Actually, we are just returning to where we should have been in the first place. If not sliding further into the pit is progress, then so be it. But again, we use the same words with completely different meanings. “Progressing” in the Mormon sense is for the purpose of obtaining glory for yourself on your way to becoming a god. Reconciliation, from a Catholic perspective, is just returning to our Father’s arms. The intent and motive behind each is what matters, not what we call it.
SteveVH,
I have been reluctant to return to answer here, because I don’t get the feeling that we will ever really communicate, but lately my daughter has been sick and we need the blessings in our family of her healing, and since I should not leave this stone unturned in case someone actually really does think about these answers, then I am thinking I should go ahead and respond.
I don’t know why one would think about “sliding further into the pit”. I don’t think in those terms at all–if you do, then it’s your choice, I suppose. By progress I meant that there are going to be other sins in our lives, perhaps more subtle than the “obvious” ones, but that as we overcome those also then we are progressing. It really does have to do with becoming “Christ-like”–yet it seems your comments mean you really don’t want to “be Christ-like”–or that would be being prideful by wanting to be “like God”. So we have a totally different perspective about progress and about repentance leading to progress and leading to becoming more Christ-like.
Being Christ-like for me means being other-centered. As I read Catholic comments I see a perspective that seems to dwell on “returning to Father’s arms” which to me does not sound other-centered. But certainly someone like Mother Theresa was other-centered, so there is a bit of a disconnect.
We confess to God (Christ is included in that term) through his ministers, the priests. It is God who forgives.
I think what seems to have happened is that as Pharisee converts gained a strong-hold in the early post-Ascension church, they insisted that priests needed to be involved just like in Leviticus 5:5-8, even though they may have had Paul’s teachings in the epistle to the Romans and in such teachings as Hebrews 7:25-27 (It was like a tug-of-war).
The people no longer needed to have intercession made by a priest–that is what Paul taught, clearly and plainly. Christ had become their intercessor, without a priest being involved and without the kinds of “trespass offerings” being involved that the Pharisees were used to bringing to the priest. But yet it seems the Pharisees converts won out in the church that evolved as time passed, and the priests re-assumed the role that was written in the Mosaic law.
And how do you obtain this forgiveness, Parker? There is no forgiveness without confession.
Confession is to God and Christ. Ministers don’t need to be there listening to that confession through prayer and soul-searching. God and Christ really do hear the prayers directly, and don’t need a priest to let Them know the prayer was sincere.
I didn’t say that. I am speaking of human nature. If someone tells me that they frequently examine their conscience, feel a deep level of sorrow and contrition for their sins and sincerely ask for forgiveness, I will tell you I sincerely doubt it.
It sounds like perhaps you would like the role of a priest, so you could let the person know whether they were being sincere or not. I don’t know why you don’t think anyone can be sincere without praying in front of a priest.
As I said, Parker, you have never experienced the sacrament of Reconciliation, so you have nothing to compare. I have done both and will tell you that there is power in the sacrament that is not present otherwise.
The source of the "power’ is of course what I would question, since there is no “sacrament of Reconciliation” taught in the New Testament, and instead it is bringing a Mosaic law practice into the New Covenant gospel, which Christ taught was “new wine in new bottles,” meaning things had significantly changed and they should no longer think they needed to live by the Mosaic law or its practices, yet still keep the Ten Commandments.
“Whoever’s sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Whoever’s sins you retain, shall be retained.”
That is important that the apostles had power to bind on earth what would be bound in heaven, because they had the Holy Ghost to guide them in discerning who was repenting or who was merely giving lip service and was not inwardly clean. This was an apostolic charge and authority, never shown to have been delegated to others.
If secretly confessing our sins to God was sufficient, why did Christ give this power?
Because otherwise there would be no order in a church that was intended to grow throughout the earth. The apostles were needed to continue the order while the church would grow in membership. If a whole congregation in some location were just giving lip service and were secretly not really repenting, then there needed to be an apostle who could discern that such was happening and could set the congregation straight by visiting them or by sending a strongly worded epistle, plus sending someone to deliver the message to tell those people to sincerely come unto Christ and repent of their sins by confessing them to God and forsaking them (not repeating the same sin).
Neither is the word “progression”. To describe what happens when one’s sins are forgiven (receiving absolution) is not a violation of some Biblical principal.
Yes, it does violate Hebrews 7:24-25.
By the way, being “children of God” is mentioned in the Bible, and the “spirit returns to God who gave it” is mentioned in the Bible.
(To be continued.)
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