Featured What the RCC endorses

1. Unless you believe baptism imparts grace, infant baptism will always remain a mystery to you. I believe it does impart grace, based on John 3:5, Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, Romans 6:4 and many other passages. Of course 100% of the early church fathers taught baptismal regeneration. I realize some here think these men were apostate but they were not. They constantly railed against apostasy. Significantly, they reduced to writing many of the practices and beliefs extant in the early Christian community that were so widely held they aren't even mentioned in scripture.

2. There were in fact young children who were baptized in N.T. times. The N.T. gives four (4) instances where entire households were baptized. In those days a household included extended family and servants. A household may be as large as 25-30 people. For none of these four households to have young children would be against the greatest of odds. Remember also that Peter said immediately after his command to repent and be baptized,"For the promise is for you and your children . . . ." " And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. 16 But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." This is pretty strong evidence that Jesus approved of infant baptism.

 

I'd kindly ask you to provide evidence that "100% of the early church fathers" taught baptismal regeneration.

We can get into a strong semantics argument over this statement. I don't know your stance on the Calvinism/Arminianism debate, but to say that "whole household" obviously included everyone in the household but to say that Jesus died for the "whole world" only means He died for the elect...well, you can see the dangerous ground that treads.

I have no problem with children getting baptized. I was baptized at 10 years old. I just think the child should have a profession of faith first. I don't recall any instance of someone being baptized without first believing. Even then, the baptism did not free me from the sin in my life nor from the original sin of Adam. That was accomplished by my acceptance of Christ's sacrifice; through blood atonement. The Bible is pretty clear in saying without shedding of blood is no remission.

 

The obvious truth is that his writings were corrupted by someone or we would not have two alternative readings. Both may be equally corrupted. Rome cannot prove its doctrine by INSPIRED writings and thus it crawls back into its security blanket of obvious uninspired writings that it selected and preserved as the traditions of men. Jesus NEVER based his doctrine on uninspired traditions of men but ALWAYS on "it is written."

It is obvious that Jesus did not intend nor was it his design that his audience take his words literally in John 6 and thus kill and eat him on the spot. Moreover, he provides transitional language from literal to metaphorical throughout this context (Jn. 6:35-36; 45; 60-65) and Peter understood that what he was providing was the "WORDS of life" rather than a command to literally kill him on the spot by eating his body and drinking his blood. He told them explicitly that "MY WORDS" - meaning the words just spoken to them about eating his flesh and drinking his blood were "spirit" or spiritual rather than to be taken literal.

If his words were to be understood literally then he was demanding they kill him on the spot, or at minimum was justifying them murdering him or how else could they partake of eternal life in this literal manner without literally taking his life from him? The Roman Catholic view is nonsense.

 

the bible itself cortidicts you rhough, as the Eunoch asked what prevented him from getting water baptised now, and it was based upon IF he had faith in risen Christ!

NO examples im the Bible that any other then those who had placed faith in Christ were given that water baptism!

You cannot get that theology from the Bible, but only from doctrines deviaiting from the faith!

 

Maybe I should have said none of the early church fathers wrote that baptism was symbolic. Certainly there were some who said nothing at all about baptism. I don't think you can find any pre-reformation writings that say baptism is symbolic.

I think you would agree that infants would have been regarded as members of their household and in none of the four instances of household baptism in the N.T. does the writer exclude them. What other conclusion can you draw?

I don't regard myself as either Calvinist or Arminian but I really like this verse: " This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." So yes, I do believe Jesus died for the whole world.

I can see you have great difficulty even discussing sacramental baptism. Like I said, unless you believe baptism imparts grace, infant baptism will always remain a mystery to you.

I agree that the blood atonement of Christ is what remits sins. Baptism and the other sacraments are merely the means of transmission of grace. It's like watering a flower bed. The water is what really maintains the healthy growth of the flowers. But the source of the water is a faucet across the yard. You get the water from the faucet to the flowers via a hose which transmits the water. Sacraments don't impart grace any more than a hose stimulates plant growth. Sacraments merely act as the modality of receiving grace, just like a hose serves as the modality of a flower bed receiving water.

As an aside, I wouldn't treat Hebrews 9:22 too expansively. When Jesus healed the paralytic and pronounced his sins forgiven, there was no shedding of blood. He hadn't died on the cross and He didn't tell the man to go out and kill a goat. So there are instances of sins being forgiven without shedding of blood.

 

ANY sin that God has EVER forgiven though was on the basis of the shed blood of Jesus, when he died upon the Cross, and again, Paul is very clear that we are justified before God at the very moment that we received jesus thru faith, NOT in any ordinance like water baptism, r baptism, and once saved, we are to co perate with the holy spirit now in us to be sauctified, not by partaking of any "sacraments" of Grace. as we have ALL the Grace God ever intends to give us once born again!

 

I'll take the blame for bringing the Calvinism/Arminianism aspect into the argument. I only did so to show the potentially shaky rhetorical and semantical ground we can tread when debating these issues. My bad. :tear:

 

There are no instances of sins being forgiven without shedding of blood. All the prophets preached remission of sins through faith in the Messiah (Acts 10:43). Yet the Messiah had not yet died on the cross. However, all the sacrifices under the Old Covenant were TYPES of that shedding of blood by the Messiah. Hence, faith in the Messiah was faith in God's provision for sin as the lamb slain "from the foundation of the world."

 

When the RCC has the shedding of his blood in mass every service, isn;t that violating the once and forever part of Hebrews, and is rendering His death/sacrifice null and void?

 

Of course they deny that. However, they call it a sacrifice, and they claim the bread and wine are literally transformed into His literal flesh and blood each time anew and afresh. What it is is pure blasphemy!

 

They are trampling underfoot the shed blood of Christ, and that will bring severe problems to them from God!

 

Hardly, the Church teaches that the Mass is the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary, which is invariably misunderstood by you and other anti-Catholics. The Catholic Church does not teach that the Mass is a re-crucifixion of Christ, who does not suffer and die again in the Mass. The Catholic Church specifically says Christ does not die again—his death is once for all. It would be something else if the Church were to claim he does die again, but it doesn't make that claim. Through his intercessory ministry in heaven and through the Mass, Jesus continues to offer himself to his Father as a living sacrifice, and he does so in what the Church specifically states is "an unbloody manner" This is, of course, much more than your 'it's merely a memorial service and nothing more' idea which was not believed until the reformation and certainly we know by the writings of the early Christians that it wasn't believed by the Early Church.

 

agreed! DHK

the RCC always says that it is not a sacrifice...however they pray at every mass the following....


Pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father” and they answer, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his Church.

 

The best the Romish System can assure is a purgatory with the hope of being bailed out with enough sale of indulgences, rosaries recited, and icons venerated-- for a special dispensation to pass by Peter at the gates of pearl.

The True Gospel promises eternal life with our Creator-- in heaven through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, once for all--He said "It is finished."

"These things(the Words of God) are written that you may know that you have eternal life."

Why do many not believe? Many have scales on the eyes--the scales of strong delusion, believing a lie.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

 

Except the Bible condemns that viewpoint, so whom will you trust, mere men or God almighty in this?

And those whose answer is to heed RCC views, warnings from hebrews apply, as we have only ONE sacrifice one and forever already done that can atone for sin!

 

Presentation: a show or display; the act of presenting something to sight or view;

Re-presentation: a presentation done again and again and again……

To the strongly deluded wafer-worshipper Walter the Apostate’s ludicrous attempt at making sense out of nonsense is quite reasonable and respectable.

All Catholic priests have been endowed with almighty power to re-create their Creator by mindlessly following a prescribed religious Roman formula.

It matters not that he had just violated the virginal sanctity of the altar boy, altar girl, and fellow priest.

His holy ordination supersedes his unholy moral failings.

To the discerning Spirit-filled Christian the sacrifice of the Mass is an ongoing, repetitive display…..a display of the works of Antichrist, showing the predicted Antichrist in his true colors.

In A.D. 1120 the Waldenses saw the Mass for what it was:

According to official Roman Catholic dogma the Eucharist is to be worshipped:

Note the canopy to shield their god from the heat.

A god who melts could be problematic to their faith.

 

Which shows you really had no clue what that meant as a Catholic. The Church teaches it is not a bloody sacrifice. The Church teaches the mass IS a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.