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I am posting this to correct a formatting error in i of iv to Martin above:

There, you (Martin) wrote: "The Bible is what God has given us, and this is one place (not the only one, alas!) where the Church of Rome goes so dangerously wrong."

My wrongly formatted response should have read as follows:

Martin, I truly appreciate your kindness. But I wish to challenge you here. You say that the Bible is "what God has given us." I agree. However, I'd say, first of all, that God gave us the Scriptures "through the Church" and not independently of it. Secondly, I'd ask you who "us" is. You say that the "Bible is what God has given us." Well, who's us? And how do we know? By what objective, unchanging, public principle(s) do we determine who "us" is? For how does one determine whether or not the Catholic Church has gone "dangerously wrong" without first determining, by objective means, those principles by which her doctrines should be judged? As is so often the case, having left the first and second order principles unattended, Biblicists damn the Church's doctrines at the level of third and fourth order principles. This is why I opened up my remarks here saying that the position which were being espoused by Biblicists were like unto the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. For the Biblicist, seeing the solid gold and seemingly wonderful head of the statue, fails to consider its clay feet... Yet, there they are, if only the Biblicist would look down and recognize the fact that he's pinned everything on an unBiblical Biblicism, a Biblicism which is itself unBiblical.

Also, I will look up what I've posted already with regard to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 to address your reading of the text in more detail.

Thanks again!

Herbert

 

You can find sola scriptura in Acts 17:11, and in Isaiah 8:20... and in Gal 1:6-9

In that example I did not "translate them for you" rather I simply mentioned the "existence" of the text. It is "instructive" that the mere mention of the "existence" of the text - is sufficient cause to give rise to complaints against it.

If you want the text quoted -- then fine I will quote it.

 

Sola Scriptura in Mark 7:6-13

Sola Scriptura in Acts 17:11

Sola Scriptura in Isaiah 8:20

Sola Scriptura in Gal 1:6-9


Magisterium of Christ's day - getting hammered "sola scriptura"

Mark 7
7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the Commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Isaiah 8:20 "To the LAW and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this WORD they have no light"

Acts 17:11 "they studied the scriptures daily to SEE IF those things (spoken to them by the APOSTLE Paul) were SO"

Gal 1:6-9 - "Sola scriptura - known from NT times to judge modern teaching/doctrine"
--- EVEN if WE APOSTLES should preach error- a gospel contrary to what you received, - let him be accursed! --

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

 

I could not agree with Utilyan with what you have stated, and I am Utilyan. Perhaps you will have to legalistically be exacting with what I said.

Its like saying a Circle is round and God's favorite color is Cabbage. Then insisting you don't believe a circle is round on account you don't believe his favorite color is Cabbage.

 

I have two baptismal certificates.
I still have the one that the RCC gave my parents when I was baptized as an infant. Before my mother died she gave those sort of things back to her children. But that really isn't baptism in the sight of God. Call it a "Christening" or some other sort of thing, but God does not recognize it as "baptism." There is no such thing as infant baptism. Baptism must follow faith in Christ; or it is not considered baptism at all.

I have another baptismal certificate that was given to me by a Baptist church when I was 22. By that time I had trusted Christ as my Savior. I had put my faith in him as my Lord and Savior. On that basis I was baptized by immersion, the only kind of baptism that is accepted by the Lord. The very word "baptism" or "baptidzo" means "to immerse." Sprinkling or pouring are not biblical. And it must follow faith in Christ.

The Ethiopian eunuch first believed and then was baptized.
The Philippian jailer first believed and then was baptized.
The 3,000 on the Day of Pentecost first believed and then were baptized.

There is never one instance in the Bible of an infant being baptized--not one. It is a heretical position. An infant cannot express faith. Infant baptism is not baptism.
Neither is an unsaved person's baptism considered baptism. Faith in Christ must come first. Getting wet does not save a person.

Baptism does not save. It is not sacramental, but simply symbolic.
What happens when a person is baptized? He gets wet, and that is all.
He doesn't get saved. He doesn't get more holy. He doesn't receive grace. He simply gets wet.
It is symbolic in nature, a step of obedience in the Christian faith symbolizing the Christian's death to his old life of sin, and a resurrection to a new life in Christ.

 

Jesus did not speak of the Eucharist. You are reading into the Scripture what you want to read into it. He didn't speak of flying saucers either.

Here is what was said:
John 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
--Why did they say this after Jesus spoke? They had understood what he said. I quoted what he said more than you did. You can read it in my post, or go straight to John 6 and read verses 56-58.

Jesus answered:
The RCC heresy of transubstantiation did not offend anyone. No one even considered it.
Here is what Christ said:
John 6:61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
--What offended them was the difficult life they would have to live by following him. It would be a sacrificial life.

John 6:62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
--Both the resurrection and the ascension was an offence and a stumbling block to the Jews. They did not believe him.

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
--They were offended because they were not made alive by the Spirit of God; they rejected the Holy Spirit. They acted out of the flesh.

John 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
--They were offended because many of them had already made up their minds to not only betray him (Judas) but to kill him, and he knew their hearts; he knew who they were.
Thus they were offended when the spoke the truth that they must believe in Him.

John 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
--Like Judas, they were not given of the Father and could not be given. Their minds were made up. They were the ones that later would be responsible for crucifying Christ.

 

BobRyan-

I am not sure what you were trying to say to me above. You wrote this:

I am just reminding you of the fact that those passages of Scripture do not teach Sola Scriptura. You continue insisting that they do, apparently, despite the fact that I have pointed out why they don't and you have not responded to my consideration of those texts.

Herbert

 

BobRyan-

I am not talking about the Jewish Teachers of the Law. I am talking about the Magisterium which Christ established. These are two entirely separate bodies with entirely different modes of authority. In the case of the prior, they sat in Moses' Seat and Christ instructed people to follow their instructions and be obedient to them. Yet he identified them as hypocrites and told them not to act as they did.

In the case of the Magisterium of Christ's Church, this is the very Apostolic College which we see actively binding and loosing according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in Acts 15.

Herbert

 

steaver,

I have never said anything about not loving Christ. As I said, since this conversation began with you misrepresenting someone else's views, it's unfortunate to see that you continue doing so.

Further, you continue with your remarks which are mostly directed at people and not ideas. If you notice, many, if not most, of your remarks are directed at individuals instead of doctrines, ideas, and the content of our arguments.

You take a generally ad hominem approach to this conversation and are thus not even beginning to address the basic issues we're discussing.

Herbert

 

I answered this for you once but you never replied. Even by Catholic standards the Magesterium is the teaching authority of the RCC of which the pope is the head. There was no pope until about the fourth century and you can't prove there was. You must supply the evidence. Peter never was a pope. There definitely was no pope during the first century and thus no Magesterium. There was no organized "Church" only "churches." That "Church" that you keep referring to came into existence in the fourth century. If you have evidence then show it.

Remember that often people use the word "church" (small c) to mean "church general" in the same way that they mean kingdom or family of God. It has no correlation to what the RCC is or any denomination is today. There was no such thing in the first three centuries.

Now you know we have a difference in our church theology. It is greater than usual because I disagree with many of my Baptist brethren. So this time I will quote from the SBC "Baptist Message and Faith" for you.

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a local body of baptized believers who are associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, observing the two ordinances of Christ, committed to His teachings, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.

This church is an autonomous body, operating through democratic processes under the lordship of Jesus Christ. In such a congregation members are equally responsible. Its Scriptural officers are pastors and deacons.

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all ages.
--This is the way you will find the word "church" used when it is not used in the sense of "local church," but never as in an organizational or hierarchical or denominational sense as the RCC sees it.

BTW, seeing now that there is archaeological evidence that Peter is buried in Jerusalem, we have no evidence that he was ever in Rome at all. Peter was not the bishop or a leader of anything in Rome. You have no evidence.

 

That’s not the point, Martin. You quoted scripture to show that no bone of Jesus’ body would be broken, and you are correct. Then you said the Eucharist couldn’t be His body because it would go against the solid declaration of scripture. Yet Jesus said, “This is my body which is broken . . .” He know His human body would not be broken, yet He referred to His broken body. He did this just before passing the bread, the accidents of which would be broken when eaten.

Why would Jesus say His body would be broken when He knew it wouldn’t be? Answer: because it would be broken every time a believer received the Eucharist. To say that the Eucharist is only symbolic is like saying that Jesus is emphasizing the chewing of bread. It’s nonsensical.

 

I think it is the point, Zenas. When our Lord speaks of His body, He speaks symbolically. '"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."........But He was speaking of the temple of His body' (John 2:19-21).
Also, how could our Lord say, "This piece of bread is My literal body," when all the time His literal body was standing there in front of them? It's nonsensical.
Also, you are confusing our Lord's body, which was certainly broken- whipped, scarred, pierced- with His bones which were not broken.

 

'Us' is the world. The Scriptures are God's gift to the world. To be sure, it is the churches of Christ who 'Hold forth the word of life' (Phil. 2:15, KJV) to a perishing world. Unlike the Church of Rome which for centuries sought to withhold the Scriptures from the people. As a member of Gideons International, I am involved with either putting Scriptures into the hands of those who might otherwise never read them, or placing them in hotels, prisons, hospitals and other places where people can find and read them.

.
The only objective standard for a church's practice is the word of God. The Church does not judge the Bible; the Bible judges the church, and in the case of the Church of Rome, I believe it finds it wanting.

I look forward to it.

Thank you. I'll reply to some of your other posts as time permits.

 

As I remember it:
When the Catholics receives the wafer he swallows it whole.
But when the Baptists receives the bread/cracker/etc. he chews it up thoroughly.

That must really horrify you!

Actually your premise is wrong and thus your conclusion is wrong.
The fact that is symbolic has no bearing on his bones being broken or not. It doesn't represent the "breaking of his bones" does it? What does the scripture actually say?

1 Corinthians 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
--These words recorded in this epistle are not Paul's words. He is quoting Jesus word for word.
Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
--There, just like your red-letter Bible!

Quoting William MacDonald on verse 24:
11:24 The Lord Jesus took the bread, first of all, and gave thanks for it. Since the bread was typical of His body, He was, in effect, thanking God that He had been given a human body in which He might come and die for the sins of the world.
When the Savior said, “This is My body,” did He mean that the bread actually became His body in some real sense? The Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation insists that the bread and the wine are literally changed into the body and the blood of Christ. The Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation teaches that the true body and blood of Christ are in, with, and under the bread and wine on the table.
In answer to these views, it should be sufficient to remember that when the Lord Jesus instituted this memorial, His body had not yet been given, nor had His blood been shed. When the Lord Jesus said, “This is My body,” He meant, “This is symbolic of My body” or “This is a picture of My body which is broken for you.” To eat the bread is to remember Him in His atoning death for us. There is inexpressible tenderness in our Lord's expression “in remembrance of Me.”

 

No, you are the one who got that confused, which is the main reason I jumped into this discussion. It's nonsensical? Yes, to our feeble minds it is impossible. But God is not constrained by the limitations of time, space and possibilities. "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" 1 Corinthians 1:20.

 

Your memory is flawed.