Originally posted by Carson Weber:
No apology, no retraction? Your statement concerning the assumption that I quickly addressed above.. do you believe that was a little "out of line" on your part?
Why should Ray apologize for anything. The Assuption is simply a fairy-tale story with no Biblical basis whatsoever at all.
*Sigh* Which Biblical truth is shrouded by Catholicism? That we must be born again? That we must have faith in Jesus Christ? That our relationship with Jesus is a real exsperience and a personal relationship?
Yes. You don't believe that one must be Biblially born again to be saved. You believe that one must be baptized to be saved, and that baptism is part of the born again process, which is heresy. Baptism is never mentioned once in John 3, where Jesus said "You must be born again." Being born again takes faith. It takes the belief of the one who is being born into God's family. He does so by His own volition, not the will of another. Therefore it is an impossibilty for an infant to be born again; it is an heresy which you believe. It is obvious then that an infant cannot have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ--another heresy.
"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son.
Not so! You misunderstand the verse in 1Cor.12. Any devil can say that Jesus Christ is Lord. Try it. Go from door to door and ask atheists and ungodly people, "Can you say the words "Jesus Christ is Lord?" Any fool can say those words, with or without the Holy Spirit.
What does Jesus say in verse 1 of 1Cor.12?
"I would not have you
ignorant of spiritual of gifts." The context is spiiritual gifts which Paul discusses in chapters 12 to 14, with an emphasis on the gift of tongues. That was the gift that was being abused the most. He reminds the Corinthians about their pagan past that they had come out of, and how that they had worshipped idols. No doubt, in doing this they went into a trance like state, became demonically possessed, spoke ecstatic incoherent languages. These "languages" were not from God, they were coming from their pagan past. Sometimes they were actually praising Satan in a foreign language, which could be possibly detected by another present. Thus Paul writes:
3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
--One who has the true gift of tongues will say that Jesus is the Lord by the Holy Spirit. It is the demonically possessed person that cannot say that Christ is Lord, for he does not have the Holy Spirit in Him, but rather a demon. Not every person is demon possessed, Carson. You can get any fool to repeat the words "Jesus is the Lord."
"By virtue of baptism," Baptism has nothing to do with this. Baptism simply makes you wet.
"Baptism gives us the grace of new birth in God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. For those who bear God's Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son, and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is impossible to see God's Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son,and the knowledge of God's Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit" (St. Irenaeus of Lyons; cf. 180 A.D.). Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ" (CCC 683).
There is a good descriptive word for that--hogwash!
Baptism does not give grace of the new birth in God, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. There is no Scriptural evidence of that. Baptism does not give any grace at all. Baptism is simply a command that Christ gave to all
believers after they were saved; after they personally put their faith in Christ. It is the first step of obedience in the walk of the Chrisian life, nothing more. It is symbolic of the believers death to his old life to sin, and his resurrection to a new life with Christ. It is symbolic, and nothing more. It does not impart grace. It does not give or have anthing to do with the new birth. It does not have anything at all to do with salvation.
By your statement here you have outrightly condemned a person like Singer to an eternity in Hell, because he has not been baptized. Is this what you really believe?
Pray tell, Ray, what Biblical truth has the Catholic Church "shrouded"? Or is this another "false witness" of yours, like the one above concerning the doctrine of Mary's assumption into heaven?
The Assumption of Mary, or course (but then that never was Biblical in the first place.)
The New Birth.
Salvation itself--a works salvation; not of grace alone.
Baptismal regeneration.
idolatry.
a denial of "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." i.e. Purgatory.
and many more.
DHK
