Do Sabbath-keepers celebrate Easter?

Eric said:

No. Of course they did not have the understanding of Transubstantiation, because that is a definition of HOW the Real Prescence is present. They merely believed it was Jesus.

I have never understood why so many get worked up over Transubstantiation. If Jesus is really present in the elements, then He is.

The rest of your explanation on how error started with Ignatius' spin on one thing, then propagated to the rest of the Church by 314 AD, is fraught with difficulties. Remember, error did not spread in those days without a vigorus fight. They didn't have phones or highways, or quick communications. To get the Real Presence to all the Bishops and get 'universal error' with no mention of it and no obvious dissenters, is pretty unreasonable if you examine the logistics.

We could 'what if' the scenario to death, but your proposition only has historical or logical merit if you can somehow get around the logistical details that make that version of events very unlikely.

I think that understanding of events is just frankly, way too simplistic a view, that serves only those wishing to justify their seperation from traditional Apostolic teaching. I am not saying Eric, that you are trying to justify yourself. You read it and it makes you feel comfortable to believe it, so why check it out deeper? Maybe you have.

 

Bob, I have not had a chance to read your posts, but they look big...I'll get to it hopefully tonight. Thanks.

 

What you say is true for such major alleged changes as Sabbath to Sunday, or the deity of Christ. But something as subtle as Ignatius' teachings on the Eucharist and bishops, could come in so gradually that people wouldn't notice. Take Jesus' spiritual metaphor "take my body and eat". Then Ignatius makes it into a statement "the Eucharist IS the flesh". No one would necessarily object, because it is close to what Jesus actually said. But still, it is getting easier to misunderstand or misconstrue. So then consider unlearned people, as well as all the gnostics coming in, and it could easily transform over those 3 centuries into some mystical concept of Christ actually being in the elements, instead of the simple spiritual metaphor He originally used. The same with the bishops. Ignatius seemed to be exalting them to look to in persecution, and it seemed logical, and you could use scripture to back it up. But it was never intended to become what it did.
Also, the fact that the Church started out from one area and grew outward. It wasn's as big as it was in 314 two hundred years earlier, so it wasn't a matter of a whole continent of bishops that had to accept the new doctrines, but rather, the new churches and bishops being planted would learn what was being taught upon conversion.

 

Eric said

I am sorry, but I completely disagree in a major way here. Consider yourself. You are Evangelical, and you most likely consider that the first Christians and ALL the Apostles were also Evangelical in nature regarding salvation.

Lets say at your local congragation, the pastor begins hinting and saying that the Lord's Supper, is somehow now really Jesus, that he is present in the Bread and the grape juice is really his blood. Could that 'sneak' in? No way man. There would be an uproar, church splits over the matter, deacon meetings with the pastor, etc, etc.

Not only that, but that would be changing the very fundamental Christian experience at it's core. Sacrament vs. Symbol. That is like a huge leap theologically.

Not only that, but seriously...Ignatius would have had to get the word out to everybody, and yes, the Church was spreading everywhere quickly back then. They first would have had to make the leap from symbolic acts to sacraments in the Eucharist. Could you do this or your church today in such a sneaky fashion that nobody would really notice?

Ignatius was a great teacher and Bishop. He had integrity. He was killed for his faith willingly. Why would such a one willing to die for his faith, sneak in errors on purpose? Look, I don't think there is anything subtle about saying the Eucharist is just a symbol one day, and the next year, saying it is now actually Jesus! That is not subtle. That is a drastic change if anything.

For each Evangelical truth, you would have to explain the same thing happening, such as in Baptism. If one were to change from Evangelical to say Catholic dogmas of Sacraments, that would take considerable effort, debate, and council.

I mean once again, Eric, you could not be so easily fooled without some discussion and dissention right? Are you or I so much smarter than they were back then? Are we more sincere? Are we dying for Jesus at the stake? There are some brilliant minds from that period in the Church.

And of course the obvious question. If the Holy Spirit could not guide the Church out of such incredible, even unthinkable errors and heresy, such that even change the nature of the Gospel, then how could it suddenly just be there to cannonize the New Testament in this same Church?

 

That would be because it is a well known Church teaching we oppose. We obviously are looking out for such a teaching, and are ready to challenge it, as we are here. But if we had never heard of it, it might well pass as a legitimate scripture-based metaphor. Then, later, as others begin to take it literally, it could then become a Church teaching.

But "sacrament" itself is a manmade word that was applied to these practices. In fact, most evangelicals call them "ordinances" instead.

Because of Jesus' metaphorical language, it would be quite subtle to begin taking it literally instead of metaphorically. You would not even have to change His words. It is a matter of understanding, not changing words, that makes it so subtele!

No! As I had quoted above, "...a different class of writers began to pen religious epistles...perhaps in sincerity, but not under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as did the apostles". It did not start out intentional, but as putting one's own spin in trying to illustrate Biblical realities. Just like Clement around the same time used the pagan fable of the Phoenix to illustrate the resurrection (it didn't even match, as it suggested an endless cycle of bird dies, a worm is feeding on it, and grows into a new bird). Then with gnostic philosophy and other deliberate heretics coming in, this would accelerate people miscontruing the concepts and bending them into something else. All of this was occurring as fast as the Church expanded.

People can fall into error, and still have the Holy Spirit. I'm sure you believe your priesthood still has the Spirit, even with the moral lapses of many. Why the Spirit did not purge out all error, I am not exactly sure. (That includes the errors of Protestantism, including evangelicalism, which I am well aware of, and do address in my writings). Perhaps it is a test, to see who is the most willing to seek the truth. The Holy Spirit will let you believe some of what you want to believe, but you are still responsible to pray and seek the truth from His Word. It is always available. If not, then your works (such as what you preached) will pass through the test of the fire at the Judgmant seat of Christ.
Anyway, one of the miracles of the Bible is how God used these fallible man to canonize it. The RCC likes to take credit for compiling the Bible, but obviously, there was wide consesnsus on many of the books before the great councils of the later Church. A lot of books (many in the name of the apostles), which would have been good to explicitly promote Catholic doctrine were left out. That shows to me that the Spirit was working in those people enough to let them know what really belonged in there. Earlier on, they were more sincere, as I said, and thus more open to the prompting of the Spirit, though misunderstandings and new concepts were coming in.

 

Take your time.

In Christ,

Bob

 

quote:Charles said -
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The rest of your explanation on how error started with Ignatius' spin on one thing, then propagated to the rest of the Church by 314 AD, is fraught with difficulties. Remember, error did not spread in those days without a vigorus fight. They didn't have phones or highways, or quick communications. To get the Real Presence to all the Bishops and get 'universal error' with no mention of it and no obvious dissenters, is pretty unreasonable if you examine the logistics.

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Eric said

Lets "see" who is "alleging" here.

Of course there are some here who may find a way to blame all this hostoric data "on me" as if I authored history or as if the RCC takes its orders from "me" - but of course that is just not the case.

Ouch! Those "pesky details of history again"

In Christ,

Bob

 

I knew I shouldn't have brought that up here, as I was not trying to spread our debate on th sabbath to here, but I only was comparing a subtle change to a not subtle one. A first century Church that was supposedly strictly sabbatarian suddenly turning to Sunday would have been a major change (and this has nothing to do with all those later quotes where the RCC tries to justify the change by its own authority).
The change from Christ's metaphorical statement "take my body and eat" to Ignatius' "the Eucharist [IS] the flesh", to the literal [mis]interpretation of the bread actually being the flesh is more understandable.

 

I read.

 

I am simply pointing out that the change is attributed to tradition and evolution over time - rather than a divine fiat coming out of the Jerusalem church.

In fact (as we see in Acts 21) the Jerusalem church was "known" for being even MORE Jewish in practice than the expanding Gentile regions.

You happened to give an example where even the Sunday-Keeping RC authorities are on record as arguing for the historic "change" via "tradition" and NOT via scripture.

I agree that the inclusion of the "bread turns to flesh" error would have been even easier to encorporate on the surface.

However other factors also came into play as to how errors were "adopted over time" as predicted in Acts 20. One of them was the rise of persection of the Romans against the Jews and the desire of new Gentile churches to argue that although they use the Hebrew scriptures and worship the Hebrew God - they viewed Christianity as growing into something "beyond" a "sect of Judaism" - hence their adoption of a first-day service in addition to their Sabbath services and then eventually dropping the Sabbath services altogether. It had the "high pressure" of persecution behind it - not just shallow reading of the text.

In Christ,

bob