Atheist Anne Rice’s Surprising Discovery
Bestselling Author Anne Rice:
Noted for the painstaking research behind her historical fiction, an atheist of 36 years makes a surprising discovery when she turns her attention to the mystery of the historical Jesus
Excerpt from Author’s Note in Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt
©2006 Anne O’Brien Rice. Used by permission.
Every novel I’ve ever written since 1974 involved historical research. It’s been my delight that no matter how many supernatural elements were involved in the story, and no matter how imaginative the plot and characters, the background would be thoroughly historically accurate. And over the years, I’ve become known for that accuracy.
If one of my novels is set in Venice in the eighteenth century, one can be certain that the details as to the opera, the dress, the milieu, the values of the people- all of this is correct.
Without ever planning it, I’ve moved slowly backwards in history, from the nineteenth century, where I felt at home in my first two novels, to the first century, where I sought the answers to enormous questions that became an obsession with me that simply couldn’t be ignored.
Ultimately, the figure of Jesus Christ was at the heart of this obsession. More generally, it was the birth of Christianity and the fall of the ancient world. I wanted to know desperately what happened in the first century, and why people in general never talked about it.
Understand, I had experienced an old-fashioned, strict Roman Catholic childhood in the 1940’s and 1950’s, in an Irish American parish that would now be called a Catholic ghetto, where we attended daily Mass and Communion in an enormous and magnificently decorated church, which had been built by our forefathers, some with their own hands.
Classes were segregated, boys from girls. We learned catechism and Bible history, and the lives of the saints. Stained-glass windows, the Latin Mass, the detailed answers to complex questions on good and evil – theses things were imprinted on my soul forever, along with a great deal of church history that existed as a great chain of events triumphing over schism and reformation to culminate in the papacy of Pius XII.
I left this church at age eighteen, because I stopped believing it was “the one true church established by Christ to give grace.” No personal event precipitated this loss of faith. It happened on a secular college campus; there was intense sexual pressure; but more than that there was the world itself, without Catholicism, filled with good people and people who read books that were strictly speaking forbidden to me.
I wanted to read Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. I wanted to know why so many seemingly good people didn’t believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behavior and the value of their lives. As the rigid Catholic I was, I had no options for exploration. I broke with the Church. And I broke with my belief in God.
When I married two years later, it was to a passionate atheist, Stan Rice, who not only didn’t believe in God, he felt he had had something akin to a vision which had given him a certainty that God didn’t exist. He was one of the most honorable and conscience-driven people I ever knew. For him and for me, our writing was our lives.
In 1974, I became a published writer. The novel reflected my guilt and my misery in being cut off from God and from salvation; my being lost in a world without light. It was set in the nineteenth century, a context I’d researched heavily in trying to answer questions about New Orleans, where I was born and no longer lived.
After that, I wrote many novels without my being aware that they reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God. As I said before, I was working my way backwards in history, answering questions for myself about whole historical developments—why certain revolutions happened, why Queen Elizabeth I was the way she was, who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays (this I never used in a novel), what the Italian Renaissance really was, and what the Black Death had been like before it. And how feudalism had come about.
In the 1990’s, living in New Orleans again, living among adults who were churchgoers and believers, flexible Catholics of some sophistication, I no doubt imbibed some influence from them.
But I also inevitably plunged into researching the first century because I wanted to know about Ancient Rome. I had novels to write with Roman characters. Just maybe, I might discover something I’d wanted to know all my life and never had known:
How did Christianity actually “happen”? Why did Rome actually fall? To me these were the ultimate questions and always had been. They had to do with who we were today.
I remember in the 1960’s, being at a party in a lovely house in San Francisco, given in honor or a famous poet. A European scholar was there, I found myself alone with him, seated on a couch. I asked him, “Why did Rome fall?” For the next two hours he explained it to me.
I couldn’t absorb most of what he said. But I never forgot what I did understand—about all the grain for the city having to come from Egypt, and the land around the city being taken up with villas, and the crowds being fed the dole.
It was a wonderful evening, but I didn’t leave with a feeling that I had the true grasp of what had happened.
Catholic Church history had given me an awareness of our cultural heritage, although it was presented to me early and quite without context. And I wanted to know the context, why things were the way they were.
When I was a little child, maybe eleven or younger, I was lying on my mother’s bed, reading or trying to read one of her books. I read a sentence that said the Protestant Reformation split Europe culturally in half. I thought that was absurd and I asked her, was this true? She said it was. I never forgot that. All my life I wanted to know what that meant.
In 1993, I dug into this early period, and of course went earlier, into the history of Sumer and Babylon and the whole Middle East, and back to Egypt, which I’d studied in college, and I struggled with it all. I read specialized archaeological texts like detective novels searching for patterns, enthralled with the Gilgamesh story, and details such as the masonry tools which the ancient kings (statues) held in their hands.
I stumbled upon a mystery without a solution, a mystery so immense that I gave up trying to find an explanation because the whole mystery defied belief. The mystery was the survival of the Jews.
As I sat on the floor of my office surrounded by books about Sumer, Egypt, Rome, etc., and some skeptical material about Jesus that had come into my hands, I couldn’t understand how these people had endured as the great people who they were.
It was the mystery that drew me back to God. It set into motion the idea that there may in fact be God. And when that happened there grew in me for whatever reason an immense desire to return to the banquet table. In 1998 I went back to the Catholic Church.
But even then I had not closed in on the question of Jesus Christ and Christianity. I did read the Bible in a state of utter amazement at its variety, its poetry, its startling portraits of women, its inclusion of bizarre and often bloody and violent details. When I was depressed, which was often, someone read the Bible to me, often literary translations of the New Testament—that is, translations by Richmond Lattimore that are wondrously literal and beautiful and revealing and that open the text anew.
In 2002 I put aside everything else and decided to focus entirely on answering the questions that had dogged me all my life. The decision came in July of that year. I had been reading the Bible constantly, reading parts of it out loud to my sister, and poring over the Old Testament, and I decided that I would give myself utterly to the task of trying to understand Jesus himself and how Christianity emerged.
I wanted to write the life of Jesus Christ. I had known that years ago. But now I was ready. I was ready to do violence to my career. I wanted to write the book in the first person. Nothing else mattered. I consecrated the book to Christ.
I consecrated myself and my work to Christ. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.
Even then I did not know what my character of Jesus would be like.
I had taken in a lot of fashionable notions about Jesus—that he’d been oversold, that the Gospels were “late” documents, that we really didn’t know anything about him, that violence and quarreling marked the movement of Christianity from its start. I’d acquired many books on Jesus, and the filled the shelves of my office.
But the true investigation began in July of 2002.
In August, I went to my beach apartment, to write the book. Such naiveté. I had no idea I was entering a field of research where no one agreed on anything—whether we are talking about the size of Nazareth, the economic level of Jesus’ family, the Jewish attitudes of Galileans in general, the reason Jesus rose to fame, the reason he was executed, or why his followers went out into the world.
Vast Landscape of Jesus Scholarship
As to the size of the field, it was virtually without end. New Testament scholarship included books of every conceivable kind from skeptical books that sought to disprove Jesus had any real value to theology or an enduring church, to books that conscientiously met every objection of the skeptics with footnotes halfway up the page.
Bibliographies were endless. Disputes sometimes produced rancor.
And the primary source material for the first century was a matter of continuous controversy in which the Gospels were called secondary sources by some, and primary sources by others, and the history of Josephus and the works of Philo were subject to exhaustive examination and contentions as to their relevance or validity or whether they had any truth.
Then there was the question of the Rabbis. Could the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Talmuds be trusted to give an accurate picture of the first century? Did they actually mention Jesus? And if not, so what, because they didn’t mention Herod, who built the Temple, either.
Oh, what lay in store.
But let me backtrack. In 1999, I had received in the mail from my editor and longtime mentor a copy of Paula Fredriksen’s Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. I had read a substantial part of this book in which Fredriksen re-created beautifully the Jewish milieu in which the boy Jesus might have lived in Nazareth and in which he might have gone to the Temple for Passover along with his family.
Fredriksen made the point strongly that Jesus was a Jew. And that this had to be addressed when one wrote about him or thought about him, or so it seems to me.
Now six years later, I have produced a book which is obviously inspired by that scene which Fredriksen wrote, and I can only offer my humble thanks to her and acknowledge her influence.
Of course my beliefs are the polar opposite of Fredriksen’s as the book Christ the Lord reveals. But it was Fredriksen who steered me in the right direction as to exploring Jesus as a Jew, and there my serious research of him began.
Health Crisis
But to return to the year 2002. As I began my serious work, a call came from my husband. He was experiencing the first symptoms of a brain tumor from which he died in less than four months.
We had been married for forty-one years. After my return to the Church, he had consented to marry me in the great old church of my childhood with a priest who was my cousin saying the words. This was a marvelous concession coming from a committed atheist. But out of love for me, my husband did it. Forty-one years. And he was gone.
Was I given the gift of purpose before this tragedy so that it would sustain me through it? I don’t know. I do know that during his last weeks, my husband when he was conscious became a saint. He expressed love for those around him, understanding of people he hadn’t understood before. He wanted gifts given to those who helped him in his illness.
Before that he had managed, though half paralyzed, to create three amazing paintings. I must not neglect to say that. Then after that period of love and understanding, he slowly lapsed into a coma, and he was gone.
He left more than three hundred paintings, all done in fifteen years, and many books of poetry, most published during the same period, and thousands of unpublished poems. His memorial gallery will soon move from new Orleans to Dallas, Texas, where he was born.
I went on with my quest right through his illness and his death. My books sustained me. I told him about what I was writing. He thought it was wonderful. He gave me glowing praise.
From that time on, December 2002 when he died, until 2005, I have studied the New Testament period, and I continue to study. I read constantly, night and day.
I have covered an enormous amount of skeptical criticism, violent arguments, and I have read voraciously in the primary sources of Philo and Josephus which I deeply enjoy.
Having started with the skeptical critics, those who take their cue from the earliest skeptical New Testament scholars of the Enlightenment, I expected to discover that their arguments would be frighteningly strong, and that Christianity was, at heart, a kind of fraud. I’d have to end up compartmentalizing my mind with faith in one part of it, and truth in another.
And what would I write about my Jesus? I had no idea. But the prospects were interesting. Surely he was a liberal, married, had children, was a homosexual, and who knew what? But I must do my research before I wrote one word.
These skeptical scholars seemed so very sure of themselves. They built their books on certain assertions without even examining these assertions. How could they be wrong?
The Jewish scholars presented their case with such care. Certainly Jesus was simply and observant Jew or a Hasid who got crucified. End of story.
I read and I read and I read. Sometimes I thought I was walking through the valley of the shadow of Death, as I read. But I went on, ready to risk everything. I had to know who Jesus was—that is, if anyone knew, I had to know what that person knew.
Now, I couldn’t read the ancient languages, but as a scholar I can certainly follow the logic of an argument; I can check the footnotes, and the bibliographical references; I can go to the biblical text in English. I can check all the translations I have and I have every one of which I know from Wycliffe to Lamsa, including the New Annotated Oxford Bible and the old English King James which I love.
I have the old Catholic translation, and every literary translation I can find. I have offbeat translations scholars don’t mention, such as that by Barnstone and Schonfield. I acquired every single translation for the light it might shed on an obscure line.
What gradually came clear to me was that many of the skeptical arguments—arguments that insisted most of the Gospels were suspect, for instance, or written too late to be eyewitness accounts—lacked coherence. They were not elegant. Arguments about Jesus himself were full of conjecture. Some books were no more than assumptions piled upon assumptions. Absurd conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all.
In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if hew knew about it—that the whole picture which has floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years—that case was not made. Not only was it not made. I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I’d ever read.
I saw almost no skeptical scholarship that was convincing, and the Gospels, shredded by critics, lost all intensity when reconstructed by various theorists. They were in no way compelling when treated as composites and records of later ”communities.”
I was unconvinced by the wild postulations of those who claimed to be children of the Enlightenment. And I had also sensed something else. Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. This emerged in the personality of the texts.
I’d never come across this kind of emotion in any other field of research, at least not to this extent. It was puzzling.
The people who go into Elizabethan studies don’t set out to prove that Queen Elizabeth I was a fool. They don’t personally dislike her. They don’t make snickering remarks about her, or spend their careers trying to pick apart her historical reputation.
They approach her in other ways. They don’t even apply this sort of dislike or suspicion or contempt to other Elizabethan figures. If they do, the person is usually not the focus of the study. Occasionally a scholar studies a villain, yes. But even then, the author generally ends up arguing for the good points of a villain or for his or her place in history, or for some mitigating circumstance, that redeems the study itself.
People studying disasters in history may be highly critical of the rulers or the milieu at the time, yes. But in general scholars don’t spend their lives in the company of historical figures whom they openly despise.
But there are New Testament scholars who detest and despise Jesus Christ. Of course, we all benefit from freedom in the academic community; we benefit from the enormous size of biblical studies today and the great range of contributions that are being made. I’m not arguing for censorship. But maybe I’m arguing for sensitivity—on the part of those who read these books. Maybe I’m arguing for a little wariness when it comes to the field in general. What looks like solid ground might not be solid ground at all.
Another point bothered me a great deal.
All these skeptics insisted that the Gospels were late documents, that the prophecies in them had been written after the Fall of Jerusalem. But the more I read about the Fall of Jerusalem, the more I couldn’t understand this.
The Fall of Jerusalem was horrific, and involved an enormous and cataclysmic war, a war that went on and on for years in Palestine, followed by other revolts and persecutions, and punitive laws. As I read about this in the pages of S.G.F. Brandon, and in Josephus, I found myself amazed by the details of this appalling disaster in which the greatest Temple of the ancient world was forever destroyed.
I had never truly confronted these events before, never tried to comprehend them. And now I found it absolutely impossible that the Gospel writers could not have included the Fall of the Temple in their work had they written after it as critics insist.
It simply didn’t and doesn’t make sense.
These Gospel writers were in a Judeo-Christian cult. That’s what Christianity was. And the core story of Judaism has to do with redemption from Egypt, and redemption from Babylon. And before redemption from Babylon there was a Fall of Jerusalem in which the Jews were taken to Babylon. And here we have this horrible war.
Would Christian writers not have written about it had they seen it? Would they not have seen in the Fall of Jerusalem some echo of the Babylonian conquest? Of course they would have. They were writing for Jews and Gentiles.
The way the skeptics put this issue aside, they simply assumed the Gospels were late documents because of these prophecies in the Gospels. This does not begin to convince.
Before I leave this question of the Jewish War and the Fall of the Temple, let me make this suggestion. When Jewish and Christian scholars begin to take this war seriously, when they begin to really study what happened during the terrible years of the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the revolts that continued in Palestine right up through Bar Kokhba, when they focus upon the persecution of Christians in Palestine by Jews; upon the civil war in Rome in the ‘60s which Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., so well describes in his work Before Jerusalem Fell; as well as the persecution of Jews in the Diaspora during this period—in sum, when all of this dark era is brought into the light of examination—Bible studies will change.
Right now, scholars neglect or ignore the realities of this period. To some it seems a two-thousand-year-old embarrassment and I’m not sure I understand why.
But I am convinced that the key to understanding the Gospels is that they were written before all this ever happened. That’s why they were preserved without question though they contradicted one another. They came from a time that was, for later Christians, catastrophically lost forever.
As I continued my quest, I discovered a scholarship quite different from that of the skeptics—that of John A.T. Robinson, in The Priority of John. In reading his descriptions, which took seriously the words of the Gospel itself, I saw what was happening to Jesus in the text of John.
It was a turning point. I was able to enter the Fourth Gospel, and see Jesus alive and moving. And what eventually emerged for me from the Gospels was their unique coherence, their personalities—the inevitable stamp of individual authorship.
Of course John A.T. Robinson made the case for an early date for the Gospels far better that I ever could. He made it brilliantly in 1975, and he took to task the liberal scholars for their assumptions then in Redating the New Testament, but what he said is as true now as it was when he wrote those words.
After Robinson I made many great discoveries, among them Richard Bauckham who in The Gospels for All Christians soundly refutes the idea that isolated communities produced the Gospels and shows what is obvious, that they were written to be circulated and read by all.
The work of Martin Hengel is brilliant in clearing away assumptions, and his achievements are enormous, I continue to study him.
The scholar who has given me perhaps some of my most important insights and who continues to do so through his enormous output is N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright is one of the most brilliant writers I’ve ever read, and his generosity in embracing the skeptics and commenting on their arguments is an inspiration. His faith is immense, and his knowledge vast.
In his book The Resurrection of the Son of God, he answers solidly the question that has haunted me all my life. Christianity achieved what it did, according to N. T. Wright, because Jesus rose from the dead. It was the fact of the resurrection that sent the apostles out into the world with the force necessary to create Christianity. Nothing else would have done it but that.
Wright does a great deal more to put the entire question into historical perspective. How can I do justice to him here? I can only recommend him without reservation, and go on studying him.
Of course my quest is not over. There are thousands of pages of the above-mentioned scholars to be read and reread.
But I see now a great coherence to the life of Christ and the beginning of Christianity that eluded me before, and I see also the subtle transformation of the ancient world because of its economic stagnation and the assault upon it of the values of monotheism, Jewish values melded with Christian value, for which it was not perhaps prepared.
There are also theologians who must be studied, more of Teilhard de Chardin, and Rahner, and St. Augustine.
It was this. The challenge was to write about the Jesus of the Gospels, of course!
Anybody could write about a liberal Jesus, a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was a rebel. The “Quest for the Historical Jesus” had become a joke because of all the many definitions it had ascribed to Jesus.
The true challenge was to take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Gospels which were becoming ever more coherent to me, the Gospels which appealed to me as elegant first-person witness, dictated to scribes no doubt, but definitely early, the Gospels produced before Jerusalem fell—to take the Jesus of the Gospels, and try to get inside him and imagine what he felt.
Then there were the legends—the Apocrypha—including the tantalizing tales in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas describing a boy Jesus who could strike a child dead, bring another to life, turn clay birds into living creatures, and perform other miracles. I’d stumbled on them very early in my research, in multiple editions, and never forgotten them. And neither had the world. They were fanciful, some of them humorous, extreme to be sure, but they had lived on into the Middle Ages, and beyond. I couldn’t get these legends out of my mind.
Ultimately I chose to embrace this material, to enclose it within the canonical framework as best I could. I felt there was a deep truth in it, and I wanted to preserve that truth as it spoke to me. Of course that is an assumption. But I made it. And perhaps in assuming that Jesus did manifest supernatural powers at an early age I am somehow being true to the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, that Jesus was God and Man at all times.
I am certainly trying to be true to Paul when he said that Our Lord emptied himself for us, in that my character has emptied himself of his Divine awareness in order to suffer as a human being.
This is a book I offer to all Christian—to the fundamentalists, to the Roman Catholics, to the most liberal Christians in the hope that my embrace of more conservative doctrines will have some coherence for them in the here and now of the book. I offer it to scholars in the hope that they will perhaps enjoy seeing the evidence of the research that’s gone into it, and of course I offer it to those whom I so greatly admire who have been my teachers though I’ve never met them and probably never will.
I offer this book to those who know nothing of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will see him in these pages in some form. I offer this novel with love to my readers who’ve followed me through one strange turn after another in the hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I’ve ever launched into the world we share.
After all, is Christ Our Lord not the ultimate supernatural hero, the ultimate outsider, the ultimate immortal of them all?
As for my son, this novel is dedicated to him. That says it all.
I returned to faith in Christ, and to the Roman Catholic Church on December 6, 1998. It was after a long struggle of many years during which I went from being a committed atheist, grieving for a lost faith which I thought was gone forever, to realizing that I not only believed in Jesus Christ with my whole heart, but that I felt an overwhelming love for Him, and wanted to be united with Him both in private and in public through attendance at church.
The process for me had been gradual and somewhat intellectual. I’d lost faith in atheism. It no longer made sense. I wanted to affirm the presence of God because I felt it. Yet I was tormented by a multitude of theological questions and social issues that I couldn’t resolve. No matter how strongly I believed in God I still considered myself a conscientious humanist.
How, I asked myself, could I express the love for God that I felt by becoming a member of a community of believers when I didn’t know what I thought about the literal truth of Adam or Eve or Original Sin?
How could I join with fellow believers who thought my gay son was going to Hell? How could I become connected with Christians who held that there was no evidence for Darwinian evolution, or that women should not have control over their own bodies? How could I affirm my belief in a faith that was itself so characterized by argument and strife?
Well, what happened to me on that Sunday that I returned to faith was this: I received a glimpse into what I can only call the Infinite Mercy of God. It worked something like this. I realized that none of my theological or social questions really made any difference. I didn’t have to know the answers to these questions precisely because God did.
He was the God who made the Universe in which I existed. That meant he had made the Big Bang, He had made DNA, He had made the Black Holes in space, and the wind and the rains and the individual snowflakes that fall from the sky. He had done all that. So surely He could do virtually anything and He could solve virtually everything.
And how could I possibly know what He knew? And why should I remain apart from Him because I could not grasp all that He could grasp? What came over me then was an infinite trust, trust in His power and His love, I didn’t have to worry about the ultimate fate of my good atheistic friends, gay or straight, because He knew all about them, and He was holding them in His hands.
I didn’t have to quake alone in terror at the thought of those who die untimely deaths from illness, or the countless millions destroyed in the horrors of war. He knew all about them. He had always been holding them in His hands.
He and only He knew the full story of every person who’d ever lived or would live; He and He alone knew what person was given what choice, what chance, what opportunity, what amount of time, to come to Him and by what path.
That I couldn’t possibly know all was as clear to me as my awareness that He did.
Now this was not totally understandable to me in words at that time. I couldn’t have explained it in this way then. But it is essentially what happened: faith became absolutely real to me; and its implications became real. I found myself in a realm in which the beauty I saw around me was intimately connected in every way with the justice, the wisdom, the mercy and the love of God.
Did this mean that I thought doctrine and principles didn’t matter? No. Did it mean I thought everything was relative? Certainly not. Did it mean I did not continue to ponder a multitude of ideas? God forbid. What it did mean was that I put myself in the hands of God entirely and that my faith would light the pages I read in the Book of Life from then on.
Now why did this happen to me? Why did this love and trust fill my heart at that particular moment in time? The honest answer is: I don’t know. Had I prayed for faith? Yes. Had I searched for it? Yes. But faith is a gift, and it was a gift I received on that day.
Over the next few years, my conviction and my awareness of God’s love deepened; and no matter what crisis or dilemma I confronted, that trust in the power of the Lord remained.
In the summer of 2002, as I’ve explained above, I consecrated my work to Christ, but I really didn’t make good on my promise to work only for Him until December of that year. From that time on, I have been committed to writing the life of Our Lord in fictional form.
At the time that I began this work, I had no idea that my life would be transformed by this task, that the anxiety I took for granted as part of life before 2002 would almost entirely disappear. In fact, had anyone told me this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed such a thing. But my life has been completely changed.
Now what happened in 2002 was this: I was praying, I was talking to the Lord, I was discussing my writing with Him, and what came over me was the awareness that if I believed in Him as completely as I said I did, I ought to write entirely for Him. Anything I could do ought to be for Him. I told Him so. I set out to put this into practice.
As I said, I didn’t succeed to full commitment until December of that year. But the day when I told the Lord I’d write for Him, and Him only, I now see as the most important single day of my entire life. Truly not the simplest things have been the same since. I am united in mind and body as never before. In fact it seems that every aspect of my life has been brought into a coherence that I’d never expected to see.
My early religious education, my long quest, my many experiences both dramatic and trivial, my losses, my developing writing skills, my research skills—all are united now in one single goal. There is a feeling in me at times that nothing, no matter how small, that I experienced has been lost. And of course I wonder if it isn’t this way with every human being; it’s just that most of us can’t see it most of the time.
There is much more I can say about my journey to conversion but I think this gives the emotional picture which is lacking above.
Finally, allow me to say this about the crafting of a novel about Our Lord.
As Christians, I feel most of us in the creative community must seek to be more than scribes. If Diarmaid MacColloch is right in his immense history, The Reformation, we had plenty of Christian scribes on the eve of that enormous and painful upheaval.
But it was the printing press that enabled the great thinkers of that time, both Reformer and Catholic, to transform our “assumptions about knowledge and originality of thought.” I suggest now that we must seize the revolutionary media of our age in the way that those earlier Christian and Catholics seized the printed book. We must truly use the realistic novel, the television drama, and the motion picture to tell the Christian story anew.
It is our obligation to tell that story over and over and to use the best means that we have.
In that spirit this novel was written—with the hope of exploring and celebrating the mystery of the Hypostatic Union as well as the mystery of the Incarnation—in a wholly fresh way.
But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little flock; possess us as Thine, stretch thy wings over us, and let us fly under them. Be thou our glory.
-St. Augustine
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July 12, 2006
Go here to learn more about Anne’s book “Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt”
Anne Rice recommends the following books and scholarly works on the question of Jesus:
On the Historical Jesus and the Gospels:
David Alan Black’s simple and straightforward Why Four Gospels
Jean Carmignac’s The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels
The First Edition of the New Testament by David Trobisch
Craig S. Keener’s truly magnificent A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke by John Wenham
I’m also profoundly grateful for the writings of Fr. Benedict Groeschel CFR, J. Augustine Di Noia OP, Gerald O’Collins SJ, and the works of the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar
Larry Hurtado’s Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
Craig L. Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel
On apocryphal writings and artistic representations of Jesus in the early church:
The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church by J. K. Elliot
Art & the Christian Apocrypha by David R. Cartlidge and J. Keith Elliot
The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Clayton
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre
Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary 800-1200 by Rachel Fulton
The Golden Legend, published as Legenda Sanctorum in 1260
1-Page Summary: What We Know About Jesus and the Resurrection
Christianity in its purest form you say. That’s if a christian is really going to follow in the true steps of Jesus Christ, which made him to secure the salvation of the race. Now everyone must look up to him and stand on the rejected Pillar – the One Chosen by God. Instead of doing this, Christianity today set up another set of human traditions that we are using another language for as doctrines. We need to sit down and open our minds well. Salvation surpasses faith only, even though we are predestined for it. It is when we are ready to grab it, we do. Salvation is submitting ourselves to God the Almighty through the grace found in the Lord Jesus, with Holy Spirit regenerating our minds in conformity to the will of the Father. However, this does not give room for any doctrine like Trinity for the Son is Jesus and the Holy Spirit is life giving, which is part of everyone of us that has been able to give birth to himself again by accepting the Spirit of Truth. Which means, the Holy Spirit suppose to be part of us individually. It is the Spirit that was lost by man in the Garden of Eden, which made him to be considered dead. When a man has this Spirit again, he starts living. the Son is not equal to the Father neither is the Holy Spirit part and parcel of the Father. For further information, get the Book THE HARD TEACHINGS – THE EMERGENCE OF PARADISE. You can google it out.
Gbenga Adebomi, Inasmush as I agreed with your submission about salvation, I will like to point out that your analysis of the trinity is confusing a bit. You might call it christian dogma but the bible in 1st John 5:7; For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word (Jesus christ), and the Holy Spirit and these three are one.
explains it all.
The erroneous statement and belief, by some, i.e., Jehovah’a Witnesses et al, that Jesus is not equal to the Father, and that the Holy spirit is not part of the Father, (Godhead) a denial of the Trinity, IS unbiblical nonsense!
The fact that Onmipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence are ALL ascribed to the Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit, in God’s Word, the Bible, either by implication, or direct reference, logically and Scripturally reveal and support that the Eternal Godhead, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Trinity) are by divine revelation, co-eternal, co-equal, in all attributes!
Carlos,
I believe that what you say is logically impossible! This is made even more obvious when one considers that the Bible was written by men and not by some mysterious Hand.
Is the doctrine of the Trinity logically impossible?
By logically impossibility, I mean that there is a logical contradiction involved in the concept like a round square or living dead.
Everything that exists is a being. Every being either does something (action) or exists in a certain way (essence, properties, characteristics). When we attribute an action or characteristics to a being we are referring to what philosophers call the suppositum. When the suppositum is a thinking and willing suppositum, it is called a person.
Every being that we can encounter in this world has one suppositum. That is the data of our experience. We have no experience of a being with three suppositums. There is a logical difficulty when we try to think of a being with three suppositums. This is because we think with the aid of our language and our language is reflective of our experiences and we have no experience a being with three suppositums. There is a logical difficulty in thinking of the Trinity (One Divine being with three suppositums) but there is no contradiction and hence no logical impossibility.
Mr. Jordan, give us verses where the Trinity doctrines are taught in the Bible. Oh no, that’s why no religion on earth can save man.
Religions are set up to make people believe what is not in the name of God. Things that God did not send people to do and they will be confessing with all their strengths and so on. That’s why some people will go for suicide bombing to kill innocent people claiming they are fight for God and the person dying along with them.
I advise you open your mind and allow God to minister to you again. Read the whole Bible not because you are looking for things to support your religious doctrines but that you want to see the truth.
When religion confused me, I started a search for the true wills of God. For over four times, I completed reading the Bible and for over twenty times, I read through Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation searching for meanings to those codes in the Bible. For fifteen good years, I was on it. My findings were put in the book THE HARD TEACHINGS.
Religious people are rather degrading God’s values rather than promoting it. Religious people are the ones making more people to reject God (i.e. atheists) and the Bible.
Instead of religion to stop doctrinal teachings and build up research institutions to continue to improve of the truth of God and make them better, religion today is setting up explanations to various traditions that were set up in which many innocent souls were kid and for these reasons; Jesus Christ was crucified.
The only thing religion today is good for is the unquestionable knowledge of the existence of God and some form of security and socializing. However, religions create more confusion in the world than developments yet religion continues to enjoy developments put in place by science and technology.
It is time we wake up. Any religion that wish to be part of the new world order of the true gospel should open her hands wide for the truth and I try to see if its true rather than condemning it.
Galileo proved the earth was spherical, religion forced him to recount. Today, is it religion that is right or Galileo. Tomorrow, it would be glaring seen there is nothing like Trinity again when Jesus the son we are expecting comes back to give glory to the Father and you can see that there is no personality like Holy Spirit except the one you are able to regain through your acceptance of the truth.
God is LOVE but religion today is not manifesting love.
Gbenga,
Though you keep denying the fact, you are a very religious man. Religious people search over and over as you are have done and are doing to find out the truth about God and His Truth. Stop the word game and accept that no man on earth can be without religion. Even Atheism and Agnosticism are religions. Anti-religion is even dangerously religious than religion could ever be. Even Science has turned out to become the religion of The Big-bang and Chance. University Education even started from Church Cathedrals so it is also religion.
On the Trinity you can check out these Scripture verses to see if you cold discover Trinity from them. You may even come up with a deeper understanding of the Divine essence and operations than the Church has ever done over the years.
The doctrine of the Trinity of the Godhead is the Church’s best understanding of the One True God, Who is revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as both Absolute (One Divine Essence) and Related (Three Divine Persons). Trinity is NOT tritheism (three gods).
THE TRINITY IN THE UNITY OF THE GODHEAD AS FOUND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
Whereas the Trinity is implicit in the O.T., it is quite explicit in the N.T. With the revelation of the Tri-personal nature of God, the NT adds a new dimension to the doctrine of God. Hitherto the study of God would have at its best been limited to:
1. The existence or reality and the being of God (either as a non-personal FORCE or a purposeful, spiritual and PERSONAL Being).
2. The perfect Nature of God as evident in
(a) Perfect names;
(b) Perfect attributes which are:
i) Natural (i.e. Oneness, Personhood, Infinity, Eternity, Immutability, Sovereignty, Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence.) and
ii) Moral (i.e. Goodness, Holiness and Righteousness)
3. The work of God in Creation and Preservation – i.e. PROVIDENCE.
However with the revealed truth of the Trinity, a lot of dimensions have now been made known to humanity about the nature and the work of God (such as the plurality of anthropomorphic PERSONS in the ONE Divine Essence and His Redemptive work of grace). Also a whole new vista of relating with God has been opened (such as our personal walk with God, Personal indwelling and purposeful leading by God through the Holy Spirit). Today therefore, we do not only talk about worshipping of the real-living, perfect and powerful God but also about walking with the redeeming, purposeful, Tri-Personal God who is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the unique offer to humanity by Christianity. The offer of this ultimate revelation also makes the ultimate demand on each human, to relate with God and love God with all our spirit, soul, mind, strength, heart, body, and substance (Deut 10:12-13; Mark 12:29-30).
This new offer by Christianity about the essential nature of God as “Three-Persons-in-one” God and how the three Persons-in-God are significant in reaching humanity for our salvation is evident from the following passages of the NT Scriptures:
1. At the annunciation, Lk 1:35;
2. At Christ’s baptism, Matt 3:13-17;
3. In Christ’s teachings, e.g. John 10:30; 14:6-7; 14:26, 15:26;
4. In the Baptismal formula of the Great Commission, Matt 28:19;
5. In the Pentecostal sermon, Acts 2:32-33;
6. In the Apostolic Benediction, 2Cor 13:14;
7. In the Apostolic teachings:
(a) On the Spiritual Gifts, e.g. 1Cor 12:4-6;
(b) On the mystery of Election e.g. Eph 1:3-14; 2Thes 2:13-14; 1Pet 1:2;
(c) On the Atonement, e.g. Heb 9:14;
(d) On the work of Redemption, e.g. Eph 2:18;
(e) On the mystery of Adoption, e.g. Gal 4:4-7;
(f) On the Unity of the Church, e.g. Eph 4:4-6;
(g) On worship access Eph 2:18, and worship singing Eph 5:18-20;
(h) On the mystery of the Apostolic ministry e.g. Eph 3:2-5.
And so on and so forth.
Also the NT contains other verses that refer to Christ as God and to be worshipped in faith: John 1:1-2; 14; John 1:18; John 5:23; John 14:1; John 20:28; Rom 9:5; Tit 2:13; Heb 1:8; 2Pet 1:1; 1John 5:20.
These all declare the divinity of Christ.
Again the personhood of the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, is very clear from the NT as in the following:
1. He is referred to in the personal pronoun e.g. John 14:26; 15:26.
2. He has will 1Cor 12:7.
3. He has intellect 1Cor 2:11.
4. He has affection, Eph 4:30; Rom 15:30.
5. He indwells, 1Cor 3:16.
6. He intercedes, Rom 8:26.
7. He speaks Act 28:25.
8. He leads Rom 8:14.
9. He guides, John 16:13.
The Holy Spirit is therefore a personal Spirit not an impersonal force or power.
Religion and Tradition is what humans do because they feel is the right or beneficial thing to do. Revelation is what God does to save and redeem man.
Christianity is a relationship with God born out God condescending to reveal Himself to man in order to redeem man so also is Judaism.
Let us stop playing with words. Christianity and Judaism are religions born out of divine revelation. But while Judaism offers the Promised Land, Christianity offers eternal Salvation through Christ.
However, the saving power of Christianity is not the religious devotion or traditions of Christians but the saving accomplishments of Christ.
It is possible to have the religion of Christianity without the salvation of Christianity but it is not possible to have the salvation of Christianity and remain irreligious.
Christianity is therefore true religion. But it is religion practised by the redeemed because they have been saved.
Gbenga we need to talk. please can you e-mail me labi.ogunse(@)gmail.com
Mr. Adebomi, I’ll answer your question on the Doctrine of the Trinity tomorrow morning.
BTW, Do you believe in the doctrine of the “Millenium”?
Mr. Adebomi, Now, back to the “Trinity”, crucial to the biblical doctrine of God is His Trinitarian nature. Although the term ‘trinity’ is not a biblical word as such, nevertheless, Christian theology has used it to designate the distinct revelation of God, as clearly seen in numerous text, re the ‘three’ Persons of the Eternal Godhead, that is, the threefold manifestation of the One God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore, the formualed doctrine of the Trinity, simply asserts, what His Word, the Bible clearly reveals, that is the truth that God is one being or essence, who exist eternally in three DISTINCT* co-equal “persons.’
Further, the doctrine of the Trinity, flows from the self-revelation of God in biblical salvation history. As the one God successively reveals Himself in His saving action in the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, it is emphatically clear, that each Person, is recognized as God Himself in personal manifestation. It is thus in the fulness of NT revelation, that the doctrine of the Trinity is seen most clearly. God is one (Gal. 3:20; James 2:19), but the Son (John 1:1; 14:9; Col. 2:9) and the Holy Spirit (Acts. 5: 3-4; I Cor. 3;16) are also FULLY* God. Yet, they are distinct from the Father and each other. The Father sends the Son, and the Spirit, while the Son also sends the Holy Spirit (gal. 4:4; John 15;26). This unified equality, and yet distinctness is seen in the triadic reference to the three persons.
There are numerous passages in the NT, that so clearly show forth and reveal the co-equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that anyone who denies this, both implicit and explicit reality, would have to be intellectually, grammatically, and linguistically dishonest. One such passage from the NT, is Christian baptism, where the “NAME” note carefully it IS in the singular, NOT NAMES:
“Go ye therefore, and teach ALL nations, baptizing them in the NAME* (singular) of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19 Emphasis added).
This passage, IS emphatic in its declaration of the ‘Triune’ Godhead, (Trinity) without using the term, as it IS explicit to the bone, as, it first indentifies ALL three of the Person IN one “NAME” not NAMES, that would make it tritheism, three Gods, and the definite article ‘the’ preceeds and qualifies EACH distinct Person of the Godhead, THE ‘Father’ and THE ‘Son, and THE ‘Holy Spirit.
Each of the three Persons (Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit) Each of the three IS* distinguished from the other; and because they are all identified in One NAME* each posseses ALL the divine attributes; yet the three are one. This is a mystery to the human mind,therefore humanistic ‘rationalism’ cannot understand it, and no analogy can adequately illustrate it satisfactorily.
This is just a brief look at the biblical revelation of the Trinue Godhead, the Trinity, which was NOT imposed on the NT Scripture, but rather, was drawn from the explicit and implicit statements in many passages, that so clearly reflected the three distinct Persons, as being co-equal, in ALL attributes.
Yes, I do believe in millenium rein of Christ but I later got convinced the millenium rein is not a physical rein as it has been preached but a spiritual one where the true gospel of Christ would be related to the world and the world will live in peace for a thousand years. During this period, the people will get to understand God in the actual way it should be and the world will then be built the way the Father wish…
I talked a lot about this in the book: THE HARD TEACHINGS – THE EMERGENCE OF PARADISE.
Thank you Mr Jordan.
I must confess this is the teaching, I have always been receiving to explain the concept of Trinity from my early life.
When I became a member of Nigeria Fellowship of Evangelical Students (NIFES), we would go out to preach to unbelievers within and around the campus. Then it dawned on me I should stop teaching people mystery that I cannot explain. Therefore, I promised myself not to preach again until I am able to explain these mysteries.
There are lots of propositions to support the concept of Trinity but the truth is this concept is not in the Bible. If it is not in the Bible, there is absolutely no need to bring it out and look for things to support it.
I started a search on my own to really see if truly there was Trinity and found out, there is nothing like that. In Acts 8:17, you quoted, it was written they have not yet received the Holy Spirit, if Holy Spirit is God Almighty, you will never need to receive it. However, the truth is the Holy Spirit is that Spirit that we lost in the Garden of Eden, which made man to be dead in the presence of God.
Jesus came not to be equal to God but to redeem man. His redemption of man is two ways; First to confirm the very first being Adam was perfect. Note that, the way I shall explain the Bible is different to any religion because I went outside religion to establish the truth about the wills of God.
The reason why he was tested alone was to confirm the statement made by Adam; the woman you put here with me gave me and I ate. Dont believe that God will ever stoop so low for the devil to test him to redeem man. There is no mystery in this, just like Jesus is quoted as a son of God, Adam was also quoted as a son of God. Jesus prayed to God and God confirmed him as his son, whom we should listen to.
If I have to explain this concept it will take a lot of time. This is not the forum to convince you if truly there is Trinity or not because, it is only when you decide to find out you will know, not when I try to convince you. The only means, which you can be convinced is for the knowledge to be reveal to you and the Holy Spirit ministering to you.
The problem with the world from the beginning was that Satan, the devil, the ancient serpent was not pleased with the creation of man. That was why when God said, Let us create man in our own image, there was no response from the angels. God was talking to the angels but Christianity is teaching God was talking to Jesus. God went ahead to create man in His personal image, which caused the jealousy to bring man down.
It is a long story… the world will know the rest as this proof comes out in the open. It is in my book, it took many years and painstaking demands through prayers to get there. It is not just something I can explain easily like that without some other fundamental ideas, apart from the doctrines that has already been built in our subconscious mind. That’s why we hate change.
From History, the truth is the Trinity doctrine was set up to establish the seat of the Pope as a God on earth, even though it is no longer being emphasize at the present age: the Vicar of Christ, the rest is history… nothing like Trinity. Even though, the Catholic Church has developed so much in her relationship with men, the fundamental ideas that made Catholicism to go wrong are not yet address and when will this be when the Church is expending so much resources to keep it as it is?
Gbenga,
What is your authority for these your weird interpretations, confused concoctions and strange claims?
You went away from a shared religion based on clear grasp of the Truth and ended up in a delusion – a personal private religion based on misgivings and misconceptions.
2Th 2:9-12
(9) The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the power of Satan. He will use every kind of power, including miraculous signs, lying wonders,
(10) and every type of evil to DECEIVE those who are dying, those who refused to love the truth that would save them.
(11) For this reason, God will send them a powerful DELUSION so that they will believe the lie.
(12) Then all who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in unrighteousness will be CONDEMNED.
Please come out of this mix-up and come back to your senses.
Hi Gbenga Adebomi.
I wish to comment on this statement: There are lots of propositions to support the concept of Trinity but the truth is this concept is not in the Bible.
But first let me define my terms. By ‘concept’, I mean the representation of things in our minds. A concept is the mental object which the mind uses to think about things. Its synonyms are ‘idea’ and ‘notion’. Let me state also that I adhere to the representative conception of human knowledge which means that we know something not by having the thing itself in our mind but only by having a representation of it.
A word is what we use to express or represent the idea or concept in the mind. There is a spoken word and there is a written word.
The idea or concept is formed in the mind by experiencing things (through any one of the senses) or having somebody explain an idea to us in terms of other ideas that are familiar.
The Bible does not use the word ‘Trinity’ but it does seem to describe or present a reality to which the word ‘Trinity’ has been assigned or given. What is that reality or thing? The reality is God who is one but at the same time three. The Old Testament is very clear: there is only one God. The New Testament (Matthew 28:19, NIV 1984, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”) seems to suggest a God who though one is constituted by three realities Father, Son and Spirit who are distinct from each other and yet co-equal. They are so equal (same) that their only distinction seems to be this: The Son is from the Father, not vice versa, and the Spirit is from the Father and the Son, and not vice versa. Only the Father does not come from anyone.
I have to admit that the word ‘Trinity’ is not from the Bible. But the concept it represents or expresses is suggested by the Bible or can be formed by reading the Bible.
God bless you.
To all the Faithful,
The Holy Trinity is a concoction! Now we can pontificate as much as we want, we can philosophize until w are blue in the face, the fact is no one will ever be able to either explain or prove that the concept of the Holy Trinity is more than a figment of a very capricious imagination and a good one at that!It has succeeded in enslaving and brainwashing millions for many years and appears to capable to so doing world without end!
Foolish me; I thought we had already entered the age of reason. After all the world is only 4.5 billion years old although Jesus is just two thousand years old.
“The Holy Trinity is a concoction! Now we can pontificate as much as we want, we can philosophize until w are blue in the face, the fact is no one will ever be able to either explain or prove that the concept of the Holy Trinity is more than a figment of a very capricious imagination and a good one at that!”
It’s true, the ‘Holy Trinity’ is a concoction, ina certain sense, but it doesn’t mean that it is not true. Until somebody can prove that it is not true, nobody can claim that it is not. Fair enough?
Mr. Adebomi,
I take no pleasure whatsoever in saying this, but, you are in a terrible state of ‘spiritual’ deception and darkness; you have no idea how the arch-enemy of God’s Word, the Bible, Satan has utterly deceived you in the unbiblical nonsense you have written so far on this blog site, re the Trinity, and a few other things.
If this is any idea of what is in the book you have written, I would not waste my time reading such heresy, as there are a dime a dozen out there.
If you fail, intellectually, and by the laws of grammar, syntax, etc, to see the ‘Trinity’ the truine God, as manifested and revealed in His Word, the Bible, then you are* spiritually blinded, big time!
You see what, one major reason religious people cannot really be doing the will of God is because they are only worshipping God out of fear rather than in truth – presenting God like a tyrant. There is no other way to convince and keep people in the faith of the religions than through psychological or physical threat.
I did analysis by quoting the scriptures and also pointing to verses quoted by you yet you are quoting grammars claiming I am quoting grammars. How then do you want to see the light of the day?
To know God, no matter what one knows one must come down and believe he knows nothing – this is the meaning of Blessed are the poor in spirit. When Jesus was alive, the set of people who had problem with him were those who wanted to protect their religious traditions rather than listening to the truth. We are only discussing one aspect of the various wrong doctrines set up by the religions yet using quotations that were not it to support the claim.
Where in the Bible did God say, I am Jesus and where did Jesus say I am the God Almighty come and worship me? Where in the Bible did the Apostles teach us that Jesus was God? Or did Jesus tell you he was the one God was speaking with in the beginning or what is it wrong to say Satan was against the creation – man? If Satan was not against it, why did he take man as his enemy? What did man do wrong to warrant all these wars from Satan? Why did God have to tell Jesus to sit at His right till He put his enemy under his footstool? However, it is there that Adam was a son of God, probably that was what you had problem with Luke 3:38?
There is no point in making unworthy arguments as I am not ready for this. At the end, we shall see who has really been saying the truth about the wills of God. It is unfortunate for people who later see that they have spent much of their times serving shadow rather than truth not to try to fight back however, it would be better to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther, who at the end of his life died with peace of mind and with the conviction – the just shall live by faith.
Gebenga,
The just shall live by faith, faith in the truth. I am sure you love God greatly and you seem to be a likable enough guy but as has been pointed out and as the Bible warns us clearly we need to be careful. It is very clear from scripture when studied that Jesus is God in the flesh. Over and over its in the Word and undeniable. One God in three distinct persons. If He is not than He would have really been guilty of the crime of blaspheme that the Jews charged Him with and thus not sinless. If we make our decisions without consulting the Word we are in danger of heeding deceptive spirits just as the Bible states.
If Jesus is not God you would need to explain why He accepted worship when the Bible is clear only God accepts worship. Angels did not even accept worship. He never rebuked anyone for worshipping Him as was the first duty of a Rabbi. Why He told His followers to pray in His name, Why Stephen prayed to Jesus as He was being stoned. Why Jesus forgives sins. Why Jesus is called the First and the Last in Revelations a name reserved for only God. How He could have lived a sinless life and accepted worship, which would have been blaspheme if He was just a man. Why the Jews several times picked up stones to stone him when He claimed to be God or Gods equal. Why the early church fathers worshipped Him as God. I could go on and on.
There are many good websites expounding on the verses and here is one you might want to check out.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/jesusgd2.htm
This is not about what I or anyone else on this website wants to be true. Its about where the evidence clearly points, to the truth. We then place our faith in what has shown itself to be true.
I hope you will check out that website and pray about this question. The truth is what matters here.
God Bless, Mike
Mr. Adebomi, The more you write, the more you expose how confused you are, and unable to think critically, and let the Word of God, the Bible speak for itself.
Those of us who stand up for the ‘Trinity’ NEVER said that the Bible says, that God the Father said He (The Father) is Jesus; nor have we said that the Bible said, that Jesus said I am God (the Father) what utter nonsense this is!
‘The Scriptures give us the revelation of the Eternal Godhead, who revealed Himself, in His Word, the Bible, as One God in THREE PERSONS, even the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY SPIRIT; distinguishable* but indivisible* in essence; co-eternal, coexistent, co-equal in nature, attributes, power and glory. There is but One eternal Godhead, who IS one undivided and indivisible essence, and in this One essence there are THREE eternal Persons, the FATHER, the SON, and the Holy Spirit.’
The Godhead.
a term used in the New Testament relative to God IS* “the Godhead:, The word refers to that which is Divine, to Deity, involving God’s revelation of His own mode of being. Acts 17:20 “…we ought not to think that the GODHEAD* is like unto gold, or silver or stone, graven out of man’s device.”
In Colossians 1:19-20 we read, “For in Him (Christ) dwells ALL THE FIULNESS of the GODHEAD* bodily.”
The God of the Bible IS* revealed AS* truine in nature and being. From Genesis to Revelation, whether it is by type or symbol, pattern or created things, shadows or theophanic revelation or manifestation, or whether it be by clear declaration, Scripture shows GOD IS* always revealed as ONE God in THREE distinct Persons, the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY SPIRIT, and THREE in ONE, distinguishable, yet, absolutely indivisible, thst IS* a TRINITY!!!
To Gbenga Adebomi, Carlos Jordan and the rest.
We must continue to dialogue and at the same time resist the temptation to become exasperated with one another. When we can’t help it and give in to the temptation, we must be able to go back and continue the dialogue after having said our I’m sorry’s and It’s ok’s.
The truth is one and yet we all have different views of it and that is because of the nature of human knowledge and human language which are intimately tied up with each other.
The nature of human knowledge and human language is such that they allow us to take up only one perspective at a time. One perspective corresponds to only one aspect of the truth. That’s why we need each other to provide the perspective that the other cannot have. We need each other to have a fuller view of the truth, a more complete picture of reality.
We dialogue not to prove each other wrong but to come up with a unified view of the truth as a product of a cooperative effort.
Jun,
That was very astute of you. The whole purpose of this these discussions is to seek the truth. Of course it may be seen as merely an academic exercise in futility by others since no consensus is attainable.
What is worse is that truth is difficult to define and even even more difficult to discover!
The English say: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” So too it might be said that One man’s truth is another man’s lie.
Bert,
if you are trying to convert those on this blog to atheisim then you are battling a lost cause. Why would I go to a belief that does not fit the evidence? Myself and many others believe its true specifically because of the evidence in conjunction with how it has transformed our lives. I will agree that not every Christian knows the evidence and that is where atheists think they get some victories on these blogs. But just like you do not need to know the chemical composition of the mediciene that works and saves you. A person that has placed their faith in Christ, even if they cannot back up there belief to your liking, has made the absolute right decision.
The truth is that Christianity has always been about ‘taking action upon established truth”. Faith cannot change history and faith does not make the Bible true. We place our faith in it because it is true and the evidence strongly supports it.The guys I blog with at a differant site are far from stupid and gulliable like you seem to think. most are extremely intelligent, one a NASA Aerospace Engineer and scientist, a couple of doctors, another a member of MENSA. These guys like myself would not be Christians if the evidence just did not jive. But it does and it does in a big way. We have no desire to pass around a lie based on blind faith.
You have brought up one question after another displaying an attitude that clearly indicates you think you have us all beat in the thinking department. But have you examined the evidence? The evidence is available if you want to look but there is far to much and to many areas of speciality for you to get the answers in this format. As I mentioned before I can refer you to some great resources. pleaseconvinceme.com is one great reource, Ran by a former vocal atheist who is also a cold case homocide detective that changed his mind totally when he realized the evidence was not on his side as an atheist. Many of your questions could be answered there and at other resources I could refer you to. But if you just stand outside and throw stones you will never be able to make a reasonable decision based on the evidence.
Can you answer this question honestly?
If Christianity could be proven to you beyond a reasonable doubt, would you become a Christian?
Yes or no and why?
If yes then great I will refer you to some resources as I am sure others on here can to. If “no” then maybe you need to take an honest look at how you can make this decision without looking at the evidence. For most rejection is an emotional one or reason of the will. I do not want to be a Christian even if it is true. I want to do what I want to do and I do not want anyone looking over my shoulder. I lived there for several years myself and I refused to look. It called contempt prior to investigation.
Those on here that have spent considerable time going back and forth with you care about you if you believe it or not.
Thanks Mike
Hi Bert.
Is it okay if we try to discuss the basic stuff first before moving on to their corollaries?
Let’s try to define what is truth (the concept of truth). Let’s try also to discuss how we can attain the truth. And if we can ever agree on this, we might be able to move on to bigger things such as this existence of God, eventually.
Bert, you have to understand that whenever I comment on your comments, I don’t mean to prove you wrong.I don’t have that authority. I am merely suggesting that you could or might be wrong. Because, I think and I may be wrong, that the truth has many sides and we are only able to grasp one side at a time, even probably, in our lifetime. That’s why we need each other for a more complete view of reality or grasp of the truth. We even need the views of the previous generations. Can you imagine what Einstein might have accomplished if he had to rediscover what Newton had already discovered. I imagine that it would just have been a repetition of Newton. He had to build on what Newton had accomplished by accepting it as true to some extent. The critical attitude must always be there. It’s not a tool for creating trouble. It’s a tool for attaining the truth.
Mr Jun Mahusay, Thank you very much for your advice. I am always very careful not to insult people but sometimes the truth seems to insult naturally.
Each time Jesus said the truth to the Pharisees, it always seemed to be insult – that’s the way it’s always. I am sorry when it looks as if I am insulting.
Don’t think it is my saying here that will convince anybody to reject Trinity. If I continue to preach it daily, it is only when the Holy Spirit (the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth) is able to minister in the mind of the person can he/she believes.
I have checked the site I was advised to check by Mr Edwards and I can see the site was only trying to establish Jesus as God, not proving the concept of Trinity. Jesus is indeed God but not the God Almighty. There is no way the son can be equal to the Father. Jesus said the Father is greater than I. There is no argument in that. Anyone who wants to keep believing in Trinity can continue to hold on to that. As for me, I have yielded the commandment of God that we should come out of the religions and accept His truth.
There is time for everything. The time of the religions has passed and they will keep receiving criticism here and there not because people are tired of worshipping God but that it will make them to have the opportunity of worshipping God in truth. The religions will keep fallen for the truth of God.
Atheists are people who are asking questions and they will find it with time. Atheist Anne Rice has now believed in the existence of God but there is no guarantee she will remain in Catholicism and she will continue to ask questions and God will continue to give her answers. I am not so much disturb about that. Father Abraham was once an atheist; maybe you believe it or not does not change this fact.
Revelation talked about the Spiritual Kingdom called Babylon. This spiritual kingdom are being expected by men but it had been in existence immediately the Apostles were executed one after the other and the nation Israel was destroyed in 70A.D. When this was done God gave men a reprobate mind.
This is what is meant by 2 Timothy quoted by Mr Ifey Ibeme:
2Th 2:9-12
(9) The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the power of Satan. He will use every kind of power, including miraculous signs, lying wonders,
(10) and every type of evil to DECEIVE those who are dying, those who refused to love the truth that would save them.
(11) For this reason, God will send them a powerful DELUSION so that they will believe the lie.
(12) Then all who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in unrighteousness will be CONDEMNED.
Israel is a representation of man. When the Israelite nation seized to be in existence men were dead but were living physically. Read valley of dry bones in Ezekiel too and darkness was over the earth in Revelation.
This was the period the various religious set ups had their fill day. History called it dark ages. Religion worked on the minds of men the way they liked. Making man to worship the devil with the belief men were worshipping God in deceit Rev. 13:4.
Man was born again in 1948 when the Israelite nation was re-established. For man to be born again i.e. the dry bones coming together to form a skeleton, think of the number of lives that were sacrificed with the death of about six millions Jews in Gas chambers set up by one of the beast.
Today, the message that applies to us is in Rev. 18 read through and take note of vs 4
Come out of her, my people Come out of Her
Anyone who cares should hid this warning and see how this truth best applies to him. If men are able to find out the truth, they would be saved from the impending destruction. If not, men themselves will kill and be tired of killing before they realise that they are not doing the wills of God. Few people would be left with the conviction to truly find out the true wills of God and will rein with Christ – spiritual rein of a thousand years.
This is when Babylon would have completely fallen. Babylon means cultism, religion and all other associations whose only work is to protect traditions, which make them to give power to the beast rather than finding and expanding the truth of God.
Michael Nostradamus also warned but the religions keep deceiving us his message is from the devil.
THE HARD TEACHINGS – THE EMERGENCE OF PARADISE
Haba! Gbenga,
Why is your thinking so skewed and mixed up. Could you please seek help?
You keep saying where in the Bible is this written when you want to reject some thing but you soon concoct strange incoherent things that are not anywhere in the Bible.
Please your mind has a grammatical and conceptual peculiarity that is not normal. Could you ask for help? Please don’t misunderstand me.
You speak of God giving us free will to choose Sin or not. In order for God to be all-just and all-fair the concept of Sin must be universal. You can’t have humans being sent to Hell and others to Heaven for committing the same act that was a Sin at one time but not later or confined to one culture and not another.
Therefore, how does anyone know if they have committed a sin since others doing the same act under other times or circumstances do not commit a sin?
If you take the Bible as a guide of defining sin you have some problems. The Ten commandments are spelled out but it seems everybody has a different understanding of what they read.
None of the Commandments mention masturbation, abortion, gambling, respect for civilian authority, drug addition, or drinking as sinful.
As an example the fifth commandment states Thou Shall Not Kill. Therefore all soldiers kill the enemy, public executioners, policeman who kill law breakers, husbands who defend themselves or their families by killing an intruder, etc. etc.
No where in the ten commandments does it say people with mental problems are exempt from sin. Then there is the problem of the millions of humans who lived and died thousands of years prior to Christ’s teaching. They could not commit any sin since there was no rules to break. They must be in Heaven regardless of what they did since they did not sin.
I think there is lot of general guidance but a avoidance of specific circumstances in the bible. Given what I have said sin is not any act by itself putting a tremendous job on God who must judge us.
Raph,
Just “sin no more” and help as many as you can to sin no more. Everyone is under condemnation already the issue not where we all are but where we can get to through the saving grace of Christ.
Jesus came not to condemn the already condemned but to SAVE the whole condemned world especially you. Isn’t that good news? Grab Christ’s salvation and you are out of this mess.
I guess I will be forever amazed at the extent of pure and unadulterated ignorance that still exists concerning the Bible that was written as a compendium of stories. I openly admit that the universe hold mysteries that may never be totally revealed. However, that is no reason to peddle a lot of myths – no matter how beautiful – as truth.
First of all, truth, not unlike objectivity, is far from being absolute. It is a consensus of social mores which vary from place to place and also from time to time. There were many gods before the Roman Emperor Constantine decided for political reasons to give credence to a Single God and to make Jesus Divine who up until then was recognized as a man. Of course,having created a master lie it was necessary to construct subsidiary lives to support the other or primary one. Interestingly, enough this was all done with one objective in mind – Control and power over others. It is hardly necessary or maybe it is to remind readers that religions, as preached by suspicious men (and women) have no more relevance in a world whose real religion (based on the correct definition of the word)is money and greed.
Now, let’s look for a minute at Ann Rule. I have read a number of her books which are purportedly true crime stories. It would not only amaze but shock any rational individual how anyone who has knowledge of what the criminals in her stories have subjected
their victims to can be considered human and yet accept the notion that both perpetrators and victims were children of the same Father.
Maybe someone can explain, without reverting to or hiding behind glib quotes from the Bible – how Mary could be the Mother of God and the Mother of Jesus at the same time.
Who exactly is Lucifer, since Jesus is supposedly the only begotten son of God?
Who created sin and why?
Why does such a benevolent god require constant adoration and praise?
If man was made in the image and likeness of god, either all the characteristics, frailties, and strengths are equal to god which would make man the same as god since things equal to the same things are equal to one another OR the Christian God is one extremely cynical god!
Bert Pursoo,
It amazes me how anti-Christians like you always say one thing and mean another. You began by saying that truth is not absolute but changes with place and time, in order to accommodate your falsehood. Then you immediately turn to say that it is a lie that Jesus is the Christ. If truth is not absolute but variable then there could be no lie.
Your question on sin had been answered before on this page, read it again:
God did not create sin. What he created were creatures capable of sinning.
The word ’sin’ has two senses. The first sense is the act of disobedience towards God. The second sense is the state of estrangement from God as a result of disobeying God or not recognizing his Lordship or dominion.
Why did he create creatures that are capable of sinning? Because he wanted to creatures that are like him i.e. creatures with free will or creatures who can exercise a genuine option of going this way or that way.
To sin is to choose a way away from God. To sin is to refuse to recognize God’s Lordship in our actions.
Sin in the second sense is the state where God is still God but the creature is no longer behaving like a creature i.e. subject to God’s dominion.
In either sense, one can see that sin is not a creation of God but is the choice of man. Choice is the power which God gave to man.
Ifey,
Read what I have written. If you do do you will observe that I am NOT ant anything. I am, however, critical. That may be because I am an analyst and as such I will not – cannot – accept pontifications based on nothing but Faith. Faith is Faith, truth is Truth and they are NOT the same.
Religious Faith, being what it is; it is highly unlikely that it can ever lead to a search for the Truth.
Do me a favour. In responding to postings try to stick to the point and not
Bert Pursoo
Claims to be critical and analytical! Such a disjointed antagonistic and self-contradictory objectionist that has not made a single point nor proved anything that seems to be his view.
Let Bert prove me wrong by offering a proof that God does not exist. He can’t so he wont. Except Bert come with evidence that God exists, I’ll take it he isn’t serious enough to be engaged in any discussion.
An anti-God grumbler who blames another (God) for his personal irresponsibility is not even qualified to be an atheist.
I can only classify Bert as such if he provides logical evidence of the non-existence of God. Otherwise let him believe God and stop these discordant tunes.
NOTE THIS CORRECTION
Let Bert prove me wrong by offering a proof that God does not exist. He can’t so he wont. Except Bert come with evidence that God DOES NOT EXIST, I’ll take it he isn’t serious enough to be engaged in any discussion.
Hi Bert.
Thanks for being critical. I think it is a gift.
In another discussion, I encouraged Caleb Culberson to define his beliefs. Are you a skeptic who believes that nothing can be known? Or you are just a person who has faith in faith?
You might have noticed already, we’ve been discussing the corollaries of our assumptions (things we take for granted as true but we don’t try to prove) but the assumptions themselves remain untouched. May I propose that we discuss our assumptions and not just their corollaries? I think that it is not possible to come to an agreement on the corollaries if we can’t agree on the assumptions. What do you think?
“Or you are just a person who has faith in faith?”
I’m sorry. That should have been “Or you are just a person who has no faith in faith?”
“Maybe someone can explain, without reverting to or hiding behind glib quotes from the Bible – how Mary could be the Mother of God and the Mother of Jesus at the same time.”
God chose to become a man. He chose to have a mother. He chose Mary to be his mother. So Mary is the mother of God.
When God became man he chose ‘Jesus’ to be his name. Mary is the mother of God. Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Don’t allow yourself to jump to wrong conclusions. Mary is not the mother of God because she gave God his existence and because of that is greater than God. Mary is the mother of God because God chose her to be the provider of his human flesh in course of becoming a man.
“Who exactly is Lucifer, since Jesus is supposedly the only begotten son of God?”
I have addressed this in another place.
“Who created sin and why?”
This too.
“Why does such a benevolent god require constant adoration and praise?”
The way things are have the power to impose on us.
When we have something good we sing its praises, we think about it a lot, we stare at it a lot, we don’t want to lose it, we want to multiply it, we want to have it forever.
God is the greatest good. This imposes and makes demands on us. When we break this logic, we are being unreasonable. What is unreasonable leads to destruction. God wants us saved from destruction.
“If man was made in the image and likeness of god, either all the characteristics, frailties, and strengths are equal to god which would make man the same as god since things equal to the same things are equal to one another OR the Christian God is one extremely cynical god!”
When I look in the mirror I see someone who is very much like me. It is my image. It is me and yet it is not me.
I am made of flesh and blood and I have a soul. The one in the mirror is made of reflected light rays.
Man was made in the image and likeness of God. He is like God and yet at the same time he is not like God.
He is like God because part of him is immaterial (spirit).
He is not like God because part of him is material.
Please forgive me if I am wrong, but I get the sense that you are laying all these questions as a form of a trap to cause the guys here to falter. I may be very, very wrong. So please pardon me.
I’ll appreciate it, if you will pick one area, you consider my teaching wrong and let us see if it is wrong or right rather than criticising.
Do you know I am not in anyway disappointed about all these sayings? Do you think what has been said concerning mean in these comments wrongly is worth what Jesus went through in the hands of the same people who were taking care of the ark of God or was it compare to the sufferings of the apostle and the martyrs? If it were when the beast was still very powerful, the beast would have sent for me to be arrested and looking for means to have me killed so that people would still be put under his stronghold. I ‘ll rather advise any one who is bothered about the meaning of some things in the Bible to let me know.
AS FOR THE ATHEIST
I said once, Father Abraham was once an atheist. How did this be? His father was said to be an idol craftman, and people came to buy gods from his father. As he was growing, he kept asking questions why people were worshipping what they created with their own hands… and refused the gods of his father. It was during this period that God appeared to him and brought him out of his Father’s household.
Since he did not believe in the gods of his people he was an atheist till he found out the true God.
I said once, atheist are people who ask questions. At least, I have been fortunate to meet with two people who were atheist and I know the simple recommendation I gave to them. You cannot convince an atheist to follow you in what you believe. No, it will never work because the reason they rejected those beliefs was because of the wrong way people use to do things including the belief in God. So they do not have any belief in man’s faith.
The simple recommendation I made to them is that they should continue to say ‘God, if you truly exist, show me you do’. After some times, I met them again they had joined different religious group. Personally, I withdrew from religion yet I did not preach to them to do the same because spiritual growth is not sudden neither am I preaching to. This is because anyone who is not well developed spiritually still need the fears in the religions to control his behaviour.
This is the same advice, I’ll give to all atheist in this group. Always say to God, God if you truly exist, show me you do and He will come to you and start a new life with you.
Per adventure God starts a new life with you. Now continue to pray, God lead me to all truth. Take over my spirit, my body and my soul. Renew me all the time and help me that I may be conformed to Your wills. Let me continue to grow towards your perfection. This last sayings are not protocols just recommendation. Don’t cram, let your spirit do the praying.
Praying without studying will be meaningless. Study to show yourself a workman that need not be ashamed…
I am convinced that Jesus is the savior. But my doubt is
Jesus said ‘I am the truth , way and life , but through Me no one can reach heavenly Father ”
What about all those who were born and died before Jesus was born ? If they reach(ed) heaven without getting baptised in the name of Christ and without accepting Jesus as th savior ,it is clear Christianity is not the only and final word on God and faith . Please answer.
As regards people who lived before Christ, they belong to Jesus Christ – the Son of God who became a true human being on the basis of their human nature. If they shared the values of Christ like respect for truth, search for true love, openess to others, that means they have something in common with Christ. That means they can be taken by Christ to heaven, even without knowing him personally, but sharing in his values and concerns, thus beloning to him.
How could they have belonged to Jesus Christ if they were before he existed. This is the kind of answer that robs these discussions of any degree of respectability!
Please let’s be serious!
Hi Bert.
“How could they have belonged to Jesus Christ if they were before he existed.”
The pre-Christian Jews/Hebrew were prior to Jesus Christ as a man. But don’t forget the Christian belief that Jesus Christ is God who became a man. God is prior to everyone.
My way of explaining “immaculate conception ” is as follows
Joseph and Mary were betrothed. Joseph loved Mary deeply . Before marriage Mary conceived . But Joseph did want the world to know that Mary (who was a remarkable loyal kind woman) conceived before marriage . Moreover in those days sex before marriage was a crime punished cruelly ( like stoning the woman to death ).Most people of those days liked Mary and Joseph .So word spread that Mary conceived immaculately .
Jesuswas a remarkable man and preached the gospel as revealed to his inner mind .
Hi Mr.Jagannaathaswamy Iragavarapu.
We should not confuse the virgin birth with the immaculate conception.
The virgin birth is the mystery of Mary conceiving and giving birth to Jesus even without sexual relations with a man.
The immaculate conception is the belief that Mary was spared from the estrangement that resulted from Adam’s sin. That from the first moment of her existence in her mother’s womb, she was in full communion with God and was preserved from committing a personal sin thereafter, by God’s grace. It’s as if the fruit of Jesus’ redemptive act was applied in advance to her.
Jun,
Now you are reverting again to absurdities.
The immaculate conception refers quite clearly to Mary being impregnated without sex as you and I know it. the virgin birth is merely about a woman who was a virgin but became pregnant (albeit by whom, we are not told)and bore a child called Jesus.
I would say Mr.Jagannaathaswamy Iragavarapu’s take on the subject is far more acceptable than your explanation.
The ‘immaculate conception’ is a terminology invented by the Catholic Church. Why don’t you consult an official Catholic Church source/resource to clarify the meaning?
Dear Jagannaathaswamy,
Jun Mahusay is right. The Immaculate birth of Virgin Mary was her being preserved from sin before her birth. The Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on this is based in part in the prophecy in Genesis. There will be enmity between the devil and the woman (Mary). If she inherited the sin of Adam and Eve, no enmity can take place because by then, Mary would have been Satan’s subject. In the Book of Revelation the dragon pursued the woman but he failed.
Why must there be Immaculate Conception? Well, God cannot take a body mired in sin. Logically, He must prepare a body for Himself that is Immaculate so that His body too, is Immaculate. (Letter to the Hebrews) “A body your prepared for me”.
Constantino
Constantino, You say, accoring to Catholic Dogma, “The immaculate birth of Mary was her being preserved from sin before her birth…if she inherited the sin of Adam and Eve, no enmity can take place by this, Mary would have been satan’s subject.”
What does the absolute, infallible Authority of God’s Word, the Bible, say about such spurious Roman Catholic dogma?
Which we are seriously warned, NOT to add to, nor take away from (see Deut. 4:2; Prov. 30: 5,6; Rev. 22: 18,19), Because forever* O Lord Thy WORD IS* settled in heaven.” (Psa. 119:89) “Thy WORD is TRUE from the beginning: every one of thy righteous judgments Endureth for ever” ( v.58).
This doctrine, (dogma) like the other distinctive doctrines of Catholicism, completely lacks any Scriptural warrant whatsoever, and, is in fact diametrically opposed to God’s Word, the Bible, regarding the doctrine of original sin. The Bible emphatically teaches, and states, that “ALL MEN” with the single exception of Jesus Christ, who was Deity Incarnate, and pre-existent, are ALL* sinners. Mary herself acknowledged her need of a Saviour, for she said:
“My soul doth magnify the LORD, And my spirit hath rejoiced in GOD my SAVIOUR” ( Luke 1: 46,47 Emphasis added)
Mary’s words, particularly, “my Saviour” indicates, plainly, that she also needed a Saviour, as a sinner, as no punishment or evil in any form can be inflicted upon a sinless person. Roman Catholics would do well, to heed Mary’s words, as recorded in HIS* inspired Word, the Bible.
God’s, self-authenticating, infallible Scripture, clearly state: ‘ALL have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (that includes Mary- Rom. 3:23) Again, we read in HIS Word: “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto ALL men, for ALL* have sinned” ( Rom. 5:12) “If we say that we have NO sin, we deceive ourselves, and the TRUTH IS* not in us…If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is NOT* in us” ( I John 1: 8,10); “There is NONE ( not even Mary) righteous, no NOT one” (Rom. 3:10).
Scripture tells us that after the birth of Jesus, Mary brought the two offerings prescribed in the Law, one, a burnt-offering (symbolizing complete surrender of the will to God), and the other, a sin-offering ( a sacrifice acknowledging SIN) ( Luke 2: 22-24; Lev. 12: 6-8). The last time Mary is mentioned in the New Testament, she is praying ON THE SAME PLANE as other needy Christians, NOT being prayed to by them (Acts 1: 13,14).
Now, DEATH is a penalty for SIN, so that ALL men/women, must DIE. The other frabricated doctrine of Romanism, is the dogma of Mary’s assumption into heaven, and is another so-called “logical conclusion” that Roman theologians create, invent, to support their system of Mariology, Mariolatry, which was pronounced ‘ex cathedra’ by Pope Piux XII on Nov, 1, 1950, that Mary’s body and soul were reunited, and she was taken up and enthroned as Queen of Heaven.
NO hint, or vague mention of any such thing is anywhere to be found in God’s Word, in the New Testament, YET, Catholicism comes ninteen HUNDRED years later, and fabricated this utterly unscritptural heresy, re Mary.
What an contemptuous affront to the authority of God’s Word, which we are WARNED NOT* to add to, nor take AWAY* from, lest you be found a LIAR”
If Mary, was conceived without SIN, then she would NOT have had to DIE in the first place, as DEATH IS* the direct consequence of being a SINNER!
The blessed, humble handmaiden of the LORD, Mary, has had nothing to do with the so-called appirations, it IS* nothing more than an extremely cleaver, Demonic counterfeit, apearing to LOOK just like what Catholics would like to see, with a bit of truth in her supposed statements, laced in unbiblical nonsense.
Secondly, the so-called miracles, that attend from these appriations, are all Satanic counterfiets, expressly for the purpose of keeping Catholics in a deadly state of deception, focusing upon Mary, who had had NOTHING to do with this Demonic deception.
There are numerous, occultic, instances, recorded and documented, by those who dabble in such abominations, that produce ‘miracles’ that have absolutely nothing to do with Almighty God, Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit, and this is exactly what Satan has DONE* by using the blessed Mary, her name, and because Catholicism will NOT use and rely solely upon the authority of Almighty God’s WORD* the Bible, to discern TRUTH* His TRUTH* from Satanic deception, and LIES* the very father of ALL* LIES* Satan himself with his demonic hosts, contiune to deceive Catholics et al, througout the world, with Hell- bent deception!
Dear Constantino, a bit more of the way in which Catholicism has literally ‘Deified’ Mary, nothing but abased Idolatry, with which Mary has had nothing to do.
Let us look at Mary’s last recorded words in the New Testament.
“And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to HIM. “They have no wine.” Jesus said to her, “WOMAN, what does your concern have to do with ME? My hour has not yet come.” ( John 2: 3,4) Emphasis added throughout.
What Mary then says in response to Jesus, are the last recorded words in the NT spoken by her; and Catholics,would do well to heed them, for they are truly instructive, concise in expression, and are entirely consistent with all that followed in His Mesianic Glory,as the Second Person of the Eternal Godhead, as sole, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Saviour,Mediator, Advocate, Intecessor, Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, with the Father in Heaven, (the spirit realm) and mankind here on earth (the physical realm).
And what are Mary’s last recorded words in the New Testament? Let us hear from God’s Word.
“Whatever HE (Jesus) say to you, DO IT” ( Jn. 2:5b).
Verse 11 then records:
“This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested (what?) HIS GLORY; and His disciples believed IN HIM” ( Jn. 2:11).
The use of (gunai) WOMAN, in verse 4 by Jesus, instead of (meter) mother, which by the way is a term he NEVER called by anywhere in the NT, and does show her she can NO longer exercise maternal authority, and most certainly NOT at ALL in His Messianic work, either in Heaven, which God’s Word is emphatic on, throughout the canon of New Testament Scripture, from Matthew to Revelation.
I’m extremely familiar with all that Catholicism believes and teaches concerning Mary’s supposed role in everything, as I have copies of “The Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary” ‘The Glories of Mary’ by St. Alphonsus de Liguoru,’ ‘The Docements of Vatican II’ among others for past twenty years, all of which I’ve read carefully, so I’m well versed on what you believe.
Truth by definition, IS* absolute. The ‘Law of Non-Contradiction’ in logic, which is absolute, bears this out, as two competing ‘truth claims’ cannot be both right at the same time and same place. They can both be wrong, BUT, they CANNOT be both right.
Of course, Catholicism reaorts to eastern dialectic logic, both/and, in order tojustify its contention re Mary’s role in the salvation of mankind, that is, Jesus and Mary. Yes, they admit that He is sole Mediator according to Scripture, BUT, then contray to God’s Word, which is ABSOLUTE, they then interpose her as Co-Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix, which has NO Scriptural warrant whatsoever, and IS a logical fallacy, as not only from the ‘Law of Non-Contradiction” is this wrong, but is in diametric opposition to God’s Word, the Scriptures.
But, as if it were not absurd and un-scriptural enough to disregard God’s Word in this particular regard, re Mary’s role, thet then go way beyond this un-biblical stance of Co-redeemer, and actualy pronounce and proclaim some of the most blasphemous, idolatrous concepts on the humble handmaiden of the Lord, who I an sure, if she could speak to them, would weepand cringe over what Catholicism hasdone to her name and lowly, humble character, where in Luke 1:28, the angel said to her:
“Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you AMONG (not above) women.”
Let us loojk at the two Greek words the Holy Spirit used in recording this encounter of Mary with the angel.
First, the words “highly favored” are from the Gk ( Kecharitomene) perfect passive participle of ‘charitoo’ and means endowed with grace (charis), enriched withy grace, the same Greek word used in Ephesians 1:6, where Paul’s writing to the saints at Ephesus, states:
“To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made US accepted in the beloved.” ( Eph. 1:6).
Only here in Eph. 1:6, and in Luke 1:28, the same root word “charitoo” is used specifically identifying ALL the saints, with the same GRACE, bestowed on Mary.
Now, the second point from Luke 1:28.
“…blessed are you AMONG women” Here we see the Holy spirit using the preposition ‘en’ which means according to position, IS* ‘in, on, at, AMONG, within, and relationally, means, ‘besides’ and ‘with’ this is precisely why He did NOT* use the preposition ‘huper’ which means, ‘beyond’ ‘over’ or ‘above’ for Mary is NOT* above any of the redeemed children of God, as Catholocism has exalted and literally deified her to be, and can be found NOWHERE in the NT is sucjh a status. All of this exaltation and deification can only be found IN the un-scriptural, spurious, so-called sacred tradtion of Romanism.
Here is where the “Law of Non-Contradiction” simply cannot be got arouns, for it will haunt you to the end, and God knew what He was doing when He created these logical principles, which He allowed Aristotle to discover, and it IS a ‘thorn’ and will continue to be, in the side of eastern dialectic logic, which Catholicism holds on to, in order to justify her both/and, Jesus/Mary, theology, instead of the absolute ‘TRUTH’ that it is, EITHER/OR, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, IS* either ALL that the Bible proclaims and declares HIM* to be, the ONLY* SAVIOUR, the ONLY* MEDIATOR, the ONLY* ADVOCATE, the ONLY* HIGH PRIEST before the Father, because HE* IS* Onmipotently, Omnisciently, and Omnipresently God, as the Second Person of the Eternal Godhead, or, He is absolutely NOTHING AT ALL.
You simply cannot have both ways, it IS* either/or, NOT both/and, as is found in Catholicisms, twisted, convoluted, utterly, unscriptural theology!
Bert Pursoo,
You and all atheist like you lack the capacity to believe anything except what you see.
Your comments show you are not sure of anything even what you see. You just accept things to use them to argue. Do you really for instance BELIEVE the world or earth or humanity is 4.5billion years? Can you prove it? You don’t and you can’t. You see what I mean? You need help. Real help.
You ask for proof but will take none, nor offer any. You offer only doubts but no answers. I’m sure you doubt your own existence. Because you can’t prove it.
You perpetrate what you ask people not to do viz: Not disprove others opinions and beliefs, nor persuade others to ones own opinion or beliefs and engaging in dialectics.
You don’t want people telling other what they think or believe but you are so quick to tell others what you think and doubt.
You are such a bundle of self contradiction. You need real help. Real help that can only come from the supernatural. I pray you find that help. I know you’ll find it because is near you. Christ has brought down to your level from the supernatural. Reach out and you’ll be saved from this self destructive self contradiction.
God bless you.
Dear Bert,
Regarding immaculate conception meaning a virgin birth the idea came into Christianity from Roman and Greek legends where virgins seem to have been routinely giving birth without loosing virginity. How about the founders of the city of Rome around which the Roman Empire was built? They were as you know Remus and Romulus who were both sons of a virgin.Besides in the ancient Hebrew language the term virgin and fair maiden were synonymous.Wrong translation from the original Hebrew texts may have been the original mistake and now it has become an irrefutable religious belief.
Cherian
Hi George.
That’s a good hypothesis about the origin of the belief in the virgin birth. Is it possible to scientifically establish that that is in fact the case with the Christian belief in the virgin birth?
I think Christians have no pretensions whatsoever that the virgin birth is a belief that is rooted exclusively in Christian Tradition. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever involved.
Dear George,
There may be a confusion here between virgin birth and the Immaculate Conception. Virgin birth here refers to Mary, a virgin,conceiving outside of sexual activity and giving birth to Jesus. Immaculate conception is Mary being conceived free from sin.
I just want to mention that the Immaculate Conception of Mary, as a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, was confirmed by the Virgin Mary in her apparition at Lourdes France where she called herself the Immaculate Conception. Whether you believe this or not is up to you. However, what the apparition left, the waters of the Grotto in Lourdes where millions of healing occurred, is a testimony of the truth of the Immaculate Conception. Besides, the seer, Bernadette Souberous, rests uncorrupted by death, beneath an altar in Nevers France.
Unbelievers may be able to rationalize virgin birth or Immaculate Conception. But they can never explain the miracles at Lourdes.
Constantino
Hi….Mary was a married woman for a good while before this story begins so it is safe to say she was not a virgin. God incarnated his son Jesus in Mary’s womb after she & Joseph were thoroughly checked out as being up to the high standards He required for them to parent Jesus. Immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary free from original sin, as you’ve stated. It is right there in the dictionary. You want to know the absolute truth about everything that’s being discussed here, and lots more, Check out the Urantia Book. Talk about “the truth will set you free”, this book will do it. I’ve only scratched the its surface and already feel so wonderfully enlightened I want everyone to be exposed to be exposed to its revelations. It is life changing. God Bless.
So all of a sudden, Mary was NOT a virgin but a married woman. In other words, based on a different book written by another person who received inspiration from another Being (or is it the same Being?), we must now accept that the teachings of the Christian Holy Bible is not correct and that millions or probably billions of earthlings have been misled all these years. From what we understand no one – NO one at all – was ever free from sin so there is no cohesiveness in your premise about a sinless married woman.
I think it’s fine to retain your belief in a mythical god if it helps you deal with the realities of everyday life and living but please do not attempt to convince people that there is a basis for your faith.
You talk about discovering the truth through the Urantia Book. Maybe you need to understand the concept of truth, because Truth is from from being absolute. It is merely a consensus beliefs based on so many factors including science, culture, language, history, etc. I suppose for some people truth is simply whatever they believe. Therefore in these discussions, I would strongly suggest we refrain from the use of the word “truth”.
Dear Ifey Ibeme,
Regarding the age of earth at 4.5 billion yrs or thereabouts scientific proof is available. There is a whole science known as Geochronology which has been instrumental in determining this age. The science does not depend on Palaeontology a branch of Geology much abused by Christian theologists. Surely you are not denying the phenomenon of radioactivity? Geochronology is based on the life of certain radioactive and non radioactive metals that were transformed and can be transformed only in millions of years. So to deny it on the basis of the old testament appears to me to be unreasonable. Most scientists would agree that there are still many things in nature that are not easily explained by science. But the age of the planet is not one of them. It is simply a physical phenomenon.
This blog seems to have forgotten Ann Rice’s transformation. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion or views. Allow us poor scientists to live with our beliefs which have rational and in many cases empirical proof.
Cherian
George
I’m sure you are not a scientist. If you were, you would have known that radioactive dating cannot accurately date or prove anything up to 10,000 yrs. Its all speculative reasoning. You should know that its all based on BELIEF and Human ASSUMPTION not proof.
The Scripture is based on DIVINE REVELATION and FAITH. So learn be humble enough to respect God’s Word since you have nothing better to offer with your Geochronology and Palaeontology.
George,
Welcome to the debate or discussion whatever it may be.
It appears impossible to penetrate the thinking of those who were studiously schooled in the belief of a supreme being. Evidently, no amount of reasoning or logic seems capable to making the slightest dent in their armor of Faith. No one is interested in even asking what was the world like what was happening before the last 2,000 years which is such a short time vis-a-vis 4.5 or more billion years. I like Santa Claus and Aesop, but that does not mean I am about to deify or worship eithe!