Was The Reformation Sent By God?

The Spirit will not speak on His own authority (John 16:13),
but the papacy declared themselves to be infallible.

For that those sons of perdition have to be omniscient
and thereby made themselves greater than the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)


The lack of forgiveness of sin (Revelations 18:5) is in stark contrast to
that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them (2 Corinthians 5:19).

 

You speak of the hierarchy, the laity are held captive...

2 Timothy 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

 

While they promise them liberty,
they themselves are slaves of corruption;
for by whom a person is overcome,
by him also he is brought into bondage (2 Peter 2:19). .

The individual Catholic is mastered
by that succession of sons of perdition,
because they never examine themselves
whether Christ is in them (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Instead they are always looking forward
to a fleeting experience with the wafer-god.,

 

Not a healthy response Conqueror, from someone like you upon whom the LORD has had great mercy.

Think of Jonah whom He sent to rescue a people in bondage.

Jonah 4
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

These people who are enslaved to what you call the "wafer god" are only responding to those who thrash them with their doublethink transubstantiation.

Spiritually speaking they don't know their left hand (the wine is blood) from their right hand (the mass is a bloodless sacrifice).

Yet many are the children of God in deep error.

 

When did the Church apostatize? All the time, as we read in the Epistles & Revelation 2 & 3. During Apostolic times there were disagreement between the Apostles themselves. Their letters include local church problems & ways to tackle them.

In the early centuries there were local, independent churches with their own eldership, & these would associate, sharing letters, encouraging one another, giving practical assistance, etc.

As time went on, tensions would arise as the churches became "communities" of Christians & their families & would include unconverted who expected to be "counted in." The same sort of situation that arose with Mayflower pilgrims & other emigrants from European persecution.

Also there was the development of regional hierarchy under a regional overseer. (Bishop) Early church history abounds in discussions & disputes about true doctrine & which gospels & letters should be included in the Canon.

Then Constantine was converted & became Roman Emperor & Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. The Bishop of Rome became the the senior bishop. But his position was not universally recognised.

Also, because Christianity was the official religion, the population had to be converted en masse by baptising everyone, including infants. The "two swords" of Peter became the religion (sword of the Word) wielded by the Bishop of Rome, supported by the sword of the state.

Dissenters such as the Donatists did not submit to Rome & were persecuted as heretics. Soon what had been the standard practice of baptising converts resulted in baptising those who had been baptised as babies by the official church. And within about 100 years of Constantine, rebaptism became a capital offence as it was in effect a rejection of the authority & integrity of the church-state authority.

It wasn't a question of doctrine or creeds, it was a question of authority. All sorts of independent Christians & churches were persecuted in they refused to submit to Rome.

Church history in England celebrates Augustine bringing Christianity to England around the year 600. His initial success was with the pagan Saxons in the south-east. The pagans had driven the British, already largely Christian to Wales & the west of the country. These refused to recognise the authority of Rome, & refused the practise of universal baptism into "Christendom." That refusal resulted in Saxon armies slaughtering 1000 British Christian leaders who knelt in prayer rather than fighting.

The independent churches in Wales continued. 150 years before the Lutheran Reformation, Wickliffe & others preached the Gospel & translated it from the Vulgate into English. These were hand copied, & the RCs burnt as many as they found. I understand that there are still over 100 of these in museums & private collections.

 

The fact that I quoted scripture
and not put the blame solely on the deceivers,
but also require the deceived to examine themselves
to see whether Christ is in them, is sowing seeds.
Catholics frequent this forum.


I was in the Catholic Charismatic renewal
and had contact with Pentecostals
who value the 'shared' experience (Matthew 7:21-23).
They could have told me the gospel, but did not
in the 23 years it took me to get out.


Towards the end the Lord called me to a bible college,

 

Catholics do indeed frequent this site and thank you for your testimony to them.

Some are deeply deceived, not that God is unable - but take the message of Jonah.

God no doubt did not need human instrumentation for the city of Nineveh BUT he chose a man to bring the message to those who "are required to examine themselves" Why Repeat - they cannot tell their left-hand from their right.

At least pray for them.

 

A mustard seed?

You mean earlier than Mark or John? (I think that was pointed out to you already.)

Let's start with one of the fundamental principles of the Reformation: Would Christ want God's Word in the language of the people? Rome said no. The Reformers said yes. Let's see which is borne out in some early Christian writing:

St. Paul: 1 Corinthians 14:19. Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.

1Thessalonians 5:27. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.

Christ, the Word. I don't recall Him needing a translator for His Sermon on the Mount.

And, the best evidence, Rome bears witness to the truth of this first principle of the Reformation, as Rome now has a Bible translated into English and is in the hands of the common people.
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So, the foundation of the Reformation, the Scriptures in the hands of the people, is now deemed to be a true principle by the church that killed the Reformers for doing so, and we can safely, therefore, conclude that this aspect of the Reformation was a movement of God.

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Next: Does Rome still sell indulgences with the promise of releasing loved ones from Purgatory?

This was a biggie, and was a main point of contention with Martin Luther. Admittedly, I haven't researched it, but I think I'd hear about it if it were still a thing.

Can we safely assume that Rome has abandoned that corruption? That would be tacit concession to another truth of the Reformation.

 

Reformers 2. Rome 0.

Shall I go on?

 

I haven't read this whole thread, but wasn't the reformation good? Of the little I know of it, I think God had a hand in it. People were at the time under the disgusting Roman church. God used Luther at that time, bringing him from such turmoil to reveal the truth to him. Then he was a great communicator of the true gospel.

Also I've been slowly going through a church history set by W. Robert Godfrey at Ligonier. While some men of the past like Augustine and them were good teachers, did they have absolute truth? I would say no. Did Luther? No. But does anyone here hold to a progressive revelation view? By that I mean each generation knows a little more about God. Augustine knew a certain bit, then the next guy grew and expanded on that and so on till we get to the Reformation and Calvin where doctrines are brought clearer and clearer. Of course, not by their own strength or knowledge, but God working in these men. What do you folks here think?

 

Yeah, it would be helpful if you went back and read the entire thread before posting something like this. No Catholic posting on this board would deny that there were abuses taking place at the time at the time of the Reformation. One recent poster though accused the Catholic Church of suppressing the Bible. I doubt he read the thread either. The church did not suppress the Bible, it only suppressed heretical Bibles. There weren't a whole lot of Bibles around at that time anyway until Gutenberg. Made a big difference when Bibles could be produced in 6 hours compared to 6 months.

 

Yeah, you guys went and followed one man who started coming up with his own ideas about Christianity and within just a few years other men were coming up with their own ideas about the Christian faith differing from what Luther said and about the only common denominator was they all led souls straight to hell and that to me is what is really disgusting.

So who was right? Was it Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli? Maybe it was the lady who started the SDA or perhaps the founder of the JW's or maybe Smith of the Mormons? Come on pick one, surely one had the truth, or perhaps maybe none of them did.

 

Yeah sure, the Scriptures in the hands of the people, with each person or new sect now interpreting it in their own way. This was/is not a good thing if you ask me.

 

Donatists had the outward forms of Catholicism, including bishops, priests, and deacons, Mass, and the veneration of the relics of martyrs. The heresy of Donatism lay not primarily in the denial of particular Catholic doctrines but in the assertion that only "sinless" men could administer the sacraments validly. The schism was effected by the rejection of the lawful authority of validly-elected Catholic bishops and culminated in illicit but valid ordinations of schismatic bishops, priests, and deacons.

As far as your claim that there were 'local, independent (I'm sure you are claiming 'Baptistic') churches in the early centuries of the Church, could you please provide proof of this? What letters exist that they shared? Please provide proof of the existence of these 'Baptist' churches and please don't use the same groups that the Baptist church I grew up in used to prove this, such as:

The Anabaptists denied that a person is saved by faith alone.

The Montanists taught that "God, not being able to save the world by Moses and the Prophets, took flesh of the Virgin Mary, and in Christ, His Son, preached and died for us. And because He could not accomplish the salvation of the world by this second method, the Holy Spirit descended upon Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, giving them the plenitude which St. Paul had not (1 Corinthians 13:9).

The Novatians refused readmission to communion of baptized Christians who had denied their faith.

The fact is that there is no historical proof for your theory (unless you claim that this shows how good the Catholic Church was at persecution and cover-up). Actually, your kind of claim can never be disproved because all that is required for your theory to be transmitted was a small group of 'faithful people' somewhere at some time who kept the flame of the true faith alive. In this history, you guys skim happily over the heretical beliefs of these supposed forefathers of iyour faith. It is sufficient that all these groups were opposed to, and persecuted by, the Catholics."

 

Here is Baptist historian, James McGoldrick's, statement regarding the views of some posting on this thread:

'Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [the author] that the view he once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable. . . . Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the 17th century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the reformers. (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History [1994], 1–2)'

 

Abuse? It was mass murder (no pun intended).

I.E. Bibles translated into English and German.

 

Yes, the Pope's heresies are much to be preferred.

Are you saying, then, that the church is doing a bad thing publishing the New American Bible?