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</font>[/QUOTE]Weren't the 431 and 451 splits heretics? </font>[/QUOTE]The splits were over heresies but the resulting churches were not heretics.

The 431 split over Nestorianism resulted in the Assyrian Church of the East who are not Nestorian but offered protection to Nestorius.

The 451 split resulted in the Oriental Orthodox communion. While they were accused of the heresy of Monophysitism because of their refusal to affirm the Chalcedonian Creed, they did not consider themselves to be Monophysites. JPII and the patriarchs of the Oriental Orthodox communion announced a declaration of reconciliation in 1984 considering their historical differences to be a misunderstanding of terminology.

 

Jesus Himself never purchased peace by compromise. His heart overflowed with love for the whole human race, but He was never indulgent to their sins. He was too much their friend to remain silent while they were pursuing a course that would ruin their souls,--the souls He had purchased with His own blood. He labored that man should be true to himself, true to his higher and eternal interest. The servants of Christ are called to the same work, and they should beware lest, in seeking to prevent discord, they surrender the truth. They are to "follow after the things which make for peace" (Rom. 14:19); but real peace can never be secured by compromising principle. And no man can be true to principle without exciting opposition. A Christianity that is spiritual will be opposed by the children of disobedience. But Jesus bade His disciples, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Those who are true to God need not fear the power of men nor the enmity of Satan. In Christ their eternal life is secure. Their only fear should be lest they surrender the truth, and thus betray the trust with which God has honored them.


An Era of Spiritual Darkness

Romanists have persisted in bringing against Protestants the charge of heresy and willful separation from the true church. But these accusations apply rather to themselves. They are the ones who laid down the banner of Christ and departed from "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." Jude 3.


Satan well knew that the Holy Scriptures would enable men to discern his deceptions and withstand his power. It was by the word that even the Saviour of the world had resisted his attacks. At every assault, Christ presented the shield of eternal truth, saying, "It is written." To every suggestion of the adversary, He opposed the wisdom and power of the word. In order for Satan to maintain his sway over men, and establish the authority of the papal usurper, he must keep them in ignorance of the Scriptures. The Bible would exalt God and place finite men in their true position; therefore its sacred truths must be concealed and suppressed. This logic was adopted by the Roman Church. For hundreds of years the circulation of the Bible was prohibited. The people were forbidden to read it or to have it in their houses, and unprincipled priests and prelates interpreted its teachings to sustain their pretensions. Thus the pope came to be almost universally acknowledged as the vicegerent of God on earth, endowed with authority over church and state.

The detector of error having been removed, Satan worked according to his will. Prophecy had declared that the papacy was to "think to change times and laws." Daniel 7:25. This work it was not slow to attempt. To afford converts from heathenism a substitute for the worship of idols, and thus to promote their nominal acceptance of Christianity, the adoration of images and relics was gradually introduced into the Christian worship. The decree of a general council finally established this system of idolatry. To complete the sacrilegious work, Rome presumed to expunge from the law of God the second commandment, forbidding image worship, and to divide the tenth commandment, in order to preserve the number.

The spirit of concession to paganism opened the way for a still further disregard of Heaven's authority. Satan, working through unconsecrated leaders of the church, tampered with the fourth commandment also, and essayed to set aside the ancient Sabbath, the day which God had blessed and sanctified (Genesis 2:2, 3), and in its stead to exalt the festival observed by the heathen as "the venerable day of the sun." This change was not at first attempted openly. In the first centuries the true Sabbath had been kept by all Christians. They were jealous for the honor of God, and, believing that His law is immutable, they zealously guarded the sacredness of its precepts. But with great subtlety Satan worked through his agents to bring about his object. That the attention of the people might be called to the Sunday, it was made a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Religious services were held upon it; yet it was regarded as a day of recreation, the Sabbath being still sacredly observed.

In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor's policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. But while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment.

The archdeceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.

The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself "above all that is called God, or that is worshiped." 2 Thessalonians 2:4. He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator.

Protestants now urge that the resurrection of Christ on Sunday made it the Christian Sabbath. But Scripture evidence is lacking. No such honor was given to the day by Christ or His apostles. The observance of Sunday as a Christian institution had its origin in that "mystery of lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:7, R.V.) which, even in Paul's day, had begun its work. Where and when did the Lord adopt this child of the papacy? What valid reason can be given for a change which the Scriptures do not sanction?

In the sixth century the papacy had become firmly established. Its seat of power was fixed in the imperial city, and the bishop of Rome was declared to be the head over the entire church. Paganism had given place to the papacy. The dragon had given to the beast "his power, and his seat, and great authority." Revelation 13:2. And now began the 1260 years of papal oppression foretold in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:5-7. Christians were forced to choose either to yield their integrity and accept the papal ceremonies and worship, or to wear away their lives in dungeons or suffer death by the rack, the fagot, or the headsman's ax. Now were fulfilled the words of Jesus: "Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake." Luke 21:16, 17. Persecution opened upon the faithful with greater fury than ever before, and the world became a vast battlefield. For hundreds of years the church of Christ found refuge in seclusion and obscurity. Thus says the prophet: "The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days." Revelation 12:6.

The accession of the Roman Church to power marked the beginning of the Dark Ages. As her power increased, the darkness deepened. Faith was transferred from Christ, the true foundation, to the pope of Rome. Instead of trusting in the Son of God for forgiveness of sins and for eternal salvation, the people looked to the pope, and to the priests and prelates to whom he delegated authority. They were taught that the pope was their earthly mediator and that none could approach God except through him; and, further, that he stood in the place of God to them and was therefore to be implicitly obeyed. A deviation from his requirements was sufficient cause for the severest punishment to be visited upon the bodies and souls of the offenders. Thus the minds of the people were turned away from God to fallible, erring, and cruel men, nay, more, to the prince of darkness himself, who exercised his power through them. Sin was disguised in a garb of sanctity. When the Scriptures are suppressed, and man comes to regard himself as supreme, we need look only for fraud, deception, and debasing iniquity. With the elevation of human laws and traditions was manifest the corruption that ever results from setting aside the law of God.

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So you tell me now, how can we have UNITY? The only way to have true Biblical unity would be for Protestants and Catholics alike to come back to the BIBLE and to start doing what it says. Then there would be true unity, and anything else would be a farce.


Claudia

 

The RCC itself is the largest "split" from Christianity known to mankind. And IT has resulted in the largest NUMBER of splits as its own members seek to RETURN to the Christian teachings of the NT fathers - authors of the NT text.

 

The Catholic historian Thomas Bokenkotter's best selling pro-Catholic work "a concise history of the Catholic church" makes it abundantly clear..

Ibid -Pg 49 speaks of the change that occurred in the 4th century

So there we have it on two short pages (49-50) of that telling work done by a Catholic historian - revealing the ongoing evolutionary process in the church that brings us to where we are today.

Who finally stopped Rome’s persecution of the Christians?

How much influence did Emperor Constantine have on the RCC “really”. How much of a role in moving it past the point of merely “Not persecuted” ?

 

Hello Living_stone,

It's good to have you here with us. Greetings from Enland.

Blessings

Followinghim

 

Bokenkotter IS a "Best selling RC Author" far more "well received" than the nay-sayers that "object to the facts HE reveals about the RCC".

This is NOT an "obscure RC historian that nobody ever heard of!!"

The fact that you have to attack YOUR OWN RC historians when they point to facts you don't "prefer" shows how steeped you are in blinders-on methods to believe in the RCC "anyway".

I am not quoting "Jack Chick" or anti-Catholic source - and STILL you attack them!!

 

I was introduced to Bokenkotter's book "A Concise History of the Roman Catholic Church" by a Roman Catholic co-worker who wanted to explain the history of his faith to me. He told me I would have to go to a Roman Catholic bookstore and buy a Roman Catholic historian's work on the history of the RCC INSTEAD of going to MY OWN denomination's bookstore and simply reading MY OWN denomination's history sources as THEY spoke to the real facts about the history of the RCC in the dark ages.

I "suppose" I could have responded the way the RC members do here "I will only go to MY OWN church bookstore and listen to MY OWN denomination's historians" - but I did not.

I went to HIS bookstore and read the book HE told me to read instead of blindly sticking to my own pro-Adventist sources.

The thing that really "amazes me" is that THERE IS NO LIMIT to the blinders-on head-in-sand approach of some in the RCC -- such that EVEN IN THIS case - they just "turn on their own" when "inconvenient facts" surface FROM THEIR OWN sources!!

You have to really "LOVE" darkness rather than light to do such things!!

In Christ,

Bob

 

You lost me. Are you saying that the RCC "split" from Judaism? If not, what Christian religion did they split from?

 

I agree with this statement. The Church was meant to be one entity. </font>[/QUOTE]Agreed also - and it was up until 1054 - even the splits resulting from Ephesus and Chalecedon, as Gold Dragon has pointed out, did not result in any loss of doctrinal unity

 

You lost me. Are you saying that the RCC "split" from Judaism? If not, what Christian religion did they split from? </font>[/QUOTE]I can only presume he means the 1054 split; that's the only split that can have been deemed to have created the RCC

 

There are some who would say the RCC is Roman paganism with a Christian facade. This implies that this system is without authority since inception--Constantine and the Pontifex Maximus.

True Christianity was never pagan even though it has been regarded as cultic by the powers that be--until 325 A.D. anyway. True believers never had anything to do with Rome outside the Circus Maximus where they were fed to wild beasts as a form of entertainment for the Senatus Romanus Populus que. Many also entertained the Inquisitors--during the "Holy" Roman Empire.

One can make similar authority analogy to Mormonism. It stands or falls based on the authority of its founder. The RCC is either given authority or not in Matthew 16. If she has divine authority, all others are usurpers. If she is without authority, so are her daughters. Joseph Smith's followers have a similar dilemma.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Paul wrote a pretty significant book in the bible to some Romans. I got no indication from that book that he didn't think they were true believers. In fact, they seemed like a pretty significant group of true believers at that time, quite possibly the largest one.

 

Sorry for the ambiguity--I should have said: true believers never had anything to do with the unholy marriage of a "church?" and the State, the epicenter of which was at Rome, which occurred in the 4th century.

That the church at Rome which received the Pauline letter was a participant in this marriage is highly speculative.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Ah, so what are all these Baptists doing voting Republican and trying to change the law of the land to suit their ends, then?

 

Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican churches all held state status in Europe since the 1500s, and for the church of England, still do. I guess there are no true believers in those denominations either.

Edit: A few other existing state churches include:
Eastern Orthodox : Cyprus, Georgia, Greece
Lutheran : Denmark, Iceland, Norway
Presbyterian : Scotland

 

But accprding to Bro James, these churches are all 'Rome's daughters'.

Apparently.

 

"Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's; unto God that which is God's", certainly seems to draw a line between State and Divinity.

Ruling by Divine fiat was promulgated by those ruling.

"State status" religion in Europe to be sure,and the tyranny thereof are what the Pilgrims and many others were fleeing when they arrived in the New World.

Dumb question: From whence does a State Religion, reformed or otherwise, derive the authority to baptize?

Selah,

Bro. James

 

I think for some, the state controlling the church is bad, but the church controlling the state is ok.

Which would make the Holy Roman Empire (800-1600s) or First Reich of the middle ages ok since it was the Pope as the leader of the most powerful institution of that time who crowned emperors while emperors rarely had the influence to decide Popes.

 

As a baptist, I agree with separation of church and state. However, I don't add to scripture to say that this doctrine is a requirement for being a TrueChristian&trade;

I agree that state churches result in tyranny for minorities, which also occurs in democracies when Christians form the majority. Again, I will not add to scripture to say that agreement with me on this is a requirement for salvation.

The same place non-state churches derive their authority to baptize, from Christ.