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Richard_Kastner
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I’m sorry Bill, I can’t figure out what your point is from this post. please clarify.
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adventistnomore
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This paper addresses the primary issue of this post. Hope it helps!
DO CATHOLIC PRIESTS SUBVERT CHRIST’S ROLE AS THE “ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN?
DO CATHOLIC PRIESTS SUBVERT CHRIST’S ROLE AS THE “ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN?
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SHW
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Not correcting you. Just trying to clarify it more.
Jesus (God) is only one person but He has two natures and His divine nature existed before He became incarnate with His human nature. So, yes, Mary is the mother of God, Jesus, because His conception was in her womb. This makes her His mother since half of His DNA is hers. WOW!
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SHW
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GraceDK
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She is not my mediator. Christ is and He alone. He is the man-god, divine and human who had no sin, and thus he could stand between me and God as the Perfect High Priest and carry the only Sacrifice fully pleasing to God, the Body of Himself, so that there has now been mediated.
Do not suggest that this mediation could have in any way come about by anyone else, please. Both for my sake, as a Catholic, and for the sake of the Church. When we give Mary titles that are only due to God we make our brethren stumble and then Catholics are the ones keeping these away from the Catholic Church.
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Richard_Kastner
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So Bill, which nature is Jesus lacking. Is He not human or not divine? He absolutely was both 100% human and100% divine and yet He was only one person. I guess this is what Catholics would call a mystery.
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placido
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I totally agree with what you said here, but I am curious about your last statement. Can you please enlighten me on what titles are given to Mary that are only due to God? This is serious!
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GraceDK
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Well it was just said: “She might as well be my/your mediator”. Thats huge and just proves to me that there seems to be a big problem here. We have a famous devotional song that calls Mary “Our Life, Our Sweetness, and our Hope”. Is it any wonder that some people think we worship Mary?
One evening I was at an ecumenical meeting. an otherwise clever Catholic brother said: “I believe Mary might have suffered just as much as Jesus when she stood next to the Cross”. In spite of my normal resolve not to show inner division to evangelical brothers I had to protest loudly. Jesus ALONE carried all the sin of mankind up on the Cross. I felt it was horrible that a student of theology that I otherwise look up to as a teacher could make such a blunder…
I also have problems when people say: “Mary have mercy on me” or call her “the door to heaven” and stuff like that. It’s a huge stumbling block. I have been in discussions about this before. I believe in Catholic marian theology but I strongly disagree with the use of words we have in some devotions and songs in the Church. I have stopped singing along on these things.
Earlier we had a discussion on these boards about the title “mediatrix”. I was happy to see that almost everyone here agreed that making this title a dogma would be a very bad idea.
It is possible to use words, that make people stumble at our doors and run away screeming, which we however can make a case for with 10 full written pages of apologetics … but why would we?
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Richard_Kastner
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I typed in “prayer” in my bible search engine and found 508 instances of the word or a form of it. I could not find one instance where anyone prayed to anyone but God.
Matt6:5And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
9After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
In this passage from Matt6 Jesus is teaching us how to pray. Notice He teaches us to pray to our Father who art in heaven
Acts12:5Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
In Acts12 prayer was made to the Father for Peter.
Rom15:30Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;
In Rom15 Paul asks the Roman beleivers to pray to God for him.
Yea, but most christians are not in heaven, they are dead. Even Catholics beleive that most people go to purgatory and are not in heaven. How would you know if a person is in heaven or not?
I’m afraid your logic escapes me here. I don’t beleive anyone stated that their intention was to circumvent Christ.
I certainly agree that we should not curse one another for any reason, however I have not seen this to be the case on this thread, but praying to anyone but God is antiscriptural.
Well, it may be a matter of Catholic theological perspective, but Jesus tells us to pray to the Father. You do beleive that Jesus has the authority to teach us don’t you?
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jimmy
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There are many saints that we are certain are in heaven. We are certain about the apostles, the martyrs and other great saints.
We don’t believe the saints are dead. As Christ said, God is the God of the living not of the dead. Moses wasn’t dead when Christ spoke to Him at the Transfiguration.
I think someone above said that prayer to the saints circumvents Christ. That is why I said that.
Many Protestants have made it a big issue over which they curse Catholics. Many don’t consider Catholics Christians because of prayer to saints and some other things. It shouldn’t even be a bone of contention because scripture doesn’t speak against it.
The only way that it can be considered antiscriptural is if you assume that if it is not contained in the scriptures it is antiscriptural. But that is a very restrictive understanding of our knowledge of God and His truth.
As I mentioned above, we as Catholics do not believe the saints who have died are dead. The only thing that death does is to remove the veil from your eyes. And so they are just as much, or even more so, a part of the Church than we are who are still living on earth. So we believe there is a communion of the saints here on earth with the saints in heaven.
Of course we accept the authority of Jesus. And we do pray to the Father. We also pray to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as well.
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Richard_Kastner
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This is a good point. Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, not down from heaven, because he was dead and not in heaven. Talk about a near death experience or more appropriately a death experience. Can you imagine how perturbed Lazarus would have been if he had been called down from heaven, from the presence of God to come back to this sinful world, yet he remains silent, why? Because he was dead
Psalm115:17The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.
Ecc.9:5For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
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Richard_Kastner
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This is absolutely true, however
Baptism has no power to justify or sanctify.
Acts13:23Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:
39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
The merits of the cross are applied through faith in Jesus Christ. We are snctified through the word of God. AKA Jesus.
17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
We are not justified or sanctified by our works.
Gal2:16Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
He is saying here that just as the professed faith of Abraham was followed by obedeince to God in offering his son so our faith, in order to be a living faith must be followed by works (ie obedience)
If you do not good works you were not justified in the first place. Good works are a natural result of justification. We can never be justified (saved) by anything we do, only by what He did. Here is the context of James 2:24
20But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
Notice v. 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? James is saying that faith is made perfect by works. It is the faith in what Jesus did that saves us and the works will automatically follow.
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placido
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Typical of people who pretend not to know that, at death, the body returns to where it came from and the spirit returns to where it came from. So, what came out of the tomb was not Lazarus’ spirit but his body.
Can you imagine a righteous person in heaven being perturbed by God’s action (Jesus is God, remember)? Even Jesus came down from heaven to this sinful world and He is our example.
Unfortunately for you, Ecclesiastes does not end at chapter 9 verse 5. Ecclesiastes 12:7 states: “The spirit shall return unto God who gave it”. Lazarus’ spirit was not in the tomb, it was with God.
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jimmy
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Do you deny the resurrection? If you do I will just refer you to Jesus’s response to the Saducees who denied the resurrection. “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living. [Matt.22;29-32]”
Moses was dead, too. But that didn’t stop him from appearing at the Transfiguration.
Soul sleep just doesn’t work, scripturally.
He remained silent because he was obedient. Thinking about it, he was probably thrilled that the Lord called his name, and he was back in the presence of his Savior. Perturbed? The Lord called his name! Not a chance was he perturbed.
Jon
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SHW
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I disagree that “works will automatically follow.” And, I disagree that “once you are saved, then you are always saved.”
Here is one reason why:
Revelation 3:15-17 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—”
Lukewarm Christians are Christians who do not do good works. They just bask in their “Christianity” and do good things only for themselves (they do not “love their neighbors as themselves” by helping them with their needs).
What is their punishment for this lukewarmness? They become “vomitus.” Persons who are “vomitus” do not inherit eternal life. “Vomitus” ends up in hell, where all other “filthiness” ends up as well.
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jimmy
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The main problem with the idea of Lazarus being silent because he was dead is that it impugns the very power of Christ. It basically says that the resurrection of Lazarus wasn’t a true resurrection. But the point of the story is that Christ has power over death. Lazarus was dead but Christ raised him.
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Richard_Kastner
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Of coarse I beleive in the resurrection. My response does not even imply that I don’t. In Matt22:29-32 Jesus says in v. 31But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
32I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. He is talking about the resurrection Here is what my commentary says about v. 32. The God of Abraham. What honor is there in being the God of dead men? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead at the time God appeared to Moses before the burning bush. Why would God identify Himself as the God of the patriarchs, except in anticipation of the resurrection? In this same anticipation, by faith, Abraham “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). It has been suggested that Jesus quoted from the Pentateuch (Ex. 3:6, 16) because the Sadducees believed only in the inspiration of the books of Moses.
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