continued from previous post:
You claim “that was why the temple veil was torn in two, to signal the end of temple worship and the priesthood.” If this were true, there is a great deal of Scripture that is wrongfully written, as the very origin of the hierarchy of the Church Jesus founded upon the apostles is clearly described in its early formation including attesting to the first distinctive levels of the religious orders, and this is further confirmed in its continued growth in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the earliest successors to the apostles.
Christ formed His own Church and selected His own representatives to continue His Gospel and the growth of His body, His bride, the Church, the mass is the continued celebration of the Eucharist as He also requested, this is His Church in unison with the disciples, the students, the faithful.
You claim “Jesus became the only Mediator between man and God. He reconciled us to the Father.” Yes, and as He said, He would never abandon His Church but would be with her until the consummation of the world, He is the High Priest, that it would never fall, and that it would be guided by the Holy Spirit who would guide her and reveal to her that which belongs unto Him. And by the Father, Jesus was given the power to reconcile all things in Heaven and on Earth to and through Himself. This includes the Church He established for the salvation that all man MAY be saved. But it is not proclaimed that man can pick up the written Gospel, pick out of it what he choose to accept based on His own opinions and reject the direction He gives us or the body He is the Head of.
You claim “God must be worshiped in spirit. He does not reside in buildings made with human hands. There is now only one priesthood: The royal priesthood made up of true believers in Jesus Christ. To them was given the power (authority) to be sons of God.”
You have again adopted a distorted view in opposition to Scripture itself. Previously you said the tearing of the veil signaled the end to the priesthood, now you take a reference to another verse and claim we all are priests. If you knew your Catholic Faith as you should have you would understand what priesthood refers to and how it is established through Christ.
From the CCC;
**783 **Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them.
**784 **On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people’s unique, *priestly *vocation: “Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people ‘a kingdom of priests to God, his Father.’ The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are *consecrated *to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood.”
**785 **“The holy People of God shares also in Christ’s *prophetic *office,” above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it “unfailingly adheres to this faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints,” and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ’s witness in the midst of this world.
**786 **Finally, the People of God shares in the *royal *office of Christ. He exercises his kingship by drawing all men to himself through his death and Resurrection. Christ, King and Lord of the universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” For the Christian, “to reign is to serve him,” particularly when serving “the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder.” The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with Christ.
By being spiritually born-again, which Jesus said we must be or we cannot see the kingdom of God, the holy spirit indwells the new believer and God transform the heart and gives us new desires. the desire to see all men saved.
You were born again when Baptized, that is Scriptural. No one can be born over and over again, there is but one rebirth. Although it seems to some like a great way to hid behind them all the past lived in ignorance, claiming yet another rebirth in Christ doesn’t give us another “starting new“ as some would wish to believe. What happens subsequently to that first rebirth, through sin or ignorance, is not automatically washed away again because we go elsewhere to be “re-baptized”. Through Jesus, is the only way to the Father, and there is but one church founded by Jesus Christ in His Blood of which He is the High Priest and calls all man to become one with and of which said Church is His Body in which is the united of all His faithful,
One body (the Church) and one Spirit (Holy Spirit); as you are called in one hope of your calling. 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism. And that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment.
Continued next post…
