Donna

One other quick observation. Moses was commanded to make the cherubim and the bronze serpent. These were all objects with the purpose of educating the people of God in their childhood. The law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Even during the restoration period, the cherubim and the ark were absent, and the physical Temple was being superseded by a building made of people (seen by Ezekiel). With the New Covenant, this arrived in full. All the childish object lessons and symbols were done away with.

These verses in Galatians 4 could apply to the Roman church as much as to the Judaisers of the first century:

Galatians 4:3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.

Galatians 4:9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how [is it that] you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?

Show me where Christ commanded images to be made of Him or the apostles. He is our wisdom and maturity. We have no need of God’s flannelgraph any more. It decayed and vanished away, and there is evidence that this is exactly what the NT writers referred to by the word elements (stoicheia). They are always regarded negatively. These weak and beggarly elements would be burned with fire (2 Peter 3:12 taken in its correct context - the destruction of Herod’s Temple).

Time for the Roman church to put away the magical toys and trinkets.

MIchael
Your tone is extremely belittling and not very conducive to good debate.  You are only showing how little you know about Catholic teaching.  You seem to know everything and to be an infallible interpreter- so if you say so, it must be.  My aim is to make clear what Catholic teaching is through scripture and hopefully remove the veil of misrepresentation that exists.  It seems the only one riding roughshod is you.
Donna

Dear Michael..chew over these verses and don’t try and explain then away.......

John 1:32 - when Jesus was baptized, He was baptized in the water and the Spirit, which descended upon Him in the form of a dove. The Holy Spirit and water are required for baptism. Also, Jesus’ baptism was not the Christian baptism He later instituted. Jesus’ baptism was instead a royal anointing of the Son of David (Jesus) conferred by a Levite (John the Baptist) to reveal Christ to Israel, as it was foreshadowed in 1 Kings 1:39 when the Son of David (Solomon) was anointed by the Levitical priest Zadok. See John 1:31; cf. Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21.

John 3:3,5 - Jesus says, “Truly, truly, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” When Jesus said “water and the Spirit,” He was referring to baptism (which requires the use of water, and the work of the Spirit).

John 3:22 - after teaching on baptism, John says Jesus and the disciples did what? They went into Judea where the disciples baptized. Jesus’ teaching about being reborn by water and the Spirit is in the context of baptism.

John 4:1 - here is another reference to baptism which naturally flows from Jesus’ baptismal teaching in John 3:3-5.

Acts 8:36 – the eunuch recognizes the necessity of water for his baptism. Water and baptism are never separated in the Scriptures.

Acts 10:47 - Peter says “can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people..?” The Bible always links water and baptism.

Acts 22:16 – Ananias tells Saul, “arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins.” The “washing away” refers to water baptism.

Titus 3:5-6 – Paul writes about the “washing of regeneration,” which is “poured out on us” in reference to water baptism. “Washing” (loutron) generally refers to a ritual washing with water.

Heb. 10:22 – the author is also writing about water baptism in this verse. “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Our bodies are washed with pure water in water baptism.

2 Kings 5:14 - Naaman dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, and his flesh was restored like that of a child. This foreshadows the regenerative function of baptism, by water and the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 44:3 - the Lord pours out His water and His Spirit. Water and the Spirit are linked to baptism. The Bible never separates them.

Ezek. 36:25-27 - the Lord promises He will sprinkle us with water to cleanse us from sin and give us a new heart and spirit. Paul refers to this verse in Heb. 10:22. The teaching of Ezekiel foreshadows the salvific nature of Christian baptism instituted by Jesus and taught in John 3:5, Titus 3:5, 1 Peter 3:21 and Acts 22:16.

Donna

Sorry if I have come across as belittling. I am not attacking people but ideas, wrong ideas, and ideas that I believe have sent millions of people to hell, trusting in their own works, or in priestcraft instead of the perfect sacrifice of Christ for our sins. It is all of grace, plus nothing, minus nothing, and the Roman church has confused and muddied the clear teachings of the New Testament. It is nothing personal. It is heaven and hell, and I call false doctrine what it is.

With respect

Robert ian Williams - 11 October 2008 06:49 PM

Dear Michael..chew over these verses and don’t try and explain then away…

Dear Robert

I don’t deny the link between water and the Spirit in any way. Please consider the following:

- The thief on the cross was not baptized.

- There is not one baby to be found in any of the verses you listed. In the instances you quoted, baptism always occurred after faith.

- The various baptisms in the Law pictured the washing away of sins. This is what Ananias referred to. He knew Saul’s reputation, and probably his education. After all, Ananias was ‘a devout man according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there.’ Baptism is a picture, an initiation. And that is all. The Spirit baptizes us into Christ when we believe, and the church baptizes us into the visible assembly in response.

- Hebrews 10:22 refers to the blood of the sacrifice being sprinkled and the washing of the priesthood (and sacrifices) in the laver. It can only be applied secondarily to baptism.

Thanks

To get back to Robert’s original post, I found a list of heresies and human traditions invented by the Roman church with the dates in which these were instituted. Link is here.

I don’t agree with all their conclusions exactly, but the list shows exactly how highly the Roman church regards the Holy Scriptures that they apparently consider inerrant. This is riding roughshod over the Bible in a monster truck, whichever way you look at it.

With respect.

Michael Bull - 11 October 2008 07:09 PM

Donna

Sorry if I have come across as belittling. I am not attacking people but ideas, wrong ideas, and ideas that I believe have sent millions of people to hell, trusting in their own works, or in priestcraft instead of the perfect sacrifice of Christ for our sins. It is all of grace, plus nothing, minus nothing, and the Roman church has confused and muddied the clear teachings of the New Testament. It is nothing personal. It is heaven and hell, and I call false doctrine what it is.

With respect

How presumptuous of you to assume Catholics have gone to hell.  I believe, as does the CC teach, that Christ’s sacrifice was perfect.  Perhaps you would do better if you first of all educated yourself with clear Catholic teaching before you place a judgment on something you, clearly, know little about.  With respect of course.

Michael Bull - 11 October 2008 07:50 PM

To get back to Robert’s original post, I found a list of heresies and human traditions invented by the Roman church with the dates in which these were instituted. Link is here.

I don’t agree with all their conclusions exactly, but the list shows exactly how highly the Roman church regards the Holy Scriptures that they apparently consider inerrant. This is riding roughshod over the Bible in a monster truck, whichever way you look at it.

With respect.

I feel embarrassed for you (with respect).  Another has tried to inject such easily refuted propoganda. To a Catholic, those claims are laughable.
If I was going to debate an issue, I would do my research and find out what the opposition’s position was.  Would I go to the opposition of the opposition and gain information from them.  No.  That would be dishonest.  How can you fairly say you understand Catholic teaching when you pull such utter tripe from an anti-Catholic site, and you then expect to be taken seriously.  Fair crack of the whip!
Good luck Robert.

Funnily enough Michael, your link makes reference to the pope being the anti-Christ and the correlation of 666 with a certain pope.  Apparently, you can get 666 from Martin Luther’s name also - (with respect).

And Ellen Gould White makes 666 too ..she founded Seventh Day Adventism.. a very anti-catholic sect. and quite strong in Australia.

ellen gould white. 3 five letter words. unless there’s something different in Welsh spelling?

Donna Green - 11 October 2008 10:55 PM

How can you fairly say you understand Catholic teaching when you pull such utter tripe from an anti-Catholic site.”

Hi Donna

Would it be too much to ask for biblical justification for any of the doctrines listed, and why they were introduced out of thin air right up until 1950? The assumption of Mary? Nowhere in the Bible.

Donna Green - 11 October 2008 10:55 PM

Funnily enough Michael, your link makes reference to the pope being the anti-Christ and the correlation of 666 with a certain pope.  Apparently, you can get 666 from Martin Luther’s name also - (with respect).

As I said, I don’t agree with all their conclusions. I disagree with the Reformers’ interpretation of the Revelation. 666 refers to the amount of gold amassed by Solomon in one year. Revelation uses it symbolically (and ironically: the ‘wisdom’ of Solomon was a great clue!) to describe a corrupt Jewish kingdom - the Herods.

HOWEVER, in application, they were spot on. In its corruption, the Roman church became exactly like the harlot described in Revelation, a religious power riding a political power and drinking the blood of the saints. God called His people out of her as He did in the first century.

Judaism remains. Catholicism remains. But, as institutions (not individuals) they are the cruciform remains of Jezebel.

With respect.

The Evangelical chief reason for objecting to the Immaculate Conception and Mary’s consequent sinlessness is that we are told that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). Besides, they say, Mary said her “spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47), and only a sinner needs a Saviour.

Let’s take the second citation first. Mary, too, required a Saviour. Like all other descendants of Adam, she was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken at the instant she was conceived, she was preserved from the stain of original sin and its consequences. She was therefore redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way—by anticipation.

Consider an analogy: Suppose a man falls into a deep pit, and someone reaches down to pull him out. The man has been “saved” from the pit. Now imagine a woman walking along, and she too is about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment that she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her. She too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way: She was not simply taken out of the pit, she was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place. This is the illustration Christians have used for a thousand years to explain how Mary was saved by Christ. By receiving Christ’s grace at her conception, she had his grace applied to her before she was able to become mired in original sin and its stain.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that she was “redeemed in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son” (CCC 492). She has more reason to call God her Saviour than we do, because he saved her in an even more glorious manner!

But what about Romans 3:23, “all have sinned”? Have all people committed actual sins? Consider a child below the age of reason. By definition he can’t sin, since sinning requires the ability to reason and the ability to intend to sin. This is indicated by Paul later in the letter to the Romans when he speaks of the time when Jacob and Esau were unborn babies as a time when they “had done nothing either good or bad” (Rom. 9:11).

We also know of another very prominent exception to the rule: Jesus (Heb. 4:15). So if Paul’s statement in Romans 3 includes an exception for the New Adam (Jesus), one may argue that an exception for the New Eve (Mary) can also be made.

continued…

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was officially defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. When Fundamentalists claim that the doctrine was “invented” at this time, they misunderstand both the history of dogmas and what prompts the Church to issue, from time to time, definitive pronouncements regarding faith or morals. They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it.

Actually, doctrines are defined formally only when there is a controversy that needs to be cleared up or when the magisterium (the Church in its office as teacher; cf. Matt. 28:18–20; 1 Tim. 3:15, 4:11) thinks the faithful can be helped by particular emphasis being drawn to some already-existing belief. The definition of the Immaculate Conception was prompted by the latter motive; it did not come about because there were widespread doubts about the doctrine. In fact, the Vatican was deluged with requests from people desiring the doctrine to be officially proclaimed. Pope Pius IX, who was highly devoted to the Blessed Virgin, hoped the definition would inspire others in their devotion to her.

The Assumption

The doctrine of the Assumption says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, just as Enoch, Elijah, and perhaps others had been before her. It’s also necessary to keep in mind what the Assumption is not. Some people think Catholics believe Mary “ascended” into heaven. That’s not correct. Christ, by his own power, ascended into heaven. Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God. She didn’t do it under her own power.

The Church has never formally defined whether she died or not, and the integrity of the doctrine of the Assumption would not be impaired if she did not in fact die, but the almost universal consensus is that she did die. Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus (1950), defined that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life” (note the silence regarding her death), “was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

The possibility of a bodily assumption before the Second Coming is suggested by Matthew 27:52–53: “[T]he tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” Did all these Old Testament saints die and have to be buried all over again? There is no record of that, but it is recorded by early Church writers that they were assumed into heaven, or at least into that temporary state of rest and happiness often called “paradise,” where the righteous people from the Old Testament era waited until Christ’s resurrection (cf. Luke 16:22, 23:43; Heb. 11:1–40; 1 Pet. 4:6), after which they were brought into the eternal bliss of heaven.

With respect Michael, the mere fact that you use the term “with respect” does not mean that you are acting respectfully, either with respect to Catholicism or Catholics respectively. Indeed, if you were trying to speak with respect, can I respectfully point out that I’ve found your tone to be rather disrespectful and that a little more respect wouldn’t go astray.

Would it be too much to ask for biblical justification for any of the doctrines listed, and why they were introduced out of thin air right up until 1950? The assumption of Mary? Nowhere in the Bible.

I believe that to be a strawperson representation of the circumstances behind the Assumption of Mary. This doctrine has been held throughout Church history, including by none other than Martin Luther himself.
In this respect, there seems to be a lot in common between the accusation you level at Catholicism and the accusation that Jehovah’s Witnesses level at Christendom, when they suggest that the doctrine of the Trinity was “invented” in 380AD by Emperor Theodosius.