WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CHURCH (3)

Zwingli taught infant baptism using 1Corinthians 7:12-14 and stating that children of Christians are equally God’s children. Really, Huldrych Zwingli, where did you get that beat? If you will recall that Adam who was called the son of God sired Cain. Cain chose to deviate and won for himself the pristine fatherhood of global Satanism. Judas Iscariot, who followed Jesus for forty-two months, and was covered by the covenant blood of the Jewish annual sacrifice, did die in perdition. The rich man yelled out to his father Abraham in hellish agony. Abraham was enjoying the comfort of his bosom while the erstwhile rich Jew was gnashing teeth! Therefore, Zwingli, you are wrong!
If Jesus, seated physically there among them, would use a physical dough to represent His body it then follows that the use of the bread is quite symbolical. He did not tear His flesh to distribute for cannibalism. He used the liquid of the vine for it symbolizes the Holy Spirit, the soon coming Comforter who had energized them anticipatorily in Genesis 1:2. Hear Jesus, “This cup is the new testament in my blood. The wine was used symbolically to append His signature to the new covenant. He did not share His blood in the fashion after the order of blood sucking religious maniacs. With the bread, and especially the wine, Jesus had transacted the salvific business. Any other sacrificial flesh or blood was thenceforth otiose (scripturally) i.e. Catholic mass and their belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation which teaches catholic adherents that the communion they take at their mass is something that the priest performed an abracadabra and the elements metamorphosed into Jesus’ very flesh and blood! Zwingli would never hear of transubstantiation using John 6:36, (please read from verse 34). “But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not”, which is quite germane.
I agree with him because it is a matter of faith. The conflicting views of Luther and Zwingli run from 1525 to 1527. It culminated in the Marburg Colloquy which saw each sticking to his belief. Luther, the champion of Protestantism, like many others were tied to Catholic apron, unfortunately. Anytime I recall the pious mien on Catholics just after they had swallowed the mass wafer I just cannot help being amused. You will think each one of them had just encountered the Holy Ghost, Jesus and the Father as each one swallowed the communion in turns.
I, honestly, do not know how people who dumped Catholicism will also be guilty of scriptural misrepresentation. James Arminius attacked John Calvin’s soteriological unconditionalism. Arminianism gave a five-point article and Calvinism gave its five points with an acronym TULIP: i. Total Depravity ii. Unconditionalism iii. Limited atonement iv. Irresistible grace v. Perseverance of the saints. Arminianism has: i. Conditional predestination ii. Atonement iii. Prevenient grace iv. Resistible grace v. Perseverance.

John Calvin

Unconditionalism of Calvinism means ‘status or attainment of every individual is not as a result of whether he believed or not; it is totally an arbitrary election or choice of God long before individuals came into being’ . Arminian conditionalism means that ‘salvation and condemnation is conditioned by man’s free will to accept the enabling faith that God has placed in every individual.’ John 3:3 mentions ‘man’ which is the Greek word ’tis’, an indefinite pronoun meaning: ‘one, some, someone, something, anything, anyone’. In John 3:16 we have the word ‘whosoever’, pas (in the Greek) which means: ‘all, every (thing), whole, always’. This ‘pas’ is an adjective, qualifying the earthly object of the verse. Why would Jesus utter the words of verse eighteen if there is no predication on faith in the Son? Definitely Jesus would not ever have made the call, “come unto me all ye that labour…”, if election is arbitrary. Calvin, your unconditional didacticism is erratic; it makes God a sanguinary, whimsical despot. Calvin’s ‘limited atonement’ says that “the blood of Christ was shed for only the elect”. Arminian ‘ atonement’ teaches that “the blood was qualitatively adequate for all men, yet no one actually enjoys (experiences) this forgiveness of sins, except the believer…’ and this is limited to only those who trust in Christ.” To evaluate this I have John 1:29 where we have ‘sin’, harmatia, and meaning: ‘sin, wrongdoing, anything contrary to God’s will;’ and the word ‘world’, kosmos (earth, especially, system or arrangement of the world, where people live). Harmatia, here, is a singular word denoting the one wrongdoing of Adam and his Eden wife. This is the sin question, the bane of man’s harrowing earthly experience. The word ‘atonement’, as it comes out in Romans 5:11, has the same Greek word katallage, ‘reconciliation’ in 1 Corinthians 5:18, 19. As reconcilers, the apostles did not choose who to speak the word because God had reconciled, on the cross with mankind. If a person offers a friendly handshake we know it behooves the other party to allow the truce by lifting his own palm in a friendly contact. His refusal to shake hands is a rejection of a benign offer, and God expects us to do respond to His offer of salvation. Here again, Calvinism is faulty and James Arminius gets it right, scripturally.
Calvinism’s third point, Total Depravity means that mankind is too depraved of any goodness to respond to grace; ‘God does it all’, Calvin concludes, meaning that man has absolutely nothing to contribute in soteriology. Arminian take on this is: “That man has not saving grace in himself, nor of the energy of his free will” and unaided by the Holy Spirit, no man is able to respond to God’s will. John Wesley calls this Arminian third point ‘Prevenient Grace’ (anticipatory grace or the grace of God that precedes repentance and conversion). Did God not advice Cain to do the right thing, did Cain not reject God and went away to please himself? Did God not meet with Saul on his mission of persecution? Did Saul not heed God’s instruction? The prodigal son, did ‘come to himself’ and decided to do something about it. In the same spirit do we see the psalmist taking it upon himself to order his ‘soul to bless the LORD’, Psalm 103. Do you not hear, first, the word, believe it then open your mouth by your own volitional will to say, and believing every word of the prayer before salvation occurs? Calvin is philosophical than being scriptural on this point.
Irresistible Grace of Calvinism means: ‘If God has decided to save you He will do it regardless of what you do. You cannot resist His plan. His free will overpowers the free will of the elect’. That of Arminianism maintains: ‘The (Christian) grace of God is the beginning, the continuance and the accomplishment of any good, yet, man may resist the Holy Spirit.’ I cannot find any scripture to support Calvin’s point but there is a scripture, Matthew 12:31, “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men,” implying that when you refuse to be born again after having heard the finished work of salvation, energized by the Holy Spirit, it is a straight hell for you if you die unregenerate. We know that many people still do not believe in Jesus and that is nothing short of resistance. Calvin, here places man in a straitjacket of regimentation.

Perseverance of the saints in Calvinism means: Anyone saved or elected can never fall away, ‘ once saved always saved’ is Calvin’s stand. To the Arminian is a counter perseverance; which says, “Believers are able to resist sin through the grace and Christ will keep them from falling, but whether they are beyond the possibility of ultimately forsaking God or ‘becoming devoid of grace’ must be more determined. This Arminian doctrine means that you can lose your salvation, and in evaluation I will have to point it out that the reason why God decides to save you is that He foreknew that one day you will accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour so, He, as it is in Jude verse one, sanctify you. Sanctify, in Greek is hagiazo, meaning: ‘make holy, i.e. (ceremonially) purify or consecrate, (mentally) to venerate. In the same verse He also preserve you (the one who would one day be born again). The Greek word for preserve is tereo (tay-reh-o) meaning: ‘to guard (from loss or injury, especially, by keeping an eye upon). The third thing God did, in this same verse is to ‘call’ you. When? When John 3:3 and John 3:16 was preached to you and you said, “Yes” to Jesus. The word ‘called’ in the Greek is kletos (klay-tos), which is defined as ‘invited, i.e. appointed or divinely called (specially) a saint i.e. follower of Christ’. If your preservation is in the cold-room of Jesus Christ, and Jesus is eternal, then you are eternally preserved. You cannot lose your salvation. In this fifth point, Calvin, you have thrown the dart, and you have it “bulls’ eye”! In every regenerational scripture you will never find any conditionally attached string. If you know of any please post it to my site.

James Arminius

Read the next segment here.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CHURCH? (2)

The rosary (promotion of repetitiveness) engenders in adherents an emptiness of religious barrelled prayers, Matthew 6:7. Mariology (the studies of catholic Mary) inevitably led to Mariolatry (worship of Mary), Exodus 20:4-5; 1 Timothy 2:5 & Hebrews 9:15. Our worship is only to God be HE present in the holy of holies (the Holy Spirit), Jesus Christ, the Lamb in Revelation 5:8, 13, 14; the Eternal Father, Revelation 4:8-10. The Livio Dictionary gives the definition of indulgence as: ‘(Roman Catholicism) A pardon or a release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory after the sinner has been granted absolution’.

Luther nailing 95 theses

Remission of purgatorial punishment

No man dead, alive or yet to be born has the power, scripturally speaking, of Romish indulgence. Please read what Abraham could not do in my earlier post, titled, “Is ‘May His Soul R.I.P.’ A Prayer?” The only accepted way of averting hell is to agree with John 3:3 then a sincere performance of Romans 10:9-10, in a prayer. It all has to do with one Personage, Jesus Christ, to enter into a blissful, eternal heaven. What is the difference between the heathen use of amulets and various charms on one side and wearers of crucifixes and pendants of the images of Mary and dead saints? None! It is the depiction of lack of faith, and by the way how many Christians of the apostolic era engaged in those things (Hebrews 12:3)? Listen to Mary in Luke 1:47, “And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour”, admitting that she needed a Saviour, a pointer to the fact of her sinful nature. Paul lamented in Romans 7:13-25 of his problematic, carnal nature, disproving infallibility. How could Peter, whose office the infallible popes occupy, be caught red handed, wallowing in carnality by a younger clergy in Galatians 2:8-20. So where art thy infallibility O! Ye that ne’er saw nor heard from Peter!? Peter was never a pope, the pope was traditionally a Bishop. A bishop was, in apostolic days, appointed by a pastor of a local assembly!
Imagine the sun going to purchase a moon to enable it see its way around the firmament and or for spiritual illumination? Quite absurd! Jesus told us (Christians) that we are the light of the world in Matthew 5:14-16. We are the missing link in the Old Testamental worship. The light they put up in the Jerusalem Temple and in the various synagogues were shadows of the brightness to expect these latter days. Every born again Christian is brighter, by far, than any religious lighted candles!

Candles aiding prayer

The first baptism, if you ask me, was performed on the terra firma, in Genesis 1:2; the earth, we understand was beneath the surface of the deep, ready to be called forth in verse nine. The Spirit of God, on top of the situation, brooded like mother hen on eggs, generating enough divine energy to sustain the lives of those who would conform to the image (i.e. Christ) of the Creator. In the great deluge of Genesis chapter seven, souls, eight of them were saved, proving that God does not enter into a business that will not be profitable: for the Spirit of God is God Himself! This is the reason why this earth will be renovated. How do I know? The word ‘new’ in Revelation 21:1, is the Greek kainos, meaning: ‘new (in its freshness) and not in contrast to age.’ The earth, having been baptized twice is now capable of generating faithful ones of God, who will go through regeneration. A mere proof of belonging to God is what baptism, really, is all about albeit that is not to mean it is a fruitless rite. Going by the gradation in Mark 16:15-18, preaching comes first followed by believing then baptism. Baptism comes once to show its less consequence to believing, which appears thrice, and which is the main element of salvation. Please, do confer: John 3:18, 36; Acts 2:38, 16:30-32; Romans 10:9 & Peter 3:21. Baptism is an act of identifying with His death, burial and resurrection as 1Peter 3:19-22 explains because like Jesus we will also ascend. Infant baptism cannot hold scriptural water. I remember once, when we Householders (the local assembly pastored by Rev. Chris Okotie) went on our customary Saturday evangelism and I asked a teenager whether he would like to get born again he said he was already born again. I asked, like I am wont to, “How do you know you are born again?” He answered, “When I was a newly born baby I was taken to the priest for my naming ceremony and the priest poured holy water on my head and I got born again.” I opened, and asked him to read Romans 10:8-10, and when he finished reading I asked him if he thought a new born baby was intelligent enough, as the scripture clearly states, to go through the spiritual regeneration process. The boy shook his head and said, “No.” I told him, “We can do it well now. Do you want to get born again?” He agreed and I led him in the prayer of salvation. Praise the Lord!

Martin Luther

Huldrych Zwingli

Martin Luther believed in infant baptism (still tied to the umbilical cord). The Catholics teach that the water of baptism is savific (quite erroneous). The student who could not attend the graduation ceremony of his institution because he was being confined in an intensive care unit hospital ward; is he qualified as, and can he perform the duties of a graduate with his first-class upper score or not? Our spirituality is no longer materially displayed in the true sense of it. Anabaptist’s position is that although infant baptism is unscriptural but baptism is a pledge to live without sin (as if the flesh does not make one to falter once in a while – that is not to say I condone its slightest form). I do agree with Zwingli that, ‘such a pledge brings back the hypocrisy of legalism.’ Pentecostal denominations of Deeper Life Bible Church, Apostolic Faith and Redeemed Christian Church of God, to mention a few, believe in Anabaptist’s idea of pledge.

Read the next segment here.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CHURCH?

The word church, in the Greek ecclesia, meaning a called out people, used for the first time in Matthew 16:18 in a futuristic sense, is God’s institution, planned from the eternal past to bring the Creator in an assemblage with His creation. If it is from God’s eternal heart then I can of certainty inform you that it is a very good establishment! But we know that something has gone awry with the participatory creation and not the institution herself.
Congregationalism began in the third heavenly assizes itself. God, the Eternal, sits on the throne and receives magnificent worship and praises of which every uttered vocabulary is the very truth of the One for whom the assemblage is converged. The head of the congregation is none other than the magnificently endowed Lucifer, the praise and worship leader. Rev. Chris Okotie taught that God got so elated by Lucifer’s eulogy that HE would lift Lucifer up to gaze at HIM (this, I believe is the reason Satan displays so much power). Something happened to the church, merely, but it did not stop the heavenly praise and worship of the Most High for as long as there are subjects remaining in heaven praise and worship must strictly be an inevitable occurrence practised with so much gusto! You cannot worship God in truth and in the Spirit and ever be laced with the slightest touch of fatigue in your person. The joy of HIM from the Holy Spirit, the Holy effectual strength of Jehovah Himself will strengthen you for the simple fact that you, the true worshipper, would have, in Christ, confluenced Him (the melting point), blending spiritually with the Most High. A true worshipper, hence, belongs to God eternally.
                               

The rock of Gibraltar is petra.                   A piece of stone is petros.          “Upon this rock I will build my church”, Matthew 16:18. The word ‘rock’ qualified by ‘this’ is not in reference to Peter. What Catholicism teaches concerning the verse in question is neither a misconception nor a misconstrual, and personally I see it as an outright, hellish deception. Romish Church employs the very well educated as her clergies. How will they not know that ‘rock’ (petra, in Greek) is distinct from Peter (petros, in Greek)? Petra means: ‘a boulder, mass of rock, bedrock, rock crag or other large rock formation, in contrast to individual stones, with a focus that this is a suitable, solid foundation.’ Petros means: ‘a piece of rock or individual stone. Peter, the apostle, could not be meant by, ‘this rock (petra)’ simply because that would make him an object of reverential worship, going by the definition, ‘with a focus that this is suitable, solid foundation.’ 1 Corinthians 3:11 is clear about the foundation of the Christian Church and doctrine. Read also Acts 10:25, 26, where Peter bluntly refused a practical worship of him by Cornelius. ‘Build’ is an interesting Greek, oikodomeo (oy-kod-om-eh-o), an architectural parlance, meaning: ‘to be a house builder, i.e. construct or (fig.) confirm’. This definition clearly makes the confimer of the church activity not, in any way, to be Peter (or any one). This word, build, you need to understand, is the same word used in Genesis 2:22, “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man,” where the word, ‘made’ (banah, in Hebrew) means ‘to build’ (lit. & fig.). The first church attendance took place in the Garden of Eden (Where two or three are gathered in my name, lo I am there). Adam, the Man, stood in the Garden in the representative capacity of Jesus on earth. Genesis 2:18 says, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him;” where the word ‘make’ (asah) means ‘to create out of an existing material’. When the Woman was built the Church emerged. In the Woman we see not just Jesus but (the) Christ.
Nothing can really go wrong with the built Church; it is God’s establishment. But something can go wrong with the members of the congregation. When the church goers begin to see the scripture, God’s word, differently something goes wrong with the assemblage. If researchers’ finding is that Catholicism was founded circa 40 A.D., then we are looking at a likelihood place where the Church was infiltrated with Gnostic doctrines within the first era of Christendom. It is an egregious fallacy that it began at the Pentecost, in the upper room, with Peter at the helm of affairs or at any other day or that he planted it in Rome. Catholicism imported into Church worship: rosary, Mariology, culminating in Mariolatry, worship of saints & angels, sale of indulgences, papacy culminating in papal infallibility, candles, infant baptism, transubstantiation, soteriological predestination to mention just a few. For about one and half millenniums the forceful Catholic domination of the Church got her spiritually crippled. When in October 30th, 1517 the German theologian Martin Luther, with his historical 95 theses, slammed Catholic doctrines, especially on indulgences, brought a renaissance to the church and Protestantism aided the breaking of the evil umbilical cord from the papacy, different denominations still found it difficult to jettison doctrines like infant baptism, transubstantiation and soteriology bordering issues.

Rosary                            Mariology                         Mariolatry

(Pope praying to Mary)

Read the next segment here