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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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Catholica
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08/19/2012 20:58 |
TRWord,
So what you are saying is that the author of Hebrews basically used something in direct opposition to what you believe Jesus taught in order to explain what Jesus taught to the Hebrews. And if I understand you correctly, basically the entire OT is unreliable and has no meaning when pointing to Christ. It is in essence simply man's attempt to understand God. In addition, you insist that we must not use our "doctrine" but rather accept what you are teaching. But "doctrine" itself means teaching. So we are to accept your doctrine which seems to indicate that that most of the Bible is false. Am I getting this right?
I doubt people are going to buy what you are selling, TRWord. Most people here believe that the Bible, all of the Bible, is the inerrant word of God. The passage in the Hebrews isn't the confused ravings of Paul who is struggling to teach the Hebrews something. You can't on one hand undermine the validity of a passage (or even huge portions) of scripture and then also say that we must "take into account the entirety of scripture". If you reject the passage from Hebrews as truth, then it is you who is not taking into account the entirety of scripture, not anyone who accepts Hebrews.
I don't always agree with everything everyone else on here believes, but at least when they support their position they don't use an argument that isn't self-contradictory. It is through dealing with seeming contradictions that we come to the truth, not rejecting what doesn't fit as being "human strugglings". Since this is a concept of scripture that you have seem to accepted, have you ever considered the "what ifs", for example, the "what if" the verses that you commonly return to to promote what you believe might be the verses where the human author was struggling to explain things. Or perhaps the apostles were struggling to remember what Jesus actually said. I mean, what if it was John who was very confused when he wrote the gospel of John, after all it seems substantially different than the other three gospels. "What if?" I remember you using that phrase before. Well, what if?
Perhaps you perceive something in those you speak to that seems internally inconsistent to you, and that is an indication that what they believe is not true, and you believe that also supports what you believe, to be true. Well to me the problems with the premises that you hold to make your theology "work" are very obvious. It is this "what if" that you may want to consider.
Lastly, I don't usually do this, but I think in this situation is may be profitable to consider something, that there is another being who, if one were to accept the testimony of two or three witnesses, has made himself manifest on this Earth, and that is the devil. There are priests, exorcists, who have come face to face with demonically possessed people. They do things that no human person can do, know things that no human person can know, and this being possessing them is manifestly evil. There is no being more spiritual who more would like us to stop believing in evil, than the devil. But we have people who have witnessed demonic possessions to testify to the existence of demons. To reject this reality is to reject the truth of existence, and to reject truth is to reject the one who is Truth, who is God made incarnate: Jesus.
The apostle Peter reminds us:
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour.
Evil is real, and we mustn't reject it's existence lest we become vulnerable to it's real actions upon our souls.
One testimony from someone who also rejected the idea of "good and evil":
http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/new_age.htm
A quote from the story:
"I thought that there was no such thing as evil. Bad stuff in the world was only a result ignorance which could be conquered by personal enlightenment. I was convinced that the devil was a medieval myth made up by an archaic church to control the masses. The idea of sin was ridiculous to me. Although for thousands of years humans have acknowledged the existence of a creative intelligent malevolent creature who's purpose was to ruin the hearts and lives of humans, I felt I was right. There was little caution in my spiritual "openess." I didn't realize after three years of spiritual kite flying, I was becoming a lightning rod for whatever spiritual disruption was out there. My resistance to spiritual attack had been broken. Perhaps one of the greatest victories the devil had in my life was to convince me that he doesn't exist."
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TRWord
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08/19/2012 23:13 |
Catholica
Yes doctrine itself means teaching but the doctrine that Jesus is condemning here is anything other what He taught.
Mark 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Mark 7:8 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.
There is no escaping the fact that our Lord has warned us against exchanging His teaching for “doctrine the commandments of men.” Paul too has warned that the gospel shall be hidden by the god of this world.
2 Cor. 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2 Cor. 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
==============================
Gen. 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Remember you said that you believe that the Bible, all of the Bible, is the inerrant word of God.
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Catholica
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08/20/2012 07:44 |
TRWord,
I do believe that the Bible, all of the Bible, contains the inerrant word of God. But I don't see the Bible condemning "anything other (than) what he taught". In fact Jesus says in John 16:13 that it is the Holy Spirit who will lead his Church into all truth, and that there were many things which the apostles "could not bear to hear now".
Mark 7 when taken in its cultural context doesn't speak about doctrines about God and the crucifixion, but rather "doctrines of the /commandments/ of men" and what precisely he is referring to can be read in the text itself.
Here is the full context:
Mark 7
4 And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles [and beds].)
5 So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders* but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
6 He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7 In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’
8 You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
The "tradition of the elders" were a body of detailed, unwritten, human laws regarded by the scribes and Pharisees to have the same binding force as that of the Mosaic law. The reference to "God's commandment" that Jesus was referring to were the /Ten Commandments/ (with regard to what is sinful or not) as can be seen from the verses that follow:
9 He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’
11 Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God),
12 you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.
13 You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”
The tradition that the Jews handed on was one that allowed them to "dedicate money to the temple" which in essence meant to keep it for themselves, rather than do their duty to support their mother and father financially, which would fulfill the commandment to "honor your father and mother". This "commandment of men" which allowed them to dedicate this money was what Jesus was referring to, and he was condemning it because it allowed them to believe that they didn't have to obey that commandment to honor their father and mother. In essence, it was a human-made route around something that God commanded, and in reality it was /sinful/ to do that.
14 He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.
15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
This verse ties it all together. The Pharisees were trying to denounce Jesus because he didn't follow this particular man-made ritual purification ritual (v4) which was another "commandment of men". There were other purification rituals which were commanded by God under the Old Covenant, and Jesus was not telling them to violate those, but what he was doing with his life was fulfilling the Old Covenant and initiating the New Covenant. The Old Covenant's cleanliness laws had their purpose to point to Jesus.
Finally, what v7 actually says is that the Jews were teaching these "commandments of men" as /doctrine/. Jesus in effect is /honoring/ the doctrines that God had given the Jews, and in essence saying that it was their /doctrine/ which was binding on a man for his standing with God, /not/ these extra practices that formed a hedge around the Mosaic Law of God.
Jesus was /not/ condemning these "commandments of men" for the reason that they were something that God did not command, but /rather/ because they sometimes were used as a /hammer to condemn people/ (v5), and other times because they /enabled people to believe they were not sinning when they were/ (v11-12).
Thus your statement that "Jesus is condemning here (is) anything other than what He taught" is false. Jesus here is /honoring/ the doctrine of the OT in this passage and /condemning/ the use of man-made rules /being used to/ either allow one to escape from believing that he is sinning or as a tool to condemn other people (rather than to correctly obey the Mosaic Law, which was the original purpose of these commands of men).
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Ted C
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08/20/2012 11:02 |
TRWord,
Andre has brought up a fascinating area of belief, and I'm curious. Have you ever had experiences with angels or ascended beings? And if so, what are your beliefs regarding them?
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TRWord
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08/21/2012 21:56 |
Catholica
This prophesy of Isaiah does not apply only to the Pharisees it’s not stamped good until this or that date. This prophesy applies to the vast number of Christians today.
Mark 7:6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Mark 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Notice:
You keep saying:
“I do believe that the Bible, all of the Bible, contains the inerrant word of God.”
Jesus taught us that our sins shall be forgiven, yet you continue to believe a doctrine that says that Jesus was a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.
Matt. 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
Jesus also taught that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the one thing that will not be forgiven and I’l bet like the vast majority of Christians you never sought to understand how do we blaspheme against the Holy Ghost?
Again you keep saying:
“I do believe that the Bible, all of the Bible, contains the inerrant word of God.”
But you cannot accept the fact that God warned Adam about the consequences of “the belief in good and evil.”
Gen. 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
You have concluded that I have discounted the old testament and I have undermined Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. I have done no such thing, but what I have discounted is the doctrine which you and the vast majority of Christians continue to believe because clearly it goes against the teaching of Jesus Christ.
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Catholica
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08/22/2012 11:24 |
TRWord,
I am sensing that you believe that I think like others that you have spoken with before, that these things of which we speak must be either one or the other. That is, EITHER Jesus was a sacrifice for sins, OR he gave his life to show his power over death and the curse. Such is not the nature of my faith. I believe BOTH of those things, both-and.
In terms of exactly what you believe, I reject much of it, frankly, for many reasons, one of which is that it doesn't make sense in the fullness of scripture nor in historical and present realities. I have yet to see you deal with much of the scripture that seems to contradict what you say. It seems that you keep returning to a few verses of scripture which you interpret in a certain way but you don't give a rational argument as to why. And you haven't answered for the other realities that directly contradict what you say, the example is demonic possession. We have many witnesses to it's reality, and the testament of God is all about the power of witnesses to reality. Without witnesses we don't know that Jesus existed. Likewise others have witnessed manifest evil. You can't say you believe one without the other.
We were created in the image and likeness of God, and that (among other things) means that we have the ability to reason, lest it is impaired by mental illness, and unlike the animals. Apart from all animals our soul is rational.
Our ability to reason means that we have the ability to discern truth from falsehood. We also use that ability to reason with our conscience to know right from wrong, hence good from evil. Now some people do not have a well-formed conscience, and they err, but even an ill-formed conscience does not err in many things. For example, most inherently know that it is evil to take someone else's life.
There is a word for people who *don't* know the difference between good and evil, and that word is "sociopath". These people are some of the most heinous criminals there are. To say that there is no evil, if that was lived out, would make us all sociopaths. I don't think that it's God's plan that we should be sociopaths.
To follow Jesus is to choose good over evil. We have to know that we need Jesus to choose to follow him, and that knowledge often comes from witnessing the evil that we commit ourselves.
Jesus was a sacrifice for sins. There are many, many reasons to believe this. The language of the passion accounts of Jesus follow the passover, which was the prefigurement of Jesus' passion. At the end of passover, a lamb was sacrificed. Jesus is referred to as the lamb of God in scripture. The lamb's blood was spread over the doorposts at the passover to save someone from death. Jesus' blood is said to save us from death. The connection is manifest: God intended the passover to be a prefigurement of Jesus' sacrifice from the time He instituted it, and certainly it was part of the plan from the beginning.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and the fact that it won't be forgiven, doesn't undermine the effectiveness of Jesus' sacrifice for sins. The Holy Spirit comes to us to give us the means so that we might repent. To reject the Holy Spirit (to blaspheme the Holy Spirit) means that we refuse to repent of our sins. It is not possible to be forgiven for sins, to have Jesus' sacrifice effectual in our lives, unless we repent from sins. That is what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is. We are still forgiven our sins when we repent, and Jesus sacrifice always remains infinitely effectual.
It is true that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bequeathed upon Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil. But this knowledge is not a false knowledge for hear God's words:
Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil."
The knowledge of good and evil is not what Jesus came to save us from, after all Jesus is the Truth and God has testified to the reality of good and evil. Rather Jesus came to give us the gift of eternal life again; to be able to eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. Here is all of verse 22:
Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
The tree of life is now the cross. The fruit of that tree is Jesus himself. He is the passover lamb that must be eaten to complete the passover, and it is He who leads our Exodus through the desert of our life to the promised Land of our home in heaven, and he feeds us with himself to sustain us.
John 6
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
50 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
52 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"
53 Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."
It is true that Jesus' life shows us how to be like Adam and Eve before the fall. But the fruit was eaten, God's oath was made, and we are fallen, and so it is a struggle for us. The reversal still takes place in the reverse order it happened: Jesus' sacrifice saves us from death (like the passover) and allows us to eat the fruit from the tree of life and that gives us eternal life. Jesus then works in us to restore our wills to align to the father's thus making us perfect and ready for heaven for which Eden was only a shadow of that glorious place. I've got lots more material if you would like to pick through this.
To deny that evil exists is simply not the way that we are restored. Rather, it is to receive Jesus first into our souls, and then through aligning our will to God's good will, by the grace of God we become like Adam before the fall and the original sin of disobeying the will of God is reversed in our souls. It takes both Jesus' sacrifice AND Jesus' example of his life AND our willing participation in both (through God's grace) to ultimately make us ready for heaven, our true "Eden". It really has nothing to do with denying the existence of good and evil. Even God knows of the existence of good and evil. That is what Genesis 3:22 says. There is no use denying it now, and it is dangerous to do so, and will leave us at the mercy of evil spiritual attacks: Eve is our first example. This openness to real spiritual attacks is the real life experience of other people who have denied the existence of good and evil, and by the grace of God some are being saved through the power of Jesus and His grace, made available to us through His passion and cross.
Pour forth, we beseech Thee O Lord, thy Grace into our hearts;
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ, thy Son,
was made known by the message of an angel,
may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection,
through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.
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TRWord
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08/23/2012 07:21 |
Catholica
This is precisely the problem it is EITHER OR. If we believe that Jesus is a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin we remain under the law and are unable to receive “the promise” through faith in Jesus Christ.
As Paul explained.
Gal. 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal. 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal. 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal. 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal. 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Gal. 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Gal. 4:28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal. 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Gal. 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Notice we are told that “the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” The two covenants are of different understanding which cannot be mixed, it’s one or the other.
The two covenants are based on two different images of God. One image is; “do as I say or else” and the other image is “a God of love.”
If your Father said Catholica “thou shalt not go hungry,” you will interpret this as “a promise” from your Father that you’ll never go hungry. “Thou shalt not kill” is also a promise given to Abraham, but we cannot interpret it correctly as long as our image of God is “do as I say or else.”
Gal. 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Gal. 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Gal. 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Gal. 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Gal. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal. 3:29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
We are made new creatures through faith in Christ; new creatures “that shall not sin.”
2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Jesus Christ came to fulfil this promise.
Matt. 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
You said:
“To deny that evil exists is simply not the way that we are restored.”
Jesus said to “resist not evil.” How could we “resist not” something that does not exist.
Evil does exist in the world; BUT WHY?
Because Adam brought it into the world.
We were created in the image of our Father and we were given dominion over the things of the earth. By believing in “good and evil” we have brought evil into the world. Our reality is according to our what we believe. This is why God warned Adam not to believe in “good and evil.”
The belief in good and evil is also a violation of "the Truth" it’s how we blaspheme against the Holy Ghost.
Christ came to return us to “THE TRUTH.” The truth of the oneness of God.
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
And when we receive “The Spirit of truth” we then receive the Holy Ghost.
John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
To the men of Athens who obviously did not know God.
Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Here Paul is confirming “the truth” of the oneness of God.
Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
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Catholica
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08/23/2012 15:58 |
TRWord,
You quote scripture, but the scripture passages you choose don't often support the statements you make alongside it. Sorry, they just don't. Perhaps some of what you say is supported, but very little, and not the main concepts.
The "God of the Old Testament" is the same as the "God of the New Testament" to say they are different is abject heresy. There is only one God. To say they are different either rejects the New Testament or rejects the Old Testament. Simply because you say that the idea people had of God as "do what I say or else" doesn't make it true or false. There is manifold evidence that God was patient, kind, and all the other aspects that Paul writes about "Love" in the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament AND the New Testament is the same God, the God who is love.
The problem is that people fail to recognize that when God punishes He does so out of love, like a Father who disciplines his children. Just because God punishes people doesn't mean that He doesn't love them. On the contrary, if He didn't punish them it would demonstrate that He /didn't/ love them. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Jesus, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. What was a shepherd's rod used for? It was used for breaking sheeps' legs so that they would rely on the shepherd to bring them home.
Hebrews 12
5 You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him;
6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges."
7 Endure your trials as "discipline"; God treats you as sons. For what "son" is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards.
9 Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live?
10 They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness.
11 At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
When we sin, we become less than what God wants us to be, as so we bear the consequences. The chastisements from God are part of his nature to love us, because He wants to bring us home. They help us become perfect as God is perfect.
God's ways are not our ways, and so it is hard sometimes to understand God's love when it seems harsh to us. But the God of the OT is the same as the God of the NT, the God who is Love.
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Ted C
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08/24/2012 01:00 |
TRWord, do you interact with angels or ascended beings, and if so what is your theology regarding them?
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John T
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08/31/2012 16:26 |
TRWord, you don't make any sense, it's like your arguments contradict themselves and go in circles. The very scriptures that you use to prove your point actually go against you. You used this scripture to prove that Jesus blood didn't cover our sins:
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28KJV)
But read it, his blood was shed for many for the remission of sins. Simplified - the blood of Jesus covered my sins and took them away.
There is one God - he is the same today as he was yesterday. Evil existed before Adam - Jesus states that he say Satan cast down. Satan is the deceiver, and Adam inviting sin into his life did not create sin, but rather acted in sin.
Your theology is very confusing. Go read the Bible again, or Pilgrim's Progress. I don't understand you.
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