“…on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread…” — Exodus 12:18
The Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke—indicate that Jesus reclined at the table to keep the Passover the evening before He died (Matthew 26:20, Mark 14:17-18; Luke 22:14). But John’s Gospel says the Last Supper occured “before the feast of the passover” (John 13:1). Further, at the time of Jesus’ arrest, John says the Passover still had not yet occurred, for the Jews would not enter Pilate’s hall of judgment, lest they be defiled and be unable to “eat the passover” (John 18:28). Indeed, Jesus’ arrest, trial and execution all occurred before the Passover sacrifice, for when Pilate reminds the Jews of his custom of releasing a prisoner “at the Passover” (John 18:39) it is still early in the morning. An enduring perception of inconsistency between the Synoptic Gospels and the Johannine Gospel has therefore persisted for many centuries, but there is a simple and elegant solution to which the Scriptures plainly attest.
“…and his deadly wound was healed…” — Revelation 13:3
We have made no effort to hide our view that the Papacy of Rome is the prophesied fifth earthly kingdom in Daniel’s succession of empires (Daniel 2 & 7). The Papacy is the Sea Beast of Revelation 13:1, the Seven Headed, Ten-horned Beast that succeeds the Roman Empire. Christ’s future earthly kingdom, of course, will be the sixth. Nor have we hesitated to identify the False Prophet, which is none other than the Apparitions of Mary, the Land Beast of Revelation 13:11, the Two-horned, Lamb-looking, Dragon-speaking False Prophet that can make “fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men” (Revelation 13:13). It is that False Prophet that “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth” and convinces them “that they should make an image to the beast” (Revelation 13:14), which refers to the Eucharistic bread idol of Rome that can come to life and speak, “the source and summit” of the Roman faith (Catechism of the Catholic Church,1324).
What we have not discussed yet is the mortal head wound of the Beast. John mentions it three times:
“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast…” (Revelation 13:3-4)
“And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” (Revelation 13:12)
“And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. … as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” (Revelation 13:14-15)
Whatever that head wound may be (and we shall identify it in this short series), it factors significantly into the object of the world’s worship.
“…of making many books there is no end…” — Ecclesiastes 12:12
We continue this week with our analysis of the works of Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107 AD). We have been assessing the claims of a former Protestant who converted to Roman Catholicism because of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius, he claims, “red pilled” him into the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Joshua T. Charles, former White House speech writer, former Protestant and now apologist, has read “tens of thousands of pages” of the Early Church Fathers and claims to have found Roman Catholicism “absolutely everywhere.” He was particularly surprised to find “profoundly [Roman] Catholic doctrine” in Ignatius’ letters, “point by point,” which “was apparent in just seven short letters.” As we showed last week, however, in his claims regarding the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Mr. Charles is reading those “thousands of pages” through a myopic medieval lens, leading to an interpretation that the native context does not bear out. To Ignatius, “the Eucharist” was the tithe offering for the widow, the orphan and the stranger (Smyrnæans, 6), and the ancient church indeed sacrificed the Eucharist as part of its weekly worship. But to them, the Eucharist was the offertory, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (Philippians 4:18; Hebrews 13:15-16), a sacrifice Protestants still offer today. Additionally, we showed that in Ignatius’ letter to the Smyrnæans, which Mr. Charles provided as evidence, all three uses of “Eucharist” were in reference to unconsecrated bread, and therefore cannot be references to the “real presence” of Christ. In sum, it is true that the ancient Church included an offertory in their weekly gatherings, but it is also true they did not believe Jesus was “really present” in the Eucharist and they did not believe they were sacrificing Him in the Lord’s Supper. What we continue to find as we evaluate Mr. Charles’ claims is that he tends to reject that which contradicts his preconceptions, and is naïvely receptive of data known to be spurious, redacted and fraudulent. Because of this, his reading of Ignatius is foreign to, and ignorant of, the native context of his letters.
Of the ten “points” Mr. Charles identified from Ignatius, we covered two last week — the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and the Real Presence — and will address three more in this entry:
2. The New Testament ministerial priesthood;
6. Authority in the Church is exercised by bishops who are successors of the Apostles (apostolic succession);
7. Lay Christians must be under a successor of the Apostle’s authority, and cannot start their own independent congregations;
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign…” — Isaiah 7:14
It has become fashionable of late to convert to Roman Catholicism, a phenomenon with which we interact occasionally in our podcast, The Diving Board. It is there that we examine, and then refute, the reasons the typical Protestant gives when deciding to convert. The problem of Mary is often the last stumbling block to fall, but when it does, the floodgates of hyperlatria open wide, and an embarrassing superfluity of worship is heaped upon her. After all, the Roman Catholic priest can “command God … and make Him come down to the altar” to be offered in the Sacrifice of the Mass, but has “no commands to give His holy Mother, who does as She pleases.” So taught the Apparition of Mary at La Laus, France in 1664. And on that basis, the apparitions were determined to be authentic. Not because “Mary” appeared as a humble handmaiden but because she had appeared as Virgin Most Powerful and Queen of the Universe, utterly free of any constraint to her will. Unlike her hapless “Son” who gets bossed around daily like a chump, nobody tells Mary what to do. That is why the Apparition of Mary at La Laus was considered authentic, and the curse of hyperlatria is the wretched misfortune that awaits the Protestant who stumbles into devotion to her.
“And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness…” (Revelation 12:14)
We continue now with our series on Revelation 12, a chapter that is an Exodus narrative in which the Woman is shown fleeing from the error of that proceeds from the mouth of the devil and seeking her place of safety in the wilderness. As we have noted in this series, the Woman of Revelation 12 must have taken her leave sometime between the end of the Diocletianic persecution (313 A.D.) and the rise of Roman Catholicism to the seat of civil power among the fragments of the Roman Empire in the last decade of the 4th century. Continue reading Come Hell or High Water, part 7→
We agree with Mr. Voris when he says that Roman Catholics worship a different god.
The Vortex is a video production of the Roman Catholic ministry called Church Militant, operated by Michael Voris. In his short eight-minute video from May 23, Mr. Voris briefly introduces, and then immediately sets aside, the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. He does this in order to address what he believes to be a much more pressing question: “Do Protestants and Catholics worship the same Jesus?” His refreshingly honest conclusion is, “Nope,” and such refreshing honesty finds a very welcome reception here at Out of His Mouth. We agree with him. Continue reading The “Protty” Jesus→
Roman Catholics trying to understand the significance of Eucharistic Miracles are asking the wrong questions.
This week Roman Catholics of the world rejoiced to hear of yet another eucharistic miracle that has been approved for veneration. In December 2013, a eucharistic wafer of bread was dropped during mass, “and red stains subsequently appeared on the Host.” Tests performed on the wafer at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Wroclaw the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, indicated that the wafer contained “fragmented parts of the cross striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle. Tests also determined the tissue to be of human origin, and found that it bore signs of distress” (Catholic Herald, April 19, 2016). The forensic authentication of the miracle has Roman Catholics asking questions about its significance to faith and practice, and no doubt has some Protestants asking themselves if they are in the right religion. Those, of course, are the wrong questions. Continue reading Asking the Wrong Questions→
Bread is curiously prominent in a book that makes no direct mention of it.
Those who have been reading this blog for any length of time are at least peripherally aware of the eschatology espoused here. We believe that the prophesied Antichrist of which we are warned by the apostles and prophets was manifested in the rise of Roman Catholicism and is personified in the Papacy of Rome. As we noted last week, in The Fourteenth Diocese, Daniel foresaw that the Antichrist would emerge among of the thirteen fragments of the Roman Empire, would uproot three dioceses in the process, subduing their three metropolitans, and rise up among the remaining ten, growing “more stout than his fellows” (Daniel 7:8,20-22,24-26). That is precisely what Roman Catholicism did as it claimed Rome, Alexandria and Antioch as a single See of St. Peter, aggregating for itself the three Dioceses of Italy, Egypt and Oriens. The papacy of Rome is the Little Horn of Daniel 7 and the dioceses of Diocletian’s reorganization are the other horns of the vision. That reorganization into dioceses began in 293 A.D., and was completed by the end of the fourth century. As prophesied, Roman Catholicism emerged during that time frame when the Papacy came up among the dioceses, “speaking great things” (Daniel 7:8). Continue reading It’s About the Bread→
The Early Church rejected as “unlawful” and “unholy” the Roman Catholic novelty of relic veneration.
Over the last month we reviewed the history of Roman Catholicism’s use of the Council of Sardica to claim Roman Primacy, focusing last week on Pope Zosimus’ and Pope Leo’s attempts to stamp that alleged primacy with Nicene authority. It was under their pontificates—and the intervening pontificates of Boniface, Celestine and Sixtus III—that the canons of Sardica (343 A.D.) were circulated as if they were the canons of Nicæa (325 A.D.), and thus were used to advance two errors simultaneously: 1) the claim that the Council of Sardica had affirmed Roman Primacy, and 2) the claim that Roman Primacy had manifested as early as the Nicene era. The error of Zosimus and the fraud of Leo are just one example of what we see consistently in Roman Catholicism: the attempt to stamp novel and idolatrous practices with Nicene and ante-Nicene authenticity. The more distant the origins of the idolatry from Nicæa , the more creative the historical revisionism necessary to “prove” the antiquity of the practice. Relic veneration is one more example of this propensity in Roman apologetics. Continue reading Diggin’ Up Bones→
There is nothing in the historical record that a little creative Roman editing can’t fix.
We concluded our last series on The Sacrifice Challenge with a few citations from Cyril of Jerusalem, so we thought it opportune to use him to demonstrate one of the ways Rome “finds” her doctrines in the Early Church. As we noted last week, Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures were part of a late-fourth century trend during which Rome’s novel Mass Sacrifice was invented. Catholic Answers used a few select quotes to prove Cyril’s belief in transubstantiation, but as we demonstrated, those quotes were truncated in order to isolate them from their context, and Cyril—even in the midst of his other errors—nevertheless maintained his conviction that the elements of the Lord’s Supper were only figuratively Christ’s body and blood, and remained so even after the consecration. Continue reading The Great Write-in Write-out Campaign→
“…it seems good to the holy Synod that prayer be made to God standing.” (Canon XX, Council of Nicæa, 325 A.D.)
Catholic Answers is a ministry that exists “to explain & defend the faith,” and seeks to “help good Catholics become better Catholics, bring former Catholics ‘home,’ and lead non-Catholics into the fullness of the faith.” The ministry began in 1979 when its founder, Karl Keating, grew annoyed at a local Protestant church’s efforts to evangelize the Catholics in his parish. The Protestant church had put flyers on the windshields of the parishioners’ parked cars during Mass, and the flyers were allegedly “riddled with misinformation.” Continue reading “It’s Complicated”→
Before we proceed into a discussion on the Seven Bowls of Revelation, we will need to spend a few moments with Francis of Assisi. Aside from Mother Teresa, there is hardly a more sympathetic figure in Roman Catholicism. Modern Protestants and evangelicals often hail him as “one of ours” and for this reason prayers and quotes—rightly or wrongly attributed to him—find their way into Protestant sermons, into church bulletins and onto church marquises. Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Familywrote favorably of “our man” Francis, and Mark Galli of Christianity Today compiled a biography of him, entitled Francis of Assisi and His World. In the book he explains that Francis was
“a complex and contentious man who combined an irradiated mysticism with a very practical Christian commitment and, above all, sought to glorify God as Creator.”
The Apparitions of Mary picked up their pace just in time to usher in an 11th century “Eucharistic Revolution” in the Roman Catholic Church
Those who have been following this blog have at least some passing familiarity with the eschatology we espouse. As we have written in many entries thus far, we hold that Papal Rome is the Beast of Revelation (Revelation 13:1-10), that the Apparition of Mary is the False Prophet (Revelation 13:11-14), and that the Eucharist is the Image of the Beast (Revelation 13:14-16). Continue reading When “Mary” Got Busy→
Ignatius of Antioch was not the staunch defender of transubstantiation that Roman Catholicism makes him out to be.
One does not have to study the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation very long before finding how important Ignatius of Antioch is to its defense. As a martyr of the late first, or early second century, he is alleged to be the first witness in the sub-apostolic era for Transubstantiation and the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. Fr. John Hardon, in his The History of Eucharistic Adoration lists Ignatius first after the apostle Paul in defense of the doctrine: Continue reading Eating Ignatius→
“They bear it upon the shoulder, they carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands; from its place shall it not move: yea, one shall cry unto it, yet can it not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.” (Isaiah 46:7)
It should go without saying that Roman Catholic saints are intentionally held up as examples for the flock to imitate. Lest it be alleged that we have imagined this, we defer to Pope John Paul II, who at World Youth Day 2002, explained this in no uncertain terms: Continue reading “We Don’t Worship Mary*” part 2→
The terms “Latria” and “Hyperdulia” create a distinction without a difference.
One of the most prevalent and visible forms of devotion among Roman Catholics is their veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Such attributes are assigned to her, and so many accolades poured out upon her by Roman Catholicism, that the veneration paid to her appears to outsiders to be nothing less than worship. Roman Catholic apologist, Fr. William G. Most, answers these charges with the theological equivalent of “This is not what it looks like.” A summary of his reasoning comes from his tract, Devotion To Our Lady And The Saints:
Do Catholics worship her? Protestants often claim that. But let us examine the command of Our Lord: ‘Judge Not.’ We distinguish two things:
The doctrines of Rome amount to a material rejection of the incarnation.
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. Continue reading Removing Jesus→
Roman Catholic counter-reformational mysticism is all the rage in Evangelical Circles.
There are certain names our evangelical readers may hear from time to time on Sunday mornings from the pulpit, or in Sunday School, or perhaps in a small bible study fellowship, or in the latest book to fly off the shelves of the book stores. These names pop up quite frequently, and they are usually offered up as examples of a bold or simple faith, godliness and a lifestyle of prayer and contemplation. What may surprise our evangelical readers is the fact that the people being offered as examples are Roman Catholic counter-reformational mystics who worked tirelessly against the Protestant Reformation to try to stamp it out. Continue reading And the Diviners Have Seen a Lie→
The so-called evangelical church has an unseemly appetite for the demonic.
As a young lady, Mary Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) attended a dance one evening with her friends. During the dance, she experienced a vision of “Jesus,” and was no longer able to concentrate on the festivities. Not knowing what else to do, she slipped out of the dance to the local cathedral and cast herself down to worship the Eucharist, asking “Jesus” to tell her what to do. “He” did: Continue reading Wolves Within the Gate→
Roman Catholicism was 300 years too late to be “the stone that … became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35).
[This is the third installment of a three part series.]
When former Protestant, Taylor Marshall, wrote Eternal City, he sought to explain why Christianity is necessarily Roman. “The Church,” he wrote, “receives the Roman empire” from its previous custodians. But in concluding this, Marshall has mistakenly transposed two kingdoms—both of which Daniel addressed, and both of which Daniel set against the background of the rise and fall of four world empires. One kingdom is of earth and the other of heaven, and Marshall has unfortunately confused the two. Continue reading One Kingdom Too Late→
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