Sola Fide and the Catholic Use of James 2:24

As any Christian should know, the Apostle Paul tells us (Romans 3:28), "We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law." Faith is the means - not the basis, which is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross - of justification before God, that is, a judicial declaration of guiltlessness.

While claiming not to teach salvation based on works from one side of the mouth, with the other Catholics immediately throw up James 2:24: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone."

Hmmm, the Bible-believer might think, were the Reformers wrong in decrying the Catholic doctrine of salvation? Are we saved partly by works? This thinking could severely undermine the assurance of salvation. For the Catholic, an obvious question would be, How do I know when I have added enough good works to qualify for justification?

However, their whole argument fails with just a little consideration of context. For this verse, the context is the entire paragraph, James 2:18-26. Verse 18, the second half (emphasis added), is the key: "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" [emphasis mine]. He says "show me" and "show you," but never "show God." James isn't arguing with Paul over how the believer is justified in the eyes of God! He is talking about how we demonstrate our faith before the eyes of people around us. He is stating, in different words, the same principle stated by Jesus in Matthew 7:16: "You will recognize them by their fruits."

I write this for two purposes. The first is to reinforce the confidence of the Protestant in the face of Catholic abuse of Scripture. The second is in hope that God will open the eyes of a Catholic reader, leading him to recognize that he has been deceived. I appeal to you to turn to Christ in faith alone, eschewing any confidence in your good works to get you into eternal life. In God's eyes, the best that you can do is as "a polluted garment" (Isaiah 64:6). Your best works are repugnant to Him.

The Sacrifice of the Catholic Mass, and Its Offense to the Gospel

"If anyone saith that the sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice, or that it profits him only who receives, and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be anathema."

The Council of Trent

The above statement is a quote from the decrees of the Council of Trent, chapter 9, canon 3. This council was called by the Roman Catholic Church to address the crisis created by the budding of the Reformation. It defined, officially and infallibly (Rome claims), Catholic doctrine, in perpetuity. I have highlighted in boldface the key phrases in that statement. They claim for this statement the support of Malachi 1:11, "For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and, in every place, incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering."

When dealing with Catholic apologists, I find that they consistently claim that the Mass is not a sacrifice. For example, Dave Armstrong writes, "It is crucial to understand that the Sacrifice of the Mass is not a 're-sacrifice' of Christ, as is the common misconception. Jesus does not die every time a priest offers Mass, since He died once, in history, on earth" (A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, p. 95). Yet, he says in the very next paragraph, "in the Mass, Jesus Christ ultimately offers the sacrifice of Himself (just as at the Last Supper), with the priest merely acting in His stead, as a purely secondary, instrumental agent." So, as Trent says, it is a sacrifice, but it's not, because it is Christ sacrificing Himself, not the priest sacrificing Him. To me, that sounds like Rome is trying to play both sides of the matter.

However, whether Christ is supposedly sacrificing Himself, or the priest is sacrificing Him, the claim should be anathema (to reclaim their word) to any true Christian.

The writer of Hebrews (10:5) quotes Jesus Himself, using the words of Psalm 40:6, "Sacrifice and offerings You have not desired." So, in His own words, Jesus is telling us that we do not need a continuing sacrifice, whether offered by Himself, or "with the priest merely acting in His stead." Why is that? Because (Heb. 10:11, emphasis added) "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The whole point of this chapter of Hebrews is to establish the superiority of Christ's priestly offering of Himself over the Jewish Aaronic priests exactly because their sacrifices had to be repeated. In contrast (Heb. 10:12-14, emphasis added), "when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God..., for, by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." And I think that the final nail in the coffin is seen in verses 17 and 18: "'I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.' Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any offering for sin."

By claiming a continuing sacrifice in the Mass, the Catholic Church is claiming that it must complete an insufficiency in the sacrifice of Christ. And, as the writer of Hebrews (10:1) points out, "it can never, by the same sacrifices, that are continually offered every year [or every Sunday], make perfect those who draw near." That is, if the sacrifice must be continually offered, then it is never sufficient to achieve the purpose of sanctification. The Catholic has no assurance that he has partaken in the sacrifice of the Mass enough times to know when he has been saved from his sins.

That is bondage of an horrific sort! That is why the Reformation was necessary! And it is why bible-believing Protestants must never cease to point the finger at Rome and denounce it as a perversion of Christianity.

On which will you rely, Catholic reader? A Savior who gave His life for His people, once for all, or a Mass with nothing but the claims of the Pope, contrary to the Scriptures themselves?

95 Theses Against the Claims of Mormonism

From Christ Presbyterian Church, Magna, UT. Used by permission.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted 95 theses or propositions against the Roman Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences – – the claim that for the right amount of money you could buy forgiveness of sins. Indulgences were hostile to the very heart of the Christian faith. Martin Luther challenged this practice from the Scriptures and called men back to the Bible and back to Jesus. In the spirit of that challenge, we present 95 theses against the claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We implore you to search the Scriptures to know what is true (Acts 17:11) and seek the real Jesus while He may be found.
The Elders of Christ Presbyterian Church
A Congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Magna, UT
(801)969-7948
.
1. Your god is not the God of the Bible, nor even truly a god. He is not the creator and sustainer of all things (Colossians 1:16-17), but an exalted man or “super-man” who transformed eternal matter. Your god is more akin to the Norse god Thor than the God of the Bible.

2. On dedicating the temple in Jerusalem, King Solomon stated that the “heavens of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have builded.” (1 Kings 8:27) Yet, your god could have easily fit inside that temple.

3. The Lord, through the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:22, condemns the pagans, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. . .” Yet, you take pride that your god is man with a body of flesh and bone (D&C 130:18).

4. Even if your god existed, he would be pitifully small.

5. Jesus was God before He took a body (John 1:1). There is no similarity between God condescending to become a man, and a man exalting himself to become a god.

6. Your god is one among many gods, but the God of the Bible states, “ye are even My witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” (Isaiah 44:8)

7. Your god had a father, who had a father. The Bible states, “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6)

8. Your god had a wife. The Bible states, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me.” (Isaiah 45:5)

9. You twist Psalm 82 to claim a multitude of gods, yet it does not say, “ye may become gods,” but “ye are gods.” Even your apostle, James Talmage, wrote that these are human judges (Jesus the Christ, p.501) who die like men.

10. Your god has not always been a god. Achieving A Celestial Marriage states, “God was once a man who, by obedience, advanced to his present state of perfection. . .” Psalm 90:2 states, “. . . from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.”

11. This concept of your god having to obey a law external to himself sets something superior to your god. There is nothing higher than the God of the Bible (Hebrews 6:13).

12. Your God is subject to human free agency, but the God of the Bible works all things together for good (Romans 8:28) and according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). Those who crucified Christ were guilty, yet Jesus was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” (Acts 2:23)

13. Joseph Smith in his “inspired translation” changed the Bible to remove the statement that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. The Apostle Paul in Romans 9 confirms the reading in Exodus, contrary to Joseph Smith.

14. You claim that the Bible contradicts itself because it says that no man has seen God at any time. You ignore the context and figures of speech. The Lord “spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11), but it is only nine verses later that God explicitly states, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

15. You confuse seeing Jesus with seeing the Father. To see Jesus is to see the Father (John 14:9), but there is a difference. Jesus, the Word, is God (John 1:1); “and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. . . (John 1:14). Yet, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” (John 1:18)

16. You confuse sentimentality with reverence, since you seek to rob God of His unique glory.

17. Your religion seems to be more focused on God as a means to your own glory, rather than our being the means of revealing His glory.

18. You claim we undergo a mortal probation to become a god, and yet Jesus already was God before his incarnation (John 1:1-14).

19. Because John 1:1 contradicted Joseph Smith, in his “inspired” translation of John 1:1 Smith tried to make the gospel rather than Jesus the focus. Nowhere in any of the thousands of Greek manuscripts of this passage do we find anything resembling Smith’s translation.

20. Jesus was worshiped by angels before His incarnation and was so holy that they had to cover their faces in His presence. (Isaiah 6, John 12:41) Yet you have reduced him to our elder spirit brother, along with Satan.

21. Since you believe that we all began as eternal intelligences, all that really separates us from Elohim and Jesus are time and exaltation.

22. Your god is limited in time, power, justice, holiness, love, and glory.

23. You assert that we existed before this world because God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee. . .” It is only because your god is too small that you cannot fathom a God who “calleth those things which be not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17) God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and Adam “became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:17)

24. You twist the words of Jesus and the apostles to claim that we can become gods. Christians will become like Jesus, yet God explicitly states, “Before Me there was no god formed, neither shall there be after Me.” (Isaiah 43:10)

25. Isaiah 43:10 and 44:8 also debunk your idea that Jesus became a god at some later date. In the beginning, Jesus already was God (John 1:1), yet the Bible is also clear that there is one God.

26. You ignore what Christians really say about the Trinity and seek to portray it as modalism: one God playacting in three different roles. Christians believe what the Bible teaches: that there is one God, who exists eternally as three distinct persons. We do not believe Jesus was “talking to Himself” in His prayers, but speaking to the Father.

27. You claim there is only one god for this planet, but don’t you claim that Elohim and Jesus are different gods?

28. You are unclear whether Jesus is to be worshiped, and yet He and the Father are worshiped in the Bible by the people of this world.

29. Your god is not holy; he is the author of sin. He gave Adam two contradictory commands, so that Adam had to rebel against God to obey the command to be fruitful and multiply (2 Nephi 2:25). The God of the Bible does not tempt, much less command men to sin (James 1:13).

30. Your apostle, Bruce McConkie stated, “Properly understood, it becomes apparent that the fall of Adam is one of the greatest blessings ever given of God to mankind.” The Bible presents the Fall of Adam, not as a “fall upward,” but treason against God.

31. Our Creator declared all things good, except for man to be alone. When that was resolved, God declared everything “very good.” Adam, in his rebellion, believed things were not good and substituted his judgment for the revelation of God. Mormons agree with sinful Adam.

32. You trivialize sin. The Fall of Adam was not a blessing, but ushered in this world of rape, lies, murder, cancer, and death. Jesus wept over death, but you would have us believe the Fall that brought it a blessing.

33. Your God is the author of lies. He commanded Abraham to lie to Pharaoh (Abraham 2:24). The God of the Bible does not lie (Titus 1:2). Numbers 23:19 states, “God is not a man, that He should lie...” You believe he is both a man and a liar.

34. You trivialize the effect of sin on us. Rather than working out our free agency, the Bible presents man as dead in his trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), an enemy of God (Romans 5:10), and insensible to the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14).

35. You see men as seeking after God, but God tells us, “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”

36. You characterize all those who disagree with you as presenting a cheap grace that does not involve repentance. This is as unfair as your critics refusing to differentiate between Thomas Monson and Warren Jeffs.

37. You equate regeneration and the new birth with water baptism and ignore the need for a new heart and new life.

38. You make salvation a matter of grace, only after all we can do (2 Nephi 25:23) and ignore that even our best works are only “filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)

39. Since your god is not holy, sin is not that bad, and man is not lost, you do not understand grace as the unmerited love of God. Moroni 10:31 states, “. . .if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you . . .”

40. You ignore that we are not merely sick, but dead in our sins. The things of God are foolishness to us and cannot be understood. The gospel is not about God helping good people save themselves, but raising the spiritually dead to life and justifying the ungodly.

41. Joseph Smith in his “inspired translation” guts the gospel of grace by changing Romans 4:5 to say that God “justifieth not the ungodly.” None of the thousands of Greek manuscripts of this passage support his reading. It also contradicts everything around it and the rest of the New Testament.

42. You are currently unclear as to what you believe about the cross. Your emphasis in the atonement used to be on Jesus sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. You present a moving target in terms of anything substantive in your teaching. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine has been allowed to go out of print, and no substitute has been offered.

43. You make salvation to mean only resurrection and ignore the reconciliation between God and man.
44. You claim that we are all spirit children of God by birth, but the Bible says that Christians are creatures who are adopted as children of God. (Ephesians 1:5)

45. Your claim that we all pre-existed as spirit children does not fit with what Jesus told the unbelieving Jews, “If God were your Father, ye would love Me. . . Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.”

46. You equate godliness with the Word of Wisdom, not with true love for God as He is.

47. Your Word of Wisdom creates man-made traditions forbidding wine that God gave as a blessing (Psalm 104, Ecclesiastes 9) and part of the Lord’s Supper.

48. You ignore the biblical warnings of legalism, such as Colossians 2:20, “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?”

49. You pride yourself against other groups because of the law of consecration, but do you practice it? Do your apostles and other leaders live the law of consecration?

50. You claim the three heavens are degrees of glory. You ignore the Jewish understanding to which Paul referred: the first heaven as the sky, the second heaven where the stars and planets are, and the third heaven (heaven of heavens) being the abode of God.

51. You think that you have a higher view of heaven, because you get to become gods, but you have to redefine the term god. The reality is that God promises far better to Christians. It is only because you don’t know Him that you think an eternity of His presence would be boring.

52. You promote James 1:5 as grounds to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. You ignore that the rest of the Bible contradicts this idea.

53. James 1:5 does not lead us to ignore “the Scriptures . . .[which] are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15)

54. Trusting in the feelings of our hearts is contrary to God’s Word. Jeremiah 17:9 states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Proverbs 28:26 states, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. . .”

55. You claim to believe the Bible “as far as it is translated correctly,” yet you dismiss arguments from the original languages.

56. You claim the Bible has been corrupted, yet ignore that it is the best authenticated ancient text and was sufficiently preserved for Jesus and the apostles to cite it as authoritative.

57. You claim that God has not preserved His Word in His church, but you believe He preserved it in a hillside and in a traveling Egyptian sideshow.

58. You believe your god preserved records for hundreds of years only to be thwarted when Lucy Harris stole the first 116 pages of translation. Rather than retranslating the same plates, Smith claimed he had to translate others that were similar.

59. You dismiss the Bible as authoritative since people disagree over it, yet there are over 200 groups who claim to follow the Book of Mormon, and they disagree about many, many things.

60. You assert contradictions in the Bible, but will not hear any response to your claims.

61. You are not a religion of any book, but of a man; and your prophets have contradicted themselves and one another.

62. You claim that the church lost its priesthood authority through a great apostasy. Once again, your God is too small. Jesus stated that all authority was given to Him in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18) and the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church. (Matthew 16:18)

63. You claim that the church lost its priesthood authority, yet your concepts of priesthood and temples are hostile to the Bible. Solomon’s temple had nothing to do with celestial marriage or baptism for the dead, but offering sacrifices and worship to God.

64. Your temples are more rooted in pagan Freemasonry than in the Bible.

65. Your interpretation of “baptism for the dead” in 1 Corinthians 15:29 is hostile to the rest of the Bible.

66. Celestial marriage is not mentioned in the Bible, nor in the Book of Mormon.

67. You build temples made with hands and do not understand that the temple in Jerusalem was replaced with a temple not made with hands – – the church of which Christians are living stones. (1 Peter 2:5)

68. If your temple ceremonies came from God, why were they changed by men? Why do you no longer refer to Protestant ministers as “hirelings of Satan” and take oath to have your throats slit “from ear to ear”?

69. You argue that a true church has apostles, but ignore that the church did not have apostles in the Old Testament, nor did the apostles appoint new apostles, except one in preparation for Pentecost.

70. Your apostles do not meet the biblical qualifications. They are not witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.

71. Your apostles do not have the gifts of the apostles. They do not have miraculous powers of healing the sick or raising the dead.

72. You falsely claim to be the fastest growing church in the world and think this proves the truth of your church. The false prophet Mohammed has 1.6 billion followers. Seventh-day Adventists trace their origins to the Great Disappointment in 1844 and the false prophet Ellen G. White; they have over 18 million members. The Assemblies of God traces its roots to the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 and has over 66 million members.

73. According to Deuteronomy 13, Joseph Smith was a false prophet because he declared a god different from the God of the Bible.

74. According to Deuteronomy 18, Joseph Smith was a false prophet, since he predicted things that did not come to pass.

75. Joseph Smith gave false prophecies, declaring the Second Coming of Christ in the generation of those alive in the 1830’s. Apostle Parley Pratt said in 1838, “Now, Mr. Sunderland, you have something definite and tangible, the time, the manner, the means, the names, the dates; and I will state as a prophecy, that there will not be an unbelieving Gentile upon this continent 50 years hence; and if they are not greatly scourged, and in a great measure overthrown, within five or ten years from this date, then the Book of Mormon will have proved itself false.”

76. The accusations of Joseph Smith’s false prophecies are based not merely on our reading of him, but your own general authorities. For decades, your prophets and apostles declared in General Conference that the generation alive in 1832 would see both the building of a temple in Independence, Missouri, and the Second Coming of Jesus.

77. The best claim you have to Smith’s prophetic gifts is Doctrine & Covenants 87. You claim that Joseph Smith predicted the American Civil War in 1832, but you ignore that this prediction was made in the midst of the Nullification Crisis, when the newspapers were speculating about civil war and President Andrew Jackson was threatening to invade South Carolina. The fact that these tensions eventually did lead to war does not undermine the other issues of false prophecies and declaring a false god.

78. Brigham Young taught over and over that Adam was God, but you dismiss this as not being canonized. He stated, “I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture.”

79. Does it concern you that the prophet to whom you trust your souls and the souls of your children could be so wrong on who God is?

80. Your recent statements on the Book of Abraham seek to confuse the issues.

81. Decades before the rediscovery of the papyri, Egyptologists pointed out the errors in Facsimile 1, and these are the places where the papyrus was missing and images clearly drawn in.

82. You hold open the possibility Smith’s “translation” came from lost papyri. Did Smith not claim that Facsimile 1 came at the beginning of the record? Is not all the text connected with that image from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and has nothing to do with Abraham?

83. Doesn’t Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Grammar translate characters from the existing papyri into the Book of Abraham?

84. Your church lied about polygamy before 1852. Joseph Smith publicly denied that he practiced polygamy. (History of the Church, vol 6, p. 411)

85. The original Doctrine and Covenants lied about the practice of polygamy in Section 101. Apostle and future prophet John Taylor publicly cited this to dismiss accusations of polygamy while secretly practicing it.

86. Though the original section 101 can be “spun” to allow polygamy (it does not say “but” one wife), it specifically prohibited a woman from having more than one husband. Neither Joseph Smith, nor Brigham Young obeyed this.

87. Your church lied about polygamy after the Manifesto in 1890. Polygamy was still secretly practiced by general authorities until the Second Manifesto.

88. Brigham Young stated at General Conference, “Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, p. 110). Yet this and numerous revelations about Blacks have been relegated to the dustbin of LDS history.

89. Christians in the early church chose torture and death rather than compromise their faith, but the LDS church only had to be threatened with jail to give up polygamy. Jimmy Carter only had to threaten the LDS church tax status to spur a new revelation on blacks in the priesthood.

90. You display a double standard when others criticize you. You declare that you are “sharing” when you claim that God said Joseph Smith should join none of the existing churches because all their professors are corrupt and all their creeds are an abomination. When others respond to your claims, you accuse them of being “anti-Mormons,” or “Mormon-bashers.”

91. Your Scriptures state “Presbyterianism is not true,” (Joseph Smith – History 1:20), but you become upset when others state that Mormonism is not true.

92. You portray yourselves as victims, because Governor Boggs issued an extermination order if Mormons did not leave Missouri. Yet Governor Boggs’ took this language from a sermon by Sidney Rigdon, threatening non-LDS in Missouri with extermination.

93. You portray yourselves as victims, but Mormons killed far more non-Mormons in the name of religion in one day at the Mountain Meadows Massacre than non-Mormons have ever killed Mormons in the name of religion.

94. You insist that Brigham Young did not order the massacre, but he was clearly an accessory after the fact, blaming the Indians. After the massacre, the California Militia found the bones of the victims and gathered them together and placed stones over them. They placed a cross with a sign on top that said “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.” According to eyewitnesses, when Brigham Young found the monument, he supervised its destruction. According to your future prophet, Wilford Woodruff, in his journal, Brigham Young stated about the sign, “it should be vengeance is mine and I have taken a little.”

95. You have the wrong god, the wrong Jesus, and the wrong gospel. You have been deceived by false prophets who lie and tell you that you have peace with God by following them.

We say these things out of love for Christ, love for the truth, and love for you. Jesus describes the sincerely deceived in Matthew 7:21: "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity."

We plead with you to search the Scriptures. You will find that God is far greater and more holy than the LDS believe. You will find that sin is far worse than you ever thought, but you will also find that Jesus is far more loving and glorious than you can imagine.
.
The Elders of Christ Presbyterian Church
A Congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Magna, UT
(801)969-7948

The Anti-Traditional Essence of the Catholic Doctrine of Transubstantiation

According to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist (or communion, or Lord's Supper, depending on one's tradition) are physically transformed in substance, though not in form, into the literal flesh and blood of Christ by the words of institution, i. e., when the priest says the words "this is my body" and "this is my blood." This change in substance is called "transubstantiation."

The Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong explains this mystery by analogy to the Incarnation. He says (in his book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism) that the relationship of the elements before and after their transubstantiation is like the union of deity and humanity in the Person of Christ. The Catholic Encyclopedia also explains the doctrine in incarnational terms. I do not know whether that makes it official dogma, but I am responding to it as such, until shown otherwise.

That analogy presents a serious problem, even worse that the error of transubstantiation itself.

I agree with the Catholic Church that Christ is one Person, uniting in Himself the deity of the Second Person of the Trinity and the humanity born of the Virgin Mary. We also agree that these two natures are distinct, though not separate, not mixed or confused, but each retaining its respective nature. This is formulated in the Chalcedonian Creed. For me, the official statement is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith VIII:2, "So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion."

In contrast, in the Fifth Century, a man named Eutyches argued that the Person of Christ was of one nature, which was both divine and human.This doctrine is known as Eutychianism, in his honor, or Monophysitism. It is the official doctrine of the Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac churches, but is rejected by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches, as a perversion of the Person of Christ, in that it turns Him, not into God or man, but rather into a hybrid which is neither fully one or the other. This was the historical situation which resulted in the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Do you see why I bring this up? If Jesus is fully human, as both I and the Catholic Church affirm, then He has a body with the essential attributes of any other human being. That includes two things, off the top of my head, which are relevant here: first, that He can only be physically in one place at a time, and second, that His flesh is itself, neither transformable into something else, nor subject to transformation from something else. One aspect of that is the question of where Jesus now is. So, where does the Bible say that is? Heaven (Luke 24:51 and Rom. 8:34)!

The Church of Rome, on the other hand, claims that the flesh of Christ is wherever His deity is, which is, of course, everywhere! Is that not the teaching of Eutyches? Is that not what was rejected by Chalcedon, almost sixteen centuries ago? Yes, it is! The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation intermixes the humanity and divinity of Christ, so that each shares in the attributes of the other.

Rome claims that their doctrine is from "tradition," yet it wasn't formally adopted until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Thus, the orthodox doctrine which was expressed in the Fifth Century was denied by Rome in the Thirteenth. That, to my mind, puts the lie to Catholic claims of tradition, not that tradition would have justified a doctrine of such superstitious and idolatrous implications. It also indicates that no person, claiming the Name of Christ and housing the Holy Spirit in his heart, can participate in a Catholic eucharist, as if it were the same thing as true communion in the body and blood of Christ.

Evangelical Lunatics: "Blood Moon" Madness

"Thus says the Lord:
'Learn not the way of the  nations,
Nor be dismayed by the signs of  the heavens
Because the nations are  dismayed at them,
for the customs of the peoples  are vanity.'"
- Jeremiah 10:2-3

It seems less than a coincidence that I watched the lunar eclipse this morning, and then the verses above, Jeremiah 10:2-3, came up in my daily Bible reading. This eclipse was the second (the first was April 14-15) in a rare tetrad of eclipses, i. e., successive total eclipses, with no intervening partial eclipses. The other two will be in 2015.

These eclipses have been designated "blood moons" by John Hagee, due to the redness associated with the appearance of the moon during a full eclipse (the refraction of sunlight through the earth's atmosphere appears red, the same phenomenon that causes the red light at sunrise and sunset), as a way to connect them to prophecies regarding Israel (according to his interpretation) that describe the moon appearing like blood (such as Joel 2:31). In other words, while all full eclipses appear red, Hagee has designated these eclipses as "blood moons" purely on the basis of his whim. The fact that it also sells his book is completely coincidental.

Hagee claims that past "blood moons" were signs of significant events in modern-day Israel. for example, he mentions the independence of Israel in 1948. Perhaps it was a mistake to be so specific, because those "blood moons" took place in 1949-50, not 1948. Furthermore, of the current "blood moons," three of the four - including the one this morning - won't even be visible in Israel. How can they be signs to Israel, if they aren't visible in Israel?

The problem is that the whole thing is an invention of the fevered imagination of John Hagee. Yet it has a segment of the evangelical community whipped up in fear. Or, as Jeremiah says, in superstition.

The Bible certainly does mention astronomical signs for eschatological events. I happen not to think they're intended to be taken literally. However, whether they are figurative or literal, to look to the heavens as predictors of coming events is the mentality of the pagan, not the Christian. I am sure that both Hagee and his Hagettes would loudly, and properly, decry the use of astrology by Christians, yet they have done that exactly, simply changing the terminology! It is this pagan worldview, baptized though it be, that is judged by God in the words of Jeremiah above.

No matter what name a person puts on it, to adopt a pagan worldview is to be a pagan, and thus to be under the judgment of God.

And for John Hagee, to lead people into superstition brings an extra judgment, as Jeremiah also says. He adds (Jer. 10:21), "For the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord; therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered." The stupidity of Hagee is already plain to see; I hope that his deceived flock will scatter, as soon as the falsity of his prophecies is revealed.

Biblical Repentance

My previous post on the idolatry of Mormonism has gotten a lot of attention. My prayer is that someone in bondage to that cult has had his eyes opened by the Holy Spirit. If so, he may be wondering what to do, how to move to a new relationship with the true and living God. So that is what I want to address here.

In Jeremiah 3:12-14, God says:
"Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say,

‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord.

I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord;

I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt,

that you rebelled against the Lord your God

and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree,

and that you have not obeyed My voice, declares the Lord.

Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord;

for I am your master;

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,

and I will bring you to Zion.'"

The circumstances of this prophecy are that Israel, the northern kingdom, has already been deported by her Assyrian conquerors, never to be seen again. Yet, Judah, the southern kingdom, has failed to learn the lesson laid out before her eyes. Israel had turned to idols, and Jehovah her God had judged her. Even with this testimony, Judah is also guilty of idolatry, and refuses to put away her idols. And now Jehovah pleads with her to repent, before He is provoked to judgment. It is sad to know how the story proceeds. Judah refused to repent, and God judged her through the Babylonians.

But anyone reading this, whether an idolatrous Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness, or mere unbeliever, you can learn the lesson that Judah failed to heed.

What does God say? He promises not to hold his anger against you, for He is merciful. And what does He expect from you? To acknowledge your guilt and rebellion against Him, for you have given what you owe to Him to gods of the imagination, instead - gods invented, whether by Joseph Smith or by the Watchtower. And if you do so, if you make that reversal, He will bring you to Zion, His true bride, the true Church of Christ (I'm not using that as a denominational name).

This is repentance, to turn from your sin and to God. But this isn't a trade. He doesn't say that your repentance is equal to His forgiveness. He doesn't say that your repentance earns His forgiveness. It's not a magical formula. Rather, the Bible tells us that God grants us repentance! We see this is Acts 5:31 and II Timothy 2:25 (hold your cursor over the references, and the text will come up in a box). Repentance is something that He does in your heart, not something that you work as some kind of favor to Him. So, if you have come to the point of sorrowing for your idolatry, and looking to Him for His forgiveness and redemption, then you should also glorify Him for this, His merciful gift to you.

And that has been my prayer, that He would soften hearts trapped in the poisoned claws of pseudo-Christian cults, that they may turn to the biblical Jesus, God in the flesh, for forgiveness and new birth.

The Prophet Isaiah and the Pre-Refutation of Mormon Polytheism

"Before Me no god was formed,
   Nor shall there be any after Me."

The phrase quoted here is the last couplet of Isaiah 43:10. This profession of monotheism is a repeated theme in this section of the book of Isaiah (chapters 40-48). In 40:18, the prophet asks, "To whom then will you liken God?" And God Himself repeats the question in verse 25: "To whom then will you compare Me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One." And again in 41:4: "I, the Lord, the first, and with the last I am He." In 42:8, He says, "I am the Lord; that is My name; My glory I give to no other." In 43:10, He repeats the declaration quoted above: "Before Me no god was formed, nor shall there be after Me." But then He continues in verse 11, "I, I am the Lord, and besides Me there is no

savior." In 44:6, we find, "I am the first and I am the last; besides Me there is no god." And verse 8, "Is there a God besides Me? There is no Rock; I know not any." In verse 24, he proclaims, "I am the Lord, who made all things, Who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by Myself." In 45:5, He tells us, "I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no god." In verse 21, "There is no other god besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides Me." In 46:9, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me." And finally, in 48:12, "I am He; I am the first, and I am the last."

Why have I made such an extensive list? Because Mormons claim that there are many gods; Jehovah, they say, is god only here on earth, in reward from the god of his home world. They often try to wriggle out of the idolatry label. However, here is the evidence from the mouths of their own past leaders. To my mind, this feature alone makes them pagans, regardless of their claim to be "the Church of Jesus Christ" or protestations of commonality with Christians. Of course, while a sufficient justification, their polytheism is not the only reason that I insist that Mormonism is an anti-Christian cult.

Why do I consider these quotes from Isaiah so important? Well, look at what else God claims through that prophet. In Isaiah 43:25, God also says, "I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins." And in 45:22, "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other." In other words, Jehovah, the solitary God of the Bible, reserves to Himself the power to save all those who confess Him alone. Whoever makes up a god of his own imagination, as the Mormons have done, is lost, forever judged for his sins. I want Mormons to come to recognize that they follow a false god so that they can repent, and return to the true and living God of the Bible.

As a side note, I also want to point out to the followers of the Watchtower that they, too, follow a false god. Twice, in the passages I quoted above (Isaiah 44:6 and 48:12), God, Jehovah, refers to Himself as "the first and the last." Jesus applies those same words to Himself three times, in Revelation 1:17, 2:8, and 22:13. Jesus my Redeemer is the incarnation of that Jehovah  who proclaims Himself to be God alone in the prophecies of Isaiah. My prayer for you, too, is that God will open your eyes to the superstitions of the Watchtower Society, and lead you to the true Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, that you may be saved. In order to truly witness for Jehovah, you must confess that He is incarnate in Jesus Christ!