of understand? Did you at least understand that you haven’t ever understood?
Sacraments work because of God’s promises. Our dispositions do not CAUSE them to work. Our subjective Faith does not cause them to work. ( Like scapulars and other sacramentals ) However, our dispositions can block sanctifying grace though. That is why an adult must make a profession of Faith prior to Baptism as he may have formerly held heretical beliefs. The Sacraments are not magic. Even in the case of a baby. God’s promises work as the baby has no unbelief or heresy.
Saying the right words may confect the objective sacrament ( ex opere operato ) but our disposition can block any good effect in OUR SOULS. NOT MAGIC, NOT MAGIC. NOT MAGIC! ( In the case of voodoo magic, whether a person believes in it or not, or even knows about, when the pin is stuck in the doll, he says”ouch”.)
“Hoc est enim corpus meum” is not mumbo jumbo. “Hocus pocus”, the words that got you dumped from Jason’s blog, reveal that like Calvin, you Kelvin, don’t even understand what ex opere operato means!
Got to go to the airport. Enuff of trying to instruct you. Stay ignorant but I tried.
Back from the airport Kelvin and must comment on your wisecrack about me earning or whatever word you used on the “installment plan” yesterday.
Because your knowledge of the Bible consists of a few passages of St. Paul, you don’t realize what “merit” means and why it doesn’t apply to sacraments. It means reward ( not wage ). As a wage, we earn hell in the Bible Romans 6:23.
If one is FREELY put in a state of grace by a sacrament (Baptism, or Confession )let’s say, he can merit an increase of grace and therefore an increase of heaven as grace is the seed of glory.
How do we know? Because Kelvin, the Bible says so.
Matthew 25:5-23, Matthew 5:5-10, Luke 6:22-23, 1 Peter 5:4, Matthew 16:23,Revelation 22:12, Luke 19:15.
Actually, St Paul says so too. I Cor 3:11-14,2 Tim 4:8. He even says that the reward is not merely an increase in heavenly reward but heaven itself Romans 2.
There are some conditions that must be met to get this reward Kelvin.
1. It must be done for love of God or a supernatural purpose. Jesus saideven a cup of water given in His name will be rewarded in heaven.
2. One must already be in a state of grace. One cannot merit to get into a state of grace as it is the principle of merit. Why? Because grace makes us God-like. It gives a participation in His own life.
What is God’s life Kelvin? Knowing Himself and loving Himself. By grace we participate through a dim glass now in knowing God as He is. And we love God for Himself. This is above our nature. Grace gives us the power to act or operate in this new life too.
Without grace, in a state of sin, we cannot merit no matter what we do or how much money we give to charity. Even if we have Faith to move mountains or pour out our blood, if we don’t have the supernatural love for God in our hearts, we are as sounding brass. St. Paul says so.
3. The good works we do must have been promised a reward. Remember Tim’s silly article on “Is God in Debt to Mary”? Go back and read my response to him.
Even Arminians know we must, ” Strive for holiness or we will not see God”.
You mix categories Kelvin. Sacraments, ( unless you eat my Body and drink my Blood…”), prayer (don’t pray like the hypocrites who already have their reward ) and meritorious good works are ways to increase or grow in the life in Christ.
If we don’t increase in grace, in the life of the vine, we will be cut off and thrown into the fire ( hell). If you aren’t storing up reward, you are storing up wrath Romans 2:5. Either/Or, Kelvin. If you aren’t meriting heavenly reward you are earning the wages of spiritual death, hell.
You love to say that its either God’s free grace or our own efforts. Sorry kelvin, but there is a third option.
So, your caricature of an installment plan is just that, another one of your caricatures.
So, I am waiting for you to try to weasel out of your caricature of us doing our magical ceremonies to merit the sacraments and their grace ex opere operato. I have clicked on several Protestant sites today and I see where you get your misinformation on ex opere operato and sacraments. There seems to be an epidemic of ignorance out there. You guys feed each other.
Kelvin, Where are you?
Here is my own little analogy ( not de fide ) example of how grace is increased in us ( a.k.a. the installment plan ).
1. Prayer. Just asking to either be out in a state of grace if we are sorry fro having lost it. Or if we are already there, for an increase.
2, A free gift. The sacraments are free gifts. If I say I have a free gift for you if you come and get it, it’s still a gift. Sometimes gifts can be handed to you and other times you must fulfill the condition of going and getting it. Either way, it’s a gift. Sacraments are both kinds.
Sacraments give grace ex opere operato and we receive the grace ( if we are adults ) ex opere operantis .
3. Merit. Ever watch a game show like THE PRICE IS RIGHT or JEOPARDY? Do the contestants earn the money? Does Proctor and Gamble or whoever have an obligation to put the show on TV? No. The contestants win the money as a reward. That is why they are so grateful for winning. When you earn your pay from your boss, do you jump up and down and throw your arms around him and kiss him? No. You have earned it. You say thanks as a formality.
Kevin,
I just realized why you haven’t been responding. It’s D Day. Or, was D Day ( it’s almost midnight here ). You are at some ceremony in honor of the battle veterans. You said your dad was in WWII.
My wife flew back from Paris today. That’s why I went to the airport. She said there were all kinds of ceremonies going on there as Obummer and the Queen were there. She is watching some documentary on TV right now. She is a big D Day fan as her dad was part of the invasion.
I figured your computer was down but now I know. I assume your erroneous rebuttals will be rolling in tomorrow.
Jim, ex Opere operato means by the working of the works. If God gave grace as a response to an act or an ability it would no longer be a gift but a reward. For Rome justification is the recognition of an intrinsic qualification for a reward, or Paul it is a declaration about someone intrinsically and utterly unqualified. All the Reformers were former Priests Jim, they understood your gosple better than you do. Council of Trent cannon 24 ” If anyone saith that the justice received is no more preserve and also increased before God thru good works: but that said works are merely fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the CAUSE of the increase thereof , let him be anathema.” Ephesians 2: 8 ” For by grace you have been saved thru faith, it is NOT of yourselves, it is a gift, NOT a result of works” Jim you have the same problem Debbie has, DENIAL, and it ain’t just a river in Egypt. Cannon 24 is a repudiation of the Gospel. Why do I have to teach you your doctrine. The Reformation happened for a reason. The term merit in section 2006 and 2008 of the Roman Catechism means ” “RECOMPENSE OWED” you and Debbie need to take a class on your false gospel!!!!!!!!! Own it dude!
Kevin,
Wrong! The sacraments contain grace. They are not occasions of grace as were the OT ceremonies. Sacrificing a dove or lamb did not contain grace. But God gave grace to the Jews on the occasion of their performance if they had the proper disposition.
Calvin and Zwingli ( Luther excluded ) had an OT view of the sacraments. For the m,Faith Alone justified, Sacraments were mere signs or prompts to stir up faith.
On the other blog, Nick is addressing the Presbyterian view of infant Baptism and how it doesn’t change election. It doesn’t do anything to the baby. This is why your her John MacArthur disagrees with Sproul.
As for good works Kevin, ONCE IN A STATE OF GRACE, ( not before ) we can do works that merit a reward. How? Why?
Because 1 God has promised to give a reward. ( Yes, Tim, God has bound Himself to keep His promise ) and 2, we are divinized and our works are supernaturalized. Giving a lousy cup of water becomes a supernatural act. This is what is meant by “partaking of the divine nature”.
The Deformers forgot this. They stressed to a sick degree how dead in trespass and sin we are. They went so far as to deny that we are still human, made in God’s image.
“Recompense owed”? Well, Kelvin, go back to the game show I mentioned. The sponsors of the show are under no obligation to put the show on TV. They do it gratuitously. They are free to accept or reject any candidate who applies to be a contestant.
However, once they accept some house wife from Des Moines as a player, and she travels to California on such and such a date, rents a motel room, comes on the show and guesses all the right answers in order to win the money, car or kitchen appliances, the sponsor is bound out of fairness to cough up the prize. To welch may not be a crime that would put them in jail, but it would disgrace them.
God owes us nothing in absolutely strict justice any more than a father has to reward his son for mowing the lawn. But out of friendship, the game show sponsor, the father and God almighty, bind themselves to their own sense of justice.
For you guys, God is a slave master who owes his slaves nothing after they have been sweating in the hot sun all day. They are chattel. He can do with them as he will. Whether he does or not, is lenient or gracious instead of cruel and stern is beside the point. He is free to act capriciously.
You compound your erroneous views by accusing us of saying “No, our God is an employer, not a slave master. He pays us our dues.” Both views are wrong and unbiblical.
God is our father. Read all of session 6 of the Council of Trent. Justification is familial. Read the document. I hear John Ankenberg, R.C. Sproul and other wackos read the anathemas of the Council out of context ( as you do ) and say, Rome anathemetizes the Gospel!” Read the document. Read the document. Read it. All of it.
So, I am going to make a note of this day. June 7 is the date I explained this to you. Every time you misrepresent what we believe ( I will give you an hour or so before you demonstrate complete ignorance of what we teach ) I will just say, ” June 7″ to remind you of your total disregard for accuracy and the truth. That way I don’t have to type all this again.
Jim, as a son of an Army hero I am thankful that your fatherinlaw served our country. K
Yeah, it is really a shame we are hated France after saving Europe from the Nazi’s. And its a shame that breaks my heart that Obama represents the military as commander in chief at these ceremonies as he hates America.
America was once a great country. Never officially Catholic but it did believe in God and the Bible. Many individual people still do. But as a nation, America has denied God as lawmaker.
Speaking of which, we were watching the news last night and it showed the 5 creeps Obama released from the Gitmo Disney land of prisons. My wife said that those guys look like the typical parisian of today. France, once called “the eldest daughter of the Church” is soon to be Frankestan. All of what was once Christendom is morphing before our eyes into an Islamic state. Islam or the Culture of Death with the Catholic Church in the middle being squeezed, that’s Europe today.
John MacArthur blames infant Baptism as being a sign of a state religion as the cause. What an absurd joke!
Protestantism broke Christendom into squabbling factions that cannot face down Islam. ( Or the Culture of Daeth ). The 200 Christian school girls the Boko Haran have seized will be sold as sex slaves ( read Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch ), murdered or used as pawns while the formerly Christian west looks on impotently. No crusader cavalry coming to the rescue girls! Protestantism made sure of that.
Only the real Church opposes the deChritianizing of Europe, the destruction of the family and the culture of death.
The real Church is being squeezed by Obama for its opposition to the contraceptive. abortive, gay, culture.
Where are the Split Peas in all this Kevin? You and Tim are standing on the sidelines heckling.
Tim’s identifying the Church with the antichrist is so ludicrous one wonders if Tim is even sane. You, Tim and Walt are living in a fantasy world.
Kelvin,
My wife told me to say thank you for your father’s service too.
I say he should have raised you Catholic.
Jim, Tim has never identified Christ’s church as with the antichrist, he has identified the Roman Catholic church as the antichrist, and has made a formidable case for when the apostasy started. Maybe one of the most telling comparisons for me was the statement from Clement on justification and the late 4th century from Chrysostom. Jim, adult baptism was the prevalent practice in the early church. There isn’t one instance of infant baptism in scripture, although I am not opposed to the Reformed position of bringing children into the covenant. But apart from faith there is no salvation. And Galatians 3 is clear that the Spirit regenerates thru the hearing of the word. I do not believe in baptismal regeneration of the RC, magic water that washes away origin sin, makes a baby born again and professes faith. All children are protected under the hand of God. But baptism cannot usurp hearing by faith and the washing of regeneration by the Spirit. MacArthur makes a strong case for the fact that infant baptism became monolithic way that Constantine christianized subjects for the kingdom, under the penalty of death for not doing it. I do not hold John’s position. I lean more toward the Reformed position that it is a confirmation of grace and a sign and seal of grace. But Jesus says unless a man is born again he will not see the kingdom of heaven. Faith saves a man.
Kelvin,
“There isn’t one instance of infant baptism in scripture, although I am not opposed to the Reformed position of bringing children into the covenant.”
Why bring reprobate into the covenant?
“But Jesus says unless a man is born again he will not see the kingdom of heaven. Faith saves a man.”
Of course Faith saves. Faith alone saves as Benedict 16 said.
But faith includes Baptism.
I believe St. Paul when he says we are justified by faith and not by works.
I don’t believe you though.
Kelvin, Constantine? Unscramble the letters for the name of the emperor that made Catholicism the official religion of the Empire.
Theo -sius-do
Maybe you will not forgetting Theodosius’ name over and over again. Stop reading Baptist history.
Constantine was long dead when it happened.
Kevin,
” Jim, adult baptism was the prevalent practice in the early church.”
Wrong. Mere assertion. Babies were Baptized before the 8th day.
“There isn’t one instance of infant baptism in scripture,”
Household Baptisms Kelvin.
” although I am not opposed to the Reformed position of bringing children into the covenant.”
I thought you said you were against it before you said you were for it. ( John kerry?)
“But apart from faith there is no salvation.”
Can a Baby exercise faith? Why does he need to exercise faith if it is a free gift? Don’t you Deformed say regeneration ( by whatever means ) comes before Faith?
“And Galatians 3 is clear that the Spirit regenerates thru the hearing of the word.”
Hmmmmm? The Bible says Baptism is the laver of regeneration, kelvin. ( You have been washed, sanctified, justified, in that order ).
“I do not believe in baptismal regeneration”
Well, DUH?
“of the RC, magic water”
just some gratuitous —-tiness thrown in, eh kevin?
I would continue commenting but you make me sick with your foul mouth Kevin.
Oh and Tim, if you are so mealy mouthed as to object to “—-“* on your blog, you should object to idiot Kevin’s use of “magic water” and “death wafer”.
Have a nice day.
* —- is in the dictionary
that washes away origin sin, makes a baby born again and professes faith. All children are protected under the hand of God. But baptism cannot usurp hearing by faith and the washing of regeneration by the Spirit
Jim, Re read your whole post of your description of the housewife going to the game show. And then think about the scripture that says salvation is a FREE gift given to us by God thru simple faith. Debbie once told me that ya salvation is a free gift, but you have to work really really hard for it. I’m like what! Cmon Jim, you Catholics are working your way to heaven, climbing the ladder, only to get to the top to find out its on the wrong wall. Quit working for you salvation and just trust Him, and your works will be sweet in the eyes of our Lord.
Kelvin,
Council of Trent says gift and reward. Bible says both too.
Kelvin, for you. everything is either/or. Either Predestined or with free will for instance. In fact, it is both/and.
Virgin/mother. Man/God. I don’t know how. But I know you cannot jettison one part and keep the other. In the next life I might know. Not now.
Kelvin, we are saved by grace thru faith. You reverse it. You say only the saved have faith.
For you, we are saved first. In fact, the saved were never lost. They are elect.
Still, you have to make sense out of all the verses that say “if” in the Bible.
Kelvin, you deny that God wants all men saved. But then you preach and pray for the salvation of the non-elect. You Presbyterians Baptize babies who receive no grace or benefit from it as they are reprobate. You give bread and wine or crackers and grape juice to the reprobate too. Then you call the Real Body and Blood. the Flesh that if you don’t eat it, you have no life in you, a “death wafer”. Boy, you are confused.
Jim said ” For you guys God is a slave Master who owes his slaves nothing after they been sweating in the hot sun all day” Jim, God gives salvation as a FREE GIFT by faith. If he has given us all things pertaining to life and Godliness, and if He has given us eternal life, and if He has adopted us as sons, and if He has redeemed us, and if He has reconciled us to God, and if He has sealed us in the Spirit, and if He has seated us in the heavenly places with Him, and if He has given us an imperishable gift that can never fade away and is reserved in heaven for us, and He became righteousness to us sanctification and redemption, and perfected us by one offering, and forgiven us all our sins, and intercedes for us continually, and was raised for our justification, and He has given us peace, what else does He owe you. In rome you only have half now and you must merit the rest. We have it all now, there is no more condemnation for those in Christ, He fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law in us who walk by the spirit. Paul says we have been set free, not we will be set free if we are good enough. Repent Jim and believe the Gospel and pass out of judgment and into life, and out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of light. Quit going to the abominable work of the mass and to eat your way to final justification. Trust in Christ and communion will take on a whole new meaning of commemoration and thanksgiving for the free gift of eternal life that comes the faith in Christ. Take off the scapular, quit worshiping the mother of Jesus, knock off the Pilgrimages to earn grace, quit doing acts of satisfaction of the confessional to earn your salvation, and just believe. Romans 4:5 ” to the one who does not work, but BELIEVES in Him who justifies the UNGODLY, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. Abraham simply believed the promise and God counted him righteous. Take your eyes off yourself and your inner mechanics and put your trust of someone outside you Christ and you will come into union with Him thru the Spirit and live a life of faith and fellowship with Christ, experiencing all the victory spoils of Christ.
Kelvin, we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ. Therefore we should do all we can to get to heaven.
You are an American citizen. Therefore you should act like it.
You are a man, therefore, you should not whine and whimper.
You have been redeemed by Christ blood, therefore you shouldn’t trample it under foot.
Get it?
Jim, I just read Mateo’ post on the other site how confession forgives eternal punishment but temporal still must be dealt with. What a sad and false religion Roman Catholicism.
Why don’t you answer Mateo yourself?
Nathan said to David, “The Lord, for His part, has forgiven you sin; you shall not die, but because you utterly spurned the Lord, the sword will never depart from your house.” There you have it- pardon of sin, but temporal punishment remains.
Kevin,
Are your born again? Are you striving for sanctification without which no one will see God?
Are you walking in the Spirit? Justified by the Bllod of the Lamb?
You are? Do you take the Bible as your rule?
You do? Where then my good Christian sir, does the Bible say to be a bastard and purposefully say things like “magic water”?
You are a fake. Religion is a bludgeon for you. You manifest no holiness or charity. You are a fake and so is the sanctimonious man who hosts this blog. He revels in the —- that flows from your heart and out of your mouth. He supplies you with the platform to belch, burp and flatulate out obscenities.
Tim, you say or imply you are part of the White Horse Inn. Well, I have spoken to Michael Horton and those guys on more than one occasion. I don’t think they would traffic in death wafer and magic water terminology. I wonder if you are just hi-jacking their good name?
I know “Dad Rod” the Lutheran wouldn’t.
Jim,
I have no affiliation with White Horse Inn. I have never said or implied that I do. “White Horse” is a Biblical term, and my books are published under the White Horse Publications name.
As regards “death wafer” and “magic wafer,” since I believe the Roman eucharist is the image of the beast, I have no particular regard for it, and pay it no respect here.
You may consider me sanctimonious if you must. As you know, I allow a great deal of latitude to participants here to impute to me what motives and attributes they will. I have very little interest in defending myself from such subjective analyses of my mental and spiritual condition.
I enjoy having you here, but I do request that you refrain from such profanities as those introduced here. If that comes across as “mealymouthed,” as you say, you are free to impute to me what character traits you will. I have edited your post to delete the profanity.
Thank you,
Tim
Kelvin!
I figured it out.
Jesus worked His miracles by using MAGIC.
Ex opre operato.
Some place would let Him do miracles due to their lack of Faith.
Ex opere operantis.
Tim, you forgot to delete out the B word.
Tim!
“Long before Jesus turned water into wine, He turned Mary’s amniotic fluid into meconium, and her breast milk into transitional stools. Anyone who has ever changed a child’s diaper knows that the resulting odor offends the nostrils greatly. ”
Are you talking about poop Tim?
Yes, Jim, I am. My Lord and Savior came all the way down to save me. Jesus talked about it, too: “Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?” (Matthew 15:17)
There are polite ways to talk about such things.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Good cop Tim,( Mealy mouthed ?)
Indeed, Tim. There are polite ways to speak. And I usually try my best to be polite. But since you are so selective in what you deem to be appropriate subject matter for polite speech and what we we are free to let it all hang out on, I think you meet the category of “mealy mouthed”.
In all my years listening to the White Horse Inn, I have yet to hear the term “death wafer” or “magic water”.
They are too polite to foul themselves by such speech. For that kind of rhetoric, one must apply to your blog.
Kevin,
Oh my! I said such terrible things about you! And to think, you are “seated in the heavenly places” with a heart so full of well,… Hmm? …what was Tim’s word? Hmmm… Oh yeah, ” stools”. Your heart is full of transitional stools.
Oh Kelvin! You slay me. You remind me of that weird preacher and his cult that would go to veterans’ funerals and jeer or hold up signs saying God hates fags. A real man of God! Ha!
2nd Tm 3;16 says the Bible is good for equipping the “man of God” ( That’s you Kev ) for every good work.
So tell me, Man o’ God, where in the Bible it speaks of “magic water”?
The preacher has gone on to his reward…OOPS! I can’t say “reward” can I? His salvation was a free gift right? He didn’t work for it. He just accepted it, huh Kevin?
Kelvin, you sure are one ” Man o’ God seated in them thar heavenly places”. I can tell by your godly and charitable speech that even unbelievers like myself find so attractive. You are indeed striving for holiness, aren’t you?
Well, maybe not. That would be works righteousness, wouldn’t it? None of that for you, huh. No siree bob. You are trusting the Lord for your holiness. He did it all so you don’t have to. No boasting in menstrual rags or dung ( —- ) for you. No, no, no. Christ is your righteousness. You are washed in the blood of the lamb and seated on high. Ha!
Kelvin, the tax collectors and prostitutes will get in heaven before hypocrites like you.
Jim, why do you come on here a cuss. You owe everybody an apology especially Tim.
I will apologize as soon as and not before you do.
Jim,
You are always welcome here.
Tim
Jim said, “you manifest no holiness and charity” You don’t know me Jim. You aren’t the judge. And yes God is sanctifying me each day. Justified believers will be sanctified Jim. But our sanctification will never be complete until we are glorified Jim. We are justified by faith alone in Christ Alone. Justification undergirds all of salvation Jim. Romans 8:29-30 we call the golden chain of salvation. Study it Jim. In it you will find a totally monergistic salvation.
Meriting ex opere operato, magic water! Do you ever put your brain in gear before belching?
Tim, One of the things that I find fascinating and I really would like to learn more about is the development of Sacramental efficacy in the Roman church that has been put up in place of the atonement. Is this a subject that you have dealt with and would be willing to do a piece on ? Thx Kevin
Tim,
I know the term “white horse” is in Revelation.
But that is not why the CURE guys use it. They use it after the tavern. You use it to look like an honest protestant group who wouldn’t let “death wafer” or “magic water” using Falloni on their show.
Jim,
You may impute to me what motives you will.
Kind regards,
Tim
Jim, how old are you. I’m guessing in your 60’s or so. I say this to you with all respect. Quit the personal attacks and just argue the issues. You know how many times you have said deformers or some other derogatory term. Do you need a little cheese with that wine? Quit whining! Tim has to give you a pacifier all the time. Take the meconium out of your baby shorts and quit crying. Its not becoming. You actually have some personality, but quit wining its not becoming. K
Tim, I can’t seem to get Chrisostom’s statement on trusting in his grace aided works for heaven. It seems like semi plagianism was always raising its ugly head?
Kevin,
You can access it at New Advent.
It’s Homily 21.
Enjoy,
Tim
Some one will therefore ask me what counsel I would like to give to a believer who thus dwells in some Egypt or Babylon where he may not worship God purely, but is forced by the common practice to accommodate himself to bad things. The first advice would be to leave [i.e. relocate – GB] if he could… If someone has no way to depart, I would counsel him to consider whether it would be possible for him to abstain from all idolatry in order to preserve himself pure and spotless toward God in both body and soul. Then let him worship God in private (at home – ed.), praying him to restore his poor church to its right estate. – John Calvin, Come Out From Among Them, The Anti-Nicodemite Writings of John Calvin, Protestant Heritage Press, “A Short Treatise,” pp. 93-94
If Mary were a sinner, she could not have survived carrying Christ in her womb for nine months. It is not that Christ cannot be in the presence of sin, but that sin cannot be in the presence of Christ. Paul warned the Corinthians that people were dying and going to Hell because of unworthy Communion, and they only had the Body of Christ within them for fifteen minutes at a time. What sinner could withstand nine months like that?
Andrew,
This is just the anti-incarnational position to which I am objecting. Do you not realize that when you say “sin cannot be in the presence of [the incarnated] Christ,” you are taking the position of Simon the Pharisee, who said, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39)?
Roman Catholicism is anti-incarnational in the extreme.
Thanks,
Tim
Andrew, Mary said ” my Lord and my SAVIOR'” in her prayer. But hey its just the bible, that really doesn’t matter to Catholics. I mean where else can someone called the mother of Jesus with children and called woman by the Lord be changed into Queen of heaven , sinless, assumed into heaven and co mediator of sin and the 4th member of the Trinity. The fact Paul saysONE mediator between man and God, well we will just let that slide.
Andrew said ” sin cannot be in the presence of Christ” Are you serious man! Christ walked this earth and was constantly surrounded by sin and sinners and tempted himself. Hebrews says he experienced all that we did, yet without sinning. How could He be a sympathetic High Priest able to understand all of our infirmities if he didn’t experience temptation and be surrounded by sin? Mary called Christ her savior. Do you understand that. See in the catholic church God is a tough guy, transcendent, and Jesus he’s tough too, always mad, so you go to his mother and she gets on his case and softens Him up. But this is blasphemy, replacing the loving and sympathetic mediator( Christ) with his mother and making Christ the one who has to be appeased instead of the one who takes away the enmity between man and God. Mary would be embarrassed at the Roman Catholic caricature of her. She is simply called the mother of Jeus in Scripture. She considered herself a sinner and a humble servant of the Lord. And every time she tried to get involved in his ministry He lovingly said woman what has this to do with me. He deflected any undo glory to her and would not allow it. ” Behold your mother” and Jesus said rather …….
Andrew,
You bring up an interesting point. The damned won’t want to be in heaven either. The intimacy with God would burn more than hell.
Kelvin said, “But hey its just the bible, that really doesn’t matter to Catholics.”
This is coming from a man who has no idea of John 19 ( he thinks it’s just a case of Jesus supplying for His mother’s physical well being. Even more absurd, since Kelvin says Jesus called Mary “Woman” at Cana to put her down, He must be doing likewise here! Imagine, a dying man reviling his mother. ( And he says his father was a war hero who saw men die. Dying men cry for their mothers and for God. Never the contrary.)
I am dumbfounded at how shallow Kelvin is.
Tim is trying to pull a fast one with his “anti-Incarnation” baloney. ( Remember, this is the blog where they, like Docetists of old , deny the Real Presence, going so far as to store up wrath for themselves by calling it a “death wafer”.
Ever enter a Calvinist church building? Anti-Incarnation in the extreme!
Remember Andrew, you are dealing with the most loathsome brand pf Protestant heresy in Calvinism. For them the Incarnation was only a way to make official the eternal decrees. Ever wonder why old time Calvinists had O.T. names ( like Ahab and Solomon ) instead of N.T. ones? Because they liked the wrath, fire and brimstone of the OT and the NT wasn’t really as important. Jesus and the Incarnation was almost zero for them.
Jim,
I know you think it is absurd to think that Jesus was merely providing for Mary’s physical well-being from the cross, but Augustine takes that very message from it:
It is hardly “absurd” to understand that Jesus was merely providing for his mother. Augustine goes on: “…are we not to understand that such distribution was made to this disciple of what was needful, that there was also added to it the portion of the blessed Mary, as if she were his mother?” You continued,
It is not baloney, Jim. It is quite clear that Roman Catholicism does everything in its power to nullify the incarnation, as Andrew has demonstrated with his belief that Jesus cannot be in the presence of sin. Of course He can. He humbled himself to pursue the very sinners who Andrew believes cannot come to Him. If sinners cannot come into the presence of Jesus, then He came in vain, for he came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:1), and God “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Serpent tried to stop the incarnation (Revelation 12:4), and barring that, Roman Catholicism has done everything possible to overturn it, and would send Him back to Heaven unscathed if she could, as we have demonstrated in this post. You continued,
By “old time Calvinists with O.T. names,” I assume you mean John Calvin, John Knox, Philipp Melanchthon, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, John Hus, Peter Vermigli, and Jerome Zanchius. All O.T. names?
Best regards,
Tim
Jim, You said I said Jesus was defiling his mother, I didn’t say that. I said He deflected undo glory to her. The only time she is mentioned in the Epistles is when Paul says “born of a woman” Jesus calls her woman. She is never ever called the mother of God. Only the mother of Jesus. God existed in three persons long before Mary was ever born. Let us make man in our own image. The only mention of the queen of heaven in all of scripture is with paganism. Jesus had no earthly father and had no divine mother. His mother was a sinner just like you and me Jim. And Tim does a great Job showing how far God condescended to man to save him from sin. He was born of a woman. A blessed woman full of grace. But a sinner like you and me.
Jim, we deny transubstantiation. Hocus Pocus. Christ’s body is in heaven and He left us the Spirit. You will not find transubtantiation in the early church or scripture. We worship God the way He asked us to , thru the Spirit faith and the Word. We believe a man is saved by faith alone in Christ alone, not by the work of eating increases of grace and justice which can never perfect you. ” He is just and justifier of those who have faith in Jesus” not someone who merits increase of salvation thru a life of Sacraments. In Rome if you do the Sacraments you get in and if you don’t you don’t. There is no church like the Roman catholic church, delving out salvation where grace is the currency of exchange in the church’s merit system, in scripture. The is no Priesthood in the NT. The word for Priest heirus is mentioned 400 times in the OT and does not appear in the NT. Romanism is a replay of OT judaism with imperfect sacrifices that can’t save anyone. Revelations 1:17 Jesus said I was dead and now /i live forevermore. There is no re breaking of the Lord’s body. Let him off the altar Jim. Let h off the cross. You have him strapped to the crucifix and the altar an eternal victim. HE IS RISEN! Christians sing the Amen with the church that he was delivered over for our sins and raised for our justification. He is resurrected in glory having reconciled us to God thru the his blood. We are redeemed and reconciled. We aren’t finishing his incarnation thru our works! FalseGospel!
Tim,
As lapdog Kevin is talking about this article on Jason’s blog, I thought I would give it a scan. I will try and get back to it again throughout the day.
“Except, of course, being sinless, the womb of Mary was a step up, not a step down, from Heaven. He actually did not, and could not, condescend all the way to our level, say the Roman Catholics”
A step up from heaven? How so?
I clicked on the link you provided after you assertrd that Cathoilcs believe Mary was not conceived BETWEEN THE SHEETS and found only this,
“At the moment of Conception, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim gave to Mary, who soon would transmit them to Jesus, the flesh and blood which they had received from their forefathers. But this flesh and this blood which they had received soiled by Original Sin, they handed on to their child without any stain. ”
Do you claim the marital embrace to be sinful? Do you say Catholics say as much?
You wrote,
“Did Jesus become a man to be a Mediator between God and His people? Rome responds by adding as many mediators as possible between Jesus and sinners, as if His incarnation had failed, and left Him incapacitated, unfit and unable to serve.”
Tim, Jesus most certainly did want to include us in His mediation. ” If you call a sinner to repentance…”
You also wrote,
“Did Jesus come in the flesh to die, making peace through the blood of His cross? Rome responds… and it is we who must, by our sufferings, make reparation for sin and thus save Jesus from His Father’s wrath.”
Wrong. Penal Substitution is not Biblical. Yes,Jesus carried His cross to save us. But that cross won’t be applied unless we take up our crosses.
Finally, do you think the poop, the amniotic fluid, the milk being digested and processed, etc. is the same as sin? You rightfully say Jesus ate with sinners and whores. You seem to say, along with Luther, that Jesus had relations with those whores in order to get down and dirty with us.
Jim, You asked,
As I noted in the article, Maximus claimed that Mary’s womb must be accounted as “above the heavens.” Above the heavens is up, not down, from heaven. To your question, “Do you claim the marital embrace to be sinful? Do you say Catholics say as much?,” no I do not consider the marital embrace to be sinful. What I said was that Christopher West in his lecture, Theology of the Body and Our Lady of Fatima, said the hearts of Mary’s parents must have been “profoundly pure” at her conception, and that the iconography of the Immaculate Conception appropriately depicts Anne and Joachim in a “chaste embrace,” as if to suggest that the horizontal kind of embrace is not chaste. My suggestion is not that the “immaculate conception” ought to be iconized with her parents lying down, but rather that the Roman Catholic preoccupation with protecting Jesus from sinners leads them to the need for a sinless Mary conceived by “profoundly pure” parents in a “chaste (non-sexual) embrace”. It is Roman Catholics, not Protestants, who are suggesting that sexual relations between married people are inherently impure. Christopher West’s apple did not fall far from Jerome’s tree: “A layman, or any believer, cannot pray unless he abstain from sexual intercourse” (Jerome, Against Jovinianus, Book I, 34). You continued,
You are confusing evangelization with priestly office of mediation. Christians are called to evangelize by proclaiming, “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15), for “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Every man is told that the temple curtain is torn in two (Mark 15:38), and that we may boldly approach the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). Jesus said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9), but Roman Catholicism insists that there is a door to the Door—and since all grace is alleged to flow from Mary through Joseph, there is even a door to the door to the Door. In Rome, if one curtain is removed, another is quickly erected in its place. It was of this Pharisaical religion that Jesus spoke when He said, “for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). You continued,
Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners:
When you say, Jesus’ “cross won’t be applied unless we take up our crosses,” it nullifies Romans 5, for you have Jesus’ death applied to those who first carry their crosses. To carry a cross requires strength, and strength is what we do not have. Jesus’ cross was applied when we were ungodly and were without strength to carry a cross. Believers take up their crosses and follow Him, for “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But the order in which this takes place is important, and Rome has missed it, for Jesus also says,
You take up your cross once the Son has revealed the Father to you, and since you “cannot see the kingdom of God” unless you first be born again (John 3:3), the only way you can take up your cross and follow Him is if He has first drawn you, quickened you, made you alive, and translated you into the kingdom of light and life. Thus, carrying your cross is a result of salvation, not the cause of it, for Jesus died for us “when we were yet without strength.” You continued,
I have throughout my article state that Jesus “was like us in all ways but sin.”
Thanks, as always, for your penetrating questions.
Tim
Tim, exactly Christ di for us what we could not do for ourselves. The Gospel isn’t God will help us achieve his favor with his help but that someone lived the law in our place, His blood replaced our blood, and he fulfilled all righteousness.
Tim,
Forget the stork business Kevin has been teaching you. Joachim and Anne’s private life is not for us to image. ( Porn Tim). But, they probably were lying down.
Indeed, grace precedes our taking up our cross. But that grace is not irresistible. The Bible says so. (“When I am lifted up…draw all men…”. does not prove your case.
Unless you cooperate with grace and take up your cross, the cross is of no effect Tim.
If you think the cross applies itself, you were never lost but always saved as you were born post Calvary.
“Thus, carrying your cross is a result of salvation, not the cause of it, for Jesus died for us “ has the cart before the horse Tim.
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). ”
Tim, “IF” means it is a conditional. The passage doesn’t say “When”.
Same applies to your, ““I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” . IF Tim, IF!
I don’t know if you teach Kelvin or he teaches you but the “while we were yet sinners, God died for the ungodly” is talking about Calvary Tim. Not it’s application.
As for the Temple Veil being torn in to means the Jewish rites were done with. It says absolutely zero about subordinate mediation. Jesus is the door. And by the way, speaking of doors, Jesus stands at a door and knocks. Our freewill is needed to open it from the inside.
“You are confusing evangelization with priestly office of mediation. Christians are called to evangelize by proclaiming, “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15),
Why? Why does God allow or need us to cooperate in saving others but not ourselves? We don’t cooperate with Jesus on the cross, the Objective Redemption. ( Only Mary did that ). We cooperate in the subjective application of it to others and ourselves.
You wrote, “Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners” to prove Penal Substitution. This passage comes nowhere near to doing that. Every Catholic affirms Jesus’ death merited our salvation. But He was not punished in my stead and this passage doesn’t say He did.
Finally, your “door with a door” comments has a problem. Jesus, the door, came to us through the door of Mary. We go back to the door of Jesus through Mary. ” Pray for all men..as Jesus is the One Mediator”. IOW, mediate as Jesus is the Mediator.
No, today is not my feast day. My patron is the Lesser James. Thanks for asking.
Give Kevin a sugar cube or carrot. Scratch his ears a bit.
Tim,
Me again.
“Thus Jesus truly condescended to be born into a sinful world to save sinners, and was like us in all ways but sin.
Except, say our Roman Catholic acquaintances, such condescension must have its limits. There is only so much stooping God can do without soiling Himself beyond what He can bear. Sure, He fixed his tabernacle among His people, but God ministers at the door of the Tabernacle (Exodus 33:9), and that tabernacle is Mary. And such a tabernacle would need to be sinless.”
“Just “acquaintances” Tim? I am hurt.
You aslo say we say Jesus “needed” to be born of a sinless Virgin”.
Not so. We say it was “fitting”. We say Jesus could have been born via normal sexual relations between a man and a woman. Both the virgin and her freedom from sin could have been dispensed with. Christ would still have not been contaminated in anyway.
Just me again,
“Thus, while it is true that Jesus “humbled” Himself to become man, He did not so humble Himself that He actually came down from heaven. No, by the testimony of Rome’s saints, He actually went up into Mary’s womb! So aside from having a sinless mother, and a first earthly home that was actually higher than the heavens that He had left behind,”
The hyperbole of the saints, the language of love, really says Mary was sanctified by her union with Jesus. Not the other way round.
Tim,
” he did not write this as an isolated formulaic incantation. He did not write this as if the mere recitation of the Nicæan Creed was sufficient as a substitute for faith in what had really been accomplished in the incarnation. John wrote this in the context of an incarnation that guaranteed to us a propitiation for sins and the favorable disposition of our heavenly ”
Huh? formulaic incant what?
Indeed. And Mary is the guarantor of orthodoxy as far as the Incarnation is concerned.
Tim,
“Did Jesus come in the flesh to make a propitiation to the Father? Rome responds by relegating His sacrifice to the background—merely a profound gesture that was not strictly necessary—and making the real sacrifice an unbloody one the night before the crucifixion, when He “offered” bread for sins of the world.”
Actually Tim, it is the Calvinist who makes Jesus’ sacrifice unnecessary. As a matter of fact, the Incarnation is unnecessary. The elect were never really lost, not anymore than a character in a book whose final chapter has that character triumph and live happily ever after. Everything in between the beginning and last page is unnecessary. It just entertains the reader who hasn’t flipped to the end of the book.
“Did Jesus come in the flesh to die, making peace through the blood of His cross? Rome responds by teaching that every sin Jesus pays for just makes the Father and Jesus angrier and angrier,”
So, there is no more wrath for sin? Rm 1:18 doesn’t agree.
“and it is we who must, by our sufferings, make reparation for sin”
For the temporal punishment of sin. Yes. And don’t forget, in the Garden, Jesus saw every act of sin and every act of reparation.
“and thus save Jesus from His Father’s wrath”
The Father was never angry with Jesus.
Tim, you deny we make reparation?
Why in the OT a theifhad to pay back double? Or One fifth more was required to compensate for property misused?
Proverbs 16:6 says, “By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil.”
Even in our court system, murder is punished. Attempted murder is also punished even when no actual damage or death occurs. Why?
Jim said” why in the OT a their had to pay back double.” If you haven’t noticed we are in the new covenant, you know grace the stuff you make a reward. The greatest love and faithfulness that atoned for our iniquity was Christ, it was perfect and final. He is Lord and Savior Jimmy, let Him off the cross, please, He ain’t there anymore. He was delivered over for our sins and raised for our justification. We remember what He did for us. His sacrifice is a blanket across history. Our substitute. Oh sweet exchange! that the sins of the many wold be hid in the one. and the righteousness of the one would abound to the many. You keep re breaking the body of our Lord, why? He was raised in power and declared the son of God. He is the first fruits, our eldest brother, and the next time He comes it is for the mercy train, all aboard Jim. Your on the wrong track to Purgatory, jump on the one going to Zion. Quit atoning your sins, He did that. Just believe. Seiously Jim, its time to stop worshiping the bread God, Mary, the Pope, and give your heart to Christ thru faith alone in Christ alone.
Tim,
Wasn’t Mary Magdalene making reparation when she squandered a hundred days wages on ointment for Jesus and washed his feet with her tears? How about that Good Thief with his attitude of acceptance and calm resignation that he was paying the temporal punishment of his sins? He did say some consoling words for Jesus to hear.
Anyway, let’s say you have a point about Mary’s Immaculate womb being too cushy for a Savior who came to get down and dirty with sinners.
Why stop at Mary being a sinner? Why was Joseph a just man? Why not a drunkard who beat him? Mary too. Why were Joseph and Mary not two vile sinners who had normal relations, or, even better, maybe Joseph could have come home drunk and forced himself on her. Theologians all say the Virginal Conception was merely fitting but not necessary. The 2nd Person of the Trinity could have assumed a sinless human nature from two normal sinners. The soul is created ex nihilo by God. It doesn’t come form the parents. Just as Mary was an Immaculate child from two sinners, ( Joachim and Ann ), Jesus could have been too.
And what about those 12 Apostles? Only one betrayed him. Why not all 12 like Joseph’s brothers. What kind of a pampered panty-waist of a Savior is this Jesus?
And that Crucifixion scene was too mamby pamby. Why were John and his mother heckling him along with the rabble?
Did this Jesus fellow come to save sinners or did he come to be molly coddled?
Better still Tim, rather than the Apostles, why didn’t Jesus’ own several brothers and sisters betray Him?
Get real Tim, even the worst guy has a mother that loves him. Why are you intent on not leaving Jesus with a mother who is on His side?
Jim said “why were Mary and Joseph not two sinners who had normal relations” They were.
Kevin, shhh! I am trying to hear Tim. Go make some pasta or something and serve it through the internet to someone. And give them a side order of garlic bread too.
Oh, and by the way, Joseph was not Jesus’ real father as you seem to think.
Where can I find the
Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 52
in English?
Glenn,
I don’t know where you can find it in English, but you can find corroborating translations and contextual confirmations in various sources. See the Carmelite handling of the passage here:
Those of course, are all secondary sources. If you go to AAS 52 456, though, you’ll find that the Carmelites have handled the text quite admirably. Here is the Italian:
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Do you understand the Immaculate Conception? I know you trash it a lot but do you understand it as the catholic Church defines it?
You couldn’t and write this bone headed article.
St Anne could have been a terrible sinner. So could Joseph and Mary. And Jesus could have been conceived normally. He could have assumed a human nature from two sinner parents.
Once again Tim, you don’t understand the doctrines you belittle.
By the way, about that Penal Susbstitution business you and Walt don’t want to talk about, did you know Baby Jesus could have saved us with one scrape of his knee?
I have responded to the first part of this article:
Sinless(?) Joseph, John the Baptist, Anne, & the Incarnation
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2023/07/sinless-joseph-john-the-baptist-anne-the-incarnation.html
Dave Armstrong’ s current argument in his retort to the article Removing Jesus, where he spends the whole article defending against maybe a dozen or so Roman Catholic claims that the people in Jesus family, mother, father, cousin, father must have been sinless in order for Jesus to condescend to them. Jesus must enter a sinless world in order to save sinners. Armstrong defends against these claims with his usual approach trying to middle the bet. So he responds by differentiating between Kauffman’s use of need to be sinless saying the proper word is its fitting. Armstrong says its not necessary to believe this but it could be true. Of course this tactic is being used to downplay again unbiblical and illogical assertions, since scripture says ” for ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Catholics like Armstrong have problems with small words like ONE mediator, and NO works NO you, and ALL have sinned, and ANY image bowed too or served. They really dont mean what they say. Armstrong concludes” no its possible that all of these besides Mary committed sins” well thanks Dave your one sinner short Mary , ALL have sinned” thx K