The Doctrine by which the Church stands or falls, Volume 2...

Simple -

In Acts 17 we see Paul preaching to non-Christan Jews and Gentiles.

In some reject and some (the Bereans to be specific) accept Paul's teaching but only after first validating them against scripture.

Hint: IF they had waited for Jewish magesterium to approve of the Gospel - they would not be Christian to this very day!

What measuring stick to you "see" being used in the text of Acts 17:11 other than scripture?

And back to the question that keeps going unnanswered -- if the dispute that we see in Acts 17 (or on the this thread) is proof of the flaw of sola-scriptura.. then Acts 17:11 should not exist because it shows that IN the context of disputes -- sola scriptura works!

Further -- take D.T's arguments sola-scriptura on this thread - he observes that they do not work BUT he does not show that appealing to fallible ECFs is "working better" it does not appear to be "the solution".

in Christ,

Bob

 

First of all I never argue that all tradition is bad.

Secondly we DO see in Acts 17:11 a sola scriptura test applied to Paul. Unless you found a place where the Jewish Magesterium as a group all accept the Gospel in Acts 17:11.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Grace and Peace Agnus_Dei,

External Authority (i.e. Bishops over the Diocese, or Popes over the Bishops) does not solve the problem of error. The Roman Catholic Church is rife with dissension within it's own clergy as well as within the Laity. Less Church Fathers agreed with it's chief argument to it's claim of supremacy over Christ's Church than disagreed.

As much as I can appreciate your conviction I must ask "with everything you see within the Roman Catholic Church why do you think it is Christ's Church"?

I'm not trying to be polemical, I'm just honestly curious.

 

And please Bob understand that even though I object to Sola Scriptura, does NOT mean that I think that Holy Scripture is some how second class to Church Tradition.

As I said in previous posts back, I’ve never in all my years as a Protestant witnessed a more reverenced view towards Scripture as I’ve seen in the Orthodox Church.

Bob, maybe it’s just me, but I refuse to look at one or two verses and form an opinion, I have to look at the WHOLE story…here’s what I see in played out in Acts leading up to your verses:

-Paul who was Saul before his conversion was a Pharisee and a well educated citizen of Roman. Paul knew of these Christians and what they believed and thus he persecuted them. Paul was NO slouch in regard to OT Scripture.

-After Saul’s conversion, he became Paul and Paul didn’t go forth and preach the Gospel, No, Paul became a disciple of the Apostles, which means Paul was trained personally in what they, the Apostles knew about Christ. You agree there was NO NT then, but there was the OT and simply Paul had to be Catechized in what the Church was teaching and how that Tradition agreed with OT Scripture.

-Next I see Paul walk as his manner was (meaning as his bold self) into a Jewish Synagogue and Paul and Silas reasoned with them…the key word here is that Paul reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. How else could Paul have reasoned with them without using what Tradition the Church was already holding fast too in relation to Scripture? Some accepted it, some didn't...the ones that did accept it searched scripture and had a eureka moment and said..."Hey maybe the Christians are on to something?"

I honestly don’t see Sola Scriptura anywhere in Scripture…

ICXC NIKA
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Blessings to you Bound

It's been awhile since I've seen you around and since our last meeting I was, as one would say, splashing around in the Tiber.

I've since had a change of heart and have embraced Orthodoxy and my family and I are Catechumens and are being catechized within the Antiochian jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Why the change of heart…simply as I progressed in my reading especially after the Great Schism I began to see a drift away from what was Orthodoxy. I began to see Augustinian theology begin to take hold, which produced for instance the Immaculate Conception in regard to Original sin and also began to understand the role of the Pope and the Filioque a little better in light of what had had studied prior to the Spilt.

Why did I choose Roman Catholicism first and not Eastern Orthodoxy?

Because as a Protestant I was taught how bad and wrong the RCC was and how they thought they were the True Church, so naturally when I began seeking the NT Church I started with the Catholic Church.

Anyway, hope that helps…

ICXC NIKA
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Well Mike I'm left with no other choice, but to conclude that since you can't find the words alone or sufficient in Scripture your interpretation of such is nothing more than what YOUR Tradition is telling you.

Have a nice day.

ICXC NIKA
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Can't find the word "trinity" in the Bible either Agnus. Accordingly, you don't believe in that either. That is the logic of your "word games" which others are pointing out to you.

 

“Word games”?? DHK, where have I, DT or Matt played word games? Is it I that’s adding to the Word of God words that aren’t there?

Show me DHK where the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers collectively proclaimed and taught the doctrine of justification by faith alone or show the class where the Apostolic Church Fathers collectively taught Sola Scriptura and that Scripture only is sufficient and Church Tradition is to be ignored.

Then I can show you DHK, not only references from the Bible in regard to referencing the Trinity, but I can also cite hundreds if not thousands of references from the Early Church Fathers that proclaim the doctrine of the Trinity.

Yes, the word ‘Trinity’ doesn’t appear in Scripture, but I can confidently proclaim it, because that’s what the Church has ALWAYS taught and believed!

Likewise “monotheism” isn’t found in the Bible, but certainly one can find support for it in the Bible, but I must reject it, b/c “monotheism” isn’t what the Church has been proclaiming from the beginning and always and it’s not what the Fathers proclaimed.

Likewise the faith alone concept and the Scripture ONLY concept is totally foreign to Early Church doctrine and her Fathers.

Hope that helps

ICXC NIKA
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In the way that you are doing, as others have pointed out it is childish behaviour.

I have as much regard for your tradition and ECF as I do for Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell. They were uninspired men also. What's the difference. The Bible is the only inspired Revelation that we have. That is precisely why it is the only authority in all matters of faith and practice.

And if you put away your word games you will have realized that I have already shown you that not only is trinity taught in the Bible but "faith alone" is taught and "sola scriptura" is taught, and both of them many times over. In fact the evidence for those two doctrines is greater than the evidence for the trinity.

And I can say the same about sola scriptura and "faith alone."

Yep, and Jesus being 80 years old was one of Ireneus's beliefs also. The ECF's don't hold any water. My authority is the Word of God. It alone is inspired of God.
Hope that helps.

 

Grace and Peace Agnus_Dei,

So you've managed to make it to the Black Sea... or should we say Dead Sea? :laugh:

Antiochians are very close to my heart as well. :smilewinkgrin:

Tell me, have your or the Antiochian Jurisdiction completely reconciled with the later Councils? How have your reconciled them yourself?

A reasonable explanation. Thank you for sharing it. Have you embraced the Prayer of the Publican yet? raying:

 

I guess you’ll have to be more specific in regard to which “ later Councils” you are referring to before I can comment. Generally, The Orthodox Church as a whole accepts the 7 Ecumenical Councils, ending with The Second Council of Nicea, in 787.

Now does the Antiochian Orthodox Church place ecumenical status to let’s say the Fourteenth Century Council in Constantinople dealing with the Palamite controversy of Gregory Palamas? I would say yes, even though during our Catecheses class touching upon the Councils, we didn’t specifically mention this particular council.

If your question is that have I embraced the Prayer life of the Church, meaning do I observe the hours of Prayer within the Church as well as attending evening Vespers, Great Vespers and Orthos or Matins before Divine Liturgy? Can you say three kids all under the age of four?

But seriously, all I can say is that I’m a “work in progress”. The Church takes a person where they are at and trains them to run the race. The intense prayer life within Orthodoxy is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed in the Protestant Church. Not to say Protestants don’t pray, they certainly do, but to experience Divine Liturgy is on a totally different level.

The ‘Publican’ went up into the Temple to pray, so when I attend Orthos, Divine Liturgy and Vespers I feel like I am that ‘Publican’ and I’m witnessing the same worship experience as he.

Hope I answered ‘sufficiently’, non pun intended…

Peace of the Lord to you.

ICXC NIKA
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One can not be challenged to imagine a case where the Pharisees in Mark 7 could easily have used just such transparent logic to ignore Christ as he pointed to the error of their tradition in "one case" where it violated scripture.

In fact one is hard pressed to find how any JW, Mormon or Catholic could not easily use that method to justify each instance where their teachings violated scripture and they could find no Bible based response to the problem.

I find it hard to believe that you can possibly be satisified with such methods.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Post 74 waiting for response -

Starts out like this

Then I said ...

In Christ,

Bob

 

Post 63 still waiting for an answer

Starts out like this

Then I respond...

 

In essence sola scriptura is the appeal to Scripture as the authority for one's life. If I would take the time to show you it would not be difficult to demonstrate how this would be true from the time of Adam onward. All throughout history Revelation (not tradition) has been revealed and preserved. The fact that it has been preserved does in no way make it tradition.
Adam wrote down what God had revealed unto him. He no doubt, wrote down the accounts between Cain and Abel. This was revelation. Eve had a choice to obey, disobey, or twist the revelation that was given to her. If you read carefully you will note that she twisted the words that God gave her, misquoting them, while Adam plain rebelled against them. We have a choice what we do with the revelation of God.

That revelation was passed on as other revelation was collected and added on to during the time of Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and finally Moses. It was Moses who was able to take these manuscripts and according to the Holy Spirit edit them and give us the Pentateuch as we have it today. That at least is one theory. Iwill not be dogmatic on it. It is very possible that God may have given the whole story to Moses supernaturally. Either way, revelation was there by the time of Joshua. And almost all of that was there by the time of Samuel who added much to it. Scripture became inscripturated as it was written. The Jews knew it. They knew who was a prophet and who was not, that is a false prophet. Just look at Jehoshaphat. There was only one prophet of the Lord in the land at that time--Micaiah, and it is his words that are recorded.

The Jews could go against which was written or they could disobey it. They could also misinterpret, but in the early days there was not much chance of that especially when Israel was a theocracy under Moses, under God.

Under the Judges, every man did that which was right in his own eyes and the nation was plunged into chaos. Read for yourself the OT and find out the principle of sola scriptura at work all throughout the OT.

Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

 

Bob, I believe we've run our course on this subject together. Furthermore Bob, I really don’t know HOW YOU of all people, a professed SDA, can actually claim to have a dog in this Sola Scriptura fight…

I have to suspect any religious organization that bet’s the house on ONE person’s writings…E. G White is NO prophet…there’s no new revelation Bob…none…What was reveled to the Apostles from Christ is it…E.G. White is a false prophet…period.

Maybe you should reevaluate your own “modern” religious organization, before you make any challenge.

ICXC NIKA
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So as promised, here’s my response to the article Mike posted this past weekend on “Justification”…

Justification in the bible does mean “to reckon, or account, as righteous”. It calls to mind a legal and/or courtroom setting. Based on this definition, justification at least embraces (#3) and (#1) above. The question is whether or not (#2) and (#4) above are necessarily implied in this basic definition of Justification. I submit that unless one begs the question ahead of time, the answer is “no”.

Regarding (#2), this imputation of Christ’s righteousness is true as far as it goes, but the question is: is this imputation merely external, or is it in fact internal? (The definition of justification or imputation by itself doesn’t tell us.) In other words, are we just “dung hills covered by snow”, or are we grafted into the Vine at which point the righteousness of Christ is not only imputed (reckoned to) us, but it is imputed (reckoned to) because it has also become inherent within us? (More on this below)

Regarding (#4), there is nothing in the definition of justification itself that necessitates that this “reckoning righteous” is only a one-time (let alone a once-for-all) reckoning, unless one begs the question based on the a priori assumption that once God declares one justified he’s always justified. To see whether or not this is actually the case we need to look at all the Scriptural data. Particularly, when one looks at justification (and faith and works) as it relates to the life of Abraham, this a priori assumption runs into tremendous problems, and that there is evidence of justification (ie “reckoning righteous) occurring more than once in a person’s life (as we’ll see below).

.
But this assumes that justification is not related to regeneration or sanctification—ie that God justifies sinners irrespective of sanctifying them or regenerating them. However, God declares righteous those he actually makes righteous. The biblical order logically is regeneration, sanctification, justification—although chronologically regeneration, (initial) sanctification, and (initial) justification occur at once:

“But you were washed [regenerated], but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:11)

God doesn’t engage in “legal fiction”—God "reckons righteous" those who have righteousness within them, and when we are regenerated and sanctified we have the righteousness of Christ within us (not just covering us externally like “snow on a dung hill”).

(continued...)

 

(Continuing on...)

The key is that there no condemnation for those who are [present tense] in Christ Jesus. Also, look at the rest of the verse:
“who do not walk [present tense] according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

In other words, the [present tense] “walking according to the Spirit” further characterizes those who are [present tense] “in Christ”—those are the ones for which there is no condemnation.
This is very similar to what the Apostle John wrote in his First Epistle:

“But if we walk [present tense] in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us [present tense] from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

So the present tense cleansing of the Blood of Christ is for those who present tense are walking in the light. But what if one sins? Then we need to confess:
“If we* confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) (*John is speaking to his fellow CHRISTIANS here)

So John indicates that forgiveness and cleansing (ie reckoning righteous) did not occur once-for-all-time when we first “accepted Christ”, but our forgiveness and cleansing for subsequent sins remains contingent on confessing our sins (presently) and walking in the light (presently).

As I said above this begs the question somewhat. Just because justification is used in the past tense doesn’t mean justification only occurs once in a person’s life. In other words, just because one is "reckoned (or conisdered) righteous" in a given instant doesn't mean one is "reckoned righteous" only at that instant. (More on this below when we address James 2 and the life of Abraham)

Actually, this gets the cart before the horse. Those who are in Christ are the ones who are justified—“reckoned righteous”. In other words, justification is more about who is “reckoned righteous” by God--the ones living by faith; not as much about how one gets into a right relationship with God in ther first place.

By being in Christ: “He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him". (2 Corinthians 5:21)

It’s only those who are in Christ who have the righteousness of Christ reckoned to them. When we sin (“break God’s laws”) we still need to confess for our sins to be forgiven and to be cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). In other words, we’re not given a one-time blanket forgiveness for all the sins that we’ll ever commit (in the future) just from coming to Christ one time.

(Continued...)

 

(Continuing on....)

This completely begs the question. Why isn’t the righteousness of Christ in us the ground for our justification? Why this hard and fast dichotomy between merely “reckoned righteous” externally and having Christ’s righteousness actually within us?

First, Romans 4:5 is in the middle of a long sustained argument in which Paul discusses faith and justification vis-à-vis the Mosaic Law. This can be seen immediately in 3:28 (“a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the Law” ) and following in 4:9-12 where Paul points out that Abraham had faith before being circumcised (ie apart from the primary marker of the Law/Old Covenant) and that thus “this blessedness” was likewise accounted to him before his circumcision. The types of works Paul talks of “boasting about” “in the flesh” (4:1,2) seems primarily to be related to the “deeds of the Law”, and this hearkens back to earlier in his argument when describes the Jews as “resting in the Law” and “boasting in God” “being instructed out of the Law” (2:17-19), and when he contrasts circumcision of the flesh and of the heart. It is evident that in the context of Paul’s argument (against the Judaizers yet within the church) that this initial justification Paul describes is at least particularly pertaining to those who in terms of the Law (especially with it’s external signs/observances often used as measuring sticks) are “ungodly”.

Second, it must be kept in mind, as Paul mentions elsewhere (1 Corinthians 6:11 quoted above) that one is regenerated, (initially) sanctified, and (initially) justified simultaneously, so immediately prior to this event (where all three take place) one is in fact “ungodly”. In other words, when God initially justifies the "ungodly" it is not without also regenerating and sanctifying the "ungodly".

Third, this particular passage doesn’t say anything one way or another about a possible subsequent justification for one who is already in Christ (unless one begs the question ahead of time). We’ll have to look at James, especially in relation to the life of Abraham, to investigate this. HOWEVER, we do need to note that, earlier still in Romans, Paul had already mentioned that God at His judgment will "render to each one according to his deeds", including eternal life to those who patiently continue to work what is good (Romans 2:5-10). (I notice the article to which I’m responding doesn’t mention this at all.) So our final justification (being "reckoned righteous") at God’s throne/judgment seat will be in accordance with our actual working what is good.

Again, it’s not our own righteousness apart from Christ, but righteousness that we actually have in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Whether one wants to classify this righteousness in Christ as “external” or “internal”, the fact is that actually having Christ’s righteousness reckoned to us is contingent on actually being in Him.

Again, the righteousness of Christ becomes ours when we are in Christ, and He in us. Whether or not one wants to picture it this more “externally”--being “clothed in Christ” or “clothed in the garments of salvation”--or “internally”, with the Life of the Vine flowing through and within the branches, it’s doesn’t remain merely an alien righteousness. God actually reckons righteous those he makes righteous through union with His Son. Justification (initially) doesn’t occur apart from regeneration. (However, even if one were to focus on the external pictures (ie being “clothed”), this says nothing at all about whether or not one is “once clothed, always clothed”.)

(continued...)