CatholicConvert
New Member
For Brother Neal
"Earthly realities speak to us of heavenly truths which we could not understand if told of them. (Heb 8:5 & 9:24). God has created an earth which has many such truths to help us understand the unknowable.
Why did God create man and woman? Why did God create man as the head of woman? Because Adam and Eve were a witness to creation of the unseen God. They were created in the image and likeness of the Godhead, that is, the Father and the Word, from whose union processes the Spirit of God. Note that in the well known verse in John 1, it says "In the beginning was The Word. And the Word was with God..." The Spirit of God is the "life giving Spirit" according to ancient Liturgical hymns, and His procession comes from the union of God and the Word.
Likewise, on earth, from the union of man and woman comes life. It is a picture of heavenly reality.
In a family, there is the covenantal head. Headship over the human family began with Adam. His headship was a gift from the Father. He was given authority over the creation and told to grow by taking dominion over all things. This is what covenantal sons do. They are trained and grow by that training towards the day in which they inherit the headship of the family and administer the covenant when the patriarch has passed on. Thus, a covenant has succession (or continuity) from generation to generation. It does not pass away.
In the redemptive plan, God brought forth many who were “aw-dawm” (Adam , or COVENANTAL HEAD = mankind). Adam being the first, was the head over all earth and as God’s eldest created eldest son, the administrator of the covenant over the family which would come from his loins. From Adam, after the Fall, came others though whom God expanded the covenant, enlarging it and revealing it more clearly. Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, and Jesus who is the Christ. To each of these men were made promises by which the covenant was both enlarged and more deeply revealed. In our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the completion of this covenant as it is enlarged to include now the whole world (John 3:16) and revealed in fullness that the Son of God has come to be the Last Adam –the head of the Father’s family for all time. In this son is God well pleased. In the authority of the Son, therefore, as the inheritor of the covenantal headship, does the inheritance (eternal life) rest, and Scripture says that HE will give the blessings of this inheritance to all the faithful among His brothers and sisters. This happens at the Judgement, where Christ is seated as covenantal head/judge and determines the faithfulness to the covenantal family of each man and woman ever alive and what shall be their destiny.
When earth and heaven are once again one and the separation of the curse passes away, the Son of Man shall be the family head, the Elder Brother of the covenant who administers the Father’s kingdom in power and glory. But until that time, earth and heaven and heaven are separate. The Son of God rules in the realm of Heaven. But He is not physically present on earth to rule, therefore, He must find an “alter christus”. A head over the family of God on earth must be selected and given authority so that the type on earth properly resembles the type in Heaven. What is true of the spiritual realm must be properly shown in types in the earthly realm.
Which is why our Lord appointed an OFFICE of leadership in Matthew 16: 18 - 19. This is why the keys of the kingdom were only given to ONE MAN. They were not give to each of the twelve present there. They were not handed to St. Peter and then passed from hand to hand of each of the apostles. One office was created and one man was blessed to be the first to hold that office and its authority.
Please remember this if you don’t remember anything else I say about the office of the
pope on earth: It is the office which gives its authority to the man – NOT the other way around. No man who holds the papacy brings anything to that office. It is the office which blesses the man with infallibility.
In God we have the existence of One who exists as family. In Heaven now, we have Two people in the flesh who are the realization and redemption of the covenantal family of mankind, the creation. We have the Blessed Virgin and Jesus, the two who were, like Adam and Eve, created without sin in flesh. The difference with Jesus, of course, is that He carried within His sinless body not only the nature of man, but the nature of Christ. Two divine natures separate and not co-mingled, in one person. Thus, when I talk about Jesus, I am discussing the fleshly Son of God who was created just like Adam.
Both the Blessed Virgin and Jesus are in Heaven now, as the King and Queen of the created race of beings called human beings, and the children they have brought forth by their headship over all are the saints who join them and one day will also be resurrected in their flesh to be a complete family and representation of the Godhead itself. In this way, Jesus the Christ is able to be the perfect High Priest in Heaven. The role of the priest on earth is to be a bridge between the spiritual and the physical. In one body we have both. The fleshly Jesus – the divine Christ. One person in Whom both natures reside.
But the King Jesus and Queen Mary are in Heaven, exercising the divine rule which is theirs by dint of Christ’s perfect obedience. What then of the earth?
On earth, we yet have two earthly and physical institutions which parallel the covenantal headship of Heaven in the Christ Jesus and the Blessed Virgin. The male covenantal head of the whole covenantal family on earth is the one we call our Holy Father. He leads and directs all in a position of absolute authority, but not as a dictator, but as the chief shepherd among many shepherds on earth. Under His rule is the Church, which corresponds to the Blessed Virgin. This is why Catholic theology sees the Blessed Virgin as a type of the Church, for as she gave her life to Him in the sharing of her flesh to be come His flesh, nurtured, raised, and trained the Son of God in holiness, tenderly caring for Him as an infant, lovingly raising Him as a child, and weeping over Him in His death, so the Church is the instrument by which God gives life to His sons and daughters. It is the Church which is here to nurture the infant Christian, to raise these “god babies” in holiness, and to see them mature into the likeness of Christ, which is the goal of all who profess His name. The parallels, for those who have eyes to see, are indeed striking.
It is inconceivable therefore that the office of the Holy Father could ever be tainted by error. If such was allowed to happen, God would no longer be producing sons and daughters out of the Church which is the Bride of Christ. This is why the promise of Matthew 16: 18 is so important:
Mt 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
For any man to sit in the Chair of St. Peter and in the office of the Holy Father, the covenantal head and leader of the earthly family, to teach error and heresy, would be for the Church not only to be prevailed against by the gates of hell, but to actually join league with those gates. Thus in Matthew 16: 18 we find the basis of the doctrine of Infallibility. There are Protestants who object that this was not taught until the Vatican Council of 1870, therefore it is an “invention of the corrupted papacy” and is invalid. But they who say such things show their entire lack of understanding of God’s covenantal promises and principles regarding His earthly family. No more would He allow His covenantal head on earth to teach error than He would allow His divine Son to see corruption. The papacy is protected by a promise from the Son of God which is a strong lock to keep out error in moral and doctrinal teaching. This is why, when all the assemblies which have come into existence as descendants of the Protestant Rebellion are falling head over heels to teach and promote immorality, the Catholic Church continues to stand against such teachings, despite the howls of outrage by God haters (Romans 1: 30) who are bereft of spiritual knowledge, spiritual sight, and possibly spiritual birth.
One by one, these splinter groups have arisen, thinking that they alone are thepossessors and teachers of complete truth. And one by one they eventually have fallen into error and caved in to the demands of the world which hates Christian doctrine and teaching. The latest of these is the PCA, who, caving into the political correctness of the feminist crowd, have changed the Nicene Creed to become more PC and unoffensive. Instead of reading “....who for us MEN and our salvation came down from Heaven....” to the more feminist acceptable “...who for us and our salvation”. Seventeen hundred years of orthodoxy are thrown out the window because it might offend someone to recite a Creed which reinforces the patriarchal nature of God’s covenantal family. One only wonders “What next?” I am sure that J. Gresham Machen is rolling over in his grave. May I say that it is not too far down the road, perhaps two or three hundred years, that this body will see the abomination of so called “women pastors” infest them also.
And the reason for this is quite simple. By severing themselves from the covenantal head of the earthly family, the Holy Father in Rome, they took themselves right out from the promise of Matthew 16: 18 and the protection afforded under that promise. They are like children wandering outside of their Father’s castle, building silly little houses of their own and feeding upon theological Twinkies and Moon Pies when inside the castle awaits the most nourishing banquet imaginable. Yet because they are self willed, stubborn, and consider their human knowledge to be greater than that which they do not understand, they stubbornly remain outside the Father’s mansion. It is sad indeed.
There is only one family. There is only one God who exists in a divine covenantal family. There is only one heavenly family of the redeemed, headed by the Last Adam and the New Eve as the covenantal heads. And on earth there is only one physical family of God. It is the Catholic Church, the great Mother of all the living, headed by her earthly head, the Holy Father who resides in Rome. Break that and what do you have? Certainly not a family. Our brothers in Orthodoxy refuse to see this. Their answer. A body with no head. The Protestants refuse to see this. Their answer? A body with hundreds and hundreds of “heads”. Neither one of those earthly pictures keeps the body imagery of the heavenly reality intact.The only body on earth which properly represents and parallels the spiritual truth of Heaven’s reality is the Catholic Church."
From the book "THE DANCE OF ISAIAH" The Joy of the Covenantal Family that is the Catholic Church.
There it is. The reason that there must be a single, physical, human head over the covenantal family on earth is that it is the only form of Church governance which properly reflects the the true covenantal family in Heaven.
Okay.
Your turn.
Brother Ed
[ January 16, 2003, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: CatholicConvert ]
"Earthly realities speak to us of heavenly truths which we could not understand if told of them. (Heb 8:5 & 9:24). God has created an earth which has many such truths to help us understand the unknowable.
Why did God create man and woman? Why did God create man as the head of woman? Because Adam and Eve were a witness to creation of the unseen God. They were created in the image and likeness of the Godhead, that is, the Father and the Word, from whose union processes the Spirit of God. Note that in the well known verse in John 1, it says "In the beginning was The Word. And the Word was with God..." The Spirit of God is the "life giving Spirit" according to ancient Liturgical hymns, and His procession comes from the union of God and the Word.
Likewise, on earth, from the union of man and woman comes life. It is a picture of heavenly reality.
In a family, there is the covenantal head. Headship over the human family began with Adam. His headship was a gift from the Father. He was given authority over the creation and told to grow by taking dominion over all things. This is what covenantal sons do. They are trained and grow by that training towards the day in which they inherit the headship of the family and administer the covenant when the patriarch has passed on. Thus, a covenant has succession (or continuity) from generation to generation. It does not pass away.
In the redemptive plan, God brought forth many who were “aw-dawm” (Adam , or COVENANTAL HEAD = mankind). Adam being the first, was the head over all earth and as God’s eldest created eldest son, the administrator of the covenant over the family which would come from his loins. From Adam, after the Fall, came others though whom God expanded the covenant, enlarging it and revealing it more clearly. Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, and Jesus who is the Christ. To each of these men were made promises by which the covenant was both enlarged and more deeply revealed. In our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the completion of this covenant as it is enlarged to include now the whole world (John 3:16) and revealed in fullness that the Son of God has come to be the Last Adam –the head of the Father’s family for all time. In this son is God well pleased. In the authority of the Son, therefore, as the inheritor of the covenantal headship, does the inheritance (eternal life) rest, and Scripture says that HE will give the blessings of this inheritance to all the faithful among His brothers and sisters. This happens at the Judgement, where Christ is seated as covenantal head/judge and determines the faithfulness to the covenantal family of each man and woman ever alive and what shall be their destiny.
When earth and heaven are once again one and the separation of the curse passes away, the Son of Man shall be the family head, the Elder Brother of the covenant who administers the Father’s kingdom in power and glory. But until that time, earth and heaven and heaven are separate. The Son of God rules in the realm of Heaven. But He is not physically present on earth to rule, therefore, He must find an “alter christus”. A head over the family of God on earth must be selected and given authority so that the type on earth properly resembles the type in Heaven. What is true of the spiritual realm must be properly shown in types in the earthly realm.
Which is why our Lord appointed an OFFICE of leadership in Matthew 16: 18 - 19. This is why the keys of the kingdom were only given to ONE MAN. They were not give to each of the twelve present there. They were not handed to St. Peter and then passed from hand to hand of each of the apostles. One office was created and one man was blessed to be the first to hold that office and its authority.
Please remember this if you don’t remember anything else I say about the office of the
pope on earth: It is the office which gives its authority to the man – NOT the other way around. No man who holds the papacy brings anything to that office. It is the office which blesses the man with infallibility.
In God we have the existence of One who exists as family. In Heaven now, we have Two people in the flesh who are the realization and redemption of the covenantal family of mankind, the creation. We have the Blessed Virgin and Jesus, the two who were, like Adam and Eve, created without sin in flesh. The difference with Jesus, of course, is that He carried within His sinless body not only the nature of man, but the nature of Christ. Two divine natures separate and not co-mingled, in one person. Thus, when I talk about Jesus, I am discussing the fleshly Son of God who was created just like Adam.
Both the Blessed Virgin and Jesus are in Heaven now, as the King and Queen of the created race of beings called human beings, and the children they have brought forth by their headship over all are the saints who join them and one day will also be resurrected in their flesh to be a complete family and representation of the Godhead itself. In this way, Jesus the Christ is able to be the perfect High Priest in Heaven. The role of the priest on earth is to be a bridge between the spiritual and the physical. In one body we have both. The fleshly Jesus – the divine Christ. One person in Whom both natures reside.
But the King Jesus and Queen Mary are in Heaven, exercising the divine rule which is theirs by dint of Christ’s perfect obedience. What then of the earth?
On earth, we yet have two earthly and physical institutions which parallel the covenantal headship of Heaven in the Christ Jesus and the Blessed Virgin. The male covenantal head of the whole covenantal family on earth is the one we call our Holy Father. He leads and directs all in a position of absolute authority, but not as a dictator, but as the chief shepherd among many shepherds on earth. Under His rule is the Church, which corresponds to the Blessed Virgin. This is why Catholic theology sees the Blessed Virgin as a type of the Church, for as she gave her life to Him in the sharing of her flesh to be come His flesh, nurtured, raised, and trained the Son of God in holiness, tenderly caring for Him as an infant, lovingly raising Him as a child, and weeping over Him in His death, so the Church is the instrument by which God gives life to His sons and daughters. It is the Church which is here to nurture the infant Christian, to raise these “god babies” in holiness, and to see them mature into the likeness of Christ, which is the goal of all who profess His name. The parallels, for those who have eyes to see, are indeed striking.
It is inconceivable therefore that the office of the Holy Father could ever be tainted by error. If such was allowed to happen, God would no longer be producing sons and daughters out of the Church which is the Bride of Christ. This is why the promise of Matthew 16: 18 is so important:
Mt 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
For any man to sit in the Chair of St. Peter and in the office of the Holy Father, the covenantal head and leader of the earthly family, to teach error and heresy, would be for the Church not only to be prevailed against by the gates of hell, but to actually join league with those gates. Thus in Matthew 16: 18 we find the basis of the doctrine of Infallibility. There are Protestants who object that this was not taught until the Vatican Council of 1870, therefore it is an “invention of the corrupted papacy” and is invalid. But they who say such things show their entire lack of understanding of God’s covenantal promises and principles regarding His earthly family. No more would He allow His covenantal head on earth to teach error than He would allow His divine Son to see corruption. The papacy is protected by a promise from the Son of God which is a strong lock to keep out error in moral and doctrinal teaching. This is why, when all the assemblies which have come into existence as descendants of the Protestant Rebellion are falling head over heels to teach and promote immorality, the Catholic Church continues to stand against such teachings, despite the howls of outrage by God haters (Romans 1: 30) who are bereft of spiritual knowledge, spiritual sight, and possibly spiritual birth.
One by one, these splinter groups have arisen, thinking that they alone are thepossessors and teachers of complete truth. And one by one they eventually have fallen into error and caved in to the demands of the world which hates Christian doctrine and teaching. The latest of these is the PCA, who, caving into the political correctness of the feminist crowd, have changed the Nicene Creed to become more PC and unoffensive. Instead of reading “....who for us MEN and our salvation came down from Heaven....” to the more feminist acceptable “...who for us and our salvation”. Seventeen hundred years of orthodoxy are thrown out the window because it might offend someone to recite a Creed which reinforces the patriarchal nature of God’s covenantal family. One only wonders “What next?” I am sure that J. Gresham Machen is rolling over in his grave. May I say that it is not too far down the road, perhaps two or three hundred years, that this body will see the abomination of so called “women pastors” infest them also.
And the reason for this is quite simple. By severing themselves from the covenantal head of the earthly family, the Holy Father in Rome, they took themselves right out from the promise of Matthew 16: 18 and the protection afforded under that promise. They are like children wandering outside of their Father’s castle, building silly little houses of their own and feeding upon theological Twinkies and Moon Pies when inside the castle awaits the most nourishing banquet imaginable. Yet because they are self willed, stubborn, and consider their human knowledge to be greater than that which they do not understand, they stubbornly remain outside the Father’s mansion. It is sad indeed.
There is only one family. There is only one God who exists in a divine covenantal family. There is only one heavenly family of the redeemed, headed by the Last Adam and the New Eve as the covenantal heads. And on earth there is only one physical family of God. It is the Catholic Church, the great Mother of all the living, headed by her earthly head, the Holy Father who resides in Rome. Break that and what do you have? Certainly not a family. Our brothers in Orthodoxy refuse to see this. Their answer. A body with no head. The Protestants refuse to see this. Their answer? A body with hundreds and hundreds of “heads”. Neither one of those earthly pictures keeps the body imagery of the heavenly reality intact.The only body on earth which properly represents and parallels the spiritual truth of Heaven’s reality is the Catholic Church."
From the book "THE DANCE OF ISAIAH" The Joy of the Covenantal Family that is the Catholic Church.
There it is. The reason that there must be a single, physical, human head over the covenantal family on earth is that it is the only form of Church governance which properly reflects the the true covenantal family in Heaven.
Okay.
Your turn.
Brother Ed
[ January 16, 2003, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: CatholicConvert ]
) but this is a huge leap. With the evidence we are given in Scripture, you have to do a lot of eisegeting to get to a sinless perpetual virgin Mary who is now the queen of heaven. Say what you will, but there is no clear passage that even begins to justify this position and leap to say that Mary is the queen of heaven. Surely if God wanted to reveal it He would have included something about in His Word.
