Did Rome give Protestants the Bible?

They say that they did, but it is an outrageous fib.  The canon was not formulated or compiled by the Pope, but by the universal agreement of the undivided church.  At that time Rome was by no means the leader of all Christians, just of the Italians.  In Britain the church was decidedly not Roman, but Celtic, with its own laws and traditions.  The churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, if anything, had the pre-eminence at that time!

The universal church of that time did not recognize the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, and refused to allow him this title and authority.

During the Middle Ages Rome refused to allow translations of the Bible into the language of the people, insisting upon the Latin translation known as the Vulgate.  In England ordinary people were executed for saying the Lord’s Prayer and Apostle’s Creed in English.  When Tyndale translated the Bible into English he was murdered by Rome and its allies, and every copy that the Bishop of London could get his hands on, he burned in huge piles.  Papists were Bible-burners, not the benevolent Bible-givers that they now present themselves as.

The truth is that we gave the Bible to the church, who had hidden it away as a book too dangerous to be read.  Protestants read it out loud to the people in their own languages in church, over the murderous protests of Rome.  Now the Romans are doing it too, and they are following a Protestant tradition in doing so.

We also gave communion to the people, and that weekly.  In medieval Romanism the people got it once a year, at Easter, and then only half.  To this day they may be denied the wine. Now RCs can have it daily, but only because Protestants blazed the trail.

We also gave congregational worship to the people.  In medieval churches the people were silent spectators, watching the priest and his assistants do everything.  Protestants included the people’s responses into their liturgies, and gave them Psalms and Canticles to sing.  Later what we know as  hymns were written, and in time they became a universal practice.

So when you see Roman Catholics responding during the liturgy, taking Communion regularly, and singing in church, know that they are  being Protestant!

At least they had the good sense eventually to fall into line, even if it was through gritted teeth, and at the cost of much blood and suffering.

The truth is that Rome refused to read the Bible, it prevented people from doing so, and it murdered those who did.  

Our Protestants fathers got hold of copies of the Greek NT from Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople, translated them into the languages of the people, and put it into their hands, ears, hearts, and minds.  Rome did everything in its power to withhold the Bible, but the Reformers would not allow it.

Anglicans who hate Anglican Doctrine

“And while the Orthodox Church is filled with errant sinners at all levels, and took its time developing sound doctrine over the centuries, it has never canonized error. The CoE, on the other hand, seems only capable of defending and requiring their priests and seminarians to believe the most un-Apostolic and abominable things, such as the Calvinism of the 39 Articles”.  (Quoted from Father Paul Taylor’s website).

Isn’t it astonishing that so many who cling to the name  of Anglican hate and detest the doctrine of the very religion that they claim to love?  It is a source of never diminishing astonishment to me.

The Two Opponents of the Reformation

… were Rome, of course, and the Anabaptists.  Evangelicalism is the modern heir of Anabaptism, not excluding those paedobaptists who make the sacraments into empty signs, and go on about free will in the matters of justification and election.

Evangelicalism is Part of the Problem

The heading says it.  A movement that worships church growth, meaning bottoms on seats, and serves it by reducing the Bible to an absolute minimum, that refuses to teach both the easy and the difficult doctrines – because they do not help to increase numbers – is part of the problem.

A church that reduces salvation to “having a personal relationship with Jesus”, a term that is so amorphous that it is impossible to say what it means, is part of the problem.

The answer is a return to the Catholic and Reformed Faith.  Evangelicalism is a catastrophic departure from the faith handed down to us.

Liberalism a Folk Religion

Would it be fair to say that the general view of God and salvation is that as long as a man is not evil, or impossible to like, then he will “go to heaven”?  The issues of what a man believes about God and Christ, of regular attendance at the means of grace – the church service of the faithful – are really unimportant.  The only thing that would disqualify a man from “going to heaven” is actual evil, as evil is understood by the ordinary man, such as murder.

If this is the case, and I suspect that it is, then what we call Liberalism is just folk religion with a label.

A Liberal Funeral

I was asked to play the pipes at the funeral of an ex-serviceman last Friday.  I piped the coffin into the church, played a traditional lament in the middle of the service, and piped the deceased out to the traditional return to Barracks tune, the Black Bear Hornpipe.

The message was the sort heard at almost every funeral that I have piped at, and there have been a few.  God loves everyone.  He couldn’t possibly love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make him love us more.  The deceased is in heaven, which is where we are going too.

The deceased was a very good man, loving, and loved by his family, and will be sorely missed.

What received no mention at all were the bodily resurrection of the dead, the judgement of our works, the separation of mankind into sheep and goats, and the rewards and punishments handed down from Christ’s throne of judgement.  The renewed earth was replaced by a present, ghostly, heavenly post-mortem disembodied bliss.

It was a Christian service without the Christian religion.

James Jordan on Obama

http://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com

Read this.

Evangelical or Reformed?

It is increasingly clear to me that there is clear water between evangelicalism and reformationism.

If we define a religion by its practice as well as its belief system, the differences become more and more obvious.  The purpose of a Reformed Church service is to diligently make use of the ordained means of grace, namely, the sacraments, the word, and prayer.  

These three things working together are the means of communicating to Christians the saving benefits.

Ordinarily, then, partaking regularly of the bread and wine within the context of the proclaimed word and prayer, is the usual means of continuing to receive the blessings of justification, the Holy Spirit, regeneration, assurance of our election and salvation and so on.

Evangelicalism, whether of the older or modern types, refuses to allow a place for the sacraments as effectively communicating and transferring justification.  In an evangelical service communion is only an occasion to remember the cross and its benefits.

(Is this a new evangelical sola?)

This is without doubt an import from the Baptistic mentality, and it is biblically and historically speaking a heresy.  In evangelicalism the sole means of grace is the word read and preached, especially the word preached.  Hence the centrality of the sermon, and the emergence of the cult of the preacher.  Hence, also, the relative unimportance of prayer in an evangelical service.

To an evangelical a reformed service looks and sounds, to an extent, Roman Catholic.  The heretical Anabaptists said exactly the same thing back in the day.  Thus we must not give any weight to that objection.

Eating and drinking continued

There are a number of theories about how we truly eat and drink the body and blood.  The Reformed view is that Christ is not physically present here on earth, because he ascended to heaven, and there he will remain until he returns.  Nevertheless, the power of his resurrected immortality is truly communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, so that we truly eat and drink, albeit in a spiritual manner, not a gross corporeal manner.

When they (the Reformed) speak of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, they do not mean that they are present upon earth, except with respect to faith], that is, that our faith, reminded and excited by the visible signs, just as by the Word preached, elevates itself and ascends above all heavens, and receives and enjoys the body of Christ, which is there in heaven present, yea, Christ Himself, together with all His benefits, in a manner true and essential, but nevertheless spiritual only. For [they hold that] as the bread and wine are here upon earth and not in heaven, so the body of Christ is now in heaven and not upon earth, and consequently nothing else is received by the mouth in the Holy Supper than bread and wine. Formula of Concord.

Another explanation is that we are taken up to heaven, where Christ is, and in this way we truly eat and drink the body where it is present.  I don’t know what to think about that, because no-one I know has ever been transported away during the Supper.  I am a literal thinker, and if we are taken to heaven then it has to be in the body, or it is just another figure of speech that I cannot make head or tail of.

… our faith, reminded and excited by the visible signs, just as by the Word preached, elevates itself and ascends above all heavens, and receives and enjoys the body of Christ, which is there in heaven present, yea, Christ Himself, together with all His benefits, in a manner true and essential, but nevertheless spiritual only. 

Luther – good man – taught that the corporeal body and blood are present in the Supper, and are consumed physically by means of the mouth.  He had a very dim view of the Reformed doctrine, which he held to the end of his life.

… we confess that in the Lord’s Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present, and are truly tendered with the visible elements, bread and wine, to those who receive the Sacrament. For since Paul says: “The bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ,” etc., it would follow, if the body of Christ were not, but only the Holy Ghost were truly present, that the bread is not a communion of the body, but of the Spirit of Christ.  Formula of Concord.

Luther’s argument boiled down to one point, that there are no indicators in the words of institution that they are to be taken figuratively, and that they must must therefore be taken literally.

The essence of the Reformed position is that Christ is human, and that a human body cannot be in more than one place at a time.

Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ

As an IAOC denier, (sic), what is denied is that the Lord’s obedience to the
Torah is
imputed to us together with the satisfaction of the cross. The obedience of
Christ,
exegetically and biblically, and without a doubt, is the cross alone.

Christ’s death is his active obedience, properly speaking. See Norman
Shepherd’s
outstanding exegesis of the relevant passages.

What we *get* from the Lord’s sinless life is a sacrificial lamb without spot or
blemish,
which is the condition for the obedience of the cross.

If the IAOC as doctrinally defined is correct, it means that we have to fulfill
the Mosaic Law
to be saved, albeit a mediated obedience.

I am a Gentile, and God has never commanded the Gentiles to obey Torah! I don’t
need to
have Torah imputed to me in any form. Neither I nor my fathers have ever been
under
the Law. Its application to me in any form is redundant, null, and void.

I need to have my sins forgiven, which is a different thing.

When God forgives my sins, he in so doing declares me to be righteous, because
that is
the only alternative to being guilty. No neutral middle status. If I am now
without sin I am
necessarily righteous.

In sum, the cross is the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction,
and oblation, for
our full, perfect, and sufficient justification.