Biblogic Series: 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

Unity of the Christian Church...

...the Body of Christ, the Aggregate of All Genuine Christians

Context: 1 Corinthians 12

“The body is a unit, though it is composed of many parts. And although its parts are many, they all form one body. So it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink.” (Berean Study Bible)

The body of Christ, which is the aggregate of all believers, is a single organism. 

The unity of the body of Christ crosses boundaries between regions, eras, denominations, roles, races, economic statuses, and personalities.

The members of one body benefit when the whole benefits. Therefore, the individual benefits from creating benefits for the whole and for other members.

The whole and the member suffer when other members suffer. 

To maximize benefit to the body and to oneself, the individual should contribute to competition or conflict within the body if and only if the activity will benefit other members or the whole. 

There is exactly one Holy Spirit.

All members of the body partake of the same Holy Spirit.

God immerses all members of the body into the single, united body of Christ.

Baptism in the Spirit is the same process that baptizes members into the body of Christ.

If God has not baptized a person in the Spirit, then that person is neither baptized into the body of Christ nor a member of the “all” who are. Pentecostals err when they allow that a person can be a member of the body of Christ but not baptized in the Spirit.

In biblical terminology, the Body of Christ has two meanings. 

• The biological body of Christ died on the Cross and was raised to everlasting life. 
• The body of Christ is the aggregate of all genuine believers.

Copyright 20201, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated us. Don't plagiarize. Provide proper citations when exceeding Fair Use.

Venerating Mary Undermines Worshiping God

Answering a question on Quora:

How does our veneration of Mary and the saints relate to our worship of God?

According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of WORSHIP

1: to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power

2: to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion

Definition of VENERATE

1: to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference

2: to honor (an icon, a relic, etc.) with a ritual act of devotion

As you can see, both worship and veneration involve reverence, respect, honor, and devotion. The only difference is the object of veneration or devotion. So they’re the same thing; people just use one word for God and a different word for saints such as Mary.

In other words, an institution plays word games when it says, “We don’t worship Mary or saints, we venerate them.”

The Catholic institution claims Mary is a “co-mediatrix” and “co-redemptrix” with God the Son, placing her on the same level, with regard to mediation and redemption, with the infinite God the Son. To be precise, although the Roman Catholic Church does not officially endorse such teachings, it allows them, and large segments of the institution actively defend and promote them.

On the other hand, the Bible says, “For there is one God, one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…” (1 Timothy 2:5.) Christ plus Mary = 2, not 1. So, logically, if there is one Mediator, God the Son, then depending on another mediator takes away from the reverence, respect, honor, and devotion due to the One.

As infinite God the Son, Christ is omnipresent and omniscient. As such, He can be aware of thousands of simultaneous prayers spread across Earth’s surface (and perhaps a few in orbit). But how can any mere human possess that omnipresent awareness and multi-process thousands or millions of simultaneous voices?

One priest explained to me that people see God as stern and unsympathetic, so they turn to Mary to intercede with Christ. This implies that Mary is more loving and sympathetic than Christ, and therefore quicker to intercede for us. Put another way, Mary’s love and sympathy is greater than God’s, or God is inferior to Mary. Pause for a moment and re-read that.

The scriptures, on the other hand, says Jesus is our high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, “One who has been tempted in all things as we are” (Hebrews 4:15), and is “able to save forever those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Closer to the hearts of those who become biblical Christians God’s way, “the [Holy] Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and… He intercedes for the saints (all believers) according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26–27).

So, rather than chanting mindlessly and praying to saints, we are commanded by God to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We do not know that saints in heaven hear us, let alone individually. However, we do know that the brother or sister we ask for prayer hears us, that Christ hears us, and that the Holy Spirit not only hears us, but also corrects our prayers. So, what does it say about our reverence, respect, honor, and devotion to God when we disobey the command to come directly to Him and instead give it to His creatures?

The Catholic institution says that Mary reigns with Christ in heaven. However, the scriptures say that Christ shares God’s own glory and sits on the right side of God’s throne (Hebrews 8:11, Hebrews 12:2), and the LORD (YHWH) says “I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). Can we say of Mary,

“Yours, LORD, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and on the earth; Yours is the dominion, LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all“ (1 Chronicles 29:11)?

If a Catholic usurped titles, roles, and attributes of the Pope, you could rightly call it irreverence, disrespect, dishonor, and disloyalty. And if I usurped a title, role, or attribute of God such as Mediator, Redeemer, or omnipresence, you could rightly call it irreverence, disrespect, dishonor, and disloyalty — in short, blasphemy.

So practices of “veneration” such as creating and servicing images of saints, praying to them, and taking time away from worshiping God not only minimizes worship of God, but actually insults Him.

(Dear Catholic: I don’t hate you. I want better for you. But that requires following the gospel, which Rome has severely distorted. Biblical grace is a “gift” to be received as a free, once-for-all gift direct from God. It is not something earned because anything earned is no longer a gift. Unfortunately, that’s out of scope here.)

Copyright 2021 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Sacraments, Ordinances, and Channels of Grace

Sacraments Are Catholic. Ordinances Are Biblical.

A sacrament is a ceremony that both symbolizes something and serves as a conduit for grace. Sacraments are "Christianized" substitutes for the Jewish religious practices that the Catholic hierarchy restored after God had fulfilled and abolished them. So sacraments are "good works" by which Catholics think they earn grace.

Earn grace is an oxymoron, of course, because grace means unmerited favor, and you cannot earn something that you cannot merit. In Romans and other epistles, Paul goes to great lengths to explain that faith and works, and grace and wages, are mutually exclusive pairs. By trying to mix the unmiscible, Catholicism

The only conduits of grace in the New Testament are faith (Ephesians 2:8), prayer (Jude 20), and hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). (Calvinist/Reformed may add the new birth, which they believe has to precede faith because they take "dead in trespasses" to be literal, not metaphorical.) These are neither symbols nor conduits. A purely symbolic ceremony such as baptism is called an ordinance, or sometimes, a tradition.

Many churches that descend from Rome retain Romish baggage such as infant baptism and words like "sacrament." If you carefully distinguish between sacraments and ordinances, it will be easier to discount Rome's works-based gospel.


Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler (Permission granted for non-profit purposes; just give credit where credit is due.)

Interpreting Communion and Scriptures Unworthily

Transubstantiation and 1 Corinthians 11:27

Regarding "whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord,” a Roman Catholic asks, "How can eating something that isn't Jesus's body make us guilty of a crime against Jesus's body?" 

His assumption is that the bread and wine (or grape juice) must become the literal flesh and blood of Christ in order for taking communion unworthily to be a sin against Christ's flesh and blood.

First, a rhetorical question not founded on logical analysis is not an argument, it is merely a whiny protest. Never accept a question as a substitute for logic.

Second (I can't believe I have to explain this!), when you insult a symbol, you insult the thing it represents.

"Mama" is a word that symbolizes a person, and if I insult "Yo mama...," I insult your mother and may receive a bloody nose for it. There's no question that insulting the symbol insults the thing symbolized. Likewise, if you insult the symbols of Christ's body and blood, you insult Christ's body and blood.

The childishly literal person might object that desecrating a symbol does not physically desecrate its antitype. Irrelevant. In the spiritual dimensions that God occupies, the thought is as real as the physical, so presumptuous sacrilege toward a symbol of Christ's body or blood constitutes a real crime against Christ's body or blood.

You will find dozens of nations wherein insulting the symbols of the state, rulers, or dominant religion can earn you the death penalty. How much more, if you desecrate a symbol of Savior God?

You don't have to be a grammar nazi or to impose Catholic superstition upon the words for the verse to make sense. Just let it say what it says. Unworthily eating symbols of Jesus's body or blood is a crime against Jesus's body.

And unworthily interpreting the scriptures is a crime against the Spirit Who inspired them.


Since I first posted this on Facebook, I cannot claim copyright. I will trust anyone who copies it to give credit where credit is due.

Psalm 23:2 -- Translating "Green Pastures"

In Psalm 23:2, why is "pastures of grass" translated to "green pastures" (or similar)? (Question on Quora)

As you know, a word can have multiple definitions ("denotations"), but it can also imply multiple meanings, including emotive and figurative meanings ("connotations"), depending on how it is used in its context.

The Hebrew noun deshe, translated grass, comes from the verb dasha, to sprout, shoot, grow green. Thus, deshe implies grass or vegetation that is in its growing phase, and the word is sometimes translated more generically as herbs, vegetation, or as my doctor called it, greens.

Deshe contrasts with a different word for mature grass, châtsı̂yr. Châtsı̂yr implies grass that has turned brown and is ripe for the harvesting of its seed. Where I live, the seeds of brown natural grasses have husks called foxtails that embed into a sheep’s fur (and human’s clothes) and cause irritation. (Shall we add that that this evokes tick season and the hottest time of the year?)

In this case, the noun is used as an adjective that modifies the noun pasture. Grassy pasture wouldn’t quite draw out the meaning. Tender/young/green grass-pasture comes closer but is awkward in English. Grass and pasture are also slightly redundant. Since what matters is not the composition of the vegetation, but the fact that it is nourishing and comfortable, we can simplify the wording to green pastures.

Remember: The Psalms, as poetry, are saturated with metaphor. Barnes' Notes on the Bible points out that the verse describes a place where one’s hunger is satisfied by a bounty of food and where one is made to comfortably rest from one’s journey. I would add that it also signifies springtime, a season of renewal.

The word picture evokes New Testament themes. For example, Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls’ (Matthew 11:28–29).

Most churches and sects keep their flocks in a state of insecurity and perpetual work to achieve redemption. Work — ceremonies and do’s and don’ts — is good when done out of love and gratitude, and it is needed as evidence that we have become God’s sheep. 

However, work is an unending, impossible mission when done to establish or cling to justification. The gospel teaches us to renounce striving for self-righteousness and enter into the rest that God offers. When pride and fear cease, then love and gratitude transform former work into pleasure.

Why is the Catholic faith so strict?

Why is the Catholic faith so strict?

The gentleman who asks the question clarifies that the strictness that concerns him regards types of sins. I will answer from a biblical perspective, which agrees with Catholicism about most points of morality. Where the biblical perspective differs is in the motive behind that strictness.

As a courtesy, I will quote from the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims translation; and where needed, I will include explanatory words or words from current translations in parentheses.

Defining Morality

God’s primary attribute is holiness. Because He is holy, He must be just and loving.

• God could be loving without being just or holy.
• God could be just without being loving or holy.
• If God were not just and loving, He could not be holy.

You can tell a lot about how biblical a church is by how well it balances holiness, justice, and love.

Holiness takes two forms. First, it means that all of God’s attributes and actions are right. This may sound circular because God’s holiness is the standard against which we judge “right.” However, we can refine that. God’s perfection before He created the universe is the standard, and he has neither changed away from that standard nor violated it.

Second, God’s holiness involves the concept of sacredness. To illustrate, the leftover Jesus-flesh and Jesus-blood is not to be used for ordinary purposes or disposed of like trash. The priests must protect the leftovers, but God’s holiness is self-protecting. God alone hath immortality, and inhabiteth (dwells in) light inaccessible (unapproachable), whom no man hath seen, nor can see… (1 Timothy 6:16). One day, in the resurrection, the unjustified will see Him. According to Revelation (“Apocalypse”) 20:11, I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it (God), from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them.

The commandments, or morality in general, is a standard applicable to life on Earth, that reflects God’s character. God revealed the standard gradually. First, there were a few simple commands in the Garden of Eden. Our ancestors disobeyed. Then there were the Ten Commandments. The Ten were summarized in two: Love God first, and love your neighbor. That was in about 1250 BC. Over 600 more commands followed in the Old Testament to help apply the Two and the Ten in daily and religious life.

But it doesn’t end there. You can probably finish this: “Man looks at the outward appearance but God….” It’s in 1 Samuel 16:7.

God judges motives, intents, and emotions, not just actions. For example, Jesus said, whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28), and whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment…. And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:22).

We can state the prohibitions against sins positively.

• Sins insult God and hurt others, so abstaining from sins can be a way to love God and others.

If a church is strict in warning against the many sins that we can commit, then it is consistent with God’s own revelation of Himself. The “blame” if there be any, falls upon us for the many ways that we insult God and hurt others.

This can be a loving act on the part of the church. Warning: This is not a loving act when a church crosses into being “strict,” as in being judgmental, intolerant, or impatient. The approach must be balanced because the goal is to help people grow; it is not to turn them into slaves.

Motives for Morality

Because God is holy, souls bearing guilt cannot enter God’s presence. Even if God or the angels did not bar the way, guilty souls would flee — some in regret and fear, others in hatred. God presents two solutions so souls can live in His presence:

• Live so that no guilt ever accumulates
• Find forgiveness of guilt

World religions add:

• Earn your way out of guilt-debt

Catholicism adopts a hybrid:

• God lets us earn forgiveness from some guilt and enables us to work our way out of the remaining guilt

Going back to the Ten Commandments and the other 600+ commands: This is called The Law. Since God gave the Ten and the bulk of the 600 through Moses, it is also called the Mosaic Law. It is one united Law with many points. Break one point, and you’ve broken the whole.

Israel failed to keep the Mosaic Law. Their relationship with God was a roller-coaster ride. Eventually, God split Israel into two kingdoms. They continued their ups and downs — mostly downs — until God allowed other nations to destroyed one kingdom and then the other. After a time, God restored one of the two kingdoms, Judea, keeping it under the rule of other nations. The priests learned their lesson too well.

By the time of Jesus, Judaism had added thousands more commands, called “traditions,” to ensure that they kept the first 600+. Sadly, their efforts to earn righteousness led them, as Jesus said, to make void the word of God by your own tradition (Mark 7:13). They focused on microscopic details and left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith not done (Matthew 23:23).

The Jews had missed an important lesson of the Law. We are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6)

The main purpose of the law was to show us our inability to justify ourselves by showing us an impossible standard, God’s perfection. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).

Jesus stressed the lesson through irony. The religious leaders had their thousands of commands, yet Jesus said, unless your justice (righteousness) abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20).

So the lesson was not to rely on self-righteousness. Rather, as Paul wrote, the law was our pedagogue (teacher) in Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24).

The Jews of Jesus’s day tried to earn their way to heaven. Abstaining from sins and doing good deeds are good, but not as a way to heaven. The Apostles explicitly taught that works and faith, and wages and grace, were mutually exclusive pairs. For example:

• Knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; we also believe in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified (Galatians 2:16).
• If by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace (Romans 11:6).

Just as Judaism went off track with teaching self justification, the Church gradually went off track, mixing grace and self justification. Grace means “gift,” but the church redefined it as being like money, to be earned through ceremonies and deeds, here a little, there a little. And if you collected enough of this substance, you could buy your way out of Purgatory or Limbo sooner. This is a blasphemous insult to the Giver of grace.

The Church also came to teach that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was not enough. When He cried Tetelestai on the cross, it was a victory cry, “It is finished!” But the Church claims to continue that sacrifice in thousands of locations every day.

• We are sanctified by the oblation (offering) of the body of Jesus Christ once. And every (Jewish) priest indeed standeth daily ministering and often offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God, From henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. (Hebrews 10:10–13)

Notice the contrasts. The Jewish sacrifice was continuous. Christ sacrificed Himself once. It had a definite ending. He does not now rise up and descend to Earth to continue His suffering thousands of times each day, but rather, sits, resting, waiting with the Father on God’s throne, making intercession for His followers. To teach that the one-time sacrifice of infinite God the Son was inadequate is blasphemous.

• For by one oblation (offering) he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (believers) (Hebrews 10:14).

Not only was the sacrifice a complete act, but the redemption of those who place their faith in it is perfect (complete). Redemption is not bit by bit, but perfect. Implying that a complete redemption cannot be claimed blasphemously insults the Giver’s resources and generosity.

Now we can apply this to the original question. The biblical Christian has many reasons to recognize strict rules of morality.

• The rules are ways to love God.
• The rules are ways to love others.
• Love seeks the benefit of others
• In the eyes of others, our holiness qualifies us convey the gospel
• By obeying the rules, we love ourselves
• We emulate our Father
• We live at peace with God
• We enjoy peace with others
• We avoid our Father’s loving chastisement
• We earn rewards in heaven

The Roman Catholic recognizes some or many of the above benefits, but the primary reason to obey strict rules of morality is to earn “grace” and redeem oneself. Reliance on morality for justification before God has a name: self righteousness.

As Hebrews 6:1 says,

• Wherefore, leaving (moving on from) the word of the beginning of Christ, let us go on to things more perfect: not laying again the foundation of penance (repentance) from dead works and of faith towards God….

The writer framed the gospel for Jewish converts (and all of us) this way:

• Repent from the dead works of attempting to achieve self righteousness through ceremonies and deeds.
• Simply consent to the Giver who bestows the gift upon you.
• Trust the Giver to keep His promise.

Rightly Interpreting James 2:24

Someone invoked James 2:24 to rationalize that Catholicism is strict because good deeds are necessary for salvation. Here it is, out of context:

• Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only?

Now, here’s the context. There are three types of justification.

• Justification by God who paid for and forgave your sins — assuming you have received the gift as a gift, without insulting the Giver
• Justification before others
• Justification before yourself (1 John has a lot to say about self examination in order to gain assurance of the sincerity of your faith).

James chapter 2 is about justification before others. Look at how the passage begins in verse 18:

• But some man will say: Thou hast faith, and I have works. Shew me (a man) thy faith without works; and I (a man) will shew thee, by works, my faith. (Emphasis added.)

James refers to Abraham’s offering of Isaac as an argument, but acknowledges, by citing Genesis 15:6, that God had already justified Abraham roughly 25 years before, on the basis of faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was reputed (accounted) to him to justice (righteousness).

Offering Isaac justified Abraham before men. And he was called (by men) the friend of God. Being justified before men is not salvation.

We agree, good deeds are necessary. You’re useless to anybody if you don’t do good. Jesus said,

• Jesus said, So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).
• John the Baptist said, Bring forth therefore fruit (deeds) worthy of penance (repentance at the time of conversion) (Matthew 3:8).

Genuine faith produces good works.

• For it is God who worketh in you, both to will (desire) and to accomplish (act), according to his good will (Philippians 2:13).

But good deeds are worthless for redeeming yourself before God. This was addressed above but bears repeating.

• Knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; we also believe in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified (Galatians 2:16).
• We are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6)

People who cite James 2 to rationalize a requirement works for salvation violate an important rule for interpreting the Bible:

• Never use a vague, tangential, or ambiguous passage to contradict a clear, explicit, relevant passage.

Read Romans chapters 3–6. Chapter 4, in particular, puts James’s argument into context.

Isaiah 42:8 and Glory Not Shared

Asked on Quora: What is the meaning of Isaiah 42:8?

Isaiah 42:8 can be taken at face value.

I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. (NASB)

Unfortunately, certain churches tack onto it meanings that violate the context. Those must be addressed.

There are sects that make a big deal about God’s name. The Hebrew Roots movement makes a fuss over saying Jesus’s name in Hebrew or Aramaic, and the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses) make a fuss over God’s name being Jehovah.

But Christianity is not a religion of sorcery that ascribes magical power to words and their pronunciation. The term Jehovah is a great example.

The word translated LORD is the Hebrew word YHWH. The letters are all consonants. The Hebrew had no vowels.

Compounding the problem of the Hebrew word lacking vowels, Jews were forbidden from pronouncing it, for it was too holy; so the original pronunciation is lost to time. The majority of scholars believe it was pronounced Yahweh. Notice that the W is pronounced as in Water, not like the V in Victor.

A few centuries before Christ, instead of saying YHWH, Jews would substitute Adonai, which means Lord. Fast forward a thousand years, let Roman Catholic monks substitute J for Y and V for H to make it compatible with Latin, and add the vowels from Adonai to make JHVH pronounceable, and then let the first printed English Bible transliterate the word into Jehovah instead of translating it, and you’ve got a new “name” for God. And that new name is what some people are making such a big deal about.

Ironically — or hypocritically — the Jehovah’s Witnesses spend a lot of effort to reject all things Catholic, yet base their whole message on this Roman Catholic twisting of a word.

Most experienced Bible readers understand that LORD (in all caps) represents YHWH. The word means self-existent one or I AM. In Genesis 3:15, the NASB translates the word instead of substituting LORD Jewish style or the twisted pronunciation Jehovah. At the burning bush, Moses had asked God whom he should say sent Him to the Israelites in Egypt.

• God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Why a descriptive name?

• No god created God, so there was nobody to name Him.
• There is no higher power with authority to give God a name.
• There is no need to distinguish the God who IS from all those other gods who ARE NOT.

Can you see why the meaning, and not the pronunciation, is what’s important? Any movement or sect that makes a big deal about the right “name” (which isn’t even the original Hebrew word) is heading in the wrong direction.

Hebrew scriptures frequently use a form of parallelism in which an idea is restated from a different perspective. You already saw that:

• I am the LORD,
  that is My name

The rest of the verse does the same thing.

• I will not give My glory to another,
  Nor My praise to graven images.

The two statements dovetail; you cannot separate them because they state the same thing from different perspectives.

This theme runs throughout scriptures, from the Ten Commandments… 

• You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…. (Exodus 20:3–4)

to the gospels, where Jesus claimed to be God:

• Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM." (John 8:58)

The Jews understood Jesus’s claim. Therefore, they took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (verse 59).

• Tangent:  Roman Catholic lists of the Ten Commandments skip the prohibition against making likenesses and serving them. When you point it out, Catholics rely on the technicality that their images are not graven and that the weasel-word venerate is not the word worship. Graven images, however, generalizes to any likeness. I’d like to know how they carve out wooden and marble statues without graving them. And if praising, burning candles to, leaving offerings for, and praying to people through icons is not worshiping, nothing is.)

Certain sects have a difficult time accepting that One God can be three Persons. The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) demote Jesus to a child of the Father, born on another planet, and brother to the devil.

Oneness Pentecostals make out the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be One Person who, like a quick-change artist, changes personas and deceives us, by praying to himself, into thinking the Son is not the Father.

The Jehovah Witnesses demote Jesus to an angel who became or will become “a god.”

Argument from Science

Einstein showed that mass, energy, time, and space interrelate, and astronomy and physics show that the universe had a beginning. From this, we learn several ways that modern science confirms Bible claims that have stumped sects and heretics for millennia:

• If, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, then God must have created time and space.
• If God has creative power over space, then He can be omnipresent. He “stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” ( Isaiah 40:22).
• If God has creative power over time, then He can know the future. Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done… (Isaiah 46:10).
• If God has creative power over time and space, then He can be omniscient. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13).
• If God has creative power over time and space, then He can enter His creation as three Persons.

It took nearly two thousand years for science to catch up with the Bible’s claims that:

• There has been, is, and ever will be, exactly one God.
  (Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior (Isaiah 43:10–11). This eliminates Jesus becoming “a” god or even the Savior, if the Trinity is false. Sorry, JWs and Mormons!)
• The Father is God
• The Son / Christ / Jesus is God
• The Holy Spirit is God
• The Father is not the Son
• The Son is not the Holy Spirit
• The Father is not the Holy Spirit 

To be precise, science does not teach the Trinity, but it shows that the tri-une God is possible. For learning about the Trinity, we turn not to science, but rather to God’s revelation of Himself.

Back to Isaiah 42:8: Others claim that the verse disproves the Trinity (that is, the “tri-une” nature of God), but they err. Badly. If the three Person are one God, then the sharing of glory, worship, or divinity among those Persons does not contradict the verse at all. 

Argument from Creation

Let’s back up to verse 5. (By the way, read the context. It’s a beautiful prophecy about Jesus!)

• Thus says God the LORD,
  Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
  Who spread out the earth and its offspring,
  Who gives breath to the people on it
  And spirit to those who walk in it,

Compare it to Isaiah 44:24:

• Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone…

…and then compare it to John 1:3, which says of Jesus:

• All things came into being through Him [the Word], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being

and Colossians 1:16–17:

• By Him [the Son] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (*) (See also Hebrews 1:2.)

So, within the immediate context of Isaiah 42:8, we have a claim that YHWH is the Creator, yet the same is claimed of Christ elsewhere. If the Trinity is a correct model, then the claims do not contradict. But if the Trinity is false and Christ was merely an archangel or a son born on another planet, then Isaiah 42:8 is false.

• Tangent: Colossians 1:15 uses the word firstborn. Those who deny Christ’s divinity ignorantly jump on that word to show that He was a born or created person. They do this despite the statement immediately following and the statement in John, which say that all created things were created by Him.
  
  They also do this in ignorance of the meaning of firstborn. The word does not mean first one born; it means preeminent one. If you trace the word throughout the Bible you will find that the word often applies to a leader even though he came later in the birth order. For example, as Israel devolved, different tribes bore the title firstborn at different times because God had reassigned leadership. Thus, the meaning indicates preeminence and does not indicate that Christ was created.

Argument from Shared Worship

Look at Isaiah 42:8 again. Glory received from man means worshipful praise, honor, and thanksgiving. Note the Hebrew poetic construction, using parallelism to repeat the same thought. I AM does not share His glory. And yet, Jesus never refused worship.

• After coming into the house they [the magi or “Wise Men”] saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. (Matthew 2:11).
• After Jesus walked across the lake, those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God's Son!" (Matthew 14:33).
• Upon seeing the scars of the crucifixion in the resurrected Jesus, Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)
• The Father Himself says, "And let all the angels of God worship Him [Jesus]” (Hebrews 1:6).

and the epistles predict universal worship of Jesus:

• [A]t the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11). Notice that glorifying Christ glorifies the Father. Also notice that Christ shares the title of Lord with the Father.
• In John’s vision, he saw a multitude of angels and saints saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." (Revelation 5:12)

Argument from Shared Glory

You already saw evidence of Jesus sharing glory with the Father (Revelation 5:12). Jesus Himself claimed to share the Father’s glory, praying:

• Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was… Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:5, 24). 

(See also Hebrews 1:3.)  Note that Jesus’s words reinforces the argument from creation, as well.

Argument from God's Mouth

Even God calls Christ, “God.”

• But of the Son He says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. (Hebrews 1:8)

If the Trinity is false, then either Isaiah 42:8 is false, or Jesus, the angels, the saints in heaven, and His followers on earth were all blasphemers, and numerous passages throughout the scriptures are false. But if the scriptures are true, and Isaiah 42:8 is true then the Trinity has to be true. 

The Trinity is the only model of the relationships between God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that explains all the scripture’s claims. And since the three Persons are One God, their sharing of glory and worship is not an issue.

- - - - 

Since I posted the bulk of this on Quora, I can't copyright it. But I will ask that credit be given where credit is due.

God Brings Samaritans Into the Church

Question from Quora: Can you explain Acts 8:12-17?

Few people catch the meaning of this passage, so this is a good question.

The theme sentence of of Acts is chapter 1, verse 8. Before departing Earth for heaven, Jesus told the disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. 

The events in Acts 8 form one of the high points of the outline.  If you understand the outline, you understand the significance of 8:12-17.  That outline unfolds as follows:

Jerusalem

In chapter 2, the Holy Spirit makes His grand entrance. The Holy Spirit descends on the disciples, causing the believers to speak in languages they had no way of knowing, along with other signs. This is followed by Peter preaching the gospel and many joining the disciples.

The language phenomenon had prophetic significance. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul cites Old Testament prophecies to explain the primary purpose of miraculously speaking in foreign languages. The spectacular event that day was a warning to the Jewish nation that they had come under God’s judgment for rejecting their Messiah. As prophesied by Daniel and other prophets, Judea was destroyed by waves of Roman armies in 67 to 70 AD.

The Grand Entrance of the Holy Spirit marked a revolutionary change. Previously, He had come upon just a few believers for specific purposes such as guiding a king, empowering a warrior, or delivering revelation through a prophet. Now He had come upon all believers, not just for a narrow ministry, but to abide. What had previously been a temporary or conditional gift now became a permanent, sealing gift. Whereas only a chosen few had received ministries from God, now all received ministries and were empowered with “spiritual gifts.”

Judea

Chapter 8 briefly describes how the believers were scattered throughout Judea by persecution. Jerusalem represented the initiation of the gospel among the Jews, and Judea represents spreading of the gospel among the Jews.

Samaria (chapter 8)

The Samaritans had a mixed heritage, having descended from a mixture of Israelite and local ancestors.  Some followed the God of Israel, but most followed the religions of their non-Israelite ancestors or of the occupying armies.

The Jews descended primarily from Judah, one of the few families of Israel that had not been scattered into the world by invaders.  They were very inwardly focused.  God had commissioned Israel as a nation of priests to the world, but they had failed to maintain their own religion, let alone spread it.  In their minds, they were God’s chosen, and that was that.  They considered their half brothers, the Samaritans, unclean, second-class, and enemies. So what was about to happen required a major shift of thinking. 

Up to that time, all of the Christians were Jews.  Some began to recognize what God was doing, but it took decades for others.  Phillip went among the Samaritans anyway and preached Christ to them.

• 12 But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.

(The story of Simon is a tangent, so I'll skip verse 13.)

Shockingly to the Jews, the Samaritans converted. But something was missing. There was no miraculous evidence that the Holy Spirit had come upon the Samaritans.

At this point, we need to reach farther back for context. In Matthew 16:19, Jesus tells Peter,

• I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Acts 8 is a an example of the fulfillment of Peter using those metaphorical keys. (It has nothing to do with creating a permanent office or making Peter into a “pope.”)

• Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.  For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (verses 14-16).

Here, Peter fulfills his commission. He and John pray for the Samaritans to receive the full blessings of salvation, just like the Jewish believers had in Jerusalem. So the gospel expands outside of the Jews, and the Samaritans are now included.

• 17 Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

The passage does not state how Peter and John knew that the Samaritans had received the Holy Spirit, but it is safe to infer that something miraculous happened. The likely possibilities are that some began prophesying and speaking in foreign languages in a manner similar to what had happened in Jerusalem.

You may notice that I don’t call it speaking in tongues. According to Acts 2:5–11, it was not the unintelligible babbling that you hear today. People from foreign lands heard the speakers in their own native languages, and 15 specific languages were understood by unconverted bystanders.

The evidence showed several things: God had expanded the blessings of belief and ministry beyond the Jews.  Previously, the Holy Spirit had only come upon people of Israel.  The Jews thought they had a unique claim on their relationship with God. This destroyed that misconception.  Since the Holy Spirit came upon people for the purpose of ministry, this meant that not only belief, but also the priesthood, was being taken away. And again, the sign warned the Jews of the destruction to come.

Thus, Peter had fulfilled his role, bringing, so to speak, the Grand Entrance of the Holy Spirit to the Samaritans.

To the Ends of the World

In chapter 10, we see the gospel and the Holy Spirit expand to a Roman soldier, Cornelius, and his household. The Samaritans were half Israelite, but Romans were unclean occupiers from a distant land!  Even Peter needed special visions to prepare him for dealing with a Roman.

After Cornelius converted and spoke in foreign languages, Peter had some explaining to do back in Jerusalem before the council of apostles.  They were offended that Peter had even eaten with gentiles.  Once again, God had expanded the group called “God’s people,” and the Jewish Christians had to adjust how they saw themselves and the rest of the world.

The remainder of Acts mostly describes the continued expansion of the gospel to Asia Minor and Greece. We even see the church’s first heresy when Jewish believers demanded that gentile believers start living according to Jewish customs. Although Acts shifts to following Paul's evangelistic journeys, Peter had used his "keys" to reflect that God had unlocked the kingdom for the Jews, the Samaritans, and the rest of the world.

Note to Charismatic and Pentecostal brethren: Christ’s prophesy in Acts 1:8 was fulfilled. The opening of the gospel and the grand entrance of the Holy Spirit to expanding circles of people does not constitute a pattern that applies today, and the prophetic meaning of “tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:20-22 plus Deuteronomy 28:49, Isaiah 28:11,12, and Jeremiah 5:15, and their contexts) was fulfilled over 1900 years ago.

Note to Catholic apologists: Peter in Matthew 16:18 is a masculine noun, denoting a stone by itself, whereas rock is a feminine noun, denoting a formation in the ground.  The difference denotes a play on words in which Peter and the rock cannot be conflated or confused.  In addition, throughout the Old Testament, Rock is a name for God, in general (Psalm 18:2), and for Christ, specifically (1 Corinthians 10:4). Even Peter used the word that way (1 Peter 2:8). This rock could not, therefore, refer to Peter. It had to refer to Peter’s confession.  To call Peter the Rock on which Christ founded the church is to equate Peter with God, and that is blasphemous.

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler; permission to use excerpts is granted for personal, not-profit use.  Please give credit where credit is due.  

The New Covenant Obsoletes the Old

Link: Hebrews 8:6-13

As Greg Koukl says, “never read a Bible verse.” Always check to see how the context gives definition to the passage.

The widest context is the Bible as a whole, so any interpretation must be consistent with the whole teachings of the Bible. The next layer of context is the testament, new or old, in which the passage appears. In this case, the interpretation must be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, but since Old Testament passages are cited, one should consider their contexts as well.

The Old Testament describes the old covenant, that is, the contract between God and Israel. The covenant promised security and worldly blessings to Israel if Israel would represent God to the world. Implied in that is that Israel would obey God’s directions. This was necessary in order to remain morally qualified to represent God.

The New Testament describes a new covenant. The new covenant removes Israel’s exclusive right to represent God, giving it to all followers of Christ. It also unveils more about God’s nature, replaces a covering of sins with an actual washing away of sins, and replaces an unstable relationship between God and a nation with a secure relationship between God and individuals.

The next layer is the audience and theme of the book or letter. Hebrews was written to — guess who? — first-century Hebrews (the ethnic group) after the Jewish establishment (their religion) had rejected and killed its Messiah and begun deadly persecution of their Messiah’s followers.

The book of Hebrews contrasts ways that the new covenant was superior to the old covenant. In fact, if you outlined the book, you would see point after point asserting how the new of-Christ faith solved problems and provided blessings that the Jewish system could not.

The final layer of context is the chapter itself. Chapter 8 can be outlined thus:

• Verses 1–7 — Christ’s role as High Priest is superior to that of the Jewish priests because He mediates a better covenant. (Mediate, in this context, means bringing two parties together to ensure that they understand and meet all the conditions of the covenant.) To discover the many reasons the new covenant is better, read the whole passage, and then read the whole book.
• Verses 8–12 — The writer supports this theme with citations from the Old Testament.
• Verse 13 — In concluding, the writer emphasizes that, when a new covenant replaces an old covenant, the old covenant becomes void. Accepting this required a major mind-change for the audience, Jewish Christians. Even for people like James, the half-brother of Jesus, and the apostle Peter, this change required many years and miraculous evidence to accept. For more details, read the books of Acts and Galatians.

Verse 7 states that God found fault with the old covenant. Since God was the Author of the old covenant, this might seem to mean God made a mistake. However, as we continue reading, we reach a different conclusion.

A covenant is only as good as the parties to the covenant. The fault was not in the covenant, but in Israel’s failure to fulfill it’s duties. God found fault with the people… for they did not continue in my covenant…, says the LORD (verses 8–9).

One reason the old covenant “failed” from Israel’s perspective was that it depended on — to put it in modern terms — levels of bureaucracy between God and individuals. The words of God were contained in scrolls, their distribution depended on “the experts,” and the execution of their provisions depended on corruptible men.

In contrast, under the new covenant, I (God) will put My laws into their (the people’s) minds, and I will write them (the laws) upon their hearts (verse 10). In other words, instead of needing to depend on “the experts,” individuals would be enabled to obey God on their own, and they would be accountable not for obeying the letter of the law, but rather for obeying the spirit of the law. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people makes the relationship very personal — not just a socialized, collective relationship, but rather, an intimate, one-on-one relationship.

Many “Christian” churches, including some of the largest denominations, cling to the form of the old covenant system. They insert “experts,” “prophets,” “priests,” or over-controlling pastors between members and God. A biblical, new covenant church will work hard to bring people and God into personal relationships and edify people so they can stand in that relationship without excessive reliance on the human organization.
Verse 11 needs a bit of background. Directions, such as those in Leviticus about the design of the tabernacle and the conduct of feasts and sacrifices, were highly symbolic. As verse 5 says, they served as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Many of them stand out for symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice.

This was also true of prophecies of events that were, in Old Testament times, future events, such as the two comings of Christ — first to provide redemption, and later to take delivery of that which He redeemed.

Reading the prophecies was like looking and seeing a mountain; but when you walk over to the side or walk past the mountain, you see that there were actually two mountains. Since they align in time, you could not differentiate between them. But when you have hiked past the one, you can see that one is in the past and the other is yet future.

The passage(s) cited in verse 11 compress two ages into one description. The first age (or mountain, in the last paragraph) concerns the current age, whereas the second age (the more distant mountain) concerns the age when Christ will have returned, established His reign on Earth, and re-established Israel as the center of His kingdom. In that future time, they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, ‘know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them. The relevant part is the emphasis on establishing that personal relationship between God and us without the interference of, and dependence on, an intervening human organization.

The citation in verse 12 foreshadows another passage in Hebrews. Chapter 10 explains the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the old covenant sacrifices. Whereas it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (verse 4), Christ offered one sacrifice for sins for all time (verse 12), so that by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (verse 14).

Christ does not require continuous sacrificing, as in a particular church. Their continuous sacrifice is like the flawed old testament sacrifices and makes people dependent on the organization. Christ’s sacrifice was complete and perfect. For those who trust in it, it perfects them before the great Judge, washing away all their past, present, and future sins.

(You will find a number of the ideas in chapter 8 repeated in chapter 10.)

In verse 13’s conclusion, When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. That is, the old covenant has no legal effect on anyone who enters into the new covenant.

However, although the old covenant has no legal affect on those in the new covenant, it remains useful for three things: First, through its symbolism, it confirms the new covenant. Second, the portions defining moral conduct remain useful for defining how to love one another.

Third, defining how to love one another has a darker side. It teaches us about our inability to justify ourselves before God. Many fail to grasp this lesson, but it is explicitly taught.

• Therefore the Law [the commands in the old covenant] has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24).
• Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [those who think they are “good”], so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:19–20).
• [A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… (Romans 3:23).

In contrast to justification being out of reach of our efforts, God offers redemption as a gift.

• He [Messiah] shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11).
• …being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).
• For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).

This excludes any mixture of works and faith, or merit and grace. It also excludes any specious idea that the gift enables one to earn salvation.

• But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace (Romans 11:6).
• Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh [that is, works of obedience]? (Galatians 3:3).

Rather than insulting the Giver by trying to earn the gift and pridefully saying, “I am a good person,” the old covenant teaches us to say, “I would defile heaven with my guilt. I need a Savior and His gift of salvation.” And when that gift has been received, one is no longer “under the Law” of the old covenant. For the Christian, the old covenant becomes obsolete.

Two Ways to Heaven

There are two ways to heaven: the impossible and the possible.

1.  Be perfect throughout your entire life.

That makes you superior to the rest of us. In fact, it must make you God, since only God is perfect. 

Proud people think they can earn heaven, but the Ten Commandments (and the over 600 more) do not show a way to heaven for us real people. Instead, they show us that we are condemned before God.

• Have you had anything in your life that was more important than God? The scriptures call that idolatry.
• Have you had any incorrect idea of whom God is and what he's like? Have you prayed through a statue? That's idolatry, too.
• Have you worked on the Sabbath (Saturday)? That's putting other things ahead of God, so it's idolatry, too.
• Have you used the Lord's name in vain? That's a personal insult to God!
• Have you ever spread gossip that turned out to be untrue? That's lying and murdering somebody's reputation.
• Have you hated somebody without just cause? That's murder in your heart.
• Have you looked with sexual desire at somebody other than your spouse? That's adultery.
• Have you wanted something that belonged to somebody else? That's stealing in your heart.

And God looks on the hearts, not just the actions. 

Remember, the Law is One Law with many points. You don't have to break all the points. Break just one point, and you've broken the Law and lost your place in heaven. If you think you've never sinned, just wait. You will.

Satan said, "I will be like God." Adam and Eve said, "We will know good and evil like God." And the self-righteous says in his heart, "I will be perfect." 

Yes, Jesus said, "Be perfect," but He was using the Law to break people's pride, to show that earning heaven by your own merit is impossible. The point of His instruction was not, "Attempt the impossible." His message used irony to show that we are condemned. Salvation comes another way, and only to the humble. 

2. God prepared a gift

The gift that can save us if we accept it as a gift instead of as something we deserve.

The Creator of time and space entered into His creation as three Persons, each fulfilling a distinct role, yet united as One God in eternity.  One of those Persons, God the Son, added a human nature called Jesus to His own nature (without changing in His essence). 

Jesus lived a perfect life. If He had not, He would have died for His own sins, not for ours. But He was God, so He could live a perfect life. And because of that, when He gave Himself on the cross, God could credit our guilt to Jesus  (like a big brother taking the punishment for his little brother) and credit Jesus' righteousness to us. And to demonstrate His approval of what Jesus did, God raised Him from the dead.

God offers that gift to those who (a) recognize God the Son and (b) in desperate need and humility, receive the gift as what it is, a free gift.

Many cling to the impossible way by mixing it with God's provision. They mix faith and works, and corrupt grace (which means "gift") by turning it at least partly into wages. They seek credit for themselves instead of glorifying the Giver alone.

The mixture takes two forms. The first form says you have to do ceremonies, or good works, or clean up your life; and then you receive some or all of the gift. The second form says God gives you the gift, but then you have to earn the right to keep the gift through works or perseverance. Both of these insult God's generosity.

The second (you have to work to retain the gift) also recognizes only half the relationship. Salvation becomes yours, but also you become God's. You become God's child and Jesus' "sheep." (People often lie about the following part because they don't understand it.)

You can't do whatever you want for three reasons (at least!).

• When you became a Christian, you hated your sins because they were evil and they condemned you. Since you hated your sins, and as a new Christian, God begins changing you to free you from those sins, you will try not to repeat those sins.
• God will chastise you, even to the point of killing your body if that's what it takes to keep your soul safe.
• The "whatever you want" will change because God works within you, making you want to do what pleases Him.
• If you do "whatever you want" and get away with it, your conversion was not genuine. Beware false conversions due to.
• Pride in self merit
• Knowledge without heart conviction
• Being carried along by emotion with only partial understanding or with misunderstanding
• Knowledge and emotion, but without prioritizing conversion over everything else

In the gospels, Jesus says, "Be perfect."

The sinner says, "I cannot. I have sinned."

Jesus says, "Be perfect, or be condemned."

The sinner says, "Woe to me, for I am a sinner, condemned!"

Jesus says, "Now you are ready to receive the gift."

The self-righteous man says, "Let me do ceremonies, chant repetitious prayers, and do good works for the gift."

Jesus says, "Go away and do not insult me by trying to earn my gift."

The misled man says, "I receive the gift" but thinks "and I will do good works and persevere so that I don't lose it."

Jesus says, "Come back when you are ready to stop insulting my faithfulness."

The humble man says, "I deserve condemnation. I can do nothing to earn or to keep the gift. I surrender. I trust You to have mercy upon my sins and grace upon my need."

Jesus says, "I give you the gift. Now you are mine and I am yours, and I keep my promises. Welcome to my kingdom, little brother! Now, let's get to work!"

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler -- Permission granted for personal or non-profit, non-published use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Where the Popes and Cardinals Are in the Bible

The Short Answer

The best answer is simply that the Bible says nothing positive about popes and cardinals. It doesn’t take many words to point out an absence of evidence. I will require many words, however, because it is not so simple to refute rationalizations for violating what the scriptures do say.

Titles Are Not "Wrong"

In a hierarchy, it is desirable to give titles to different levels. For example, in a corporation, you might have a president, several vice presidents, managers, and supervisors. Even Moses, upon the advice of his father-in-law, appointed levels of supervision. The New Testament has words such as deacon, elder, shepherd, and bishop, and they are used descriptively rather than as titles. Man focuses on titles, but God focuses on the work.

Industry, especially the software industry, is returning to the model of allowing people to self-organize, at least at the bottom levels, because they know what needs to be done and how best to accomplish it. This trend is called “Agile” and helps produce more value sooner, especially in changing environments. 

Similarly, the New Testament is intentionally ambiguous so that creating offices such as Pastor, Bishop, and Cardinal is left to individual churches. Not every model, such as independent churches versus worldwide denominations, fits every political and cultural environment. So the fact that the scriptures do not spell out a title is not enough reason to reject it.

The Unbiblical Title and Role of Pope 

The title of Pope, however, is strictly anti-biblical — and worse. Jesus said, Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 23:9) One rule of Bible interpretation is, if the plain sense makes good sense, any other sense is probably nonsense.  It is not only anti-biblical to call a priest Father, but also to call a man Pope.

Further explanation ought to be unnecessary, but I anticipate heated objections, so I’ll elaborate.

When we consider the title, Pope, we must first recognize that it comes from Greek papas, father. This is echoed in another title of the pope, Holy Father. In Mark 10:18, Jesus said, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 

There are many similar statements with the term holy, such as 1 Samuel 2:2, There is no one holy like the LORD, Indeed, there is no one besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. Goodness and holiness can be ascribed to God alone. Peter would have been appalled at being called Father or Holy Father.

Do you see a trend, yet? 

In John (see 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, and 16:7), Jesus gave a descriptive title to God the Holy Spirit: Paraclete, which has the meanings of comforter and advocate. He described the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) as coming in His place, to be His vicarious Presence. That meets the definition of Vicar of Christ (substitute for Christ). 

Catholicism puts these usurped titles into action by placing its “Fathers” between believers and God, discouraging non-clergy from fully enjoying the personal relationship that God desires to have with his children. All three members of the Triune God fulfill the relationship without human interference:

• The Son -- He [God the Son] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
  
• The Spirit -- In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to [the will of] God. Romans 8:26–27
  
• The Father -- Let us then approach God's [the Father’s] throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

The system instead inserts itself between people and God, encouraging people to bring their prayers to its priests, to believers in heaven, and to angels — as though they had the omnipresence and omniscience that allows God to receive all prayers.

No First Pope

Before closing, one more issue, and a tangent, need addressing. You will observe circular reasoning that Peter was the first pope, so the papal office is legitimate, so the first pope was Peter. 

First, nobody called Peter a pope until hundreds of years later. The proof text, Matthew 16:15–19, used by Catholic teachers, simply does not call him pope, and it does not give him the extent of authority they claim.

Christ Is the Rock

The rock on which Christ said He would build His church is Peter’s confession. You can see Peter as being the rock only if you are biased to see it that way. In the Greek, Peter is masculine gender petros whereas rock is feminine gender petra. A petros is a stone whereas a petra is a monolith. If Jesus had meant Peter was the rock, He would have used the same word, saying You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petros) I will build my church, not on this rock (petra). 

To the contrary, the Bible gives the title of Rock to God the Son, as in 1 Corinthians 10:4, that rock was Christ, and as in 1 Samuel 2:2 (above). Even Peter himself identified Christ as the Rock toward the end of 1 Peter 2:4–8, and anyone who grasps biblical metaphor can understand that “rock,” Christ, extends to the recognition of whom Christ is — the core of the gospel. Again, Catholic teaching misapplies a title that belongs to God alone to a human.

Keys to the Kingdom Fulfilled in Acts

Catholic teaching says that the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose refer to total authority over the church. That is inconsistent with the rest of the New Testament. Act 1:8, the theme verse of that book, declares, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Acts describes the expansion of “God’s people” from the disciples, to Jews in Jerusalem, to Judeans, to Samarians, to the gentiles. Peter was present for each of those expansions, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were opened up to those concentric groups through him. 

However, Peter did not remain at the head of the church’s earthly hierarchy, as it had another president long before Peter left the scene (Acts chapters 15 and 21).

Catholic Bishops are Unqualified

Second, the Catholic explanation avoids the apostle’s description of a bishop’s qualifications. The Catholic will say that the bishop is married to the church, but Titus 1:4–9 specifically speaks of not only a wife, but also children. Indeed, Paul pointed out how Peter, Jesus’ brothers James and Jude, and other apostles each had wives, and had a right to have wives, in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Paul clearly teaches that God makes some people for marriage and others for single lives. Imposing celibacy on all clergy is strictly anti-biblical.

On a metaphorical level, it violates common sense for the church (the body of all believers) to take multiple human husbands when it is already the future Bride of Christ. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9) Likewise, it makes no sense for the married apostles to have both earthly and corporate wives. Thus, the Catholic priesthood usurps yet another title and role of God, that of divine Husband.

The Sin of Papal Veneration

Catholicism gives to its chief the titles and roles of Holy, Holy Father, Pope (papas), Paraclete, Vicar of Christ, intercessor, husband of the church. It delegates those roles and titles, in reduced form, to its local representatives. These titles all belong to God. Catholic priests may have been taught that God delegates these to them, but the claims contradict the Bible. I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. Isaiah 42:8 Usurping the titles and roles of God is a severe form of blasphemy.  

Over a millennium of rationalizing does not make the rationalizing any less sophistic. It is worth considering whether allegiance to an organization that creates new standards (traditions that morph with the culture) in order to justify contradicting the unchanging original standard (the scriptures) is the right choice.

Did Christ Die "for" Only the Elect?

Reformed / Calvinist / Particular versus Arminian / General

The Reform movement began a Century before Calvin's time, but one of the debates that divide Protestants from Catholics and Reformed Protestants from other Protestants came into clear focus as a result of conflict between John Calvin and Jacob Arminius.  For this reason, the Reformed school is often called Calvinist and the non-Reformed school is called Arminian.  Within Baptist history, the Reformed position is held by Particular Baptists and the Arminian position is held by General baptists.

The differences break down into many points.  In general, the Reformed beliefs are far more biblical than the Arminian beliefs.  Here, I'm going to focus on just one point: For whom did Christ die?  The Reformed belief holds that Christ died for the elect; that is, for, and only for, those whom God saves from damnation. The Arminian belief holds that Christ died for the world.

Both sides oversimplify by failing to separate the value of Christ's sacrifice and its application into two issues.

Reformed interprets "Christ died for the elect" too restrictively

The Reformed side errs by interpreting "Christ died for the elect" as meaning that the Sacrifice of Infinite God has finite potential value.  First, this mathematical absurdity is reverse-engineered from the Catholic assumption that God's grace and sacrifice are quantifiable.  Some argue that if all the value of Christ's sacrifice is not applied, then all is somehow wasted.  However, dead is dead, and eternal God is infinite. It is absurd to quantify and limit the infinite.

Second, it is a logical absurdity to assume that having one purpose, dying for the elect, excludes having other purposes. For example, Christ's sacrifice glorifies the Father and Himself, so it would be correct to say that Christ died "for" glorifying God.  By Reformed logic, Christ could not die for the glory of God or for vindication of the Father's plan to allow the Fall because He died (only) for the elect.

Third, Christ's sacrifice not only redeems the elect, but also, after the removal of the lost in the Day of Judgment, redeems the whole of creation.  Yes, Christ died "for" the elect, but His sacrifice has far more value.

Arminian interprets "Christ did for the elect" too loosely

The other side understands that the Sacrifice of the Infinite has unlimited potential value but errs by confusing unlimited value with universal application.  Arminianism holds that God applies the value to all men by freeing them to choose to receive or not receive Christ and His gift of salvation.  This flies in the face of New Testament teachings about how the lost are enslaved by sin and how the carnal mind is at enmity with God.  Paul makes it clear that even faith is a gift from God, and without that gift comes no conversion.  

Many denominations, the Roman Catholic Church among them, carry the error further by falling into forms of Universalism, the belief that all men will be redeemed (or at least purged) and enter heaven.  Pentecostals and Charismatics carry unlimited value to an absurd extreme by applying it to carnal desires for wealth ("it's in the atonement"), health ("by His stripes you were (physically) healed"), and personal pride ("he who speaks in tongues builds up himself").

On this point, both sides err by dragging along Catholic baggage.  The error on the Reformed side does not affect any critical points of the gospel that I know of, but the errors on the Arminian side can be damning.  

That is not to say that all Arminians are unsaved.  One can believe the gospel before being taught Arminian errors, and not everybody who belongs to a given church believes all that their church teaches.  However, I have only discussed one of many points.  Those who have accept Arminian errors before conversion fall short of the grace of God.  Their conversions are false, and those who mislead by preaching false gospels shall have much to answer for.