Vs. Peter Stavinskas, vs. Tim Staples (twice) and vs. Robert Sungenis
Also, see James White’s debate on Indulgences vs. Peter Williams. (Indulgences and Purgatory go together as that is what caused Luther to see the problem with the entire system of Roman Catholic penances, Purgatory, indulgences, trafficking in relics, prayers to Mary, statues, icons, etc.)
Also see Gavin Ortlund’s excellent videos on Purgatory and the 3rd one on Indulgences.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a sinner who has been saved by the grace of God alone (Ephesians 2:8-9), through faith alone (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28; 4:1-16), in Christ alone (John 14:6). But a true faith does not stay alone, it should result in change, fruit, good works, and deeper levels of repentance and hatred of my own sins of selfishness and pride.
I am not better than you! I still make mistakes and sin, but the Lord is working on me, conforming me to His character. (Romans 8:28-29; 2 Corinthians 3:16-18)
When I do sin, I hate the sin as it is an affront to God, and seek His forgiveness in repentance. (Mark 1:15; 2 Corinthians 7:7-10; Colossians 3:5-16 )
Praise God for His love for sinners (Romans 5:8), shown by the voluntary coming of Christ and His freely laying down His life for us (John 10:18), becoming flesh/human (John 1:1-5; 1:14; Philippians 2:5-8), dying for sins of people from all nations, tribes, and cultures (Revelation 5:9), on the cross, in history, rising from the dead (Romans 10:9-10; Matthew 28, Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24; John 20-21; 1 Corinthians chapter 15). His resurrection from the dead proved that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal Son of God, the word of God from eternity past; and that He was all the gospels say He was and that He is truth and the life and the way to salvation. (John 14:6)
I have been listening to Dr. David Anders EWTN radio program, and on several occasions he has stated the Jews believed in Purgatory. After searching “Jewish Purgatory” I have found some evidence pro and con for this but no other information about it origins. By chance, do you know anything about the Jews believing in a Purgatory, it’s origins, etc.?
Ken,
Ever notice how Judas Maccabee took up a collection of money to have sacrifices for the dead to be performed at the temple? He did not merely ask for prayers for the dead men. Having sacrifices made at the temple means it was an official, practice rather than just a popular devotion or superstition.
Also, after Saul’s death, the Israelites fasted. Sounds like a penitential act done on behalf of the dead.
Kieth Thompson misunderstands purgatory. The souls in purgatory have indeed passed from death to life. It is not merely a temporary hell.
All of KT’s scripture passages about all sin being wiped out at the cross fail to address why Christians continue to say the Lord’s prayer, asking for forgiveness.
By the way, contrary to what Rob Zins says, Catholics do not dread purgatory. People in purgatory embrace their purification. That is why it is not hell.
If Roman Catholics did not dread purgatory, then why did Popes motivate people for centuries with indulgences of “if you do this” you will get so many years taken off in the fires of purgatory? (motivation for the Crusades, Tetzel in Luther’s time, etc.)
The modern definitions of purgatory (that there is no time element involved, just a “state”) are not the same as the centuries long teaching, which also shows Roman Catholicism changes doctrines when it needs to.
Ken,
Thompson says” 2nd Maccabees is part of the apocrypha which Christians reject”. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say, “Protestants” reject? I mean, isn’t denying Catholics to be Christian just another form of question begging?
KT says, ” idolatry is mortal sin according to Catholic teaching”. Yes and no. There are degrees of idolatry. Reading your horoscope for a lark is hardly mortal sin. Carrying a four leaf clover is not demonism.
Finally, Thompson needs to learn how to pronounce “sepulcher” and “drachma”..
Amazingly, Thompson appeals to Augustine to make his point. He is obviously ignorant of what Augustine actually said about prayers and Masses for the dead.
The worst of all is his assertion that Christ is not central for Catholics. Do you believe that, Ken?
Ken,
My wife has been in Portland for her mother’s funeral this week so I have been thinking a lot about this.
It is really a most comforting doctrine. Since the family is dispersed all over Europe and America, we agreed to coordinate having Mass said or at least being in church praying before the tabernacle at the same time as the funeral.
We don’t pray to keep our loved ones from suffering purification so much as to hasten their entry into God’s presence. where they can pray for us.
Like I said, purgatory doesn’t scare us. We like the idea.
By the way, we even pray for our dead Protestant family and friends. Just because non-Catholics deny its existence, most of them will do a spell in purgatory.
“having Mass said” = ?
“praying before the tabernacle” = ?
“at the same time” = ?
I know what you are talking about, but the question mark means “where is that in Scripture?”
the bread in the little tabernacle is NOT Jesus.
When a person dies, the Bible teaches they are either with the Lord or in hell, there is no middle ground.
Hebrews 9:27 – it is appointed once to die, then comes the judgment”
2 Cor. 5:1-11
either we in the body on earth, or with the Lord in heaven.
you still have not explained why the centuries of the traditions of lessing time in Purgatory vs. the modern downplaying of a time element in purgatory and changing the doctrine to a “state of being” – post Vatican 2 theology?
Pre-Vatican 2 theology put all Protestants in hell. It was a real change that you cannot avoid and it shows your church is not infallible and not the church Jesus founded.
You got me! There is no Pacific time in scripture. I have to concede I have no biblical support for the various time zones around the world other than Malachi’s ” from the rising of the sun to its setting, a clean oblation is offered by the nations”.
Time in purgatory is a mystery. Time is how we measure change here in the material world. Souls in purgatory can be helped by the prayers of those on earth.
Again, Christ most certainly IS in the tabernacle under the appearances of bread ( not wine ).
Local churches, like in the NT – the church at Ephesus, the churches of Galatia, the church that meets in her house”, etc. There was no tablernacle (like the RC little tabernacle that holds the bread, etc.) in the NT.
Ken,
The Eucharist was indeed reserved outside of the liturgy and taken to the sick and imprisoned. Was the receptacle called a ‘tabernacle”? I don’t know. Why is that important? I know one term for ithe realitywas “pastaphorium”.
There used to be a Protestant church in my home town called “Bethany Tabernacle”.
I am sure they weren’t trying to trick people into thinking it was anything more than a church building. It was only a word. Same applies to the tabernacle in Catholic churches.
I thought the topic was Kieth Thompson’s “thorough refutation” of purgatory. It seems however, you have bigger fish to fry, namely the Eucharist. Is that because Mr. Thompson’s refutation of purgatory is really not all that thorough but is just a bunch of weak assertions and denial/ ignorance of the Church’s 2,000 year old Tradition of praying for the dead?
( Not that I shrink from discussing Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist )
Ken,
I was merely addressing the article on purgatory and prayers for the dead. Excuse me for being specific on just how we Catholics are known to do that. I gave the example of my own mother-in-law’s death and funeral last week. I wasn’t throwing a gauntlet down before you to pick up and run with on another topic other than purgatory..
By the way, Thompson’s use of the fathers to deny purgatory is way off. Here is what St. Ephrem Syrus ( 373 ) said, ” Instead of shedding useless tears over the grave, let them flow at prayers in church, for in these there is comfort and help for the dead as well as the living”.
So let me say it again, our family, spread out over different countries, were united in prayer at church.
Hows that? More acceptable? Less offensive by not mentioning just how we Catholics pray or why it is better to pray at church (where the same Christ is Really Present in thousands of receptacles ( I won’t say the offensive T word ) rather than in a cemetery.
Ken,
By the way, 2nd Cor 5:8 does not say, ” to be away from the body *IS* to be present to the Lord”.
And to say that, “we have passed from death to life” rules out purgatory is pure Protestant question begging. People in purgatory are very much alive indeed. They have their tickets to heaven and know beyond the shadow of any doubt they are saved.
Thompson waxes long on Jesus’ Blood cleansing us from all sin. Okay. So what about Protestants who die before total sanctification?
He says that, “The Apostles did not pass on such an oral tradition”. Oh? How would he know?
As for the Fathers,…Thompson concedes the early Church prayed for the dead but does not admit this proves purgatory.
Please Ken, would prayers help people in hell? Would people in heaven need prayers?
By the way, 2nd Cor 5:8 does not say, ” to be away from the body *IS* to be present to the Lord”.
No; rather, that seems to be the meaning of verse 8 in context with verse 6 – 2 Cor. 5:6
“. . . knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—”
Ken,
Don’t go any further than what the text actually says. It says when we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. Period. It doesn’t address when we are out of the body. You are free to draw inferences though. I am too.
This video is excellent. Jesus told the theif on the cross that day he would be in paradise today. Obviously if the thief needed purging, since he had been a pretty bad dude, Jesus would sent him there. The scripture says we are a;already seated in the heavenly places. Jim is wrong. K
I did not remember the historical background of the word “hocus pocus”. Is that where it came from? The medieval idea that when the priest says the words in Latin (baptism, forgiveness, over the bread and wine, confirmation, last rites, etc.) that that automatically makes grace and power come down from heaven and make the bread turn into the body of Jesus and make the wine turn into the blood of Jesus – that ex opere operato teaching of your church is very offensive and seems like a pagan idea of magic and if so, is false doctrine and false practice.
Ken,
What do you know of magic and pagan religions?
Pagan religions and magic rely on a pantheistic worldview. In case you don’t know, we Catholics are theists. Here is some more of that spooky Latin for you, “..factorum coaeli et terrm, visibilium et invisibilium…’. In other words, God created the world ” Ex Nihilo”. not from eternal stuff.
We Catholics don’t believe in magic . . .
PS, I saw you posting on some Catholic blog not too long ago. Devin Rose’s, C2C, Dave Armstrong’s, I can’t recall. You were so civilized. You did.t use any Hocus Pocus slurs. But you do here. Why?
My first contact with James Swan was to ask him about Kevin Falloni ‘s slurs. He said something to the effect, ” That kind of talk is meant to generate more heat than light”.
I wonder why “hocus locus” is so emotional and offensive to you. Claiming ex opere operate powers to your RC priests to be able to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus, literally – that is even worse and more offensive than anything I have said. It is heresy and false doctrine and deserves to be condemned as false.
Ken, even if you can’t wrap your head around why Catholics rend their garments over slurs against the center of their devotional lives, namely Christ in His Sacrament of love, you have been asked to please not use the term nor allow it on your blog. I would think that should be enough for a person of good will.
It is grossly offensive. Falloni knows it that is reason and the only reason he delights in slipping it in.
I would think a sincere Protestant could express his disagreement with our doctrine in an intelligent manner. James White and other very anti-Catholic guys don’t stoop to such rhetoric. Even in his debate with Jerry Matatics, Matatics said that White’s Eucharist is only “crackers and grape juice”. White stopped the debate and would proceed no further until Matatics have apologized profusely.
Catholics do not mock Protestant Communion although most Protestants don’t believe in any form of Real Presence. We believe that. although there is no “ex opere operato” change in the elements, God is pleased by the sincerity in the hearts of Protestants and so their services can indeed be occasions of grace.
So, You decide for yourself Ken, do you think people should be able to present an argument from scripture, the fathers and reason?
Falloni knows that this is why I don’t post on Green Baggins.
I would think a sincere Protestant could express his disagreement with our doctrine in an intelligent manner. James White and other very anti-Catholic guys don’t stoop to such rhetoric. Even in his debate with Jerry Matatics, Matatics said that White’s Eucharist is only “crackers and grape juice”. White stopped the debate and would proceed no further until Matatics have apologized profusely.
Ok, that is a good example and argumentation. I really had no idea that that phrase was so offensive, as you have noticed I have never used it before. My note to Kevin of thanks for encouragement really had nothing to do with the term “hocus pocus”. I won’t use that anymore.
I (Ken) wrote:
“It is heresy and false doctrine and deserves to be condemned as false”
Fine. Say that and no more. Don’t taunt using “Hocus Pocus”. and other terms designed only to inflame.
ok Jim, You will notice I deleted a lot of your comments and edited some. I get your point about “Hocus Pocus”. I had no idea it was that offensive. I had never used it before. I don’t need to use that and so I will not. As you have noticed I have tried to engage in the issues and not use tactics like that that you have communicated clearly are offensive.
I don’t think Latin is “spooky”. but what is spooky is thinking that grace and spiritual power automatically happen by words and formulas spoken by a Roman Catholic priest. Only the Holy Spirit can cause regeneration and affect change inside a person. The RC priest’s Latin and formulas do not cause the waters to regenerate babies in baptism, and other words do not cause the wine and bread to turn into Jesus literally. There is no evidence of that in the New Testament. “the Spirit blows where He wills” (John 3:8)
By the way, I was praying to Jesus ( not bread ) before the Blessed Sacrament for you and Kevin about an hour ago when it hit me why “tabernacle” is an appropriate name for the container we keep the Host in.
God is everywhere by his power. But in the time of Moses he was present in a special way in the tent among his people as they traveled through the desert.
God is still present everywhere. But he tabernacles among us in the Eucharist in a special way as we travel through life. When he ascended to heaven, he did not leave us orphans. And because he loves us so much, he could not bear to leave us. He remains among us in every tabernacle in every Catholic church in the world.
I pray you will someday experience the joy to be found in knowing Jesus waits for us, yearns for us, and calls us to come and bask in his presence.
Again, thank you for your willingness to understand our position.
In context, (John 14:16-18; 26; 15:26; 16:7-8, 12-14) that statement is in the context of when Jesus says He will sent the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us, not a transubstantiated bread and wine to be put in a little box / tabernacle in a church.
“Don’t go any further than what the text actually says.”
That’s a Protestant principle.
1 Cor. 4:6 – “do not go beyond what is written”
It seems like your church went beyond what the text says about many things, especially Mary, the non-existent Papacy (does not exist in Scripture nor in early church history), Purgatory, etc.
Yes, the words hocus pocus were a Reformed saying that developed, I want to say in Holland describing the Latin phrase said by the Priest when he makes the dough god on the altar. K
Ken, you may know this, but Jim is a veteran of these blogs. He has used the name Guy Fawkes as a blog name. If you know the history of this man, he tried to blow up the Protestant King of England and to kill Protestants. He was a the killing arm of the Jesuit party and the black pope. Jim is a master manipulator and uses these kinds of arguments ( about how offensive certain words are to Catholics, to keep the truth off blogs. He hates words like death wafer, hocus pocus, Jesus wafer, dough god, etc. because it shines light on the priestcraft of popery and their idolatries. Often time Jim would hate when I told him Catholics won’t let Christ off the cross to be Lord and savior. He is an eternal victim in Rome who can’t get off the cross and the altar to save anyone. Roman Catholicism is unbelief as they crucify Christ to themselves over and over. How Protestants view them changes everything. Are they our co laborers for Christ, or are they caught up in a meritocracy where being saved isn’t having the merits of Christ applied to us through faith alone, but meriting the merit of Christ through accumulating inherent justice via sacraments ex opere operato. We need to share the gospel with these people, so they can be freed fro a system of works righteousness and the gospel of gracious merit, and idolatry. Churches don’t connect us to God, He comes to us in the gospel when and how he chooses. The church isn’t the same as Jesus in the world. No church owns God, nor can it usurp His finished work on the cross as the agency of salvation. It can obey Him, imitate Him, pass on His message, carry on His mission, but it can’t replace his atonement and incarnation as the agency of salvation. Rome is a false religion, not another denomination. K
Yes, I knew Jim is the same as Guy Fawkes. He posted too much and bothered James Swan, so James eventually banned him from Beggar’s All.
I agree in principle with what you believe, but I don’t believe in being un-necessarily offensive. I don’t agree with Jack Chick type stuff (Jim keeps accusing you of that style) and I did not know the background of Hocus Pocus and I don’t use those words – Roman Catholicism is a false religion, true; but since those extra terms are offensive, it is better to speak the truth in love and stick to doctrine, verses, principles, and historical evidence.
I really appeciated Tim Kauffman’s series on Baptismal regeneration.
“Some believe it originates from a corruption or parody of the Roman Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist, which contains the phrase “Hoc est corpus meum”, meaning This is my body.[4] This explanation goes back to speculations by the Anglican prelate John Tillotson, who wrote in 1694:
In all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.[5]
This claim is substantiated by the fact that in the Netherlands, the words Hocus pocus are usually accompanied by the additional words pilatus pas, and this is said to be based on a post-Reformation parody of the traditional Catholic ritual of transubstantiation during mass, being a Dutch corruption of the Latin words “Hoc est corpus”, meaning this is (my) body, and the credo “sub Pontio Pilato passus et sepultus est”, meaning under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.[6] In a similar way the phrase is in Scandinavia usually accompanied by filiokus, a corruption of the term filioque, from some versions of the Nicene Creed, meaning “and from the Son” (variant spelling ‘filipokus’ is common in Russia, an Orthodox Catholic nation, and certain other post-Soviet states; also the word for stage trick itself in Russian, fokus, is derived from hocus pocus).”
Ken, incidentally, I think Tim Kauffman is maybe one of the great modern day clarifier of the the errors of Rome. I think he is uniquely qualified for this by the fact he was raised Roman Catholic, now Reformed, and has a strong grasp of church history and Catholic doctrine. If you haven’t read ” The rise of Roman Catholicism, What the Fathers feared most”, and Novel Antiqity”, they are must reads. Thanks Ken for your witness of the truth. K
“dough god”? Does Kevin mean like the little white Pillsbury doughboy?
Kevin is a master at slipping this sort of thing in. ( Right after you said you didn’t approve of such rhetoric ).
That’s why his, ” i agree we shouldn’t be offensive to anyone, but in love share the truth” rings just a wee bit hollow.
I have repeatedly asked Kevin to supply one, just one, document from the popes, doctors or fathers that says we Catholics worship a “dough god” or a “bread god”. Having just polished off a PBJ for a snack, I assure you, I did not genuflect before opening my bread box and spreading the jelly and peanut butter on a slice of “god”.
Neither Catholics (nor Lutherans) believe bread was nailed to the cross or was raised from the dead after thee days.
I am not completely crazy. Not yest anyway but a steady dose of reading Falloni Baloney is going to put me there.
I know for a fact, I don’t NOT believe bread spoke and the universe leapt into existence.
I don’t say the Trinity is made of Pumpernickel, Sour Dough and Rye.
The doctrine of Transubstantiation does not say Jesus becomes bread. To say it does betrays Kevin’s laziness in trying to actually find out what we believe ( and all of the Church for 1500 years ).
To say Catholics worship bread or dough proves Kevin has not the foggiest idea of what the Catholic Church teaches. ( You notice he is careful to stay off the topic of Lutheranism? )
“The doctrine of Transubstantiation does not say Jesus becomes bread.”
But it does say that bread changes into Jesus by the spoken out loud words in Latin of the RC ordained priest . I think his point is that that bread is still bread, and after the priest says the words, your church teaches that that bread is now Jesus. But it is in reality still bread. Looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread. still bread.
Jim said ” Neither Catholics or Lutherans believe bread was nailed to the Cross or was raised from the dead” This is interesting when Catholics believe the sacrifice for their sins was the bread of the last supper. Incidentally, Tim kicked me off his blog because you and Bob successfully convinced him that he was being associated with my so called troll reputation. He wasn’t strong enough to withstand your attempts to tie me to him. Many of these blog apologists are concerned about their reputations, and you and Bob were successful in impugning his by associating he and I as one person. For Eric W and I it was disappointing. I was very supportive of his work and still am. K
Jim , incidentally, in a tired moment I said at CCC that Jesus became bread in Rome. At first I thought I got it backwards, but the more I thought about it, it is the exact description. K
Jim said ” I pray someday you will experience the joy in knowing Jesus waits for us, yearns for us, and callus to come and be in His presence” Hmmm! Be in His presence? He lives in me through His Spirit, how much closer do you want. He incorporated us into His body through the SPIRIT NOT the FLESH. Rome has a faulty view of the Trinity. WE are called to a SPIRITUAL relationship with God. It is a PERSON that is offered, not some derivative off that person. Christ is in the one taking the bread, not the bread. It doesn’t get any closer than that. He is close to me always, He is in my heart. Lo I will be with you always. I don’t need to stare at a little prison filled with bread to feel the presence of Jesus. Incidentally, He isn’t there in the catholic church, because its a false church. The merits of Christ are applied to us through faith alone, we don’t merit the merit of Christ. Is it a wonder that Aquinas thought his work was straw. He gave us idolatry, and said that a man is predestined to Glory in some way according to his merit, instead of just the goodness of God. Rome denies Christ in every way. They simply won’t let Him off the cross to be Lord and Savior. K
“But it does say that bread changes into Jesus by the spoken out loud words in Latin of the RC ordained priest . I think his point is that that bread is still bread, and after the priest says the words, your church teaches that that bread is now Jesus. But it is in reality still bread. Looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread. still bread.”
YES!!! You got it right while Kevin has it totally backwards!
The only thing you err on Ken is the Latin business. The priest can speak Greek, English, Swahili.
Is this magic?
Let’s see what the earliest Church Fathers had to say.
1.Justin Martyr;
We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [being born again in Baptism], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. (First Apology 66)
Moreover, as I said before, concerning the sacrifices which you at that time offered, God speaks through Malachi [1:10-12]…It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the Gentiles, that is, of the bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it. (Dialogue with Trypho 41)
Ken, notice, the bread becomes the Eucharist by a “prayer”. Not by Abracadabra. Not by an incantation. Not by “Hocus Pocus”.
Justin was very much aware of the magical rites of Mithras.
He said, ” The wicked devils have handed on the same thing to be done in the mysteries of Mithras; for you either know or can learn that bread and a cup of water are set forthwith certain incantations when one is being initiated into the rites”.
Call it magic if you want. But that only shows you confuse Mithras with Christ.
Keep insisting it is still bread if you want to, But remember, you do so strictly rationalistic grounds, not from the Bible or the Fathers.
Ken,
To be precise, the words, ” This is my Body” ( Hoc est enim Corpus Meum” ) directly affects only the bread. The words,”This is the cup of my Blood” ( hic est enim calix sánguinis mei ) directly affects the wine. But because of “concomitance”, the whole Christ, Body Blood, Soul, and Divinity is present UNDER THE APPEARANCES of bread. Same applies to what appears to be wine, the whole Christ is present. The Bible says so.
St. Paul says, “If you eat *OR* drink unworthily, you are guilty of profaning the Body *AND* the Blood of Christ”.
Again, I am going by what the Bible says. You are using rationalistic arguments that say, “if it looks like a duck…” much like the arguments that came out of 19th century Germany that say, “Jesus of Nazareth looked like any other Jewish man…”.
Kevin,
Don’t bother addressing me as I just scroll past people like you who only only want to spit on me. I enjoy debate, not mud throwing. I didn’t bother reading your stuff on CCC after you started posting under the phony ” Fred” name. At the end of the blog, only because I was trying to get Jason to shut the blog down, I quickly scrolled through all your posts from the final day, when Debbie outed you, until April 28 and counted up all the times in just one month you said Death Wafer, Hocus Pocus and other slurs aimed the Sacrament of Christ’s Love.( on May 26 at 3:20 you said Eucharistic processions were “funeral marches with graven bread” ) and sent the slurs, dates and times to Jason. Have a nice life and I hope you find a job.
Jim, those quotes don’t prove transubstantiation. The acceptable sacrifices from the heart of a believer are praise and thanksgiving. The bread is never offered to God as a sacrifice, its only offered to men. Praise and thanksgiving are offered to God. Trent anathematizes anyone who doesn’t say that the Eucharist is a true an proper sacrifice for sins. Ask your bishop god what the word sacrificium means. He’ll run and hide. K
The only thing you err on Ken is the Latin business. The priest can speak Greek, English, Swahili.
I guess Vatican 2 changed that, when they changed to not requiring the Latin mass. There is a large group of “Traditionalist Roman Catholics” (like Society of Pius IX or XII) who believe that Vatican 2 was wrong and violated church teaching.
That is another big contradiction to itself – Vatican 2 is a contradiction to all of Romanism since Gregory 1 of 601 AD.
I was under the impression that even in the English mass services, the priest still says the words in Latin, “this is My body” and “this is My blood”, etc. (just two sentences)
Ken,
No. But lot’s of folks still prefer to attend the Mass in Latin just because it links up with history so well.
The other stuff is in house Catholic stuff, Ken. Since you deny the Mass regardless of the language used, I will save my ammo.
Those Roman Catholics believe Pius XII was the last good and consistent Pope. ( 1958) – but others, and even smaller group, take it farther and even say that the Popes since then are false Popes and “the chair is empty” (Sedevacantism) ( like Gerry Matatics)
I know all about it. But again, it is in house and you really don’t have a dog in this fight. You reject both the pre and post Vat II Church. By explaining the issues involved I am not going to make a convert of you so I will save my energy.
In a nutshell, I used to serve Mass for a retired priest who said the Tridentine Mass in his home every day. He was loyal to the Pope but a lot of idiot fringe folks attended his Masses. I remember arguing with one woman who said the New Mass or Novus Ordo was Protestantized and denies the sacrificial nature of the Mass. My snappy comeback was, ” Really? Let’s go ask a Protestant if he likes the New Mass since it denies sacrifice. Lets see what he says”.
Ken, do you like the English Mass? Why not? Thanks. I rest my case.
1.Justin Martyr;
We call this food Eucharist [ ok, if it is just kept to the meaning of “thanksgiving for the once for all atonement and once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross} ; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true [Shows infant baptism is wrong] and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [being born again in Baptism] [Kauffman’s material refuted that], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. [he is right that one must be a believer and examine himself – 1 Cor. 11 and confess their sins and make things right with people first – Matthew 5:21-26] For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished [he is wrong, if he means the bread was somehow changed into Jesus’ flesh], is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. (First Apology 66)
[He is right in that the Eucharist / Lord’s supper, is a symbol and remembrance of His flesh and blood that became incarnate for us and was crucified/ died for our sins.
There is truth and falsehood in Justin Marty’s famous statement. As Kevin said, it is not Transubstantiation.
Whatever Justin Martyr meant, it did not mean Transubstantiation, and even IF he did, he was wrong and that is not Scriptural. We can test early church fathers by Scripture, and what he said that a person must first believe (presupposes repentance) and be baptized, then they are members of the body and take the Lord’s supper, that is true and good.
Don’t quote Justin Martyr, show me Scripture that teaches such a thing. There is none.
Ken,
Could we stick to one topic at a time? We have already strayed from purgatory. In this passage Justin doesn’t speak to the issue of infant Baptism ( although he does to baptismal regeneration ). Lets keep on with the Eucharist for a while if you don’t mind.
What is interesting is the word used by Justin and other Greek fathers; Metaballo. Due to a prayer or invocation of the Holy Ghost, the bread is “matabolized” into the Body of Christ. This is major Ken.
The matter of the Sacrament is the bread and wine and the form is the prayer, “Hoc est …”.
Transelementation was used for a while but gave way to Transubstantiation. But it means “Metaballo”.
Let me explain what the term ( henceforth shortened to T ) does not mean;
1.T does not mean Christ undergoes any change. He does not die. He does not suffer. And he does not leave the right hand of the Father and physically travel through space.
2. It is not Lutheran Consubstantiation which says Christ and bread coexist in the same place.
3. Real Presence ( originally an Anglican term designed to deny T but later adopted and adapted by Rome ) does not mean Christ is squeezed and cramped into a coin-size wafer.
4. As you rightly say, it is only the bread ( and wine ) that undergoes change and not Christ. I must hasten to say we do not sacrifice or offer bread in the Mass. Bread does not save anybody. Bread did not nor does not die to take away sins.
The bread is not annihilated and replaced by the Body of Christ. It is CHANGED. The Fathers compared this change to the one wrought by the Holy Spirit when He changed the flesh of Mary into that of Christ’s.
Ken, when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, did he actually turn a few fish into many? The Bible says he didn’t. It says 12 baskets of the same loaves and fishes were collected after the meal.
Now, I by no means say this was T. But I am asking you to consider that not the fish but the accident of presence was multiplied. The crowd all ate from the same few loaves and fishes.
What do I mean by “accident of presence’? Well, if you get up from your computer and walk to the other side of the room, you have change the non-essential accident of place but remain the same substance of Ken.
In the thousands of tabernacles around the world, Christ is not multiplied. There is only one Christ and he sits at the right hand of the Father.
When I gaze upon the Host in the hands of the priest or the monstrance, I am, in a way, looking at the right hand of the Father. The Host is a window into heaven.
It is the Mysterium Fidei. Put away your rationalist arguments about what looks like a duck must be a duck. Twice in Romans, St. Paul speaks of the “obedience of Faith”. Obedience is submission. Submit to the words of the Bible, Ken.
THIS IS MY BODY… UNLESS YOU EAT MY FLESHAND DRINK MY BLOOD…they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread…Melchizedek brought out bread and wine…Christ is a priest forever according to Mechizedek…
It’s late here. I would like to continue this with you some more tomorrow.
Kevin right about the sacrifices being praise and thankgiving. Kauffman’s series on that looks great, I just have not had time to read all of it. I have read some of that and it is excellent – the meaning of Malachi 1:11 is Hebrews 13:15-16 among all the nations.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
Does NOT mean “guilty of not recognizing that that bread is the body or that that wine is the blood of Jesus.” – rather it means that one who is lying and holding onto secret unconfessed sin and unwilling to turn from their sins, their unconfessed and unrepentant sins are guilty of killing Jesus over again. (like Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31) The Lord can judge and they are drinking judgment on their souls.
Also, “judging the body rightly” means making things right with the rest of the body – confession, reconciliation, peace, with those who we have hurt, etc. It means judging the body of Christ as accountable to one another to confess and make things right in relationships.
Ken, the one thing Kauffman does incredibly is show how meticulously the fathers maintained their categories. Bread was never offered to God, only men, and the only thing offered was praise and thanksgiving, a broken and contrite heart. And it certainly wasn’t to merit the merit of God. Rome is more pelagian today than anytime in history. JPII says Trinity hating muslims can stay where they are do their best ad they are golden. And Protestants are buying the whole hold hands and sing kumbaya thing with Rome. That meritocracy isn’t another denomination, but another religion. In the long war on the truth, the most deceptive and relentless enemy has been Roman Catholicism. The true church has always known that and separated itself from that system, and suffered death for it. It is apostate, false Christianity, a front for the kingdom of Satan. Revelation 18:4 says : come out from her my people.” K
In this passage Justin doesn’t speak to the issue of infant Baptism . . .
He shows there was no infant baptism back then, because a person had to first understand, repent, and believe, then be baptized and then they can partake of the Lord’s supper/Eucharist.
Ken, The Church still says an adult must believe and repent.
And the Church, then as well as now, says a baby needs regeneration because he is conceived with Original Sin.
Staying with topic of the Eucharist, I can’t find your comment on Paul saying the Body of Christ means the Church or Christian community. So I will try to remember what I read yesterday.
Paul said to eat and drink in a sinful state was to desecrate the Eucharist. One cannot profane or desecrate a symbol like you can a reality I think that is the primary sense of the word, “Body” in this passage.
Elsewhere in 1st Corinthians Paul says to share in one loaf makes us all one body. So, in a secondary sense, you are semi-correct.
When we eat the Eucharist, Christ is not converted into us. Rather, we are transformed into the Body of Christ.
Paul also compares the Eucharist to the meals of the demon worshipers ( Mithras again? ). Sharing in the demon sacrificial meal was more than participating in the community of demon worshipers. To share in the cup of the demon, to drink his blood or whatever, was to share in the life of the demon himself.
Finally, while the Church is the Body of Christ and the Eucharist is also the Body of Christ, we do not see the Church ever referred to as the Blood of Christ. Only the Eucharist.
the bread and wine are symbols of Christ’s atonement. We commune and fellowship with the Lord spiritually, when we walk with Him, examine ourselves/ our hearts, confess our sins, repent, trust Him, worship Him in prayer, etc. as we remember His once for all atoning work of redemption.
Vatican 2 is a massive contradiction to pre-Vatican 2 “no salvation outside of the church” tradition. Muslims and those who don’t know of Christ, and can be saved if they never hear the gospel and live by their conscience and light that they have. So much for motivation for evangelism, as if the RCC does true evangelism anyway. Big problem.
841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
847 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.
Ken,
I just found your post about 1 Corinthians 11 I had been looking for. I was above the Falloni spam so I accidentally scrolled past it. I think I answered it in my earlier post.
Yes, a Catholic needs to Confess all mortal sins before going to Communion or he commits a sacrilege. ( Crucifying Jesus again? So much for OSAS, eh Ken? )
A true believer wants to be baptized, be a member of a local church, take the Lord’s supper and confess his/her sins and fellowship with the Lord in prayer and worship, and remember the death of Christ for our sins. 1 John 1:5-10, 2:1-2 – a true believer will be confessing and seeking to make things right. But God has mercy and we are in process of sanctification. The Lord does not seem to zap people like He did Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5 or the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 11 (as a result, some of you are weak, sick, and some have “fallen asleep” (died). It is up to God to show mercy as we are all in the process of sanctification. The preacher should warn people that the warning is serious – “whoever eats or drinks in an unworthy manner is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord”, etc.
Christ is with us through the Holy Spirit; and at the Lord’s supper there is a deeper spiritual communion and fellowship of that spiritual relationship.
Do you believe all the OT shadows, types and figures are fulfilled in the New Testament in a more dynamic way?
How is the manna fulfilled in your tradition? The manna was saved in a golden urn and carried about in the Ark and kept in the tabernacle ( yes, tabernacle! ) It was miraculous, conforming to the taste of every man. Do you venerate your Communion bread in anyway?
Protestant Communion is not miraculous, is it? It is just a symbol, right? It is not a more complete fulfillment of the OT “shadow of better things to come”. Manna was greater, no?
How about the Shew Bread? How is it fulfilled in the New Testament?
Or the Passover Bread eaten 8 days after the Lamb? How do you “keep the feast” Paul speaks of?
How is the high priest Melkizedek fulfilled in your tradition? Even Mormons know Melkizedek was a priest and elders are supposed to be priests ( they just don’t realize a priest offers sacrifice. He doesn’t serve a meal of bread and wine. )
When you, a Baptist minister, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, are you a priest according to the Order of Melkizedek? Or do just serve a memorial meal of bread and wine ( or juice )?
Ken,
When you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, is Christ present in anyway other than in the minds of the people assembled?
When does he become present? At your words ( magic? ) or at the moment an individual partakes of the ceremonial bread or wafer ( magic again? ) How does Jesus become present if He never actually leaves heaven? ( Maybe this line of questioning is more for Lutherans and Anglicans than Baptists).
Or is Christ only “spiritually” present? Isn’t Jesus present everywhere? Or wherever 2 or 3 are gathered? Why did He institute the Sacrament or ordinance if He is already present spiritually just by closing our eyes and thinking of him?
Is the Supper a memorial of the Passion? How so? Shouldn’t Jesus have picked up a piece of lamb meat rather than unleavened bread to symbolize his flesh?
I know you don’t have crucifixes, but isn’t a crucifix a better image of the crucifixion than a piece of bread and a cup of wine? Or even a picture of the crucifixion is a better image or reminder than a piece of bread.
Ken, one of your people, Janislov Pelikan, said that once a person concedes Christ to be really and objectively present in the Supper other than just as a spirit, they have a hard time denying sacrifice.
So, why the Incarnation? Why was Jesus born of a woman, under the Law…,? Why did God take on our nature? What did the Fathers say? Before Anselm wrote Cur Deus Homo”.
Give up? God became man to make man god, to divinize us, to draw us into communion with Him and His other members.
But couldn’t that have been accomplished in the womb of Mary, when the divine and human natures were reconciled in the Person of Jesus Christ? The Greek Father almost say as much.
I asked you for an explanation of why Jesus picked up a piece of matzoth rather than lamb meat to represent his own flesh as the Passover lamb. Have you come up with an answer?
How about explaining why Jesus used sacrificial language at the Supper, ( “Do”, Covenant in My Blood, Poured out for remission of sins, As a “anamneseus”,?) Why the separate Consecration of bread first followed by that of the wine? Why was the bread converted into His Body before the wine was changed into His Blood?
Why did Jesus institute the Lord’s Supper? Why did He use the language of sacrifice? If not here, at the Supper, holding bread and wine in His sacred hands, where and when did Jesus act as a priest according to Melchizedek? On the cross? My Bible doesn’t show any bread and wine ( other than the sour vinegar ) at the crucifixion.
When, where and why did Jesus act as a priest according to the order of the bread and wine priest named Melchizedek while on earth? ( We will talk about Hebrews and the heavenly sanctuary later today ).
What is Jesus’ present condition? He is in glory and never to suffer again, right? We can agree on that point.
But He is also a victim. An eternal victim. The holes in His side, hands and feet remain. Rather than causing Him pain, they radiate like jewels.
Jesus is now and forever “the Lamb standing as slain”.
“Every High Priest must have something to offer”. Jesus is both the High Priest of the book of Hebrews and the Lamb of the Apocalypse.
When the priest utters the prayer of Consecration, ( Hoc est enim Corpus Meum ) the bread is changed into the Body of Jesus that exists now in heaven. The great High Priest and eternal Victim stand before us with the same dispositions He had at death. Death locks us into a frame of mind that can never be changed. That is why there is no repentance after we die.
The Catholic priest then says, ” Hic est enim calix sánguinis mei” ( usually in the vernacular ). The image before us is that of blood separated from the body. This represents death.
Of course, Jesus does not die. I told you that yesterday or the day before. He can no longer die now that He has entered into glory. Only silly people like Kevin Falloni accuse Catholics of killing Christ again in every Mass. Ha! That is absurd.
So, we have the Real Presence of a Victim. A symbolic death. And therefore, a true sacrifice.
The Last Supper and Calvary formed one sacrifice. Calvary alone would not have been a sacrifice but only an execution. An immolation without an oblation does not make a sacrifice.
St. Paul speaks of our sharing in the “cup of blessing”. The cup of blessing was the 3rd cups drunk at Passover.
After Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the Gospel, says they sang a song ( the great Hallel Psalms ) and “went out”.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 4th AND FINAL CUP? ( Jesus said he would not drink of the fruit of the vine until He came into His kingdom.)
Lifted up onto the throne of His cross, wearing His crown of thorns, with the mocking “King of the Jews” sign over His sacred head, the Holy Bible says,
“A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
What was finished Ken? Jesus still had to “be raised again for our justification”. What was finished? The Sacrifice that started the night before at the Supper. The sacrifice that He told His Apostles to “Do this ( what is the “THIS”, Ken? ) in memory ( anamneusis or “memorial sacrifice ) of Me.
I thank God for making me a Catholic and calling me to participate in His sacrifice every day!
Amen.
Jim, Hebrews says “its appointed every man once to die” in the same way as ” having been offered once to bear the sins of many” Same word, men die once, it isn’t repeated, and Christ died once in time ” at the consumation of the ages” Get it! Hebrews says He put sin away. K
Jim,
I am just wondering why you post so much – I mean, you already hashed all these issues out with Kevin and Tim Kauffman at Kauffman’s blog and over at Jason Stellman’s and also at Green Bagins for a while. Why the persistent repetition? When I look at all the comment boxes of those 3 blogs; I can only read a little and then I have other work/job/life/family to attend to. I don’t see how you devote this much time to com boxes.
Ken,
That is exactly why I scroll past Kevin. I have indeed hashed these issues over with him ad nauseam but to no avail.
I too muti-task. After posting this morning, I went swimming and walking on the beach to collect my thoughts. I am trying to explain to you about the most sublime thing in the world, The Eucharist. And because Christ died for you, that makes you worth the effort to bring you into full communion with the Church.
Like I said, my wife is in America tending to her now deceased mother’s affairs. I am home alone ( with the cat ) and bored to tears. So, bask in the catechesis I am lavishing on you!
Christ died for Kevin too. Actually, Christ died for all men and wants all men to come to the Church.
And because Christ died for you, that makes you worth the effort to bring you into full communion with the Church.
Of course I already am a believer in Christ and know that He died for me and my sins are forgiven.
I am already in full communion with a Biblical local church. (Baptist, Calvinistic) Go and read my analysis of my friend, Rod Bennett’s book and my study of the bible, church history, and historical theology. (look under Rod Bennett at Beggar’s All. Start with my Amazon review of his book.) I need to find time to write more on that, and put it all up here at apologetics and agape. I hope to be able to organize all that better.
“Do this ( what is the “THIS”, Ken? ) in memory ( anamneusis or “memorial sacrifice ) of Me.
Meaning, take bread and wine as symbols of My death / atonement / sacrifice for sins, and eat the bread and drink the wine as remembering the once for all sacrifice – the one time historical event of atonement / redemption of God’s people from all nations. “as often as you eat it, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
1 Corinthians 11:26
Ken,
Please don’t pull a Phalloni Baloney and say I don’t know the Atonement was a one time event. I just don’t believe its application is a one time event ( AND NEITHER DO YOU ).
Obviously, at the last supper, the bread and wine were symbols, because Jesus was in His incarnational body at the supper with the disciples. When He lifted them up and thanked the Father and said, “this is My body, given for you”, He meant, “this bread represents My body” and “this cup represents My blood of the New Covenant shed for you.” etc.
Of course not! I already told you Transubstantiation no more multiplies the Body of Christ than Christ turned five loaves into 5000. The Eucharist is, as are all the Sacraments, an extension of that one Incarnation. Like I already said yesterday, the Fathers compared the change of the bread and wine to the change in Mary’s flesh, that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, gave us Christ.
Luther was right on this, “unless I am convinced by Scripture and evident reason . . . I will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”
Speaking of over posting, notice I am not commenting on your papacy article. I seem to recall I pretty much casting a ton o’ pearls down before Steve Hayes, John Bugay and yourself over on Tribalogue and Beggars All also to little or no avail. I don’t intend to repeat myself. I am not THAT bored.
See also the comments (in the comment box at the You Tube video) I have made to Rod Bennett’s speech here. I hope to be able to organize that also as a thoughtful response to him. Believe me, I already got a full “catechesis” from Rod Bennett from 1996 to 2004, and then after that from Dave Armstrong and others such as a Roman Catholic named Randy, and also listening to Mitchell Pacwa, Robert Sungensis, Gerry Matatics, Tim Staples, Jimmy Akin, etc. all these years and their debates with James White, Eric Svenson, Turretinfan, William Webster. I have already been taught by Roman Catholics as to what they believe and your church teaches. I have listened, read, and debated, and I am not convinced at all – Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Tyndale, etc. were correct.
I also read Karl Keating’s book, “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” and “Surprised by Truth” (volume 1) in 1996 when my friend Rod Bennett he was converting to Rome. A lot of J. H. Newman and Scott Hahn’s argumentation was thrown at me.
Also, I interacted with the Called to Communion blogs on Sola Scriptura and the Canon issue in 2009 and 2010, and off and on other subjects recently. But Bryan Cross is too philosophical to even understand. It was like trying to drink at a fire hydrant. ( or under Niagra Falls)
Bryan is discussing another topic at the moment. It is just hayseeds like myself arguing about Baptism. Come on over and help your Protestant buddies out.
If you think Jesus at the Last supper is doing Transubstantiation, then your claim is that Jesus is doing 2 incarnations and now your church, since then, claims to have done 100 billion in history, and that is blasphemous.
Ken,
Have you been reading what I have been posting? I realize this stuff takes some effort, but please try to understand what I am saying.
The Eucharistic Body of Christ is not another Christ. It is the same Christ that sits at the right hand of the Father.
Let me paint a little picture;
If, for some strange reason, the 11 Apostles said Mass while Jesus was in the tomb on Holy Saturday, they would have changed bread into dead flesh. Why? Because Jesus’ Body and Blood were both separated from each other and His soul at that time. Of course, the flesh would have still been united to the 2nd Person of the Trinity but Jesus’ soul was in the Limbo of the Fathers preaching on Holy Saturday.
The bread and wine change into the Christ that IS at the moment the words are spoken. At the Last Supper, Jesus changed the bread into the same flesh that sat before the 12 men. He did not multiply Himself, He multiplied His presence. ( I explained how that can happen yesterday ).
Ken, yesterday you correctly stated that in Transubstantiation, only the bread undergoes conversion, NOT THE BODY OF CHRIST. Now today you are saying Christ is multiplied or cloned.
Christ has one physical Body and only one. It is glorified and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Period, As I told you yesterday ( and Kevin 50 times ), Christ suffers no change, never leaves His Father, nor is multiplied. I gave you the xample of the loaves and fishes.
The bread and wine and only the bread and wine change. Just as Jesus said, the bread is his Body and the wine his Blood. I explained how the soul and divinity are also present but it probably went past you.
All you have to do is, humble yourself and have some Faith. Faith= OBEDIENCE/SUBJECTION of your proud mind and self will to the words of scripture.
Jim said ” the Eucharistic body of Christ is not another Christ” Au contraries The Roman Eucharist is an idol. It isn’t Christ. It’s your golden calf. We worship Christ who is in heaven from the altar of our heart in Spirit and in truth. We reject the brand of incarnationalism of Rome, just as the early fathers rejected this type as idolatry. Rome can’t replace the finished work of Christ by substituting itself for Christ’s natural body and being the agency of salvation. The church isn’t the provider of grace, but the recipient. The Spirit brings fiducia to the heart, not the church. We reject Roman Catholicism and its meritocracy and idolatry. K
The Eucharistic Body of Christ is not another Christ.
It has to be if you are saying Jesus made the bread and wine into his flesh and blood at the Last Supper. There are two different Jesus’ there, according to your doctrine.
It is the same Christ that sits at the right hand of the Father.
No; cannot be there and also billions of places in history re-iincarnated all over the world at the words of RC priests. Impossible.
Ken,
Yesterday ( my time ) you said it would be “blasphemous” to duplicate over and over the Incarnation. Don’t you mean it would be “heretical”? Blasphemy is defiling, deriding or profaning that which is holy. Like guzzling beer out of a chalice stolen from a church like the Babylonians of Daniel’s time did with the golden plates pilfered from the temple. Saying Jesus cast out devils by a demonic power was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.. The High Priest rent his garment when Jesus said, ” I AM “. The rationalistic and Hellenized Jews considered the idea of the divine clothing Himself or Itself in lowly flesh to be blasphemy. Falloni’s mocking slurs are blasphemous. Profaning the holy is blasphemous.
Not every error or heresy is blasphemy. Overusing the term trivializes real blasphemies. But whether heretical or blasphemous, you need not worry because, as I keep telling you, we don’t teach the error that you accuse us of.
Too bad you have a kneejerk opposition to the language of substance and accident.
Ken, don’t be a rationalist. Have some Faith. And quit putting words in my mouth right after I tell you we do not concoct another Jesus in each Mass. You say I must be multiplying Jesus because you won’t take a little time and try to understand how the SAME Jesus is present in various places. “Place” is an accident. Like color, size, extension, etc.
Augustine said that at the Supper,”Christ held Himself in His own hands.”
What a coincidence that we are discussing this today, the feast of Corpus Christie or as the Portuguese say, ” Corpo Deus”. Lisbon celebrates the feast with the oldest procession in the world. Bishops. priests, bands, sodalities, even the cavalry riding white Lusitanian stallions with bugles blasting through cobblestone streets with the people throwing rose petals and singing and praying and bending their knee as Our Lord in the Eucharist passes by.
Please Ken, no more ” if it looks like a duck” arguments. The duck argument also says Jesus was just a man. If the Jews and Romans had put Our Lord under a microscope, they would not have seen His divinity. Duck Arguments are for atheists and unbelievers. They are on their way to hell. The Jews who walked away from the hard saying of Jesus in Jn 6 did so based on the duck argument. That is the first inking in the Gospel we see of Judas losing his faith. Submit your intellect to what God has revealed. Bend the knee of your mind to what Jesus said in the Bible.
that is just so ridiculous. An empty external form of religion.
Roman Catholicism, like liberal Protestantism in Europe (and in USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) is dead and there is no reality behind the empty rituals. churches are dying, homosexuality and trans-genderism and abortions, pornography, Darwinism, materialism have taken over the worldview; and Islam is growing.
Ken,
Before heading out for my day, a quick word of warning. You have a tiger by the tail.
My eye caught Kevin’s one word post to you “bingo!” the other day. He was sucking up to you. Over on Kauffman’s blog, Ken all but shined the man’s shoes. This is because the unctuous Kevin, like any parasite, needs to feed off your blog. But no matter how much of a sycophant he was, Kauffman had to eventually cut him lose. He had to as Kevin had taken over and chased everybody off.
Right now Kevin is on his best behavior. But he will ratchet up and should you try to tone him down, he will accuse you of selling out the Reformation. I have seen him turn on other Protestants who wouldn’t get on board with his brand of gospel preaching.
I think you know CCC is no more. Last week Jason Stellman pulled the plug on it. It was the only way to keep Kevin out. Just banning Falloni was fruitless as Kevin kept changing his identity and crashing in with his rants and slurs. He was bringing out the worst in the other bloggers who got sick of him and only wanted to retaliate in uncharitable ways. Catholics had even started to turn on other Catholics due to Kevin’s presence. The blog got sick and had to be put down.
Ken, I would like you to become Catholic. I assume you return the compliment and want me to come over to your camp. Since we both love our respective positions, it is only natural we would want to share what we love with others.
Do you honestly think Falloni wants me to become a Protestant? Do you think that is what motivates his offensive language? Doesn’t any fool know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar?
Kevin has actually been instrumental in increasing my devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so I guess God does indeed bring good out of evil.
The last thing Kevin wants is to make a believer out of me. He needs me to stay Catholic so he can spit on me. He is like those American Nazi Party geeks who used to march through Jewish neighborhoods back in the 60s and 70s. Or the Klan marching through black neighborhoods and shouting the N word. Over in Northern Ireland they have the Orange Order who march through Catholic neighborhoods this time of year only to insult the economically downtrodden Catholic minority. Click on utube and see them strutting their stuff only to give offense. They are not interested in soothing strained Catholic/Protestant relations.
Ken, be careful of welcoming Mr. Falloni on your blog. He is not a Catholic nor a sincere Protestant. There is nothing of Christ in his little slurs and offensive jabs.
At the moment, the parasite is without a home. He is looking for a blog to bore into and infect with his pus. He may slobber all over you with praise and hi five you with his “Bingoes” for now but just wait and see.
Consider yourself warned.
When you believe in something, and love it, you want to shout it from the housetops.
When you define yourself instead by what you hate rather than what you love, it shows.
Does KF love Protestantism? Or does he just hate Catholicism? It should be obvious by what he posts.
Jim said ” Do you think Kevin actually wants me to become a Protestant” Jim, I pray you would hear the gospel of the bible and believe it. But that would mean rejecting a works righteousness salvation and trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, not sacraments opere operato. K
Jim, Spurgeon sai we should hate RC doctrine with all that is in us, and pray God would throw it to the bottom of the sea. We should pray against it daily. Because it puts sacramental efficacy up in the place of our atonement, a piece of bread up in the place of Christ, and a mere sinner like ourselves up as the head of the church. These popes die, and how could the church live if its head were dead. But Christ is the head of the church, and the church always lives in Him, Christ didn’t come from heaven and pour out his life, to have the pope come in and steal the glory. Spurgeon also said we are to love its people and not touch a hair on their bishop gods heads. But winsomely encourage the elect to come out of her. K
Completely. It was either to moderation which he has no time for. Kevin had been banned an rebanned, all to no avail as he would just change his identity and come back on. His unique style of writing,
“Hey Catholics, does the dough worshiping synagogue still burn Protestants at the stake ex opera operato for not buying indulgences to get out of a non existent purgatory so the pope in his pointy hat can hide pedophile priests and give them merit from the sinful Mary while killing Jesus on your romish altars …”
Always betrayed him.
Jason decreed that no one was to respond to Kevin’s trolling but to ignore him and scroll past his rantings. It worked to a point until Debbie, a former friend of his and target of Kevin’s abuse had had enough and outed Ken for some stuff in his personal life. ( Actually, she didn’t out him because everybody suspected Kevin of what she accused him of ). Things went south and Jason finally threw his hands up and pulled the plug.
Ken, ya, he shut it down. It had degenerated greatly. I actually think when Jonathan, Jim, Debbie, DeMaria, Mateo started viciously attacking Protestants, when asked not to, it frustrated Jason, and he shut it down. K
When Augustine said Christ held himself in his hands, he wasn’t referring to transubstantiation, but to the cross he was about to face. For his body was about to be broken and his blood spilled. K
Ken, I mispoke. It is clear from Augustine in tractates the book of John that Augustine said the church has been deprived of body of Christ until He returns. Augustine also has the quote that we are to understand spiritually what has been said, and we are not to eat this body which you see, or the blood that has been spilled out at his crucifixion. The totality of Augustine’s position, according to Schaff, isn’t support fro real presence, on the contrary. When Augustine spoke of the mystery in his quote about Christ holding himself in his hands isn’t consistent with a real presence interpretation, imho. K
Ken,
WOW! What a day I have had. I am beat ( ever walk for hours on cobblestone? ) But I thought about our discussions while participating in the procession.
We were talking about tabernacles a few days ago. Did you know that at one time they used to make them to look like doves/ the Holy Spirit and suspended them from the ceiling? There were called peristeriums. I saw one in a church in Holland once.
Here in Portugal they sometimes make the front of the tabernacle look like a pelican. That is because people once thought pelicans fed their young with their own blood. When baby pelicans put their beaks into the beak sack of the parent, it appears they are sucking blood out of her breast.
Anyway, back to the Holy Ghost. Why is it important to receive Jesus” Body and Blood rather than just mentally? Because the Holy Ghost proceeds from the 2nd Person of the Trinity hypostatically untied to the human nature of Jesus Christ. IOW, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the human heart of Jesus. And whenever God acts outside the Trinity, all three Persons act so when we receive the Eucharist, all three Persons of the Trinity come to indwell us and sanctify us ( although we usually attribute the work of sanctification to the Holy Spirit ).
It takes about 15 minutes before the Communion Host is dissolved in our bellies. So for 15 minutes the very font and source of holiness is united to us.
If you took the time to check out the discussion over on C2C, you would have seen the Spirit is given to us in various ways. He is given to us as our gift and guest in Baptism. He is given to us in the laying on off hands in the Sacrament of Confirmation. He is given to us in various ways at various times. But Holy Communion is especially sublime.
Ken,
One more thing I want to be clear on;
I believe in the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Not only do I genuflect before it, I kneel on both knees and put my head to the floor when the Host is exposed outside the tabernacle. Some people like to prostrate themselves in cruciform position. Like I said, I believe in the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and center my life around it.
That does not mean I hate the Protestant Lord’s Supper. I do not believe it to be a blasphemous parody of the Mass. While you and I would agree your Lord’s Supper is merely a symbol of the Body of Christ ( we believe the death to be symbolic but the Bodily Presence real in our Mass ) I believe I am on safe ground as a Catholic when I say the Lord is pleased by the efforts of Protestants to be obedient and worship him according to the light given them.
Of course, Christ wants all men to be saved ( don’t you Calvinists wish you could say that with the assurance I do? ) and to enter His Church and receive Holy Communion as Catholics. But God is a reader of hearts. Your Communion does not contain and transmit grace like mine does, but your services can be occasions of grace when the Holy Spirits pours grace into you guys. I came to this conclusion when I spied in on a Lutheran service once and was humbled to see the folks kneel to receive what I honestly believe to be just bread with more devotion than I have often received the Real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
You are a Protestant minister. You are not a Catholic priest. You cannot confect the Eucharist. Does that mean I loath you? Not at all. While you are no more of a priest than I am but only a layman like myself, I have no doubt that Protestant ministers are sincere men who wish to serve God with their lives. I have known and argued with too many ministers to doubt that. And neither I nor the Catholic Church believes or has ever believed all Protestants go to hell.
It would be a sin for a Catholic to mock your Lord’s Supper or barge in during a service and disrupt it. While I would never participate in it, I hope I would never disrespect it or the people who do.
Jesus Christ founded one Church. He established 7 Sacraments to convey grace to the members of His Body. Nobody is saved outside the Catholic Church. That is an article of Faith.
But that does not mean non Catholics necessarily go to hell any more than it means all Catholics go to heaven. There are many non-Catholics attached to the soul of the Church without knowing it or even possibly denying it.
In closing, all I ask is to be treated with the same respect I hope to give you, to be believed when I say I do not worship bread and not to be accused of believing things I specifically say I do not believe.
Ken; Jim, please. I am not crazy. I am not lying. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.
Jim; You are wrong Ken. You do indeed believe in the Easter Bunny.
Ken; Why would you say that? I just said I do not believe in the Easter Bunny.
Jim; Well, you celebrate Easter don’t you? During Easter time, all the shops display bunnies, colored eggs and chocolates. You go to church on Easter and make a big deal out of that holiday. You therefore believe in the Easter Bunny.
Ken; I celebrate Easter to commemorate the Resurrection of Christ. The bunny, eggs and candy are just for kids. They may harken back to pre Christian times but are harmless fluff. The ancients celebrated the rite of spring and Easter happens in spring. The both point to new life so the Christians baptized the bunny but I assure you, he is not real. Jesus is real. Any more questions, Jim?
Jim; So, tell me again, why do you believe in the Easter Bunny?
KEN, CATHOLICS DO NOT WORSHIP BREAD. We worship Christ under the appearances of bread. That should be enough, I shouldn’t have to keep denying the bread silliness.
Show me one Protestant such as James White who ever makes that ridiculous charge. It is used by Kevin only to hook Catholics into paying attention to his trolling.
No doubt you find the idea of processing through the street with the Eucharist to be very strange. I shudder to think of what kevin has to say.
I think I had better do some ‘splain’.
The Host or wafer held in the golden cross shaped object was confected in the context of a Mass. It will be consumed either in the context of a Mass or in a sick call. The adoration and/or procession of the Host is merely an extension of Mass and a logical development of the doctrine of the Transubstantiation and/or the Real Presence.
Think of it; if Christ is indeed present, Body, Blood, sould and divinity during Mass, it is only natural to adore Him before receiving Him in the Sacrament. It is natural to even extend that adoration for some hours before consuming the Host. Processions are not the primary purpose of the Eucharist.
By Baptism we are brought into union with Christ and the other members of his Body. We are incorporated in the covenant people, and become members of a royal priesthood. Baptism does other things like wash away sins and gifting us with the Holy Spirit but the primary thing it does is initiate us into the Church, the Body of Christ. ( I hope you checked out the discussion on Baptism on C2C )
That initial incorporation is increased by the Eucharist. We get Baptized and born into the covenant only once but we need to ratify and grow in covenant membership throughout our lives just as a couple who gets married only once still need to celebrate and renew their vows daily to grow in that marriage.
On Mt. Sinai God made a covenant with Moses and the people. The covenant was sealed with a blood sacrifice and then made solid with a sacrificial meal.
At the Last Supper, the night before he died, Christ anticipated his sacrificial death on the cross by taking bread and wine and consecrating them separately as a *sign and symbol* of His death to come. Blood separated from Body is a sign of death. He told the Apostles to do likewise as a memorial sacrifice and to pass on the same action to others. He gave His own sacrifice of Himself to His Church, the followers incorporated into His Body, so it would be their sacrifice too.
While Christ died but once and celebrated the Last Supper once, he gave us the Mass to apply his once for all sacrifice down through the ages.
He took bread and wine, the products of may grains of wheat and many grapes, the fruit of the vine and earth and the work of human hands to represent us, the people he had taken his human nature from. He had become one of us in order to offer sacrifice as one of us and render a perfect worship to the Father as one of us.
At Mass, we, the covenant people, the members of the Body, align our dispositions with those of Christ, our head. We participate as a priestly people in Christ’s act of sacrificial worship to the father.
Then we partake of the victim in a sacrificial meal in Holy Communion. By sharing in the one loaf and participating in the very Body of Christ we grow closer with each other and are given the graces we need to live out our covenant membership.
I hope this makes the idea of processing with the Eucharist seem not so strange to you Ken.
What is the rationale for denying the cup of the wine (the blood of Christ) to lay people in the RC mass? (for centuries, some areas, off and on, etc.)
seems very contradictory to Mark 14, Matthew 26, Luke 22, and 1 Cor. 11.
There were periods in history when the laity were required to receive under both forms.
Certain heretics refused so the cup but secretly infiltrated the Church. To keep them from receiving unworthily all were required to drink from the cup.
A lot of the prayers of the Mass are non essentials, added over the centuries for different reasons ( like the raising of the Host ).
When I was a kid and the Mass was in Latin, every liturgy ended with the prologue of St.John’s Gospel. At the words, “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us”, we all went down on one knee. This had been added to keep the Gnostics who denied the Incarnation from sneaking into Mass. They would have exposed themselves by refusing to genuflect. That was dropped in the 1960s.
Later that changed. When a sect in what is now the Czech Republic made a big issue out of it, the Church went the other way just to stress an important point of doctrine found in 1 Cor 11 which says if you receive the cup, you get all of Christ. If you eat the Host, you get all of Christ.
Today, Ciliac people just drink from the Chalice and receive the whole Christ.
How so?
A few days ago I mentioned that we Christ as He is at the moment of the Consecration. I told about what would have happened if the 11 Apostles had attempted to say Mass on Holy Saturday while Christ was dead, Body and Blood separated from soul.
Jesus said, “This is my Body”. Period. Then, “This is the cup of My Blood”. Period.
The words immediately affected only His Body and His Blood. Same thing when the priest says the words at Mass over the bread and wine.
However, when we receive, let’s say, the Chalice only, we don’t just drink Christ’s Blood. Why? Because by what is called “concomittance” or the fact that at this moment, in heaven, Christ’s glorified Body, Blood and His soul are all together united with the Word.
Yes, I lived in Istanbul, Turkey for 3 years (1993-1995) and walked on some cobblestone streets that may go all the back to Roman times – there are still the old walls of Constantine, the underground cistern build by Constantine, walls and structues built by Theodosius(380-392 AD), Valens Aqueduct (368 AD), etc. and Hagia Irene (built before 381 AD), where the 2nd Ecumenical council of constantinople was held. Also, the famous Hagia Sophia, built by Justinian around 537-565 AD. Some of those old streets are difficult to walk on because the mortar between the bricks has worn away – I twisted my ankles several times. they are not flat either, up an down hills; very difficult to walk on; very old. Others are medieval and others are from the Ottoman Era.
If nothing happens to the bread ontologically, then you are unknowingly worshiping bread. Since we don’t beleive any change happens to the bread, that is what in reality you are doing, even though you believe it has been changed into Christ.
We worship Christ under the appearances of bread. That should be enough, I shouldn’t have to keep denying the bread silliness.
That is your sincere belief; fine. But it is not reality and does not make sense with the texts and passages of Scripture. No where in Scripture does it indicate this. Jesus lifted up the flat bread and cup of wine at the last supper as symbols of His soon to be death / atonement / redemption at the cross.
Ken,
“Unknowiingly worshiping”? How may stripes do people get for sinning unknowingly? I am not too worried. I would be more worried to ignore His mandate.
I could turn it around and say you unknowingly deny the Sacrament Christ instituted at the Last Supper. Does that concern you, Ken?
Whether Jesus elevated the Matzoth or not is irrelevant. What is important is that He consecrated the Bread first and then and only then the chalice. Why?
To “show” death. Blood separated from Body spells blood shed. Remember, Jesus echoed the words of Moses when He established the New Testament/Covenant.
When Jesus consecrated the bread and wine separately, He put Himself into a victim state. He was both victim and priest.
Had He not done so, He could not have been crucified or even arrested. Please recall that on more than one occasion the Jews had tried to take him prisoner or even force him over a cliff. Jesus always slipped through their midst unscathed.
Jesus chose His hour. Not Pilate or the Jews.
In the Garden, His “heart melted like wax” ( Psalm 22 ). Why?
When Pilate heard Jesus had died after 3 hours, he “marveled”. Why?
Because crucifixion took days ( St. Timotheus and his wife Maura lived for nine days crucified, all the while encouraging one another ).
Please scroll back up and read what I said about the 4th cup. The Last Supper and Calvary were two essential parts of the one sacrifice.
I appreciate what you said about Protestant services and practice of the Lord’s supper. We (especially Baptists, Presbyterians, independent Evangelicals) follow the texts of Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Cor. 11 more closely and examine ourselves and confess our sins and pray first, then partake, remembering His once for all death for sins.
Ken,
Same for us. Every Mass begins with a prayer for forgiveness of venial sins. All mortal sins must be addressed in the Confessional before receiving Holy Communion and participating in His once for all death for sins.
Ken,
“If nothing happens to the bread ontologically, then you are unknowingly worshiping bread.”
Lutherans are very specific about nothing happening to the bread of the Eucharist that they worship.
If you accuse Catholics of worshiping bread, you must really be down on Lutherans, eh?
But you say no such thing about Lutherans or Anglicans, do you?
And neither do we. Lutherans worship God and only God despite their errors on the Real Presence.
As a Catholic, I am bound to say Missouri Synod Lutherans kneel at a Communion rail to receive what is just a piece of bread.
I would not be so uncharitable nor so mistaken as to say they therefore unknowingly worship bread. In their hearts they sincerely intend to render worship to God and God judges hearts and motives.
That being said, Lutherans should get into the Catholic Church and receive Christ in the way He intended.
I bow down and kneel at times of worship and prayer, privately, but before an open Bible sometimes. that does not mean I am worshiping the Bible, I just have it open to read as I pray and use Scripture in prayer.
kneeling and bowing is just an act of worship and humility. God is omni-present. We can bow down and kneel anywhere and pray and worship.
The Lutheran view is indeed strange and hard to get a handle on – “con-substantiation” means that Christ comes alongside of the bread and wine in a special way. con = with. They do not teach the bread changes into the body of Jesus.
Luther just could not let go of that aspect that was entrenched from centuries before; as also in baptismal regeneration. He was very harsh against Zwingli on that point. (Eucharist) Calvin proposed something in between Luther and Zwingli, which seems good as far as I can understand it.
Ken,
Let me be very clear. I do indeed worship when I get down on all fours before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. I do not merely pay respect. I am adoring. And even then, my puny adoration is hardly worthy of so great a Sacrament.
Your friend Kauffman tried saying once that the words of the Church Fathers about being careful not to lose a crumb of the Eucharist was merely like saluting the flag.
Coincidentally, I had just come from the funeral of a former U.S. ambassador to Portugal.
The Marine guard from the embassy saluted the flagged coffin and folded the Stars and Stripes into a triangle with great respect before presenting it to the man’s family.
But when the priest raised the Host, everybody was on their knees in adoration, not respect.
Ken,
By the way, I can’t find your answer to my question about when Christ acted as a priest according to the Order of Melkizedek if not at the Supper when he took bread and wine into His hands.
True, but in many different places, in local assemblies, churches, in many different nations now. The one body of Christ is made up of all the true believers all over the world throughout history.
As Christianity grew, it spread. the NT lays down principles for true church government and a plurality of elders. (Acts 2:38-46; 14:21-23; 13:1-4; 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5-7; 1 Timothy chapter 3; 1 Peter 5:1-6)
Unfortunately, with Ignatius, we see the exalting of one of the presbuters over the other presbuters and calling him “bishop” (mono-episcopate), when originally all presbyters are shepherds/pastors and overseers / (translation of episcopos, translated bishop in older translations).
But even though a local mono-episcopate took hold as custom and tradition, originally, all presbuters were also overseers/bishops and also shepherds/pastors. But then later, when one bishop in one area (Stephen in Rome around 255-258 AD) claimed he was “bishop of bishops” or had jurisdictional authority as the bishop over all other bishops, well, Cyprian and Firmillian and 85 other bishops were right to object and rebuke Stephen of Rome. That is the clearest proof that the RC view is wrong, and the Papacy is wrong.
He established 7 Sacraments to convey grace to the members of His Body.
I can see 2 ordinances/ you call them “sacraments” – baptism and the Lord’s supper, in Scripture. Marriage is a creation ordinance (Genesis 1-2) and should monogamy of one man and one woman should be honored in all cultures. Jesus honored the wedding ceremony (John 2), so that is important to give testimony and vows before other witnesses. Repentance is biblical, but penance is not. That is a command by Christ, but not an ordinance like baptism and the Lord’s supper. Confirmation is not really spelled out in Scripture, and holy orders, or ordaining ministers is just that, when a local church ordains someone to the ministry, it is a special setting apart for ministry, after testing and approval and confirmation. “Last rights” – I cannot see that in Scripture, as some kind of sacrament, but of course, if there is time for a minister to talk to someone about the gospel and they be challenged to repent before they die, that is a good thing.
Nobody is saved outside the Catholic Church. That is an article of Faith.
Vatican 2 and those 2 paragraphs in the CCC (841 and 847) teach things that are contradictory to that. Saying Muslims worship the same god as we do and that those that don’t know Christ can be saved is just heretical and wrong.
The Last Rites are in the Epistle of James. Gotta get over to church to relieve the person at Holy Hour ( Adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament ) we have for 24 hours every Monday/Tuesday.
Calling the elders (notice plural) of the church when someone is sick, praying for them, teaching on confession of sins, and God being able to heal the sick – all of that is not described as “last rites” and does not even mention the time right before a person dies. “is anyone sick? is anyone suffering” – covers many more situations than “last rites”. Also, there are no priests, just elders. So using James 5:13-16 for that seems like a big stretch.
I did
Ken,
One Church means an absolute unity of Faith.
I may be wrong but I think it was you, on this blog, who about a week ago, said,”I think Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, etc. e got it right”. I don’t remember the exact list of men but I was musing to myself today how these men did not have gotten “IT” right as the Reformers certainly did not agree on the Eucharist.
A few days ago I said that my first contact to James Swan was about Kevin Falloni’s stye of rhetoric. Actually, it was about that and a quote from the Marburg Colloquy I read about 25ish years ago. I asked him to run it down. It was about when Zwingli and Luther met to debate the Eucharist, they agreed that in order to demonstrate they both approached scripture properly, they had to agree the Bible does not say Mary had other children. I was surprised James was not familiar with the quote but he did manage to track it down for me.
My point is Ken, if different denominations can’t agree on the Lord’s Supper, but consider it a non-essential doctrine, what is the use of Christianity? There is no Church. There is nothing and Christ need not have bothered to come.
Those churches Paul and the others founded all believed the exact same thing on every point of doctrine. They may not have had the Office of the Inquisition in those days, but the Apostles and their successors were just as unrelenting when it came to sound doctrine. There was zero, absolutely zero, sycretization with the pagans. No goddess worship. No Mithra sacrifices. Not so much as a pinch of incense to the emperor’s idol in the market place.
You are not going to get unity of Faith without, yup, I gotta say it, a pope.
So why don’t the NT authors mention the existence of the Pope in those contexts that speak of “the unity of the Faith” – Ephesians 4, John 17? There is nothing there about the Papacy. Nothing.
You also have not explained why past Popes motivated people by indulgences of lessening time in Purgatory. (Crusades, Tetzel, etc.)
To say there is no time element today in the doctrine of purgatory, seems like not dealing with the reality of what caused lots of suffering for centuries by teaching that it DID involve time and that indulgences was all about lessening time in Purgatory.
Almost 3 (+ more, including Inquistion and general culture until 1700s and 1800s enlightenment) centuries of war were based on that – the Crusades – 1095- 1299 and beyond against Albigenians, Jews, and Cathars.
1095 – 1517 and Luther’s protest against the selling of indulgences is a long time, and the time element of Purgatory was clearly taught.
When I go swimming I take off my cloth scapular and wear a medal. When getting dressed I always kiss my scapular to get the 500 days indulgence ( probably no longer in effect ). That does not mean I get out of purgatory 500 days earlier. It means it counts as 500 days of canonical penance.
The Church does not claim to know a lot about purgatory. It does stand on prayers for the dead and Church’s authority over issuing indulgences.
By the way, Luther did not have a problem with purgatory in his 95 thesis ( if the event is not an urban legend like Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”. I am not sure but he may not have had a problem with indulgences in principle either. That was all to come later as his ideas developed.
Ken, the Bible is very clear on the distinction between temporal and eternal punishment. It is clear on nobody going before God while unsanctified. It is clear that our prayers can affect others, including the dead. It is clear that were can lessen another person’s punishment. It is clear from Maccabees that the official Church of the time was in the practice of taking silver drachmas and offering sacrifices for the dead. The Bible is clear that to out of the body does not necessarily mean to be in the presence of God. ( I got the chapters and verses if you want ’em )
You are impressed with Kauffmans research? I think it was you who were also impressed with his mentor/friend, Bill Webster’s research on the Fathers, right? ( Maybe I am confusing you with someone else ). Ask either of them for some stuff on prayers for the dead, when did it start, when was it not done by Christians, was it a sign of paganism creeping into the early Church, etc. etc.
Over on C2C Lawrence F and Taylor Marshal both have some stuff on purgatory for you.
Yes, Luther’s ideas developed after the 95 theses.
and yes, both Kauffman and William Webster are impressive. See Webster’s material on Cyprian and Honorius.
Crusades? We need one today to stop the Islamic State and its throat cutting villains. Trouble is, Europe is no longer Christendom.
Next time the villains put a video of somebody being burnt alive or a dozen Christians being beheaded on the internet, we will talk crusades. Until then, put it on hold.
the principle of self-defense and just war and the fact that Europe was responding to the Islamic invasions, sadly about 400 years too late, – the just war / self-defense principle is an aspect of the Crusades that was right.
The problems were the other things that came along with the Crusades – the indulgence and penance / purgatory theology of merit and earning salvaton that motivated the Crusaders; and the very bad mistakes of atrocities against Jews and the Eastern Orthodox.
The end result of the Crusades after they finished in 1299 AD, was even worse, for the Ottoman Turks then conquered even more territory from then onward to 1453 (fall of Constantinople) and up into the 1600s of conquering Greece, Bulgaria, the Balkan areas.
The west today needs the good kind of just war like the unity and will of the allies in World War 2 to defeat the Nazis, Mussolini in Italy (how did that happen in Roman Catholic Italy ?), and the Japanese.
I think Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, etc. e got it right”. – I meant in relation to Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Papacy, Marian dogmas, Transubstantiation, Purgatory, etc.
Not on disagreements with each other on more minor points.
Read my new article on Rod Bennett’s lecture. I mention some of that issue in there. “Theotokos” (“the one bearing God”) is true in it’s original intension to be about Jesus – that He was always God in the womb of Mary, both God and man. The problem is the phrase created misunderstanding about Mary, just as Nestorius feared.
The other 3 dogmas are wrong and unBiblical – Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception (1854 AD) and the Bodily Assumption of Mary (1950). Calling her co-Mediatrix is also wrong and contradictory to 1 Timothy 2:5. Praying to her is wrong and the statues and icons in worship contexts are wrong.
Ken,
The term ” Last Rites” is not found in the epistle of James. So what? Neither is the word, “Trinity”.
The term, “Sacrament of Confession” or the word, ” Confirmation”. But there is sufficient proof for all the Sacraments and the Trinity.
As for what happens to Hosts left over from Mass, they are put in the tabernacle and distributed at the next Mass. While it is clear from the Bible that bread and wine are transformed into Chrit’s Body and Blood, nowhere do we see the Host ever reverting back to just bread and wine.
I remember being told by a priest who had grown up as both a Lutheran and an Anglican that after the service, they would throw their left over bread to the chickens. That was probably because some Protestants who believe in a Real Presence also believe in “receptionism”. We don’t.
The James 5:13-16 passage is about all kinds of sickness and suffering, confession of sins, and calling the elders of the church. It is not limited to a time right before a person is dying on their death bed.
Ken,
Who told you the Sacrament of Anointing is used only in extreme situations?
The only time I ever heard what you are asserting is in the case of a man condemned to be hanged. He cannot be anointed until the trap door is released.
While it is clear from the Bible that bread and wine are transformed into Chrit’s Body and Blood, nowhere do we see the Host ever reverting back to just bread and wine.
it is not clear in Scripture at all – that “transformation” does not even exist in the NT at all. The last supper in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and I Cor. 11 don’t say anything about the bread and wine changing into Jesus, since Jesus is in His incarnational body when He spoke those words. Sorry. You are the one who keeps ignoring what I say and you just keep repeating your assertions.
John 6 is about faith and “eating and drinking” means coming to Him in faith and repentance and receiving Him totally and completely. Same for John 7:37-39 and John 4 about drinking water – these are symbols of receiving Christ by faith.
Only Bill Clinton denies the word “Is” to mean “is”. “This My Body” does not mean “represents”. The Greek language has a word for that.
You are the one who is doing the ignoring and repeating the blind assertions. Ha!
By the way, the Greek Septuagint uses “Do” to mean “sacrifice” 76 times. When Jesus wanted to say, “eat”, He said “eat”. When he intended to say, “drink” , He said “”drink”.
When He wanted to say “sacrifice”, He said “Do”.
“Eating and drinking” means “coming in Faith”? Since when?
According to the book of Daniel, “eating someone’s flesh” meant “maligning them”.
As for “drinking blood”, no Jew would have ever uttered something so bizarre as that unless they meant it.
Show me ANYWHERE between Genesis and Revelation where to drink blood was used for believing. Show me where it is ever used at all,( except maybe to forbid it in Acts 15 and elsewhere. )
The Jews were utterly scandalized by Jesus’ words about eating His flesh ( the same flesh He was going to give “for the life of the world” on the cross ) and drinking His blood. They walked away from Him. He did not call them back and explain He only mean they have to believe His words.
Jim, Mary was the mother of all that was Christ’s weakness, not his divinity. The scripture never calls Mary the mother of God, but the mother of Jesus. K
” since Jesus is in His incarnational body when He spoke those words. Sorry….”
Go tell your, ” It sure looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” theory to Luther. Or better,Martin Chemnitz.
Zwingli might have appreciated your rationalism, but the other Reformers were not so quick to deny the plain word ( IS ) of scripture. Even Calvin tried playing word games to avoid looking so obviously like Zwingli.
Ken,
Christ’s Flesh was the human Flesh of the Second Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit proceeds from all eternity from the Word.
That’s what I receive daily or at least weekly when I renew the Covenant Sacrifice done once for all and then share in the Covenant Meal.
Bless your heart, Ken. You mean well. I’ll give you that. But you do NOT receive what I receive when I go to Church.
“. Humbly let us voice our homage
For so great a sacrament;
Let all former rites surrender
To the Lord’s New Testament;
What the senses fail to fathom,
Let us grasp through faith’s consent!”
Did you catch that, Ken? ” What our senses fail to fathom”?
Please, Ken, none of your “Looks like a duck” nonsense.
“Let us grasp through Faith’s consent”. You are being confronted with a great Mystery here.
Ken, stop being so stiff necked! Bend the knee of your proud and self sufficient mind. The “Obedience of Faith” ( Romans 1:5 ) Submit to the yoke of Faith. Bow down and adore the God who made you and died for you. The God who yearns and waits for your love under the appearance of a humble piece of bread. Forget your smugness and pride. Subject your judgments to the words of Christ.
THIS IS MY BODY…THIS IS THE CUP OF My BLOOD…POURED OUT FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS
How do know ” I am a door and I am a vine” are metaphors? Because He didn’t sprout leaves and a door knob did protrude from His belly.
Context Ken, context.
Besides, He did not say, ” This particular vine is My Body”. He did not say, “This very door is My Blood” while holding it in His hands. He did not establish a ceremony of opening and shutting a door repeatedly. If He had, the Church would probably have a door on the altar.
You also forget the symbolism of the separate Consecration of the bread and wine. A Body separated from its Blood looks like death. Did He do or say that about the door or vine?
By the way, Ken,
About that context business,
Had Jesus just finished feeding 5000 people with 5 doors and 2 vines when He said they had to eat the the Flesh of the Son of Man?
Had He just spoken about their forefathers eating vines and doors in the desert before saying He was the true door that came down from heaven?
Context, Ken. Context.
Did Jesus take a door into His hands when establishing the New Covenant in His Blood?
Context, Please.
Can you give me a list of OT types of the doors and vines? You know, like I can with the Shew Bread reserved and venerated in the Temple?
Did Moses command the Isrealites to put a vine in a golden urn and store it in the Ark of the Covenant?
Did doors or vines descend every morning along with quail to feed the Covenant people on their journey through the desert? Did those vines conform to the particular taste of all who ate of them?
Context, context, context!
Do Jews today celebrate Passover for 8 days with matzoth? Or doors and vines?
ken,
Many years ago, before Portland, Oregon got its own Catholic radio station, KBVM, all I had in the way of non secular radio were Protestant stations. That is how I came to know R.C Sproul, John MacArthur, Michael Horton,Greg Koukl, Doug Bachelor, Hank Hanegraaf, etc. etc. It is how I also got into apologetics in order to correct the false views of Catholicism I heard. I was a regular caller on all of the talk shows.
Anyway, one of my favorite speakers, Chuck Swindoll, has/had quite a lecture on Daniel and “eating flesh”. I have never forgotten it. I am sure he didn’t realize he was giving away the Protestant farm on the “eating someone’s flesh” issue.
But forget Chuck for a minute. Father Mitch Pacwa is a real polyglot. He speaks several modern languages and all the languages of the Eastern rites as he has faculties in most of those rites and knows the history and culture better than anybody.
He says that even today, in that part of the world, they still speak of “eating flesh” in the way I have presented it.
I trust Fr. Mitch to know what he is talking about. You, however, are going down swinging as you have an interest in not conceding an inch.
Again, when, if not at the Supper, with bread and wine, did Jesus act as a priest according to Melchizedek while on earth?
Jim said ” Pacwa peaks of ” eating flesh” Here is the problem Jim, God calls us to a spiritual relationship with Him. In John 6 you see the unbelievers who walk away because they took Him literally. He says the my words are Spirit, not flesh. We are incorporated into the body through the Spirit, NOT THE FLESH. In the supper He offers His merit to us, NOT HIS FLESH, through faith alone. Christ is in the man taking the bread, not in the bread. The supper is a means of grace as we commemorate the one sacrifice that saved us. The only flesh that profits us is the one that died on the cross, and we are in a SPIRITUAL relationship with Him. He is called the Spirit of Christ. It is a person that is offered, not a derivative off that person. We are the Temple of God. God doesn’t dwell in buildings anymore, especially not your synagogue. K
What Kevin has written above is right. Thanks, Kevin!
John chapter 6 is on our side, if you read it all the way through and pay attention to the parallels of “coming to Christ”, “believing”, “eating”, “drinking”, “being drawn by the Father”, etc.
John 6:54-55
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
“true food” and “true drink” is the same metaphor He uses in John 15:1 – “I am the true vine”
Notice the parallels of “and I will raise Him up on the last day” with earlier verses of coming, believing and drawing. (especially verses 44-45)
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” John 6:63
66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
The whole passage is about believing, receiving Christ, coming to Him, trusting Him, treasuring Him as our spiritual satisfaction, like being physically satisfied with bread and drink. the crowds came for the physical bread, but Jesus says He is true bread. to eat His flesh and drink His blood are meant to symbolize accepting and receiving Him totally, not just for the physical bread.
Peter and the disciples stayed because He had the words of eternal life and they believed He was Messiah and the Son of God, who had come into the world (incarnation) and who would give His life for their sins. (atonement)
The passage is about believing in Christ and coming to Him, and God sovereignly drawing those He wants – verse 44 and 65; it is not about the Last supper or the Eucharist.
It’s my policy to ignore and scroll past Kevin as I don’t care to be stung with a gratuitous “Hocus Pocus” or some other Jack Chick type slur slipped in under your nose just to get a rise out of me.
As you seem to want me to respond to something of interest he has written, I will comment on what you have filtered and posted.
John 6 is indeed about coming to Jesus in Faith. ( I do that every time I go forward to receive the Sacrament of Faith, the Eucharist ). That is, the first half of the passage is about believing. But notice, midway through, Jesus ratchets up. He actually puts forth something difficult for them to swallow and starts talking about eating His flesh, the very same flesh that they see before them and the same flesh that will be given for the life of the world on Calvary.
This was crazy talk for the Jews. Talk of drinking blood was an abomination. They knew He wasn’t just talking about believing in or following Him any more. They were disgusted and left.
NOTICE: Christ did not call them back and say, ” Please, please, folks. I am only speaking figuratively. Of course I don’t mean for you to violate the Kosher law and drink my actual blood. I am just using wicked language because I like to shock and see the looks on your faces like Kevin Falloni does.”.
Peter and the others would indeed have walked away too but he submitted as only Jesus spoke the words of eternal life.
Time for a little lesson on substance and accidents that even a child can follow.
You already believe in the distinction between them.
Imagine if you saw a black do, a white dog, and a white cat. If I asked you to categorize them according to the accident of color, you would put the white cat and dog together.
But if I asked you to go deeper and categorize them according to their essence, you wouldn’t hesitate to put the two dogs together.
To deny essence or substance is to deny reason.
“Presence” or place is an accident. Substance is indifferent to place. A cat is a cat whether up in a tree or sleeping on a pillow.
Christ is Present in the Eucharist by way of substance. All of Him. We never see or discern substance, not even that of material bodies. But we know something is present by our intelligence or in this case, by Faith.
Now, how does Christ become present? The Lutherans say the bread undergoes no transformation but exists alongside Christ. They say Christ is everywhere or “ubiquitous”. But we know that Christ’s Body is a real Body and is at the right hand of the Father. It is not ubiquitous.
Lutherans, as are other Protestants, are divided as to when Christ becomes present. Some say He is objectively present to everyone, sinner or saint, in the service.
Others say, Christ is present only at the reception of the bread and then only to the saved or those properly disposed to receive grace..
I think you would say Christ is only present spiritually or mentally. Or that you lift your mind or heart to heaven an worship Him there. There are a myriad of explanations.
“Metaballo” or change of bread substance into the actual, objective, and real to all present Body of Christ is the only one that doesn’t either demand we believe something against logic or flat out deny the words of Christ.
By the way, Transubstantiation does not defy logic. The law of substance and accident does not contradict logic. You and all logical people use it every minute of everyday.
But I don’t believe the bread is transubstantiated into the substance of Christ because it is logical. I believe it on the obedience of Faith.
Ken,
Give it up.
You can use all the “looks like a duck” arguments from rationalists, atheists and Protestants you want.
You can come up with wacky theories from the Bible about doors, vines and Jesus speaking metaphorically. You can say the Jews thought to believe someone was to drink his blood.
You can preach to me about believing and having Faith in Christ’s words ( I do! )
You can stand on a soap box and yell about the finished work of Christ ( I believe in it ).
But you are not going to undo the words of Christ,
‘This IS my Body”.
Although I keep pressing you about Melkizedek you continue to talk about doors and vines so maybe I will go on and talk about sacrifice.
Sacrifice involves two distinct movements;. The oblation/offering and the immolation. One can be performed before or after the other.
The immolation is the destruction of some sensible gift presented to God to represent our interior disposition of giving ourselves to Him. The gift must cost the donor something as we see in the case of David who would not accept the ox offered to him without paying for it. The gift is destroyed only to render it unusable to the donor. It is not, as Calvinists maintain, about vicarious punishment, a.k.a. Penal Substitution. That is categorically denied. It runs contrary to scripture.
While Catholics do believe Christ made satisfaction by His Passion and Sacrifice, it was not as a Penal Sub. But now I digress onto a different ( but related ) topic.
The other part of the sacrifice was the oblation or formal offering by an authorized person delegated for the task of mediation. Unlike the above immolation that could be done by a layman or a Levite, the oblation was done only by a priest after the institution of the Covenant with Moses and the people.
Without the Last Supper, Calvary would have been only an execution, not a sacrifice. Without the immolation on Calvary, the Supper would only have been good bye meal or offering but not a sacrifice.
In the Mass, no new immolation takes place, While the separate Consecration of Body first and then Blood represents death, Christ undergoes no change. Protestants who accuse Catholics of killing Christ anew in the Mass reveal an ignorance of the Biblical practice of sacrifice and Catholic doctrine.
In the Mass the priest, in obedience to the One High Priest according to the Order of Melkizedek, performs the oblation under the appearances of bread and wine.
When the bread and wine undergo Transubstantiation they are transformed into the one Christ now in heaven with the same dispositions He had at the Supper and on the cross and will have forevermore. The change of the bread by the fire of the Holy Ghost shows that God has accepted our offering in the Holy Of Holies made without hands above
You friends Webster and Kauffman impress you with their opinions on the Fathers. The Fathers did not offer memorial meals to release dead people from their sins. They offered the sacrifice of the Mass.
Which brings us full circle to the original topic of the blog, purgatory.
Ken, you have had this explained to you many times on different blogs. Any child should be able to understand it. Why don’t you? Why are you kicking against the goad? Or are you just what we call, “invincibly ignorant”?
Today, June 10, is a public holiday here. The Day of Portugal or as the Church has Baptized it, the Day of the Guardian Angel of Portugal.
It commemorates the day in 1917 when an angel brought Holy Communion to one of the children at Fatima. They had no trouble understanding. And I don’t either. That is why I have to get over to Mass in 15 minutes to participate in and receive Jesus in the sacrifice and Sacrament He instituted. Ciao
I confess I have a hard time watching your videos, (I only watched a couple of minutes of theses; they are boring and weird because of the appearance of idolatry in bowing down to some bread put in a case on a pole, and the statues of Mary, etc.) for they are filled with statues of Mary, and that is just wrong and unBiblical and the true Mary in heaven is still shocked and saddenned by the centuries of exalting her and making idols of her and praying to her and bowing down and kissing her, etc. – She agrees with the angel in Revelation 19:10 and 22:9 – “Do not do that!! Worship God!” (only, meaning the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit)
The Roman Catholic Church should repent of all these things (exalting Mary too much, statues, prayers to dead saints, relics, Papacy, Purgatory, Transubstantiation, indulgences, ex opere operato priestly power, calling NT ministers priests, Apocrypha, treasury of merit, baptismal regeneration, etc.) and return to Biblical Christianity.
Melchizedek – King of righteousness, king of Salem (ancient Jerusalem – Canaanite culture), priest of the Most High God, El Elyon. (pointing to the knowledge of the one true God among the nations outside of Israel, even in the midst of the wars between those pagan nations)
Genesis 14
Psalm 110
Hebrews 5, 7
Christ fulfilled those OT types of the priesthood of Melchizedek and is superior to the Aaronic-Levitical priesthood.
The main point, through Hebrews 7, is that the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior because it is perpetual and eternal and not temporal like the Levitical-Aaronic priesthood, which was done away with in 70 AD and the destruction of the temple.
Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and Aaron (a son of Levi, the Levitical priesthood) was still in the loins of Abraham at that time in Genesis 14, so the lesser (Aaron, Levi) paid tithes to the greater (Melchizedek), so the order of Melchizedek is greater, which the Messiah Jesus fulfills as high priest, without sin, eternal Son (Psalm 2), and Lord (Psalm 110:1).
Melchizedek bringing out bread and wine (Genesis 14:18) is probably a prophesy/foreshadowing/ symbol of the greater Lord’s supper and symbol of His sacrifice and atonement for sin.
Some think Melchizedek is a pre-incarnation of Christ (without father, without mother, without genealogy – Hebrews 7:3) – type of the eternal Son of God before He became flesh, because the comparison breaks down after the incarnation, since Jesus had a mother (Mary) and genealogy (Luke 3 – Mary’s; Matthew 1 – Joseph’s) .
There seems to be some significance to the fact that Melchizedek has Canaanite language cultural background – El Elyon = “God Most High” – pointing to the fact that even pagan cultures have some who are true believers and some from all nations will come to know the true God. (Genesis 12:3; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; 49:10 – Rev. 5:9; 7:9, Matthew 28:18-20, etc.)
Ken,
You said more than was necessary and practically skipped over the part about the bread and wine.
Both Melchizedek and Christ performed some priestly action involving bread and wine.
In the case of Christ, it can only be at the Last Supper.
The Last Supper was not a good bye meal. What was it?
Daniel 3:8 – the word for “flesh” בשר (bashar) is not in the Aramaic, nor in the Greek LXX translation.
כָּל־קֳבֵל דְּנָה בֵּהּ־זִמְנָא קְרִבוּ גֻּבְרִין כַּשְׂדָּאִין וַאֲכַלוּ קַרְצֵיהֹון דִּי יְהוּדָיֵֽא׃
For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews.
It meant “to accuse and bring charges”. The LXX agrees διέβαλον (to accuse, also where we get the word “the devil, Satan, “the accuser” from – diabolos.
The Jews did not understand Jesus to be saying to them in John 6 as “accusing or attacking” – but rather they wrongly understood Him as hyper literal and teaching cannibalism.
But Jesus says later, “The words I have spoken are spirit and are life” (John 6:63) = spiritual, metaphoric, symbolic. The reality of the Spirit – the Father and Holy Spirit draws people on the inside (John 6:44; 6:65) – those that were true believers and irresistably drawn and wanted to stay with Jesus are the true believers – as Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life” and “you are the Holy One of God” (the Messiah, the eternal Son of God) .
Jim,
I took a lot of time in reviewing Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5 and 7 – and it takes time to type these things out, be accurate, look up the Hebrew and LXX and Greek, etc.
I enjoy this; but I don’t always have time to research things and review everything. I read Kauffman’s Part 1 of Baptismal regeneration and some here and there of others, and some of the series of “the sacrifice of praise”, but I still have not had time to read every word.
So, you have to realize I don’t always have time to track down and interact with every detail you throw out.
I wish you would give up here, and at least go to the lecture by Rod Bennett and interact with what I have written up there. We have exhausted the Eucharist / Mass / Transubstantiation issue here, but not discussed purgatory as much on a post about purgatory. Trying to convince me by showing me videos of gaudy looking idolatry and statues and pictures of angels and Mary and processions of a Eucharist on a pole encased in something, just does not help a convinced Protestant at all. Showing me videos of gaudy statues, etc. actually hurts your cause; because it reminds us of the reality of what your church is. I think that is why most Roman Catholic apologists save that stuff and the Mary stuff for last for Protestants. They want to first destroy the doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide and show the suppossed need for a living voice, an infallible interpreter and if and when a Protestant Evangelical surrenders to those things first; then they just grudgenly submit to the Mary (and physicality of RC Mass/ Eucharist/ host) stuff last, after they are convinced about the other stuff first. I have noticed that about all former Evangelicals; and they even admit that.
Ken,
We are done with the Eucharist? Okay.
I did watch the video you posted and can’t understand why you are not won over by it.
Thanks for the exchange and take care.
Ken, Have you read Allison, Reformed Baptist theologian, his book Romans Catholic Theology and practice.” Its the best book i have read on the differences between RC and Evangelical axioms. He takes the CC and does a incredible analysis. He points out the two fault axioms of Rome, the fallen nature grace inner connection, and the church as an ongoing incarnation. K
I have Allison’s book, but have not read it yet. I started it; but have not had time to read it. John Bugay has done several blog posts on it at Triablogue. It looks great; just that time is a factor.
most of my time is dealing with teaching the Bible (OT survey, hermeneutics, NT, Theology, and church history) in the Farsi language to Iranian former Muslims; and that takes up a lot of time. Also, preparing new materials in Farsi for them. They are hungry and want to grow in Christ and come from a Muslim background.
Kevin wrote: He points out the two fault axioms of Rome, the fallen nature grace inner connection, and the church as an ongoing incarnation.
Indeed; that is an excellent analysis of the Roman Catholic Church and I look forward to reading more of that and studying those issues in the future. (if I understand the first one right – what does that mean “the fallen nature grace inner connection” ?) I understand the problems with the 2nd one better – “the church as an ongoing incarnation” – that is really big in Roman Catholicism and all the emphasis on physcial things – statues, Mary, buildings, graves, relics, angels, paintings, incense, candles, transubstantiated hosts, shrines, etc. – one of the great problems with Roman Catholicism.
Jim wrote: You said more than was necessary and practically skipped over the part about the bread and wine.
I emphasized the main and clear things in the texts, whereas you are emphasizing a non-essential side point, that is just causually mentioned in Genesis 14, but neither Psalm 110 nor Hebrews 5, nor Hebrews 7 makes any point about the bread and wine of Melchizedek. I wonder why?
Both Melchizedek and Christ performed some priestly action involving bread and wine.
seems like a prophesy – foreshadowing of the Lord’s supper.
In the case of Christ, it can only be at the Last Supper.
The Last Supper was not a good bye meal. What was it?
Instituted by Christ and commanded for us to do, regularly, in order to remember His atoning, effectual, substituary death, for sins.
Ken,
Just circling back to make sure the discussion is really over.
At this very moment I am listening to Rod Bennett’s interview on Marcus Grodi’s. I love what he says about, after someone accepts Christ, they are then told to get into a Bible believing church. Nothing more.
I have been perusing Dave Armstrong’s assessment of your views of Rod’s book and his ( Dave’s )dialogue with you too.
Yeah. You seem like a nice chap, Ken. What more can I say to you. You have been buried in evidence, for years, yet stay where you are.
You waste your energy oohing and awing over the “scholarship” of the ilk of Webster and Kauffman, two disgruntled ex-Catholics on their way to hell. John Bugay too. Muslims will get into heaven before they do. Yet you seek them out.
What is it, Ken? As a minster, you are sought out and sucked up to by the Falloni Phonies and other sycophants. You have a minister’s income but if you come out of your fog and obey the Faith, you will be just another rank and file Catholic Joe? As a “Bible Only” Christian, you can be a lone wolf and not have to bend your knee or mind to anybody, right? You can even preside at the Lord’s Supper services in your church. You see yourself as a sort of St. Paul but fail to see he was under Peter’s authority.
Some days ago I wrote about God wanting all men to be saved and that God honors sincere although imperfect Protestant worship. I need to qualify that Ken. By “sincere” I do not mean “lazy” or ” disobedient” or “stubborn”.
So you and I are done talking about the Eucharist? It has all been just one more discussion among many. You will move on to someone else with your, “looks like a duck” rationalism, your doors and vines and your nonsense about drinking blood being just a Jewish expression for believing some one’s doctrine. Whose blog haven’t you been on? Where will I see your name next talking about the Mass, Peter or trashing Mary?
Okay Ken, I will leave you to Kevin’s shoe shining and fawning over your pearls.
Rod’s comment about “go find a Bible-believing church” was from his time with a mission organization ( Operation Mobilization, or OM) – I agree that there are problems with that, because it was a para-church organization and an inter-denominational mission – they set themselves up for that problem; because they have so many different theological perspectives on their teams and don’t major on discipleship in the local church – Rod was right to question that. They did more one time evangelism and literature distribution -evangelism than deeper discipleship and church-planting. Deeper discipleship and church-planting and teaching are important to ground those that come to Christ. But sometimes, if God sovereignly draws someone through our witness; and yet we don’t live in that area, then that may be the best we can do, under those circumstances.
Muslims will get into heaven before they do.
As Muslims? without repentance and faith in Christ ? That is heresy.
The other comments you make about being a “Protestant minister, lone wolf, no accountability (don’t have to bend your knee or mind”, etc.), “minister’s income to average Catholic Joe” – those comments are uncharible and judgmental. I don’t appreciate those comments. The Lord says, “don’t judge motives” – 1 Corinthians 4:5
I am glad you are reading Dave Armstrong’s critique of my review, and you will see another Roman Catholic intellect and linguist, but, IMO, he can be very harsh, who goes by “Adomnan”. I debated with him many times over the years in DA’s com boxes. He knows many languages, but he would not tell what he does for a living. Seems kind of secretive and mysterious, almost like a CIA agent (?).
Eventually, Lord willing, as time allows, I hope to study those issues more and improve my review of Rod’s book.
But I hope if make comments on the lecture I posted at the top of Rod’s, that you will interact first with that material and what I wrote in my article.
Jim, said ” I will leave you to Kevin’s shoe shining” Its this kind of stuff to your really interested in. And the irony of getting on bended knee to worship the consecrated host gives you no pause. Oh, yes, Romanist and their novel religion. They don’t shine the shoes of their church, they worship it in place of the true Savior. God bless. K
Jim, I wouldn’t go to a Catholic church to disrespect people. He said “if they adore the elements its idolatry.” Jim, you guys march it around in the street, and have adoring chapels. You put the bread god in a tabernacle. Need i say more. You fulfill what he described.
Apologetics and Agape 
I have been listening to Dr. David Anders EWTN radio program, and on several occasions he has stated the Jews believed in Purgatory. After searching “Jewish Purgatory” I have found some evidence pro and con for this but no other information about it origins. By chance, do you know anything about the Jews believing in a Purgatory, it’s origins, etc.?
sorry; I don’t know much about that.
Ken,
Ever notice how Judas Maccabee took up a collection of money to have sacrifices for the dead to be performed at the temple? He did not merely ask for prayers for the dead men. Having sacrifices made at the temple means it was an official, practice rather than just a popular devotion or superstition.
Also, after Saul’s death, the Israelites fasted. Sounds like a penitential act done on behalf of the dead.
Kieth Thompson misunderstands purgatory. The souls in purgatory have indeed passed from death to life. It is not merely a temporary hell.
All of KT’s scripture passages about all sin being wiped out at the cross fail to address why Christians continue to say the Lord’s prayer, asking for forgiveness.
By the way, contrary to what Rob Zins says, Catholics do not dread purgatory. People in purgatory embrace their purification. That is why it is not hell.
If Roman Catholics did not dread purgatory, then why did Popes motivate people for centuries with indulgences of “if you do this” you will get so many years taken off in the fires of purgatory? (motivation for the Crusades, Tetzel in Luther’s time, etc.)
The modern definitions of purgatory (that there is no time element involved, just a “state”) are not the same as the centuries long teaching, which also shows Roman Catholicism changes doctrines when it needs to.
I don’t dread purgatory. I will be happy to beat hell.
Ken,
Thompson says” 2nd Maccabees is part of the apocrypha which Christians reject”. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say, “Protestants” reject? I mean, isn’t denying Catholics to be Christian just another form of question begging?
KT says, ” idolatry is mortal sin according to Catholic teaching”. Yes and no. There are degrees of idolatry. Reading your horoscope for a lark is hardly mortal sin. Carrying a four leaf clover is not demonism.
Finally, Thompson needs to learn how to pronounce “sepulcher” and “drachma”..
Amazingly, Thompson appeals to Augustine to make his point. He is obviously ignorant of what Augustine actually said about prayers and Masses for the dead.
The worst of all is his assertion that Christ is not central for Catholics. Do you believe that, Ken?
Yeah, sometimes his pronounciation is kind of funny. I have wondered about that.
Ken,
My wife has been in Portland for her mother’s funeral this week so I have been thinking a lot about this.
It is really a most comforting doctrine. Since the family is dispersed all over Europe and America, we agreed to coordinate having Mass said or at least being in church praying before the tabernacle at the same time as the funeral.
We don’t pray to keep our loved ones from suffering purification so much as to hasten their entry into God’s presence. where they can pray for us.
Like I said, purgatory doesn’t scare us. We like the idea.
By the way, we even pray for our dead Protestant family and friends. Just because non-Catholics deny its existence, most of them will do a spell in purgatory.
“having Mass said” = ?
“praying before the tabernacle” = ?
“at the same time” = ?
I know what you are talking about, but the question mark means “where is that in Scripture?”
the bread in the little tabernacle is NOT Jesus.
When a person dies, the Bible teaches they are either with the Lord or in hell, there is no middle ground.
Hebrews 9:27 – it is appointed once to die, then comes the judgment”
2 Cor. 5:1-11
either we in the body on earth, or with the Lord in heaven.
you still have not explained why the centuries of the traditions of lessing time in Purgatory vs. the modern downplaying of a time element in purgatory and changing the doctrine to a “state of being” – post Vatican 2 theology?
Pre-Vatican 2 theology put all Protestants in hell. It was a real change that you cannot avoid and it shows your church is not infallible and not the church Jesus founded.
Ken,
Since you merely assert your views, I will do likewise.
Christ is indeed present in the tabernacle under the appearances of bread.
Short n’ sweet, eh?
Ken,
Can you provide evidence that Pre Vat II Church put ALL Protestants in hell?
Yeah, we prayed at the same time. The funeral Mass started about 10 a.m. pacific time in Oregon. Lisbon time was 7 pm. Madrid 8 pm.
Ken,
You got me! There is no Pacific time in scripture. I have to concede I have no biblical support for the various time zones around the world other than Malachi’s ” from the rising of the sun to its setting, a clean oblation is offered by the nations”.
You also have not explained why past Popes motivated people by indulgences of lessening time in Purgatory. (Crusades, Tetzel, etc.)
The bread and wine in the tabernacles are NOT Jesus.
Ken,
Time in purgatory is a mystery. Time is how we measure change here in the material world. Souls in purgatory can be helped by the prayers of those on earth.
Again, Christ most certainly IS in the tabernacle under the appearances of bread ( not wine ).
There no tabernacle in the NT worship in local churches. The tabernacle/temple was destroyed in 70 AD.
Ken,
What do you mean by “local churches”? Do you mean little white chapels? Or local communities of believers?
Ever hear the word, “pastaphorium”?
Local churches, like in the NT – the church at Ephesus, the churches of Galatia, the church that meets in her house”, etc. There was no tablernacle (like the RC little tabernacle that holds the bread, etc.) in the NT.
Ken,
The Eucharist was indeed reserved outside of the liturgy and taken to the sick and imprisoned. Was the receptacle called a ‘tabernacle”? I don’t know. Why is that important? I know one term for ithe realitywas “pastaphorium”.
There used to be a Protestant church in my home town called “Bethany Tabernacle”.
I am sure they weren’t trying to trick people into thinking it was anything more than a church building. It was only a word. Same applies to the tabernacle in Catholic churches.
By the way Ken,
I thought the topic was Kieth Thompson’s “thorough refutation” of purgatory. It seems however, you have bigger fish to fry, namely the Eucharist. Is that because Mr. Thompson’s refutation of purgatory is really not all that thorough but is just a bunch of weak assertions and denial/ ignorance of the Church’s 2,000 year old Tradition of praying for the dead?
( Not that I shrink from discussing Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist )
It was you who first brought that into the discussion by people praying before the Tabernacle, which has the consecrated bread in it.
Ken,
I was merely addressing the article on purgatory and prayers for the dead. Excuse me for being specific on just how we Catholics are known to do that. I gave the example of my own mother-in-law’s death and funeral last week. I wasn’t throwing a gauntlet down before you to pick up and run with on another topic other than purgatory..
By the way, Thompson’s use of the fathers to deny purgatory is way off. Here is what St. Ephrem Syrus ( 373 ) said, ” Instead of shedding useless tears over the grave, let them flow at prayers in church, for in these there is comfort and help for the dead as well as the living”.
So let me say it again, our family, spread out over different countries, were united in prayer at church.
Hows that? More acceptable? Less offensive by not mentioning just how we Catholics pray or why it is better to pray at church (where the same Christ is Really Present in thousands of receptacles ( I won’t say the offensive T word ) rather than in a cemetery.
Ken,
By the way, 2nd Cor 5:8 does not say, ” to be away from the body *IS* to be present to the Lord”.
And to say that, “we have passed from death to life” rules out purgatory is pure Protestant question begging. People in purgatory are very much alive indeed. They have their tickets to heaven and know beyond the shadow of any doubt they are saved.
Thompson waxes long on Jesus’ Blood cleansing us from all sin. Okay. So what about Protestants who die before total sanctification?
He says that, “The Apostles did not pass on such an oral tradition”. Oh? How would he know?
As for the Fathers,…Thompson concedes the early Church prayed for the dead but does not admit this proves purgatory.
Please Ken, would prayers help people in hell? Would people in heaven need prayers?
By the way, 2nd Cor 5:8 does not say, ” to be away from the body *IS* to be present to the Lord”.
No; rather, that seems to be the meaning of verse 8 in context with verse 6 – 2 Cor. 5:6
“. . . knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—”
Ken,
Don’t go any further than what the text actually says. It says when we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. Period. It doesn’t address when we are out of the body. You are free to draw inferences though. I am too.
This video is excellent. Jesus told the theif on the cross that day he would be in paradise today. Obviously if the thief needed purging, since he had been a pretty bad dude, Jesus would sent him there. The scripture says we are a;already seated in the heavenly places. Jim is wrong. K
Yes indeed. Thanks Kevin for stopping by here and your comment and encouragement!
Ken, your welcome. I enjoy reading your stuff brother. K
I did not remember the historical background of the word “hocus pocus”. Is that where it came from? The medieval idea that when the priest says the words in Latin (baptism, forgiveness, over the bread and wine, confirmation, last rites, etc.) that that automatically makes grace and power come down from heaven and make the bread turn into the body of Jesus and make the wine turn into the blood of Jesus – that ex opere operato teaching of your church is very offensive and seems like a pagan idea of magic and if so, is false doctrine and false practice.
Ken,
What do you know of magic and pagan religions?
Pagan religions and magic rely on a pantheistic worldview. In case you don’t know, we Catholics are theists. Here is some more of that spooky Latin for you, “..factorum coaeli et terrm, visibilium et invisibilium…’. In other words, God created the world ” Ex Nihilo”. not from eternal stuff.
We Catholics don’t believe in magic . . .
Ken,
PS, I saw you posting on some Catholic blog not too long ago. Devin Rose’s, C2C, Dave Armstrong’s, I can’t recall. You were so civilized. You did.t use any Hocus Pocus slurs. But you do here. Why?
My first contact with James Swan was to ask him about Kevin Falloni ‘s slurs. He said something to the effect, ” That kind of talk is meant to generate more heat than light”.
I wonder why “hocus locus” is so emotional and offensive to you. Claiming ex opere operate powers to your RC priests to be able to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus, literally – that is even worse and more offensive than anything I have said. It is heresy and false doctrine and deserves to be condemned as false.
Ken, even if you can’t wrap your head around why Catholics rend their garments over slurs against the center of their devotional lives, namely Christ in His Sacrament of love, you have been asked to please not use the term nor allow it on your blog. I would think that should be enough for a person of good will.
It is grossly offensive. Falloni knows it that is reason and the only reason he delights in slipping it in.
I would think a sincere Protestant could express his disagreement with our doctrine in an intelligent manner. James White and other very anti-Catholic guys don’t stoop to such rhetoric. Even in his debate with Jerry Matatics, Matatics said that White’s Eucharist is only “crackers and grape juice”. White stopped the debate and would proceed no further until Matatics have apologized profusely.
Catholics do not mock Protestant Communion although most Protestants don’t believe in any form of Real Presence. We believe that. although there is no “ex opere operato” change in the elements, God is pleased by the sincerity in the hearts of Protestants and so their services can indeed be occasions of grace.
So, You decide for yourself Ken, do you think people should be able to present an argument from scripture, the fathers and reason?
Falloni knows that this is why I don’t post on Green Baggins.
I would think a sincere Protestant could express his disagreement with our doctrine in an intelligent manner. James White and other very anti-Catholic guys don’t stoop to such rhetoric. Even in his debate with Jerry Matatics, Matatics said that White’s Eucharist is only “crackers and grape juice”. White stopped the debate and would proceed no further until Matatics have apologized profusely.
Ok, that is a good example and argumentation. I really had no idea that that phrase was so offensive, as you have noticed I have never used it before. My note to Kevin of thanks for encouragement really had nothing to do with the term “hocus pocus”. I won’t use that anymore.
I (Ken) wrote:
“It is heresy and false doctrine and deserves to be condemned as false”
Fine. Say that and no more. Don’t taunt using “Hocus Pocus”. and other terms designed only to inflame.
ok, fair enough.
. “It is heresy and false doctrine and deserves to be condemned as false”
Fine. Say that and no more. Don’t taunt using “Hocus Pocus”. and other terms designed only to inflame.
ok Jim, You will notice I deleted a lot of your comments and edited some. I get your point about “Hocus Pocus”. I had no idea it was that offensive. I had never used it before. I don’t need to use that and so I will not. As you have noticed I have tried to engage in the issues and not use tactics like that that you have communicated clearly are offensive.
Thank you Brother. It does mean a lot to me.
I don’t think Latin is “spooky”. but what is spooky is thinking that grace and spiritual power automatically happen by words and formulas spoken by a Roman Catholic priest. Only the Holy Spirit can cause regeneration and affect change inside a person. The RC priest’s Latin and formulas do not cause the waters to regenerate babies in baptism, and other words do not cause the wine and bread to turn into Jesus literally. There is no evidence of that in the New Testament. “the Spirit blows where He wills” (John 3:8)
By the way, I was praying to Jesus ( not bread ) before the Blessed Sacrament for you and Kevin about an hour ago when it hit me why “tabernacle” is an appropriate name for the container we keep the Host in.
God is everywhere by his power. But in the time of Moses he was present in a special way in the tent among his people as they traveled through the desert.
God is still present everywhere. But he tabernacles among us in the Eucharist in a special way as we travel through life. When he ascended to heaven, he did not leave us orphans. And because he loves us so much, he could not bear to leave us. He remains among us in every tabernacle in every Catholic church in the world.
I pray you will someday experience the joy to be found in knowing Jesus waits for us, yearns for us, and calls us to come and bask in his presence.
Again, thank you for your willingness to understand our position.
“He did not leave us as orphans”
In context, (John 14:16-18; 26; 15:26; 16:7-8, 12-14) that statement is in the context of when Jesus says He will sent the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us, not a transubstantiated bread and wine to be put in a little box / tabernacle in a church.
“Don’t go any further than what the text actually says.”
That’s a Protestant principle.
1 Cor. 4:6 – “do not go beyond what is written”
It seems like your church went beyond what the text says about many things, especially Mary, the non-existent Papacy (does not exist in Scripture nor in early church history), Purgatory, etc.
Yes, the words hocus pocus were a Reformed saying that developed, I want to say in Holland describing the Latin phrase said by the Priest when he makes the dough god on the altar. K
Ken, you may know this, but Jim is a veteran of these blogs. He has used the name Guy Fawkes as a blog name. If you know the history of this man, he tried to blow up the Protestant King of England and to kill Protestants. He was a the killing arm of the Jesuit party and the black pope. Jim is a master manipulator and uses these kinds of arguments ( about how offensive certain words are to Catholics, to keep the truth off blogs. He hates words like death wafer, hocus pocus, Jesus wafer, dough god, etc. because it shines light on the priestcraft of popery and their idolatries. Often time Jim would hate when I told him Catholics won’t let Christ off the cross to be Lord and savior. He is an eternal victim in Rome who can’t get off the cross and the altar to save anyone. Roman Catholicism is unbelief as they crucify Christ to themselves over and over. How Protestants view them changes everything. Are they our co laborers for Christ, or are they caught up in a meritocracy where being saved isn’t having the merits of Christ applied to us through faith alone, but meriting the merit of Christ through accumulating inherent justice via sacraments ex opere operato. We need to share the gospel with these people, so they can be freed fro a system of works righteousness and the gospel of gracious merit, and idolatry. Churches don’t connect us to God, He comes to us in the gospel when and how he chooses. The church isn’t the same as Jesus in the world. No church owns God, nor can it usurp His finished work on the cross as the agency of salvation. It can obey Him, imitate Him, pass on His message, carry on His mission, but it can’t replace his atonement and incarnation as the agency of salvation. Rome is a false religion, not another denomination. K
Yes, I knew Jim is the same as Guy Fawkes. He posted too much and bothered James Swan, so James eventually banned him from Beggar’s All.
I agree in principle with what you believe, but I don’t believe in being un-necessarily offensive. I don’t agree with Jack Chick type stuff (Jim keeps accusing you of that style) and I did not know the background of Hocus Pocus and I don’t use those words – Roman Catholicism is a false religion, true; but since those extra terms are offensive, it is better to speak the truth in love and stick to doctrine, verses, principles, and historical evidence.
I really appeciated Tim Kauffman’s series on Baptismal regeneration.
From the Wikipedia article on Hocus Pocus:
“Some believe it originates from a corruption or parody of the Roman Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist, which contains the phrase “Hoc est corpus meum”, meaning This is my body.[4] This explanation goes back to speculations by the Anglican prelate John Tillotson, who wrote in 1694:
In all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.[5]
This claim is substantiated by the fact that in the Netherlands, the words Hocus pocus are usually accompanied by the additional words pilatus pas, and this is said to be based on a post-Reformation parody of the traditional Catholic ritual of transubstantiation during mass, being a Dutch corruption of the Latin words “Hoc est corpus”, meaning this is (my) body, and the credo “sub Pontio Pilato passus et sepultus est”, meaning under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.[6] In a similar way the phrase is in Scandinavia usually accompanied by filiokus, a corruption of the term filioque, from some versions of the Nicene Creed, meaning “and from the Son” (variant spelling ‘filipokus’ is common in Russia, an Orthodox Catholic nation, and certain other post-Soviet states; also the word for stage trick itself in Russian, fokus, is derived from hocus pocus).”
Thanks Ken, i agree we shouldn’t be offensive to anyone, but in love share the truth K
Ken, incidentally, I think Tim Kauffman is maybe one of the great modern day clarifier of the the errors of Rome. I think he is uniquely qualified for this by the fact he was raised Roman Catholic, now Reformed, and has a strong grasp of church history and Catholic doctrine. If you haven’t read ” The rise of Roman Catholicism, What the Fathers feared most”, and Novel Antiqity”, they are must reads. Thanks Ken for your witness of the truth. K
Ken,
“dough god”? Does Kevin mean like the little white Pillsbury doughboy?
Kevin is a master at slipping this sort of thing in. ( Right after you said you didn’t approve of such rhetoric ).
That’s why his, ” i agree we shouldn’t be offensive to anyone, but in love share the truth” rings just a wee bit hollow.
I have repeatedly asked Kevin to supply one, just one, document from the popes, doctors or fathers that says we Catholics worship a “dough god” or a “bread god”. Having just polished off a PBJ for a snack, I assure you, I did not genuflect before opening my bread box and spreading the jelly and peanut butter on a slice of “god”.
Neither Catholics (nor Lutherans) believe bread was nailed to the cross or was raised from the dead after thee days.
I am not completely crazy. Not yest anyway but a steady dose of reading Falloni Baloney is going to put me there.
I know for a fact, I don’t NOT believe bread spoke and the universe leapt into existence.
I don’t say the Trinity is made of Pumpernickel, Sour Dough and Rye.
The doctrine of Transubstantiation does not say Jesus becomes bread. To say it does betrays Kevin’s laziness in trying to actually find out what we believe ( and all of the Church for 1500 years ).
To say Catholics worship bread or dough proves Kevin has not the foggiest idea of what the Catholic Church teaches. ( You notice he is careful to stay off the topic of Lutheranism? )
“The doctrine of Transubstantiation does not say Jesus becomes bread.”
But it does say that bread changes into Jesus by the spoken out loud words in Latin of the RC ordained priest . I think his point is that that bread is still bread, and after the priest says the words, your church teaches that that bread is now Jesus. But it is in reality still bread. Looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread. still bread.
Jim said ” Neither Catholics or Lutherans believe bread was nailed to the Cross or was raised from the dead” This is interesting when Catholics believe the sacrifice for their sins was the bread of the last supper. Incidentally, Tim kicked me off his blog because you and Bob successfully convinced him that he was being associated with my so called troll reputation. He wasn’t strong enough to withstand your attempts to tie me to him. Many of these blog apologists are concerned about their reputations, and you and Bob were successful in impugning his by associating he and I as one person. For Eric W and I it was disappointing. I was very supportive of his work and still am. K
Jim , incidentally, in a tired moment I said at CCC that Jesus became bread in Rome. At first I thought I got it backwards, but the more I thought about it, it is the exact description. K
Ken, great description!
Jim said ” I pray someday you will experience the joy in knowing Jesus waits for us, yearns for us, and callus to come and be in His presence” Hmmm! Be in His presence? He lives in me through His Spirit, how much closer do you want. He incorporated us into His body through the SPIRIT NOT the FLESH. Rome has a faulty view of the Trinity. WE are called to a SPIRITUAL relationship with God. It is a PERSON that is offered, not some derivative off that person. Christ is in the one taking the bread, not the bread. It doesn’t get any closer than that. He is close to me always, He is in my heart. Lo I will be with you always. I don’t need to stare at a little prison filled with bread to feel the presence of Jesus. Incidentally, He isn’t there in the catholic church, because its a false church. The merits of Christ are applied to us through faith alone, we don’t merit the merit of Christ. Is it a wonder that Aquinas thought his work was straw. He gave us idolatry, and said that a man is predestined to Glory in some way according to his merit, instead of just the goodness of God. Rome denies Christ in every way. They simply won’t let Him off the cross to be Lord and Savior. K
Ken,
“But it does say that bread changes into Jesus by the spoken out loud words in Latin of the RC ordained priest . I think his point is that that bread is still bread, and after the priest says the words, your church teaches that that bread is now Jesus. But it is in reality still bread. Looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread. still bread.”
YES!!! You got it right while Kevin has it totally backwards!
The only thing you err on Ken is the Latin business. The priest can speak Greek, English, Swahili.
Is this magic?
Let’s see what the earliest Church Fathers had to say.
1.Justin Martyr;
We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [being born again in Baptism], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. (First Apology 66)
Moreover, as I said before, concerning the sacrifices which you at that time offered, God speaks through Malachi [1:10-12]…It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the Gentiles, that is, of the bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it. (Dialogue with Trypho 41)
Ken, notice, the bread becomes the Eucharist by a “prayer”. Not by Abracadabra. Not by an incantation. Not by “Hocus Pocus”.
Justin was very much aware of the magical rites of Mithras.
He said, ” The wicked devils have handed on the same thing to be done in the mysteries of Mithras; for you either know or can learn that bread and a cup of water are set forthwith certain incantations when one is being initiated into the rites”.
You can read more about how the fathers spoke of a CHANGE in the bread by WORD or PRAYERS being spoken.https://www.fisheaters.com/fathersoneucharist.html
Call it magic if you want. But that only shows you confuse Mithras with Christ.
Keep insisting it is still bread if you want to, But remember, you do so strictly rationalistic grounds, not from the Bible or the Fathers.
Ken,
To be precise, the words, ” This is my Body” ( Hoc est enim Corpus Meum” ) directly affects only the bread. The words,”This is the cup of my Blood” ( hic est enim calix sánguinis mei ) directly affects the wine. But because of “concomitance”, the whole Christ, Body Blood, Soul, and Divinity is present UNDER THE APPEARANCES of bread. Same applies to what appears to be wine, the whole Christ is present. The Bible says so.
St. Paul says, “If you eat *OR* drink unworthily, you are guilty of profaning the Body *AND* the Blood of Christ”.
Again, I am going by what the Bible says. You are using rationalistic arguments that say, “if it looks like a duck…” much like the arguments that came out of 19th century Germany that say, “Jesus of Nazareth looked like any other Jewish man…”.
Kevin,
Don’t bother addressing me as I just scroll past people like you who only only want to spit on me. I enjoy debate, not mud throwing. I didn’t bother reading your stuff on CCC after you started posting under the phony ” Fred” name. At the end of the blog, only because I was trying to get Jason to shut the blog down, I quickly scrolled through all your posts from the final day, when Debbie outed you, until April 28 and counted up all the times in just one month you said Death Wafer, Hocus Pocus and other slurs aimed the Sacrament of Christ’s Love.( on May 26 at 3:20 you said Eucharistic processions were “funeral marches with graven bread” ) and sent the slurs, dates and times to Jason. Have a nice life and I hope you find a job.
Jim, those quotes don’t prove transubstantiation. The acceptable sacrifices from the heart of a believer are praise and thanksgiving. The bread is never offered to God as a sacrifice, its only offered to men. Praise and thanksgiving are offered to God. Trent anathematizes anyone who doesn’t say that the Eucharist is a true an proper sacrifice for sins. Ask your bishop god what the word sacrificium means. He’ll run and hide. K
Do you know what “anathema” means? Please, don’t give the hysterical,”burn ’em at the stake” nonsense of John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul.
The only thing you err on Ken is the Latin business. The priest can speak Greek, English, Swahili.
I guess Vatican 2 changed that, when they changed to not requiring the Latin mass. There is a large group of “Traditionalist Roman Catholics” (like Society of Pius IX or XII) who believe that Vatican 2 was wrong and violated church teaching.
That is another big contradiction to itself – Vatican 2 is a contradiction to all of Romanism since Gregory 1 of 601 AD.
I was under the impression that even in the English mass services, the priest still says the words in Latin, “this is My body” and “this is My blood”, etc. (just two sentences)
Ken,
No. But lot’s of folks still prefer to attend the Mass in Latin just because it links up with history so well.
The other stuff is in house Catholic stuff, Ken. Since you deny the Mass regardless of the language used, I will save my ammo.
Those Roman Catholics believe Pius XII was the last good and consistent Pope. ( 1958) – but others, and even smaller group, take it farther and even say that the Popes since then are false Popes and “the chair is empty” (Sedevacantism) ( like Gerry Matatics)
I know all about it. But again, it is in house and you really don’t have a dog in this fight. You reject both the pre and post Vat II Church. By explaining the issues involved I am not going to make a convert of you so I will save my energy.
In a nutshell, I used to serve Mass for a retired priest who said the Tridentine Mass in his home every day. He was loyal to the Pope but a lot of idiot fringe folks attended his Masses. I remember arguing with one woman who said the New Mass or Novus Ordo was Protestantized and denies the sacrificial nature of the Mass. My snappy comeback was, ” Really? Let’s go ask a Protestant if he likes the New Mass since it denies sacrifice. Lets see what he says”.
Ken, do you like the English Mass? Why not? Thanks. I rest my case.
1.Justin Martyr;
We call this food Eucharist [ ok, if it is just kept to the meaning of “thanksgiving for the once for all atonement and once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross} ; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true [Shows infant baptism is wrong] and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [being born again in Baptism] [Kauffman’s material refuted that], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. [he is right that one must be a believer and examine himself – 1 Cor. 11 and confess their sins and make things right with people first – Matthew 5:21-26] For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished [he is wrong, if he means the bread was somehow changed into Jesus’ flesh], is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. (First Apology 66)
[He is right in that the Eucharist / Lord’s supper, is a symbol and remembrance of His flesh and blood that became incarnate for us and was crucified/ died for our sins.
There is truth and falsehood in Justin Marty’s famous statement. As Kevin said, it is not Transubstantiation.
Whatever Justin Martyr meant, it did not mean Transubstantiation, and even IF he did, he was wrong and that is not Scriptural. We can test early church fathers by Scripture, and what he said that a person must first believe (presupposes repentance) and be baptized, then they are members of the body and take the Lord’s supper, that is true and good.
Don’t quote Justin Martyr, show me Scripture that teaches such a thing. There is none.
Ken,
Could we stick to one topic at a time? We have already strayed from purgatory. In this passage Justin doesn’t speak to the issue of infant Baptism ( although he does to baptismal regeneration ). Lets keep on with the Eucharist for a while if you don’t mind.
What is interesting is the word used by Justin and other Greek fathers; Metaballo. Due to a prayer or invocation of the Holy Ghost, the bread is “matabolized” into the Body of Christ. This is major Ken.
The matter of the Sacrament is the bread and wine and the form is the prayer, “Hoc est …”.
Transelementation was used for a while but gave way to Transubstantiation. But it means “Metaballo”.
Let me explain what the term ( henceforth shortened to T ) does not mean;
1.T does not mean Christ undergoes any change. He does not die. He does not suffer. And he does not leave the right hand of the Father and physically travel through space.
2. It is not Lutheran Consubstantiation which says Christ and bread coexist in the same place.
3. Real Presence ( originally an Anglican term designed to deny T but later adopted and adapted by Rome ) does not mean Christ is squeezed and cramped into a coin-size wafer.
4. As you rightly say, it is only the bread ( and wine ) that undergoes change and not Christ. I must hasten to say we do not sacrifice or offer bread in the Mass. Bread does not save anybody. Bread did not nor does not die to take away sins.
The bread is not annihilated and replaced by the Body of Christ. It is CHANGED. The Fathers compared this change to the one wrought by the Holy Spirit when He changed the flesh of Mary into that of Christ’s.
Ken, when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, did he actually turn a few fish into many? The Bible says he didn’t. It says 12 baskets of the same loaves and fishes were collected after the meal.
Now, I by no means say this was T. But I am asking you to consider that not the fish but the accident of presence was multiplied. The crowd all ate from the same few loaves and fishes.
What do I mean by “accident of presence’? Well, if you get up from your computer and walk to the other side of the room, you have change the non-essential accident of place but remain the same substance of Ken.
In the thousands of tabernacles around the world, Christ is not multiplied. There is only one Christ and he sits at the right hand of the Father.
When I gaze upon the Host in the hands of the priest or the monstrance, I am, in a way, looking at the right hand of the Father. The Host is a window into heaven.
It is the Mysterium Fidei. Put away your rationalist arguments about what looks like a duck must be a duck. Twice in Romans, St. Paul speaks of the “obedience of Faith”. Obedience is submission. Submit to the words of the Bible, Ken.
THIS IS MY BODY… UNLESS YOU EAT MY FLESHAND DRINK MY BLOOD…they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread…Melchizedek brought out bread and wine…Christ is a priest forever according to Mechizedek…
It’s late here. I would like to continue this with you some more tomorrow.
Kevin right about the sacrifices being praise and thankgiving. Kauffman’s series on that looks great, I just have not had time to read all of it. I have read some of that and it is excellent – the meaning of Malachi 1:11 is Hebrews 13:15-16 among all the nations.
Not interested in what Kevin has to say.
1 Corinthians 11:27 -30
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
Does NOT mean “guilty of not recognizing that that bread is the body or that that wine is the blood of Jesus.” – rather it means that one who is lying and holding onto secret unconfessed sin and unwilling to turn from their sins, their unconfessed and unrepentant sins are guilty of killing Jesus over again. (like Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31) The Lord can judge and they are drinking judgment on their souls.
Also, “judging the body rightly” means making things right with the rest of the body – confession, reconciliation, peace, with those who we have hurt, etc. It means judging the body of Christ as accountable to one another to confess and make things right in relationships.
Jim, Christ is not in the bread, but the one taking the bread. Without faith, the Spirit and the Word its just bread. The benefit is spiritual. K
Ken, the one thing Kauffman does incredibly is show how meticulously the fathers maintained their categories. Bread was never offered to God, only men, and the only thing offered was praise and thanksgiving, a broken and contrite heart. And it certainly wasn’t to merit the merit of God. Rome is more pelagian today than anytime in history. JPII says Trinity hating muslims can stay where they are do their best ad they are golden. And Protestants are buying the whole hold hands and sing kumbaya thing with Rome. That meritocracy isn’t another denomination, but another religion. In the long war on the truth, the most deceptive and relentless enemy has been Roman Catholicism. The true church has always known that and separated itself from that system, and suffered death for it. It is apostate, false Christianity, a front for the kingdom of Satan. Revelation 18:4 says : come out from her my people.” K
Could we stick to one topic at a time? We have already strayed from purgatory.
You started that by mentioning praying before the tabernacle that holds the bread, that you think is Jesus.
I mentioned in passing the tabernacle. You made a federal case out of it.
In this passage Justin doesn’t speak to the issue of infant Baptism . . .
He shows there was no infant baptism back then, because a person had to first understand, repent, and believe, then be baptized and then they can partake of the Lord’s supper/Eucharist.
Ken, The Church still says an adult must believe and repent.
And the Church, then as well as now, says a baby needs regeneration because he is conceived with Original Sin.
Staying with topic of the Eucharist, I can’t find your comment on Paul saying the Body of Christ means the Church or Christian community. So I will try to remember what I read yesterday.
Paul said to eat and drink in a sinful state was to desecrate the Eucharist. One cannot profane or desecrate a symbol like you can a reality I think that is the primary sense of the word, “Body” in this passage.
Elsewhere in 1st Corinthians Paul says to share in one loaf makes us all one body. So, in a secondary sense, you are semi-correct.
When we eat the Eucharist, Christ is not converted into us. Rather, we are transformed into the Body of Christ.
Paul also compares the Eucharist to the meals of the demon worshipers ( Mithras again? ). Sharing in the demon sacrificial meal was more than participating in the community of demon worshipers. To share in the cup of the demon, to drink his blood or whatever, was to share in the life of the demon himself.
Finally, while the Church is the Body of Christ and the Eucharist is also the Body of Christ, we do not see the Church ever referred to as the Blood of Christ. Only the Eucharist.
Due to a prayer or invocation of the Holy Ghost, the bread is “matabolized” into the Body of Christ. This is major Ken.
But nowhere in the New Testament. Nowhere.
No? How do you explain “Hoc ist enim Corpus Meum” in three Gospels?
the bread and wine are symbols of Christ’s atonement. We commune and fellowship with the Lord spiritually, when we walk with Him, examine ourselves/ our hearts, confess our sins, repent, trust Him, worship Him in prayer, etc. as we remember His once for all atoning work of redemption.
thanks for the opinion.
Vatican 2 is a massive contradiction to pre-Vatican 2 “no salvation outside of the church” tradition. Muslims and those who don’t know of Christ, and can be saved if they never hear the gospel and live by their conscience and light that they have. So much for motivation for evangelism, as if the RCC does true evangelism anyway. Big problem.
841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
847 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.
Again, this is in house and you reject both pre and post Vatican 2 so you don’t have a dog in this fight.
Ken, bingo! in your comments! K
Ken,
I just found your post about 1 Corinthians 11 I had been looking for. I was above the Falloni spam so I accidentally scrolled past it. I think I answered it in my earlier post.
Yes, a Catholic needs to Confess all mortal sins before going to Communion or he commits a sacrilege. ( Crucifying Jesus again? So much for OSAS, eh Ken? )
A true believer wants to be baptized, be a member of a local church, take the Lord’s supper and confess his/her sins and fellowship with the Lord in prayer and worship, and remember the death of Christ for our sins. 1 John 1:5-10, 2:1-2 – a true believer will be confessing and seeking to make things right. But God has mercy and we are in process of sanctification. The Lord does not seem to zap people like He did Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5 or the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 11 (as a result, some of you are weak, sick, and some have “fallen asleep” (died). It is up to God to show mercy as we are all in the process of sanctification. The preacher should warn people that the warning is serious – “whoever eats or drinks in an unworthy manner is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord”, etc.
Christ is with us through the Holy Spirit; and at the Lord’s supper there is a deeper spiritual communion and fellowship of that spiritual relationship.
Ken,
We are discussing Baptism over on C2C right now. Join us.
Ken,
Do you believe all the OT shadows, types and figures are fulfilled in the New Testament in a more dynamic way?
How is the manna fulfilled in your tradition? The manna was saved in a golden urn and carried about in the Ark and kept in the tabernacle ( yes, tabernacle! ) It was miraculous, conforming to the taste of every man. Do you venerate your Communion bread in anyway?
Protestant Communion is not miraculous, is it? It is just a symbol, right? It is not a more complete fulfillment of the OT “shadow of better things to come”. Manna was greater, no?
How about the Shew Bread? How is it fulfilled in the New Testament?
Or the Passover Bread eaten 8 days after the Lamb? How do you “keep the feast” Paul speaks of?
How is the high priest Melkizedek fulfilled in your tradition? Even Mormons know Melkizedek was a priest and elders are supposed to be priests ( they just don’t realize a priest offers sacrifice. He doesn’t serve a meal of bread and wine. )
When you, a Baptist minister, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, are you a priest according to the Order of Melkizedek? Or do just serve a memorial meal of bread and wine ( or juice )?
Ken,
When you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, is Christ present in anyway other than in the minds of the people assembled?
When does he become present? At your words ( magic? ) or at the moment an individual partakes of the ceremonial bread or wafer ( magic again? ) How does Jesus become present if He never actually leaves heaven? ( Maybe this line of questioning is more for Lutherans and Anglicans than Baptists).
Or is Christ only “spiritually” present? Isn’t Jesus present everywhere? Or wherever 2 or 3 are gathered? Why did He institute the Sacrament or ordinance if He is already present spiritually just by closing our eyes and thinking of him?
Is the Supper a memorial of the Passion? How so? Shouldn’t Jesus have picked up a piece of lamb meat rather than unleavened bread to symbolize his flesh?
I know you don’t have crucifixes, but isn’t a crucifix a better image of the crucifixion than a piece of bread and a cup of wine? Or even a picture of the crucifixion is a better image or reminder than a piece of bread.
Ken, one of your people, Janislov Pelikan, said that once a person concedes Christ to be really and objectively present in the Supper other than just as a spirit, they have a hard time denying sacrifice.
Ken,
So, why the Incarnation? Why was Jesus born of a woman, under the Law…,? Why did God take on our nature? What did the Fathers say? Before Anselm wrote Cur Deus Homo”.
Give up? God became man to make man god, to divinize us, to draw us into communion with Him and His other members.
But couldn’t that have been accomplished in the womb of Mary, when the divine and human natures were reconciled in the Person of Jesus Christ? The Greek Father almost say as much.
I asked you for an explanation of why Jesus picked up a piece of matzoth rather than lamb meat to represent his own flesh as the Passover lamb. Have you come up with an answer?
How about explaining why Jesus used sacrificial language at the Supper, ( “Do”, Covenant in My Blood, Poured out for remission of sins, As a “anamneseus”,?) Why the separate Consecration of bread first followed by that of the wine? Why was the bread converted into His Body before the wine was changed into His Blood?
Why did Jesus institute the Lord’s Supper? Why did He use the language of sacrifice? If not here, at the Supper, holding bread and wine in His sacred hands, where and when did Jesus act as a priest according to Melchizedek? On the cross? My Bible doesn’t show any bread and wine ( other than the sour vinegar ) at the crucifixion.
When, where and why did Jesus act as a priest according to the order of the bread and wine priest named Melchizedek while on earth? ( We will talk about Hebrews and the heavenly sanctuary later today ).
Ken,
What is Jesus’ present condition? He is in glory and never to suffer again, right? We can agree on that point.
But He is also a victim. An eternal victim. The holes in His side, hands and feet remain. Rather than causing Him pain, they radiate like jewels.
Jesus is now and forever “the Lamb standing as slain”.
“Every High Priest must have something to offer”. Jesus is both the High Priest of the book of Hebrews and the Lamb of the Apocalypse.
When the priest utters the prayer of Consecration, ( Hoc est enim Corpus Meum ) the bread is changed into the Body of Jesus that exists now in heaven. The great High Priest and eternal Victim stand before us with the same dispositions He had at death. Death locks us into a frame of mind that can never be changed. That is why there is no repentance after we die.
The Catholic priest then says, ” Hic est enim calix sánguinis mei” ( usually in the vernacular ). The image before us is that of blood separated from the body. This represents death.
Of course, Jesus does not die. I told you that yesterday or the day before. He can no longer die now that He has entered into glory. Only silly people like Kevin Falloni accuse Catholics of killing Christ again in every Mass. Ha! That is absurd.
So, we have the Real Presence of a Victim. A symbolic death. And therefore, a true sacrifice.
The Last Supper and Calvary formed one sacrifice. Calvary alone would not have been a sacrifice but only an execution. An immolation without an oblation does not make a sacrifice.
St. Paul speaks of our sharing in the “cup of blessing”. The cup of blessing was the 3rd cups drunk at Passover.
After Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the Gospel, says they sang a song ( the great Hallel Psalms ) and “went out”.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 4th AND FINAL CUP? ( Jesus said he would not drink of the fruit of the vine until He came into His kingdom.)
Lifted up onto the throne of His cross, wearing His crown of thorns, with the mocking “King of the Jews” sign over His sacred head, the Holy Bible says,
“A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
What was finished Ken? Jesus still had to “be raised again for our justification”. What was finished? The Sacrifice that started the night before at the Supper. The sacrifice that He told His Apostles to “Do this ( what is the “THIS”, Ken? ) in memory ( anamneusis or “memorial sacrifice ) of Me.
I thank God for making me a Catholic and calling me to participate in His sacrifice every day!
Amen.
Jim, Hebrews says “its appointed every man once to die” in the same way as ” having been offered once to bear the sins of many” Same word, men die once, it isn’t repeated, and Christ died once in time ” at the consumation of the ages” Get it! Hebrews says He put sin away. K
Jim,
I am just wondering why you post so much – I mean, you already hashed all these issues out with Kevin and Tim Kauffman at Kauffman’s blog and over at Jason Stellman’s and also at Green Bagins for a while. Why the persistent repetition? When I look at all the comment boxes of those 3 blogs; I can only read a little and then I have other work/job/life/family to attend to. I don’t see how you devote this much time to com boxes.
Ken,
That is exactly why I scroll past Kevin. I have indeed hashed these issues over with him ad nauseam but to no avail.
I too muti-task. After posting this morning, I went swimming and walking on the beach to collect my thoughts. I am trying to explain to you about the most sublime thing in the world, The Eucharist. And because Christ died for you, that makes you worth the effort to bring you into full communion with the Church.
Like I said, my wife is in America tending to her now deceased mother’s affairs. I am home alone ( with the cat ) and bored to tears. So, bask in the catechesis I am lavishing on you!
Christ died for Kevin too. Actually, Christ died for all men and wants all men to come to the Church.
And because Christ died for you, that makes you worth the effort to bring you into full communion with the Church.
Of course I already am a believer in Christ and know that He died for me and my sins are forgiven.
I am already in full communion with a Biblical local church. (Baptist, Calvinistic) Go and read my analysis of my friend, Rod Bennett’s book and my study of the bible, church history, and historical theology. (look under Rod Bennett at Beggar’s All. Start with my Amazon review of his book.) I need to find time to write more on that, and put it all up here at apologetics and agape. I hope to be able to organize all that better.
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search/label/Rod%20Bennett
“Do this ( what is the “THIS”, Ken? ) in memory ( anamneusis or “memorial sacrifice ) of Me.
Meaning, take bread and wine as symbols of My death / atonement / sacrifice for sins, and eat the bread and drink the wine as remembering the once for all sacrifice – the one time historical event of atonement / redemption of God’s people from all nations. “as often as you eat it, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
1 Corinthians 11:26
Ken,
Please don’t pull a Phalloni Baloney and say I don’t know the Atonement was a one time event. I just don’t believe its application is a one time event ( AND NEITHER DO YOU ).
Obviously, at the last supper, the bread and wine were symbols, because Jesus was in His incarnational body at the supper with the disciples. When He lifted them up and thanked the Father and said, “this is My body, given for you”, He meant, “this bread represents My body” and “this cup represents My blood of the New Covenant shed for you.” etc.
Cannot have two incarnations.
Of course not! I already told you Transubstantiation no more multiplies the Body of Christ than Christ turned five loaves into 5000. The Eucharist is, as are all the Sacraments, an extension of that one Incarnation. Like I already said yesterday, the Fathers compared the change of the bread and wine to the change in Mary’s flesh, that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, gave us Christ.
None of that makes any logical or Biblical sense.
Luther was right on this, “unless I am convinced by Scripture and evident reason . . . I will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”
Ken,
Speaking of over posting, notice I am not commenting on your papacy article. I seem to recall I pretty much casting a ton o’ pearls down before Steve Hayes, John Bugay and yourself over on Tribalogue and Beggars All also to little or no avail. I don’t intend to repeat myself. I am not THAT bored.
See also the comments (in the comment box at the You Tube video) I have made to Rod Bennett’s speech here. I hope to be able to organize that also as a thoughtful response to him. Believe me, I already got a full “catechesis” from Rod Bennett from 1996 to 2004, and then after that from Dave Armstrong and others such as a Roman Catholic named Randy, and also listening to Mitchell Pacwa, Robert Sungensis, Gerry Matatics, Tim Staples, Jimmy Akin, etc. all these years and their debates with James White, Eric Svenson, Turretinfan, William Webster. I have already been taught by Roman Catholics as to what they believe and your church teaches. I have listened, read, and debated, and I am not convinced at all – Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Tyndale, etc. were correct.
I also read Karl Keating’s book, “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” and “Surprised by Truth” (volume 1) in 1996 when my friend Rod Bennett he was converting to Rome. A lot of J. H. Newman and Scott Hahn’s argumentation was thrown at me.
WOW! Great talk. I had never even heard of this Rod Bennett guy before. What is not to like about this talk?
read my responses there in the comment boxes.
Also, I interacted with the Called to Communion blogs on Sola Scriptura and the Canon issue in 2009 and 2010, and off and on other subjects recently. But Bryan Cross is too philosophical to even understand. It was like trying to drink at a fire hydrant. ( or under Niagra Falls)
Bryan is discussing another topic at the moment. It is just hayseeds like myself arguing about Baptism. Come on over and help your Protestant buddies out.
If you think Jesus at the Last supper is doing Transubstantiation, then your claim is that Jesus is doing 2 incarnations and now your church, since then, claims to have done 100 billion in history, and that is blasphemous.
Ken,
Have you been reading what I have been posting? I realize this stuff takes some effort, but please try to understand what I am saying.
The Eucharistic Body of Christ is not another Christ. It is the same Christ that sits at the right hand of the Father.
Let me paint a little picture;
If, for some strange reason, the 11 Apostles said Mass while Jesus was in the tomb on Holy Saturday, they would have changed bread into dead flesh. Why? Because Jesus’ Body and Blood were both separated from each other and His soul at that time. Of course, the flesh would have still been united to the 2nd Person of the Trinity but Jesus’ soul was in the Limbo of the Fathers preaching on Holy Saturday.
The bread and wine change into the Christ that IS at the moment the words are spoken. At the Last Supper, Jesus changed the bread into the same flesh that sat before the 12 men. He did not multiply Himself, He multiplied His presence. ( I explained how that can happen yesterday ).
Ken, yesterday you correctly stated that in Transubstantiation, only the bread undergoes conversion, NOT THE BODY OF CHRIST. Now today you are saying Christ is multiplied or cloned.
Christ has one physical Body and only one. It is glorified and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Period, As I told you yesterday ( and Kevin 50 times ), Christ suffers no change, never leaves His Father, nor is multiplied. I gave you the xample of the loaves and fishes.
The bread and wine and only the bread and wine change. Just as Jesus said, the bread is his Body and the wine his Blood. I explained how the soul and divinity are also present but it probably went past you.
All you have to do is, humble yourself and have some Faith. Faith= OBEDIENCE/SUBJECTION of your proud mind and self will to the words of scripture.
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM
Ken,
If you want to talk Baptismal regeneration, do it here
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/03/have-you-been-born-again-catholic-reflections-on-a-protestant-doctrine-or-how-calvins-view-of-salvation-destroyed-his-doctrine-of-the-church/#comment-176393
Jim said ” the Eucharistic body of Christ is not another Christ” Au contraries The Roman Eucharist is an idol. It isn’t Christ. It’s your golden calf. We worship Christ who is in heaven from the altar of our heart in Spirit and in truth. We reject the brand of incarnationalism of Rome, just as the early fathers rejected this type as idolatry. Rome can’t replace the finished work of Christ by substituting itself for Christ’s natural body and being the agency of salvation. The church isn’t the provider of grace, but the recipient. The Spirit brings fiducia to the heart, not the church. We reject Roman Catholicism and its meritocracy and idolatry. K
The Eucharistic Body of Christ is not another Christ.
It has to be if you are saying Jesus made the bread and wine into his flesh and blood at the Last Supper. There are two different Jesus’ there, according to your doctrine.
It is the same Christ that sits at the right hand of the Father.
No; cannot be there and also billions of places in history re-iincarnated all over the world at the words of RC priests. Impossible.
Ken,
Yesterday ( my time ) you said it would be “blasphemous” to duplicate over and over the Incarnation. Don’t you mean it would be “heretical”? Blasphemy is defiling, deriding or profaning that which is holy. Like guzzling beer out of a chalice stolen from a church like the Babylonians of Daniel’s time did with the golden plates pilfered from the temple. Saying Jesus cast out devils by a demonic power was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.. The High Priest rent his garment when Jesus said, ” I AM “. The rationalistic and Hellenized Jews considered the idea of the divine clothing Himself or Itself in lowly flesh to be blasphemy. Falloni’s mocking slurs are blasphemous. Profaning the holy is blasphemous.
Not every error or heresy is blasphemy. Overusing the term trivializes real blasphemies. But whether heretical or blasphemous, you need not worry because, as I keep telling you, we don’t teach the error that you accuse us of.
Too bad you have a kneejerk opposition to the language of substance and accident.
Ken, don’t be a rationalist. Have some Faith. And quit putting words in my mouth right after I tell you we do not concoct another Jesus in each Mass. You say I must be multiplying Jesus because you won’t take a little time and try to understand how the SAME Jesus is present in various places. “Place” is an accident. Like color, size, extension, etc.
Augustine said that at the Supper,”Christ held Himself in His own hands.”
What a coincidence that we are discussing this today, the feast of Corpus Christie or as the Portuguese say, ” Corpo Deus”. Lisbon celebrates the feast with the oldest procession in the world. Bishops. priests, bands, sodalities, even the cavalry riding white Lusitanian stallions with bugles blasting through cobblestone streets with the people throwing rose petals and singing and praying and bending their knee as Our Lord in the Eucharist passes by.
Please Ken, no more ” if it looks like a duck” arguments. The duck argument also says Jesus was just a man. If the Jews and Romans had put Our Lord under a microscope, they would not have seen His divinity. Duck Arguments are for atheists and unbelievers. They are on their way to hell. The Jews who walked away from the hard saying of Jesus in Jn 6 did so based on the duck argument. That is the first inking in the Gospel we see of Judas losing his faith. Submit your intellect to what God has revealed. Bend the knee of your mind to what Jesus said in the Bible.
” . . . as Our Lord in the Eucharist passes by.”
that is just so ridiculous. An empty external form of religion.
Roman Catholicism, like liberal Protestantism in Europe (and in USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) is dead and there is no reality behind the empty rituals. churches are dying, homosexuality and trans-genderism and abortions, pornography, Darwinism, materialism have taken over the worldview; and Islam is growing.
sad.
Ken,
Before heading out for my day, a quick word of warning. You have a tiger by the tail.
My eye caught Kevin’s one word post to you “bingo!” the other day. He was sucking up to you. Over on Kauffman’s blog, Ken all but shined the man’s shoes. This is because the unctuous Kevin, like any parasite, needs to feed off your blog. But no matter how much of a sycophant he was, Kauffman had to eventually cut him lose. He had to as Kevin had taken over and chased everybody off.
Right now Kevin is on his best behavior. But he will ratchet up and should you try to tone him down, he will accuse you of selling out the Reformation. I have seen him turn on other Protestants who wouldn’t get on board with his brand of gospel preaching.
I think you know CCC is no more. Last week Jason Stellman pulled the plug on it. It was the only way to keep Kevin out. Just banning Falloni was fruitless as Kevin kept changing his identity and crashing in with his rants and slurs. He was bringing out the worst in the other bloggers who got sick of him and only wanted to retaliate in uncharitable ways. Catholics had even started to turn on other Catholics due to Kevin’s presence. The blog got sick and had to be put down.
Ken, I would like you to become Catholic. I assume you return the compliment and want me to come over to your camp. Since we both love our respective positions, it is only natural we would want to share what we love with others.
Do you honestly think Falloni wants me to become a Protestant? Do you think that is what motivates his offensive language? Doesn’t any fool know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar?
Kevin has actually been instrumental in increasing my devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so I guess God does indeed bring good out of evil.
The last thing Kevin wants is to make a believer out of me. He needs me to stay Catholic so he can spit on me. He is like those American Nazi Party geeks who used to march through Jewish neighborhoods back in the 60s and 70s. Or the Klan marching through black neighborhoods and shouting the N word. Over in Northern Ireland they have the Orange Order who march through Catholic neighborhoods this time of year only to insult the economically downtrodden Catholic minority. Click on utube and see them strutting their stuff only to give offense. They are not interested in soothing strained Catholic/Protestant relations.
Ken, be careful of welcoming Mr. Falloni on your blog. He is not a Catholic nor a sincere Protestant. There is nothing of Christ in his little slurs and offensive jabs.
At the moment, the parasite is without a home. He is looking for a blog to bore into and infect with his pus. He may slobber all over you with praise and hi five you with his “Bingoes” for now but just wait and see.
Consider yourself warned.
Tim Kauffman banned Kevin from his whitehorse blog? Kevin, what about that? Is that true?
Ken,
When you believe in something, and love it, you want to shout it from the housetops.
When you define yourself instead by what you hate rather than what you love, it shows.
Does KF love Protestantism? Or does he just hate Catholicism? It should be obvious by what he posts.
Jim said ” Do you think Kevin actually wants me to become a Protestant” Jim, I pray you would hear the gospel of the bible and believe it. But that would mean rejecting a works righteousness salvation and trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, not sacraments opere operato. K
Jim, Spurgeon sai we should hate RC doctrine with all that is in us, and pray God would throw it to the bottom of the sea. We should pray against it daily. Because it puts sacramental efficacy up in the place of our atonement, a piece of bread up in the place of Christ, and a mere sinner like ourselves up as the head of the church. These popes die, and how could the church live if its head were dead. But Christ is the head of the church, and the church always lives in Him, Christ didn’t come from heaven and pour out his life, to have the pope come in and steal the glory. Spurgeon also said we are to love its people and not touch a hair on their bishop gods heads. But winsomely encourage the elect to come out of her. K
Augustine said that at the Supper,”Christ held Himself in His own hands.”
Please back that up with a specific reference so we can find it. Either at
http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html
or
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
If Augustine really said that, well, Augustine was wrong.
Jason Stellman shut down Creed, Code, Cult completely ?
Completely. It was either to moderation which he has no time for. Kevin had been banned an rebanned, all to no avail as he would just change his identity and come back on. His unique style of writing,
“Hey Catholics, does the dough worshiping synagogue still burn Protestants at the stake ex opera operato for not buying indulgences to get out of a non existent purgatory so the pope in his pointy hat can hide pedophile priests and give them merit from the sinful Mary while killing Jesus on your romish altars …”
Always betrayed him.
Jason decreed that no one was to respond to Kevin’s trolling but to ignore him and scroll past his rantings. It worked to a point until Debbie, a former friend of his and target of Kevin’s abuse had had enough and outed Ken for some stuff in his personal life. ( Actually, she didn’t out him because everybody suspected Kevin of what she accused him of ). Things went south and Jason finally threw his hands up and pulled the plug.
OUTED KEVIN. My Computer seems to skip over some letters when posting.
Ken, ya, he shut it down. It had degenerated greatly. I actually think when Jonathan, Jim, Debbie, DeMaria, Mateo started viciously attacking Protestants, when asked not to, it frustrated Jason, and he shut it down. K
When Augustine said Christ held himself in his hands, he wasn’t referring to transubstantiation, but to the cross he was about to face. For his body was about to be broken and his blood spilled. K
Can you give specific reference to that?
Ken, I mispoke. It is clear from Augustine in tractates the book of John that Augustine said the church has been deprived of body of Christ until He returns. Augustine also has the quote that we are to understand spiritually what has been said, and we are not to eat this body which you see, or the blood that has been spilled out at his crucifixion. The totality of Augustine’s position, according to Schaff, isn’t support fro real presence, on the contrary. When Augustine spoke of the mystery in his quote about Christ holding himself in his hands isn’t consistent with a real presence interpretation, imho. K
still waiting for a more specific reference.
Ken,
WOW! What a day I have had. I am beat ( ever walk for hours on cobblestone? ) But I thought about our discussions while participating in the procession.
We were talking about tabernacles a few days ago. Did you know that at one time they used to make them to look like doves/ the Holy Spirit and suspended them from the ceiling? There were called peristeriums. I saw one in a church in Holland once.
Here in Portugal they sometimes make the front of the tabernacle look like a pelican. That is because people once thought pelicans fed their young with their own blood. When baby pelicans put their beaks into the beak sack of the parent, it appears they are sucking blood out of her breast.
Anyway, back to the Holy Ghost. Why is it important to receive Jesus” Body and Blood rather than just mentally? Because the Holy Ghost proceeds from the 2nd Person of the Trinity hypostatically untied to the human nature of Jesus Christ. IOW, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the human heart of Jesus. And whenever God acts outside the Trinity, all three Persons act so when we receive the Eucharist, all three Persons of the Trinity come to indwell us and sanctify us ( although we usually attribute the work of sanctification to the Holy Spirit ).
It takes about 15 minutes before the Communion Host is dissolved in our bellies. So for 15 minutes the very font and source of holiness is united to us.
If you took the time to check out the discussion over on C2C, you would have seen the Spirit is given to us in various ways. He is given to us as our gift and guest in Baptism. He is given to us in the laying on off hands in the Sacrament of Confirmation. He is given to us in various ways at various times. But Holy Communion is especially sublime.
Ken,
One more thing I want to be clear on;
I believe in the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Not only do I genuflect before it, I kneel on both knees and put my head to the floor when the Host is exposed outside the tabernacle. Some people like to prostrate themselves in cruciform position. Like I said, I believe in the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and center my life around it.
That does not mean I hate the Protestant Lord’s Supper. I do not believe it to be a blasphemous parody of the Mass. While you and I would agree your Lord’s Supper is merely a symbol of the Body of Christ ( we believe the death to be symbolic but the Bodily Presence real in our Mass ) I believe I am on safe ground as a Catholic when I say the Lord is pleased by the efforts of Protestants to be obedient and worship him according to the light given them.
Of course, Christ wants all men to be saved ( don’t you Calvinists wish you could say that with the assurance I do? ) and to enter His Church and receive Holy Communion as Catholics. But God is a reader of hearts. Your Communion does not contain and transmit grace like mine does, but your services can be occasions of grace when the Holy Spirits pours grace into you guys. I came to this conclusion when I spied in on a Lutheran service once and was humbled to see the folks kneel to receive what I honestly believe to be just bread with more devotion than I have often received the Real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
You are a Protestant minister. You are not a Catholic priest. You cannot confect the Eucharist. Does that mean I loath you? Not at all. While you are no more of a priest than I am but only a layman like myself, I have no doubt that Protestant ministers are sincere men who wish to serve God with their lives. I have known and argued with too many ministers to doubt that. And neither I nor the Catholic Church believes or has ever believed all Protestants go to hell.
It would be a sin for a Catholic to mock your Lord’s Supper or barge in during a service and disrupt it. While I would never participate in it, I hope I would never disrespect it or the people who do.
Jesus Christ founded one Church. He established 7 Sacraments to convey grace to the members of His Body. Nobody is saved outside the Catholic Church. That is an article of Faith.
But that does not mean non Catholics necessarily go to hell any more than it means all Catholics go to heaven. There are many non-Catholics attached to the soul of the Church without knowing it or even possibly denying it.
In closing, all I ask is to be treated with the same respect I hope to give you, to be believed when I say I do not worship bread and not to be accused of believing things I specifically say I do not believe.
Ken,
Here is an imaginary conversation.
Jim; Ken, do you believe in the Easter Bunny.
Ken: No, Jim I don’t.
Jim; You do too. You just don’t realize it.
Ken; Jim, please. I am not crazy. I am not lying. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.
Jim; You are wrong Ken. You do indeed believe in the Easter Bunny.
Ken; Why would you say that? I just said I do not believe in the Easter Bunny.
Jim; Well, you celebrate Easter don’t you? During Easter time, all the shops display bunnies, colored eggs and chocolates. You go to church on Easter and make a big deal out of that holiday. You therefore believe in the Easter Bunny.
Ken; I celebrate Easter to commemorate the Resurrection of Christ. The bunny, eggs and candy are just for kids. They may harken back to pre Christian times but are harmless fluff. The ancients celebrated the rite of spring and Easter happens in spring. The both point to new life so the Christians baptized the bunny but I assure you, he is not real. Jesus is real. Any more questions, Jim?
Jim; So, tell me again, why do you believe in the Easter Bunny?
KEN, CATHOLICS DO NOT WORSHIP BREAD. We worship Christ under the appearances of bread. That should be enough, I shouldn’t have to keep denying the bread silliness.
Show me one Protestant such as James White who ever makes that ridiculous charge. It is used by Kevin only to hook Catholics into paying attention to his trolling.
Ken,
No doubt you find the idea of processing through the street with the Eucharist to be very strange. I shudder to think of what kevin has to say.
I think I had better do some ‘splain’.
The Host or wafer held in the golden cross shaped object was confected in the context of a Mass. It will be consumed either in the context of a Mass or in a sick call. The adoration and/or procession of the Host is merely an extension of Mass and a logical development of the doctrine of the Transubstantiation and/or the Real Presence.
Think of it; if Christ is indeed present, Body, Blood, sould and divinity during Mass, it is only natural to adore Him before receiving Him in the Sacrament. It is natural to even extend that adoration for some hours before consuming the Host. Processions are not the primary purpose of the Eucharist.
By Baptism we are brought into union with Christ and the other members of his Body. We are incorporated in the covenant people, and become members of a royal priesthood. Baptism does other things like wash away sins and gifting us with the Holy Spirit but the primary thing it does is initiate us into the Church, the Body of Christ. ( I hope you checked out the discussion on Baptism on C2C )
That initial incorporation is increased by the Eucharist. We get Baptized and born into the covenant only once but we need to ratify and grow in covenant membership throughout our lives just as a couple who gets married only once still need to celebrate and renew their vows daily to grow in that marriage.
On Mt. Sinai God made a covenant with Moses and the people. The covenant was sealed with a blood sacrifice and then made solid with a sacrificial meal.
At the Last Supper, the night before he died, Christ anticipated his sacrificial death on the cross by taking bread and wine and consecrating them separately as a *sign and symbol* of His death to come. Blood separated from Body is a sign of death. He told the Apostles to do likewise as a memorial sacrifice and to pass on the same action to others. He gave His own sacrifice of Himself to His Church, the followers incorporated into His Body, so it would be their sacrifice too.
While Christ died but once and celebrated the Last Supper once, he gave us the Mass to apply his once for all sacrifice down through the ages.
He took bread and wine, the products of may grains of wheat and many grapes, the fruit of the vine and earth and the work of human hands to represent us, the people he had taken his human nature from. He had become one of us in order to offer sacrifice as one of us and render a perfect worship to the Father as one of us.
At Mass, we, the covenant people, the members of the Body, align our dispositions with those of Christ, our head. We participate as a priestly people in Christ’s act of sacrificial worship to the father.
Then we partake of the victim in a sacrificial meal in Holy Communion. By sharing in the one loaf and participating in the very Body of Christ we grow closer with each other and are given the graces we need to live out our covenant membership.
I hope this makes the idea of processing with the Eucharist seem not so strange to you Ken.
What is the rationale for denying the cup of the wine (the blood of Christ) to lay people in the RC mass? (for centuries, some areas, off and on, etc.)
seems very contradictory to Mark 14, Matthew 26, Luke 22, and 1 Cor. 11.
Ken,
There were periods in history when the laity were required to receive under both forms.
Certain heretics refused so the cup but secretly infiltrated the Church. To keep them from receiving unworthily all were required to drink from the cup.
A lot of the prayers of the Mass are non essentials, added over the centuries for different reasons ( like the raising of the Host ).
When I was a kid and the Mass was in Latin, every liturgy ended with the prologue of St.John’s Gospel. At the words, “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us”, we all went down on one knee. This had been added to keep the Gnostics who denied the Incarnation from sneaking into Mass. They would have exposed themselves by refusing to genuflect. That was dropped in the 1960s.
Later that changed. When a sect in what is now the Czech Republic made a big issue out of it, the Church went the other way just to stress an important point of doctrine found in 1 Cor 11 which says if you receive the cup, you get all of Christ. If you eat the Host, you get all of Christ.
Today, Ciliac people just drink from the Chalice and receive the whole Christ.
How so?
A few days ago I mentioned that we Christ as He is at the moment of the Consecration. I told about what would have happened if the 11 Apostles had attempted to say Mass on Holy Saturday while Christ was dead, Body and Blood separated from soul.
Jesus said, “This is my Body”. Period. Then, “This is the cup of My Blood”. Period.
The words immediately affected only His Body and His Blood. Same thing when the priest says the words at Mass over the bread and wine.
However, when we receive, let’s say, the Chalice only, we don’t just drink Christ’s Blood. Why? Because by what is called “concomittance” or the fact that at this moment, in heaven, Christ’s glorified Body, Blood and His soul are all together united with the Word.
I am beat ( ever walk for hours on cobblestone? )
Yes, I lived in Istanbul, Turkey for 3 years (1993-1995) and walked on some cobblestone streets that may go all the back to Roman times – there are still the old walls of Constantine, the underground cistern build by Constantine, walls and structues built by Theodosius(380-392 AD), Valens Aqueduct (368 AD), etc. and Hagia Irene (built before 381 AD), where the 2nd Ecumenical council of constantinople was held. Also, the famous Hagia Sophia, built by Justinian around 537-565 AD. Some of those old streets are difficult to walk on because the mortar between the bricks has worn away – I twisted my ankles several times. they are not flat either, up an down hills; very difficult to walk on; very old. Others are medieval and others are from the Ottoman Era.
KEN, CATHOLICS DO NOT WORSHIP BREAD.
If nothing happens to the bread ontologically, then you are unknowingly worshiping bread. Since we don’t beleive any change happens to the bread, that is what in reality you are doing, even though you believe it has been changed into Christ.
We worship Christ under the appearances of bread. That should be enough, I shouldn’t have to keep denying the bread silliness.
That is your sincere belief; fine. But it is not reality and does not make sense with the texts and passages of Scripture. No where in Scripture does it indicate this. Jesus lifted up the flat bread and cup of wine at the last supper as symbols of His soon to be death / atonement / redemption at the cross.
Ken,
“Unknowiingly worshiping”? How may stripes do people get for sinning unknowingly? I am not too worried. I would be more worried to ignore His mandate.
I could turn it around and say you unknowingly deny the Sacrament Christ instituted at the Last Supper. Does that concern you, Ken?
Whether Jesus elevated the Matzoth or not is irrelevant. What is important is that He consecrated the Bread first and then and only then the chalice. Why?
To “show” death. Blood separated from Body spells blood shed. Remember, Jesus echoed the words of Moses when He established the New Testament/Covenant.
When Jesus consecrated the bread and wine separately, He put Himself into a victim state. He was both victim and priest.
Had He not done so, He could not have been crucified or even arrested. Please recall that on more than one occasion the Jews had tried to take him prisoner or even force him over a cliff. Jesus always slipped through their midst unscathed.
Jesus chose His hour. Not Pilate or the Jews.
In the Garden, His “heart melted like wax” ( Psalm 22 ). Why?
When Pilate heard Jesus had died after 3 hours, he “marveled”. Why?
Because crucifixion took days ( St. Timotheus and his wife Maura lived for nine days crucified, all the while encouraging one another ).
Please scroll back up and read what I said about the 4th cup. The Last Supper and Calvary were two essential parts of the one sacrifice.
I appreciate what you said about Protestant services and practice of the Lord’s supper. We (especially Baptists, Presbyterians, independent Evangelicals) follow the texts of Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Cor. 11 more closely and examine ourselves and confess our sins and pray first, then partake, remembering His once for all death for sins.
Ken,
Same for us. Every Mass begins with a prayer for forgiveness of venial sins. All mortal sins must be addressed in the Confessional before receiving Holy Communion and participating in His once for all death for sins.
Ken,
“If nothing happens to the bread ontologically, then you are unknowingly worshiping bread.”
Lutherans are very specific about nothing happening to the bread of the Eucharist that they worship.
If you accuse Catholics of worshiping bread, you must really be down on Lutherans, eh?
But you say no such thing about Lutherans or Anglicans, do you?
And neither do we. Lutherans worship God and only God despite their errors on the Real Presence.
As a Catholic, I am bound to say Missouri Synod Lutherans kneel at a Communion rail to receive what is just a piece of bread.
I would not be so uncharitable nor so mistaken as to say they therefore unknowingly worship bread. In their hearts they sincerely intend to render worship to God and God judges hearts and motives.
That being said, Lutherans should get into the Catholic Church and receive Christ in the way He intended.
I bow down and kneel at times of worship and prayer, privately, but before an open Bible sometimes. that does not mean I am worshiping the Bible, I just have it open to read as I pray and use Scripture in prayer.
kneeling and bowing is just an act of worship and humility. God is omni-present. We can bow down and kneel anywhere and pray and worship.
The Lutheran view is indeed strange and hard to get a handle on – “con-substantiation” means that Christ comes alongside of the bread and wine in a special way. con = with. They do not teach the bread changes into the body of Jesus.
Luther just could not let go of that aspect that was entrenched from centuries before; as also in baptismal regeneration. He was very harsh against Zwingli on that point. (Eucharist) Calvin proposed something in between Luther and Zwingli, which seems good as far as I can understand it.
Ken,
Let me be very clear. I do indeed worship when I get down on all fours before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. I do not merely pay respect. I am adoring. And even then, my puny adoration is hardly worthy of so great a Sacrament.
Your friend Kauffman tried saying once that the words of the Church Fathers about being careful not to lose a crumb of the Eucharist was merely like saluting the flag.
Coincidentally, I had just come from the funeral of a former U.S. ambassador to Portugal.
The Marine guard from the embassy saluted the flagged coffin and folded the Stars and Stripes into a triangle with great respect before presenting it to the man’s family.
But when the priest raised the Host, everybody was on their knees in adoration, not respect.
Ken,
By the way, I can’t find your answer to my question about when Christ acted as a priest according to the Order of Melkizedek if not at the Supper when he took bread and wine into His hands.
I don’t have time to answer every single issue. I am just responding as I have time to things I think I can answer off the top of my head.
Jesus Christ founded one Church.
True, but in many different places, in local assemblies, churches, in many different nations now. The one body of Christ is made up of all the true believers all over the world throughout history.
As Christianity grew, it spread. the NT lays down principles for true church government and a plurality of elders. (Acts 2:38-46; 14:21-23; 13:1-4; 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5-7; 1 Timothy chapter 3; 1 Peter 5:1-6)
Unfortunately, with Ignatius, we see the exalting of one of the presbuters over the other presbuters and calling him “bishop” (mono-episcopate), when originally all presbyters are shepherds/pastors and overseers / (translation of episcopos, translated bishop in older translations).
But even though a local mono-episcopate took hold as custom and tradition, originally, all presbuters were also overseers/bishops and also shepherds/pastors. But then later, when one bishop in one area (Stephen in Rome around 255-258 AD) claimed he was “bishop of bishops” or had jurisdictional authority as the bishop over all other bishops, well, Cyprian and Firmillian and 85 other bishops were right to object and rebuke Stephen of Rome. That is the clearest proof that the RC view is wrong, and the Papacy is wrong.
He established 7 Sacraments to convey grace to the members of His Body.
I can see 2 ordinances/ you call them “sacraments” – baptism and the Lord’s supper, in Scripture. Marriage is a creation ordinance (Genesis 1-2) and should monogamy of one man and one woman should be honored in all cultures. Jesus honored the wedding ceremony (John 2), so that is important to give testimony and vows before other witnesses. Repentance is biblical, but penance is not. That is a command by Christ, but not an ordinance like baptism and the Lord’s supper. Confirmation is not really spelled out in Scripture, and holy orders, or ordaining ministers is just that, when a local church ordains someone to the ministry, it is a special setting apart for ministry, after testing and approval and confirmation. “Last rights” – I cannot see that in Scripture, as some kind of sacrament, but of course, if there is time for a minister to talk to someone about the gospel and they be challenged to repent before they die, that is a good thing.
Nobody is saved outside the Catholic Church. That is an article of Faith.
Vatican 2 and those 2 paragraphs in the CCC (841 and 847) teach things that are contradictory to that. Saying Muslims worship the same god as we do and that those that don’t know Christ can be saved is just heretical and wrong.
The Last Rites are in the Epistle of James. Gotta get over to church to relieve the person at Holy Hour ( Adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament ) we have for 24 hours every Monday/Tuesday.
Calling the elders (notice plural) of the church when someone is sick, praying for them, teaching on confession of sins, and God being able to heal the sick – all of that is not described as “last rites” and does not even mention the time right before a person dies. “is anyone sick? is anyone suffering” – covers many more situations than “last rites”. Also, there are no priests, just elders. So using James 5:13-16 for that seems like a big stretch.
what happens to the bread when too much consecrated bread is left over and no more sick people to take the consecrated host to?
I did
Ken,
One Church means an absolute unity of Faith.
I may be wrong but I think it was you, on this blog, who about a week ago, said,”I think Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, etc. e got it right”. I don’t remember the exact list of men but I was musing to myself today how these men did not have gotten “IT” right as the Reformers certainly did not agree on the Eucharist.
A few days ago I said that my first contact to James Swan was about Kevin Falloni’s stye of rhetoric. Actually, it was about that and a quote from the Marburg Colloquy I read about 25ish years ago. I asked him to run it down. It was about when Zwingli and Luther met to debate the Eucharist, they agreed that in order to demonstrate they both approached scripture properly, they had to agree the Bible does not say Mary had other children. I was surprised James was not familiar with the quote but he did manage to track it down for me.
My point is Ken, if different denominations can’t agree on the Lord’s Supper, but consider it a non-essential doctrine, what is the use of Christianity? There is no Church. There is nothing and Christ need not have bothered to come.
Those churches Paul and the others founded all believed the exact same thing on every point of doctrine. They may not have had the Office of the Inquisition in those days, but the Apostles and their successors were just as unrelenting when it came to sound doctrine. There was zero, absolutely zero, sycretization with the pagans. No goddess worship. No Mithra sacrifices. Not so much as a pinch of incense to the emperor’s idol in the market place.
You are not going to get unity of Faith without, yup, I gotta say it, a pope.
So why don’t the NT authors mention the existence of the Pope in those contexts that speak of “the unity of the Faith” – Ephesians 4, John 17? There is nothing there about the Papacy. Nothing.
Haven’t you and I gone over this before? Weren’t you the guy promoting the writings of some girl named “Brittany” about a year or so ago?
You also have not explained why past Popes motivated people by indulgences of lessening time in Purgatory. (Crusades, Tetzel, etc.)
To say there is no time element today in the doctrine of purgatory, seems like not dealing with the reality of what caused lots of suffering for centuries by teaching that it DID involve time and that indulgences was all about lessening time in Purgatory.
Almost 3 (+ more, including Inquistion and general culture until 1700s and 1800s enlightenment) centuries of war were based on that – the Crusades – 1095- 1299 and beyond against Albigenians, Jews, and Cathars.
1095 – 1517 and Luther’s protest against the selling of indulgences is a long time, and the time element of Purgatory was clearly taught.
Ken,
When I go swimming I take off my cloth scapular and wear a medal. When getting dressed I always kiss my scapular to get the 500 days indulgence ( probably no longer in effect ). That does not mean I get out of purgatory 500 days earlier. It means it counts as 500 days of canonical penance.
The Church does not claim to know a lot about purgatory. It does stand on prayers for the dead and Church’s authority over issuing indulgences.
By the way, Luther did not have a problem with purgatory in his 95 thesis ( if the event is not an urban legend like Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”. I am not sure but he may not have had a problem with indulgences in principle either. That was all to come later as his ideas developed.
Ken, the Bible is very clear on the distinction between temporal and eternal punishment. It is clear on nobody going before God while unsanctified. It is clear that our prayers can affect others, including the dead. It is clear that were can lessen another person’s punishment. It is clear from Maccabees that the official Church of the time was in the practice of taking silver drachmas and offering sacrifices for the dead. The Bible is clear that to out of the body does not necessarily mean to be in the presence of God. ( I got the chapters and verses if you want ’em )
You are impressed with Kauffmans research? I think it was you who were also impressed with his mentor/friend, Bill Webster’s research on the Fathers, right? ( Maybe I am confusing you with someone else ). Ask either of them for some stuff on prayers for the dead, when did it start, when was it not done by Christians, was it a sign of paganism creeping into the early Church, etc. etc.
Over on C2C Lawrence F and Taylor Marshal both have some stuff on purgatory for you.
Yes, Luther’s ideas developed after the 95 theses.
and yes, both Kauffman and William Webster are impressive. See Webster’s material on Cyprian and Honorius.
Crusades? We need one today to stop the Islamic State and its throat cutting villains. Trouble is, Europe is no longer Christendom.
Next time the villains put a video of somebody being burnt alive or a dozen Christians being beheaded on the internet, we will talk crusades. Until then, put it on hold.
the principle of self-defense and just war and the fact that Europe was responding to the Islamic invasions, sadly about 400 years too late, – the just war / self-defense principle is an aspect of the Crusades that was right.
The problems were the other things that came along with the Crusades – the indulgence and penance / purgatory theology of merit and earning salvaton that motivated the Crusaders; and the very bad mistakes of atrocities against Jews and the Eastern Orthodox.
The end result of the Crusades after they finished in 1299 AD, was even worse, for the Ottoman Turks then conquered even more territory from then onward to 1453 (fall of Constantinople) and up into the 1600s of conquering Greece, Bulgaria, the Balkan areas.
The west today needs the good kind of just war like the unity and will of the allies in World War 2 to defeat the Nazis, Mussolini in Italy (how did that happen in Roman Catholic Italy ?), and the Japanese.
I think Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, etc. e got it right”. – I meant in relation to Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Papacy, Marian dogmas, Transubstantiation, Purgatory, etc.
Not on disagreements with each other on more minor points.
Ken,
The Marian dogmas? Which of them would agree with your position?
Read my new article on Rod Bennett’s lecture. I mention some of that issue in there. “Theotokos” (“the one bearing God”) is true in it’s original intension to be about Jesus – that He was always God in the womb of Mary, both God and man. The problem is the phrase created misunderstanding about Mary, just as Nestorius feared.
The other 3 dogmas are wrong and unBiblical – Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception (1854 AD) and the Bodily Assumption of Mary (1950). Calling her co-Mediatrix is also wrong and contradictory to 1 Timothy 2:5. Praying to her is wrong and the statues and icons in worship contexts are wrong.
Ken,
The term ” Last Rites” is not found in the epistle of James. So what? Neither is the word, “Trinity”.
The term, “Sacrament of Confession” or the word, ” Confirmation”. But there is sufficient proof for all the Sacraments and the Trinity.
As for what happens to Hosts left over from Mass, they are put in the tabernacle and distributed at the next Mass. While it is clear from the Bible that bread and wine are transformed into Chrit’s Body and Blood, nowhere do we see the Host ever reverting back to just bread and wine.
I remember being told by a priest who had grown up as both a Lutheran and an Anglican that after the service, they would throw their left over bread to the chickens. That was probably because some Protestants who believe in a Real Presence also believe in “receptionism”. We don’t.
The James 5:13-16 passage is about all kinds of sickness and suffering, confession of sins, and calling the elders of the church. It is not limited to a time right before a person is dying on their death bed.
Ken,
Who told you the Sacrament of Anointing is used only in extreme situations?
The only time I ever heard what you are asserting is in the case of a man condemned to be hanged. He cannot be anointed until the trap door is released.
While it is clear from the Bible that bread and wine are transformed into Chrit’s Body and Blood, nowhere do we see the Host ever reverting back to just bread and wine.
it is not clear in Scripture at all – that “transformation” does not even exist in the NT at all. The last supper in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and I Cor. 11 don’t say anything about the bread and wine changing into Jesus, since Jesus is in His incarnational body when He spoke those words. Sorry. You are the one who keeps ignoring what I say and you just keep repeating your assertions.
John 6 is about faith and “eating and drinking” means coming to Him in faith and repentance and receiving Him totally and completely. Same for John 7:37-39 and John 4 about drinking water – these are symbols of receiving Christ by faith.
Ken,
Only Bill Clinton denies the word “Is” to mean “is”. “This My Body” does not mean “represents”. The Greek language has a word for that.
You are the one who is doing the ignoring and repeating the blind assertions. Ha!
By the way, the Greek Septuagint uses “Do” to mean “sacrifice” 76 times. When Jesus wanted to say, “eat”, He said “eat”. When he intended to say, “drink” , He said “”drink”.
When He wanted to say “sacrifice”, He said “Do”.
“Eating and drinking” means “coming in Faith”? Since when?
According to the book of Daniel, “eating someone’s flesh” meant “maligning them”.
As for “drinking blood”, no Jew would have ever uttered something so bizarre as that unless they meant it.
Show me ANYWHERE between Genesis and Revelation where to drink blood was used for believing. Show me where it is ever used at all,( except maybe to forbid it in Acts 15 and elsewhere. )
The Jews were utterly scandalized by Jesus’ words about eating His flesh ( the same flesh He was going to give “for the life of the world” on the cross ) and drinking His blood. They walked away from Him. He did not call them back and explain He only mean they have to believe His words.
so, how do you know “I am the true vine” (John 15:1) and “I am the door” (John 10:9) are metaphors?
Jim, Mary was the mother of all that was Christ’s weakness, not his divinity. The scripture never calls Mary the mother of God, but the mother of Jesus. K
Ken,
” since Jesus is in His incarnational body when He spoke those words. Sorry….”
Go tell your, ” It sure looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” theory to Luther. Or better,Martin Chemnitz.
Zwingli might have appreciated your rationalism, but the other Reformers were not so quick to deny the plain word ( IS ) of scripture. Even Calvin tried playing word games to avoid looking so obviously like Zwingli.
“IS” means “IS”. Exercise some Faith, Ken.
Ken,
“At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews.” Daniel 3:8
It actually says, ” they ate his flesh”.
So, according to you way of interpreting Jn 6, this passage should read, “some astrologers came forward and believed in Daniel”.
Hmmmm? I ain’t that gullible, Ken!
In Daniel 3:8, the word “flesh” or “his flesh” is not there. The Hebrew word for “eat” אכל is there, but in this context, it means “accuse”.
not according to chuck swindoll.
Ken,
Daniel 6:24 says,
“At the king’s command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lions’ den, along with their wives and children.’
The text actually reads, “… the men who had eaten Daniel’s flesh…”.
So then, In John 6 Jesus was saying, ” Unless you folks talk trash about me, and malign and backbite me, you will have no life in you”.
Go tell that baloney to Falloni! HA!
Ken,
Christ’s Flesh was the human Flesh of the Second Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit proceeds from all eternity from the Word.
That’s what I receive daily or at least weekly when I renew the Covenant Sacrifice done once for all and then share in the Covenant Meal.
Bless your heart, Ken. You mean well. I’ll give you that. But you do NOT receive what I receive when I go to Church.
“. Humbly let us voice our homage
For so great a sacrament;
Let all former rites surrender
To the Lord’s New Testament;
What the senses fail to fathom,
Let us grasp through faith’s consent!”
Did you catch that, Ken? ” What our senses fail to fathom”?
Please, Ken, none of your “Looks like a duck” nonsense.
“Let us grasp through Faith’s consent”. You are being confronted with a great Mystery here.
Ken, stop being so stiff necked! Bend the knee of your proud and self sufficient mind. The “Obedience of Faith” ( Romans 1:5 ) Submit to the yoke of Faith. Bow down and adore the God who made you and died for you. The God who yearns and waits for your love under the appearance of a humble piece of bread. Forget your smugness and pride. Subject your judgments to the words of Christ.
THIS IS MY BODY…THIS IS THE CUP OF My BLOOD…POURED OUT FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS
Ken,
How do know ” I am a door and I am a vine” are metaphors? Because He didn’t sprout leaves and a door knob did protrude from His belly.
Context Ken, context.
Besides, He did not say, ” This particular vine is My Body”. He did not say, “This very door is My Blood” while holding it in His hands. He did not establish a ceremony of opening and shutting a door repeatedly. If He had, the Church would probably have a door on the altar.
You also forget the symbolism of the separate Consecration of the bread and wine. A Body separated from its Blood looks like death. Did He do or say that about the door or vine?
Context is everything.
OOPS again! A doorknob did NOT protrude…”
By the way, Ken,
About that context business,
Had Jesus just finished feeding 5000 people with 5 doors and 2 vines when He said they had to eat the the Flesh of the Son of Man?
Had He just spoken about their forefathers eating vines and doors in the desert before saying He was the true door that came down from heaven?
Context, Ken. Context.
Did Jesus take a door into His hands when establishing the New Covenant in His Blood?
Context, Please.
Can you give me a list of OT types of the doors and vines? You know, like I can with the Shew Bread reserved and venerated in the Temple?
Did Moses command the Isrealites to put a vine in a golden urn and store it in the Ark of the Covenant?
Did doors or vines descend every morning along with quail to feed the Covenant people on their journey through the desert? Did those vines conform to the particular taste of all who ate of them?
Context, context, context!
Do Jews today celebrate Passover for 8 days with matzoth? Or doors and vines?
Anain, Ken, what is the context?
ken,
Many years ago, before Portland, Oregon got its own Catholic radio station, KBVM, all I had in the way of non secular radio were Protestant stations. That is how I came to know R.C Sproul, John MacArthur, Michael Horton,Greg Koukl, Doug Bachelor, Hank Hanegraaf, etc. etc. It is how I also got into apologetics in order to correct the false views of Catholicism I heard. I was a regular caller on all of the talk shows.
Anyway, one of my favorite speakers, Chuck Swindoll, has/had quite a lecture on Daniel and “eating flesh”. I have never forgotten it. I am sure he didn’t realize he was giving away the Protestant farm on the “eating someone’s flesh” issue.
But forget Chuck for a minute. Father Mitch Pacwa is a real polyglot. He speaks several modern languages and all the languages of the Eastern rites as he has faculties in most of those rites and knows the history and culture better than anybody.
He says that even today, in that part of the world, they still speak of “eating flesh” in the way I have presented it.
I trust Fr. Mitch to know what he is talking about. You, however, are going down swinging as you have an interest in not conceding an inch.
Again, when, if not at the Supper, with bread and wine, did Jesus act as a priest according to Melchizedek while on earth?
Jim said ” Pacwa peaks of ” eating flesh” Here is the problem Jim, God calls us to a spiritual relationship with Him. In John 6 you see the unbelievers who walk away because they took Him literally. He says the my words are Spirit, not flesh. We are incorporated into the body through the Spirit, NOT THE FLESH. In the supper He offers His merit to us, NOT HIS FLESH, through faith alone. Christ is in the man taking the bread, not in the bread. The supper is a means of grace as we commemorate the one sacrifice that saved us. The only flesh that profits us is the one that died on the cross, and we are in a SPIRITUAL relationship with Him. He is called the Spirit of Christ. It is a person that is offered, not a derivative off that person. We are the Temple of God. God doesn’t dwell in buildings anymore, especially not your synagogue. K
What Kevin has written above is right. Thanks, Kevin!
John chapter 6 is on our side, if you read it all the way through and pay attention to the parallels of “coming to Christ”, “believing”, “eating”, “drinking”, “being drawn by the Father”, etc.
John 6:54-55
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
“true food” and “true drink” is the same metaphor He uses in John 15:1 – “I am the true vine”
Notice the parallels of “and I will raise Him up on the last day” with earlier verses of coming, believing and drawing. (especially verses 44-45)
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” John 6:63
66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
The whole passage is about believing, receiving Christ, coming to Him, trusting Him, treasuring Him as our spiritual satisfaction, like being physically satisfied with bread and drink. the crowds came for the physical bread, but Jesus says He is true bread. to eat His flesh and drink His blood are meant to symbolize accepting and receiving Him totally, not just for the physical bread.
Peter and the disciples stayed because He had the words of eternal life and they believed He was Messiah and the Son of God, who had come into the world (incarnation) and who would give His life for their sins. (atonement)
The passage is about believing in Christ and coming to Him, and God sovereignly drawing those He wants – verse 44 and 65; it is not about the Last supper or the Eucharist.
Ken,
It’s my policy to ignore and scroll past Kevin as I don’t care to be stung with a gratuitous “Hocus Pocus” or some other Jack Chick type slur slipped in under your nose just to get a rise out of me.
As you seem to want me to respond to something of interest he has written, I will comment on what you have filtered and posted.
John 6 is indeed about coming to Jesus in Faith. ( I do that every time I go forward to receive the Sacrament of Faith, the Eucharist ). That is, the first half of the passage is about believing. But notice, midway through, Jesus ratchets up. He actually puts forth something difficult for them to swallow and starts talking about eating His flesh, the very same flesh that they see before them and the same flesh that will be given for the life of the world on Calvary.
This was crazy talk for the Jews. Talk of drinking blood was an abomination. They knew He wasn’t just talking about believing in or following Him any more. They were disgusted and left.
NOTICE: Christ did not call them back and say, ” Please, please, folks. I am only speaking figuratively. Of course I don’t mean for you to violate the Kosher law and drink my actual blood. I am just using wicked language because I like to shock and see the looks on your faces like Kevin Falloni does.”.
Peter and the others would indeed have walked away too but he submitted as only Jesus spoke the words of eternal life.
Ken,
Time for a little lesson on substance and accidents that even a child can follow.
You already believe in the distinction between them.
Imagine if you saw a black do, a white dog, and a white cat. If I asked you to categorize them according to the accident of color, you would put the white cat and dog together.
But if I asked you to go deeper and categorize them according to their essence, you wouldn’t hesitate to put the two dogs together.
To deny essence or substance is to deny reason.
“Presence” or place is an accident. Substance is indifferent to place. A cat is a cat whether up in a tree or sleeping on a pillow.
Christ is Present in the Eucharist by way of substance. All of Him. We never see or discern substance, not even that of material bodies. But we know something is present by our intelligence or in this case, by Faith.
Now, how does Christ become present? The Lutherans say the bread undergoes no transformation but exists alongside Christ. They say Christ is everywhere or “ubiquitous”. But we know that Christ’s Body is a real Body and is at the right hand of the Father. It is not ubiquitous.
Lutherans, as are other Protestants, are divided as to when Christ becomes present. Some say He is objectively present to everyone, sinner or saint, in the service.
Others say, Christ is present only at the reception of the bread and then only to the saved or those properly disposed to receive grace..
I think you would say Christ is only present spiritually or mentally. Or that you lift your mind or heart to heaven an worship Him there. There are a myriad of explanations.
“Metaballo” or change of bread substance into the actual, objective, and real to all present Body of Christ is the only one that doesn’t either demand we believe something against logic or flat out deny the words of Christ.
By the way, Transubstantiation does not defy logic. The law of substance and accident does not contradict logic. You and all logical people use it every minute of everyday.
But I don’t believe the bread is transubstantiated into the substance of Christ because it is logical. I believe it on the obedience of Faith.
Ken,
Give it up.
You can use all the “looks like a duck” arguments from rationalists, atheists and Protestants you want.
You can come up with wacky theories from the Bible about doors, vines and Jesus speaking metaphorically. You can say the Jews thought to believe someone was to drink his blood.
You can preach to me about believing and having Faith in Christ’s words ( I do! )
You can stand on a soap box and yell about the finished work of Christ ( I believe in it ).
But you are not going to undo the words of Christ,
‘This IS my Body”.
Ken,
Although I keep pressing you about Melkizedek you continue to talk about doors and vines so maybe I will go on and talk about sacrifice.
Sacrifice involves two distinct movements;. The oblation/offering and the immolation. One can be performed before or after the other.
The immolation is the destruction of some sensible gift presented to God to represent our interior disposition of giving ourselves to Him. The gift must cost the donor something as we see in the case of David who would not accept the ox offered to him without paying for it. The gift is destroyed only to render it unusable to the donor. It is not, as Calvinists maintain, about vicarious punishment, a.k.a. Penal Substitution. That is categorically denied. It runs contrary to scripture.
While Catholics do believe Christ made satisfaction by His Passion and Sacrifice, it was not as a Penal Sub. But now I digress onto a different ( but related ) topic.
The other part of the sacrifice was the oblation or formal offering by an authorized person delegated for the task of mediation. Unlike the above immolation that could be done by a layman or a Levite, the oblation was done only by a priest after the institution of the Covenant with Moses and the people.
Without the Last Supper, Calvary would have been only an execution, not a sacrifice. Without the immolation on Calvary, the Supper would only have been good bye meal or offering but not a sacrifice.
In the Mass, no new immolation takes place, While the separate Consecration of Body first and then Blood represents death, Christ undergoes no change. Protestants who accuse Catholics of killing Christ anew in the Mass reveal an ignorance of the Biblical practice of sacrifice and Catholic doctrine.
In the Mass the priest, in obedience to the One High Priest according to the Order of Melkizedek, performs the oblation under the appearances of bread and wine.
When the bread and wine undergo Transubstantiation they are transformed into the one Christ now in heaven with the same dispositions He had at the Supper and on the cross and will have forevermore. The change of the bread by the fire of the Holy Ghost shows that God has accepted our offering in the Holy Of Holies made without hands above
You friends Webster and Kauffman impress you with their opinions on the Fathers. The Fathers did not offer memorial meals to release dead people from their sins. They offered the sacrifice of the Mass.
Which brings us full circle to the original topic of the blog, purgatory.
Ken, you have had this explained to you many times on different blogs. Any child should be able to understand it. Why don’t you? Why are you kicking against the goad? Or are you just what we call, “invincibly ignorant”?
Today, June 10, is a public holiday here. The Day of Portugal or as the Church has Baptized it, the Day of the Guardian Angel of Portugal.
It commemorates the day in 1917 when an angel brought Holy Communion to one of the children at Fatima. They had no trouble understanding. And I don’t either. That is why I have to get over to Mass in 15 minutes to participate in and receive Jesus in the sacrifice and Sacrament He instituted. Ciao
I confess I have a hard time watching your videos, (I only watched a couple of minutes of theses; they are boring and weird because of the appearance of idolatry in bowing down to some bread put in a case on a pole, and the statues of Mary, etc.) for they are filled with statues of Mary, and that is just wrong and unBiblical and the true Mary in heaven is still shocked and saddenned by the centuries of exalting her and making idols of her and praying to her and bowing down and kissing her, etc. – She agrees with the angel in Revelation 19:10 and 22:9 – “Do not do that!! Worship God!” (only, meaning the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit)
The Roman Catholic Church should repent of all these things (exalting Mary too much, statues, prayers to dead saints, relics, Papacy, Purgatory, Transubstantiation, indulgences, ex opere operato priestly power, calling NT ministers priests, Apocrypha, treasury of merit, baptismal regeneration, etc.) and return to Biblical Christianity.
Ken,
I didn’t mean for you to watch the entire video (s ). Thanks for trying though.
Melchizedek – King of righteousness, king of Salem (ancient Jerusalem – Canaanite culture), priest of the Most High God, El Elyon. (pointing to the knowledge of the one true God among the nations outside of Israel, even in the midst of the wars between those pagan nations)
Genesis 14
Psalm 110
Hebrews 5, 7
Christ fulfilled those OT types of the priesthood of Melchizedek and is superior to the Aaronic-Levitical priesthood.
The main point, through Hebrews 7, is that the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior because it is perpetual and eternal and not temporal like the Levitical-Aaronic priesthood, which was done away with in 70 AD and the destruction of the temple.
Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and Aaron (a son of Levi, the Levitical priesthood) was still in the loins of Abraham at that time in Genesis 14, so the lesser (Aaron, Levi) paid tithes to the greater (Melchizedek), so the order of Melchizedek is greater, which the Messiah Jesus fulfills as high priest, without sin, eternal Son (Psalm 2), and Lord (Psalm 110:1).
Melchizedek bringing out bread and wine (Genesis 14:18) is probably a prophesy/foreshadowing/ symbol of the greater Lord’s supper and symbol of His sacrifice and atonement for sin.
Some think Melchizedek is a pre-incarnation of Christ (without father, without mother, without genealogy – Hebrews 7:3) – type of the eternal Son of God before He became flesh, because the comparison breaks down after the incarnation, since Jesus had a mother (Mary) and genealogy (Luke 3 – Mary’s; Matthew 1 – Joseph’s) .
There seems to be some significance to the fact that Melchizedek has Canaanite language cultural background – El Elyon = “God Most High” – pointing to the fact that even pagan cultures have some who are true believers and some from all nations will come to know the true God. (Genesis 12:3; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; 49:10 – Rev. 5:9; 7:9, Matthew 28:18-20, etc.)
Ken,
You said more than was necessary and practically skipped over the part about the bread and wine.
Both Melchizedek and Christ performed some priestly action involving bread and wine.
In the case of Christ, it can only be at the Last Supper.
The Last Supper was not a good bye meal. What was it?
Daniel 3:8 – the word for “flesh” בשר (bashar) is not in the Aramaic, nor in the Greek LXX translation.
כָּל־קֳבֵל דְּנָה בֵּהּ־זִמְנָא קְרִבוּ גֻּבְרִין כַּשְׂדָּאִין וַאֲכַלוּ קַרְצֵיהֹון דִּי יְהוּדָיֵֽא׃
For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews.
It meant “to accuse and bring charges”. The LXX agrees διέβαλον (to accuse, also where we get the word “the devil, Satan, “the accuser” from – diabolos.
The Jews did not understand Jesus to be saying to them in John 6 as “accusing or attacking” – but rather they wrongly understood Him as hyper literal and teaching cannibalism.
But Jesus says later, “The words I have spoken are spirit and are life” (John 6:63) = spiritual, metaphoric, symbolic. The reality of the Spirit – the Father and Holy Spirit draws people on the inside (John 6:44; 6:65) – those that were true believers and irresistably drawn and wanted to stay with Jesus are the true believers – as Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life” and “you are the Holy One of God” (the Messiah, the eternal Son of God) .
Jim,
I took a lot of time in reviewing Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5 and 7 – and it takes time to type these things out, be accurate, look up the Hebrew and LXX and Greek, etc.
I enjoy this; but I don’t always have time to research things and review everything. I read Kauffman’s Part 1 of Baptismal regeneration and some here and there of others, and some of the series of “the sacrifice of praise”, but I still have not had time to read every word.
So, you have to realize I don’t always have time to track down and interact with every detail you throw out.
I wish you would give up here, and at least go to the lecture by Rod Bennett and interact with what I have written up there. We have exhausted the Eucharist / Mass / Transubstantiation issue here, but not discussed purgatory as much on a post about purgatory. Trying to convince me by showing me videos of gaudy looking idolatry and statues and pictures of angels and Mary and processions of a Eucharist on a pole encased in something, just does not help a convinced Protestant at all. Showing me videos of gaudy statues, etc. actually hurts your cause; because it reminds us of the reality of what your church is. I think that is why most Roman Catholic apologists save that stuff and the Mary stuff for last for Protestants. They want to first destroy the doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide and show the suppossed need for a living voice, an infallible interpreter and if and when a Protestant Evangelical surrenders to those things first; then they just grudgenly submit to the Mary (and physicality of RC Mass/ Eucharist/ host) stuff last, after they are convinced about the other stuff first. I have noticed that about all former Evangelicals; and they even admit that.
Ken,
We are done with the Eucharist? Okay.
I did watch the video you posted and can’t understand why you are not won over by it.
Thanks for the exchange and take care.
Ken, Have you read Allison, Reformed Baptist theologian, his book Romans Catholic Theology and practice.” Its the best book i have read on the differences between RC and Evangelical axioms. He takes the CC and does a incredible analysis. He points out the two fault axioms of Rome, the fallen nature grace inner connection, and the church as an ongoing incarnation. K
I have Allison’s book, but have not read it yet. I started it; but have not had time to read it. John Bugay has done several blog posts on it at Triablogue. It looks great; just that time is a factor.
most of my time is dealing with teaching the Bible (OT survey, hermeneutics, NT, Theology, and church history) in the Farsi language to Iranian former Muslims; and that takes up a lot of time. Also, preparing new materials in Farsi for them. They are hungry and want to grow in Christ and come from a Muslim background.
Jim wrote: I did watch the video [Rod Bennett’s lecture] you posted and can’t understand why you are not won over by it.
Did you read my lengthy analysis of it?
Interact with some of that, at least, at that combox, if you want to interact some more.
Thanks
Kevin wrote:
He points out the two fault axioms of Rome, the fallen nature grace inner connection, and the church as an ongoing incarnation.
Indeed; that is an excellent analysis of the Roman Catholic Church and I look forward to reading more of that and studying those issues in the future. (if I understand the first one right – what does that mean “the fallen nature grace inner connection” ?) I understand the problems with the 2nd one better – “the church as an ongoing incarnation” – that is really big in Roman Catholicism and all the emphasis on physcial things – statues, Mary, buildings, graves, relics, angels, paintings, incense, candles, transubstantiated hosts, shrines, etc. – one of the great problems with Roman Catholicism.
Jim wrote:
You said more than was necessary and practically skipped over the part about the bread and wine.
I emphasized the main and clear things in the texts, whereas you are emphasizing a non-essential side point, that is just causually mentioned in Genesis 14, but neither Psalm 110 nor Hebrews 5, nor Hebrews 7 makes any point about the bread and wine of Melchizedek. I wonder why?
Both Melchizedek and Christ performed some priestly action involving bread and wine.
seems like a prophesy – foreshadowing of the Lord’s supper.
In the case of Christ, it can only be at the Last Supper.
The Last Supper was not a good bye meal. What was it?
Instituted by Christ and commanded for us to do, regularly, in order to remember His atoning, effectual, substituary death, for sins.
Ken,
Just circling back to make sure the discussion is really over.
At this very moment I am listening to Rod Bennett’s interview on Marcus Grodi’s. I love what he says about, after someone accepts Christ, they are then told to get into a Bible believing church. Nothing more.
I have been perusing Dave Armstrong’s assessment of your views of Rod’s book and his ( Dave’s )dialogue with you too.
Yeah. You seem like a nice chap, Ken. What more can I say to you. You have been buried in evidence, for years, yet stay where you are.
You waste your energy oohing and awing over the “scholarship” of the ilk of Webster and Kauffman, two disgruntled ex-Catholics on their way to hell. John Bugay too. Muslims will get into heaven before they do. Yet you seek them out.
What is it, Ken? As a minster, you are sought out and sucked up to by the Falloni Phonies and other sycophants. You have a minister’s income but if you come out of your fog and obey the Faith, you will be just another rank and file Catholic Joe? As a “Bible Only” Christian, you can be a lone wolf and not have to bend your knee or mind to anybody, right? You can even preside at the Lord’s Supper services in your church. You see yourself as a sort of St. Paul but fail to see he was under Peter’s authority.
Some days ago I wrote about God wanting all men to be saved and that God honors sincere although imperfect Protestant worship. I need to qualify that Ken. By “sincere” I do not mean “lazy” or ” disobedient” or “stubborn”.
So you and I are done talking about the Eucharist? It has all been just one more discussion among many. You will move on to someone else with your, “looks like a duck” rationalism, your doors and vines and your nonsense about drinking blood being just a Jewish expression for believing some one’s doctrine. Whose blog haven’t you been on? Where will I see your name next talking about the Mass, Peter or trashing Mary?
Okay Ken, I will leave you to Kevin’s shoe shining and fawning over your pearls.
Rod’s comment about “go find a Bible-believing church” was from his time with a mission organization ( Operation Mobilization, or OM) – I agree that there are problems with that, because it was a para-church organization and an inter-denominational mission – they set themselves up for that problem; because they have so many different theological perspectives on their teams and don’t major on discipleship in the local church – Rod was right to question that. They did more one time evangelism and literature distribution -evangelism than deeper discipleship and church-planting. Deeper discipleship and church-planting and teaching are important to ground those that come to Christ. But sometimes, if God sovereignly draws someone through our witness; and yet we don’t live in that area, then that may be the best we can do, under those circumstances.
Muslims will get into heaven before they do.
As Muslims? without repentance and faith in Christ ? That is heresy.
The other comments you make about being a “Protestant minister, lone wolf, no accountability (don’t have to bend your knee or mind”, etc.), “minister’s income to average Catholic Joe” – those comments are uncharible and judgmental. I don’t appreciate those comments. The Lord says, “don’t judge motives” – 1 Corinthians 4:5
I am glad you are reading Dave Armstrong’s critique of my review, and you will see another Roman Catholic intellect and linguist, but, IMO, he can be very harsh, who goes by “Adomnan”. I debated with him many times over the years in DA’s com boxes. He knows many languages, but he would not tell what he does for a living. Seems kind of secretive and mysterious, almost like a CIA agent (?).
Eventually, Lord willing, as time allows, I hope to study those issues more and improve my review of Rod’s book.
But I hope if make comments on the lecture I posted at the top of Rod’s, that you will interact first with that material and what I wrote in my article.
Jim, said ” I will leave you to Kevin’s shoe shining” Its this kind of stuff to your really interested in. And the irony of getting on bended knee to worship the consecrated host gives you no pause. Oh, yes, Romanist and their novel religion. They don’t shine the shoes of their church, they worship it in place of the true Savior. God bless. K
Ken,
Tell Kelvin to watch this video in order to learn how to express his views like a human being.
Jim, I wouldn’t go to a Catholic church to disrespect people. He said “if they adore the elements its idolatry.” Jim, you guys march it around in the street, and have adoring chapels. You put the bread god in a tabernacle. Need i say more. You fulfill what he described.
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