Matthew Bowen on Nephi's wordplay on the name "Joseph"

Matthew L. Bowen (who has done a LOT of great work on the Hebrew background on the Book of Mormon) has another great article that has just been published by The Interpreter Foundation:

“Their Anger Did Increase Against Me”: Nephi’s Autobiographical Permutation of a Biblical Wordplay on the Name Joseph (.html .pdf)

As an aside, happy 2017 to all my readers!

Mario Lopez's Baptism Page

I have written a number of blog posts defending baptismal regeneration, including these posts on John 3:1-7 and Acts 2:38/1 Pet 3:21. The following is a pretty useful page from a Catholic apologist, Matt1618 (real name Mario Lopez) defending this doctrine:

Baptism Page

Many of the long-standing canards against this doctrine are rather soundly refuted (cf. my post, John Greer vs. the biblical doctrine of baptismal regeneration)

Does Cornelius Help Refute Baptismal Regeneration?

In an article, Does Baptism Save (Scriptural Study Refuting Baptismal Regeneration), Dan Corner (author of The Believer’s Conditional Security) attempts to refute baptismal regeneration by claiming that Cornelius was saved prior to water baptism.

Firstly, with respect to the apostle Peter’s theology of water baptism, it is clear, notwithstanding Corner’s desperate eisegesis in this article, that Acts 2:38 (cf. 1 Pet 3:21) that Peter taught baptismal regeneration. One should compare and contrast his comments with the exegesis I provided in the following article:

Baptism, Salvation, and the New Testament: Acts 2:38

Here, I exegete both Acts 2:38 and 1 Pet 3:21, showing that the only exegetically sound reading of these passages supports baptismal regeneration. To see responses to other claims against baptismal regeneration, see John Greer vs. the biblical doctrine of baptismal regeneration where I refute John Greer, the current moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster on Rom 6:1-4; 1 Cor 1:17 and other pertinent passages.

With respect to his comments on Acts, note that one scholar noted on Acts 10:45 ("And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost")

45)        Before Luke continues the narrative proper he records the amazement of the six Jewish Christians who had come from Joppa with Peter. They are dumb-founded “because the gift of the Holy Spirit is being poured out also upon the Gentiles.” The Greek retains the present tense “is being poured out” of the direct discourse of these Jewish believers; but it includes more than this one instance of outpouring and states that as a general thing, as this striking case shows, the Gentiles were receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit,” i. e., were by God himself being placed on a par with all believers from Judaism. That was the astounding thing. It was God and God alone and most directly who gave “the gift.” At this time he preferred to dispense with the laying on of hands (8:17); he did not even wait until these Gentiles had been baptized. That is a minor point. At Pentecost the 3,000 received the Spirit charismatically neither before nor after their baptism. The Pentecostal charisma was never repeated in the congregation at Jerusalem. There were signs and miracles many but no speaking with tongues.

Confusion has resulted by failing to notice that “the gift of the Holy Spirit” referred to at this point is the same gift that was bestowed at the time of Pentecost, a charisma, and only a charisma and not the gift of the Spirit, and certainly not the gift of sudden total sanctification. All those who spoke with tongues at the time of Pentecost were already saved, and none of those who were saved that day received the Spirit miraculously and spoke with tongues. All those who heard Peter in the house of Cornelius had faith and were saved before the Spirit came and gave them the ability to speak with tongues. The same is true with regard to the Samaritans, 8:15–17. This falling of the Spirit upon people, this charismatic gift of the Spirit, is entirely separate from the Spirit’s reception by faith for salvation and by baptism for regeneration and renewing (Tit. 3:5).

When this is understood, Luke’s account will not be referred to in order to deprive baptism of its saving power as though the Spirit comes apart from and without baptism, and as though baptism is only an empty symbol and sign. Peter did not regard baptism thus in the present instance. Since these Jewish Christians called the charismatic gift of the Spirit a pouring out, some say it was “the baptism of the Spirit,” or “that these Gentiles were baptized with the Spirit.” That may pass but only as long as this “baptism” is viewed as charismatic and as nothing more. (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles [Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961], 430-32; emphasis added)

While much more could be said about Corner’s attempt to refute water baptism being salvific, such as his weak comments about John 3 (see my article on John 3:1-7 in response to another attempt to downplay water baptism being salvific), it is clear that Corner is guilty of a lot of eisegesis in his article. The biblical witness is explicit: baptismal regeneration is a true, biblical doctrine, and those who preach otherwise are preaching a false gospel (cf. Gal 1:6-9).

Defending Sola Scriptura by Poisoning the Well

In an article by Keith Mathison, Dear Enemies of Sola Scriptura, we read the following:

The first recorded words of the serpent were “Did God really say?” (Gen. 3:1). This question was designed to instill doubt and uncertainty about the trustworthiness and authority of God’s words. God had spoken clearly to our first parents; they were obliged to believe and obey. Then the serpent appeared, and the authority of God’s word was his first target.

This shows the fallacious lengths defenders of sola scriptura will engage in to defend it; in this case, poisoning the well.

Those who reject sola scriptura, unlike the serpent in the Garden of Eden, do not doubt the Word of God. Instead, based on the overwhelming biblical and historical evidence, reject sola scriptura as a tradition, not of God, but of men, similar to the Korban rule that Jesus Christ rejected in Matt 15//Mark 7. Apart from poisoning the well, Mathison also has to compare apples with oranges from the get-go.

Furthermore, Mathison begs the question on an essential issue: he seems to be operating under the false a priori assumption that "God's words" and inscripturated revelation (which, in his view, is exhausted by the 66 books of the Protestant canon) to be one-to-one equivalent to one another. However, as another defender of sola scriptura correctly states:

[T]here is a difference between the Word of God, which is eternal (Psalm 119:89, 152, 160), and the Bible, which is not. The Bible is the Word of God written. If one were to destroy one paper Bible, or all paper Bibles, he would not have destroyed the eternal Word of God. One such example is given in Jeremiah 36. The prophet was told by God to write His words in a book, and to read it to the people. Wicked king Jehoiakim, not comfortable with what had been written, had the written Word destroyed. God then told the prophet to write the Word down again. The king had destroyed the written Word, but he had not destroyed God's Word. God's Word is eternal propositions that find expression in written statements. (W. Gary Crampton, By Scripture Alone: The Sufficiency of Scripture [Unicoi, Tenn.: The Trinity Foundation, 2002], 156)

Again, we see the utter desperation defenders of sola scriptura are forced to engage in to defend this false doctrine. Please remember, this is the formal doctrine of Protestantism: this doctrine falls, the whole system falls.

D.H. Williams on James White's use of patristic sources to defend sola scriptura

James R. White, a long-standing anti-Mormon, prides himself on his alleged abilities as a scholar of Christian history. In 1996, in the anthology of essays edited by D. Kistler, Sola Scriptura! The Protestant Position on the Bible, White contributed an essay, “Sola Scriptura in the Early Church” where he tried to support sola scriptura from patristic literature. Much of his arguments were soundly refuted in the book, Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis (Queenship, 1997). However, note the following from a fellow Baptist, D.H. Williams, an expert in patristic and historical theology at Loyola University in Chicago, about the sloppiness of White’s work:

The essay entitled “Sola Scriptura and the Early Church” exhibits an extremely limited familiarly with patristic doctrinal history such that it claims Athanasius stood against Liberius, bishop of Rome (p. 42), whereas in fact, Athanasius sought the protection of Liberius’ successor Julius during his western exile, and he, of all the Greek fathers, remained the most intimate with Rome after Julius’s death in 352. There is hardly a case here for a proto-opposition between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Moreover, it is quite striking that the writer of this essay argues how Athanasius makes no appeal to unwritten tradition, and yet in the very circulation offered as proof of this point (Oratio Arianos III.29), we are introduced to Athanasius’s mention of Mary as Theotokos, bearer of God, an Alexandrian tradition which few Protestants would espouse! (D.H. Williams, Retrieving the Tradition & Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999], 230 n. 4)

Was Joseph Smith's theology influenced by the writings of Thomas Dick?

Fawn Brodie (No Man Knows my History) and a few other critics have claimed that Joseph Smith derived elements of his theology from the writings of Thomas Dick (e.g., The Philosophy of a future state). Ted Jones wrote a very good M.A. dissertation on the alleged relationship between Joseph Smith's theology and the writings of Thomas Dick:

Ted Jones, The Theology of Tomas Dick and Its Possible Relationship to that of Joseph Smith (M.A. Thesis, BYU Provo, 1969)

Needless to say, when one engages in a careful, scholarly analysis of Joseph Smith’s theology and the writings of Thomas Dick, the resounding answer is “no.” As the author concludes on p. 96 of the dissertation:

If Joseph Smith had recently been reading Thomas Dick, Mrs. Fawn Brodie had not. The former rejected theological concepts embraced by Dick; the latter mis-represented Dick's theology.

Who Holds the Keys? (Pope or Prophet)

As I posted a Bibliography on the Papacy and Papal Infallibility, some might appreciate the following debate between Steve Clifford (RCC) and Barry Bickmore (LDS):

Who Holds the Keys? (Pope or Prophet)

Bibliography on the Papacy and Papal Infallibility

The following are what I consider to be the best works discussing the Roman Catholic Papacy as well as the dogma of Papal Infallibility from both Catholic and non-Catholic perspectives which I have in my own personal library: 

Ecclesiastical Documents:

Pius IX, Pastor Aeternus (Vatican Council I [1870]) (cf. Vincent Gasser, The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser at Vatican Council I)

Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum (1896)

I would also recommend Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann, Robert Fastiggi, and Anne Englund Nash (43^rd ed; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012) or some other edition of Denzinger. See also Dictatus Papae (1075)

Recommended Books (both Catholic and non-Catholic)

Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

Steve Ray, Upon this Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church

George Salmon, Infallibility and the Church

Edward Denny, Papalism

Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom (3 vols.)

Michael Winter, Saint Peter and the Popes

Margherita Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome: Documents, Reflections, Proofs

Michael J Miller, The Shepherd and the Rock: Origins, Development, and Mission of the Papacy

Ignatius Von Döllinger ("Janus"), The Pope and the Council

Idem. A History of the Church (4 vols.)

Dr. Hergenrother and James B. Robertson, Anti-Janus: An Historico-Theological Criticism of the Work Entitled, the Pope and the Council, by Janus

J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes

Laurent A. Cleenewerck, His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches

Idem. From Auctoritas to Potestas: The Devlopment of ROman Primacy from the Pre-Nicene Era to Vatican I

John F. Bigane, III, Faith, Christ or Peter: Matthew 16:18 in Sixteenth Century Roman Catholic Exegesis

Brian Tierney, The Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty, and Tradition in the Middle Ages

B.C. Butler, The Church and Infallibility

Patrick Madrid, Pope Fiction

Karl Josef von Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church (5 vols.)

Robert Eno, The Rise of the Papacy

Chrys C. Caragounis, Peter and the Rock

Dom John Chapman, Studies on the Early Papacy

Idem. Condemnation of Pope Honorius

Idem. The First Eight General Councils and Papal Infallibility 

Idem. Bishop Gore and the Catholic Claims

Adrian Fortescue, The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon in 451

Scott Butler, Norman Dahlgren, and David Hess, Jesus, Peter, and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy

John R. Page, What Will Dr. Newman Do? John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility, 1865-1875

John Meyendorff, ed. The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church

Larry R. Helyer, The Life and Witness of Peter

Raymond Brown, Karl P. Donfried, and John Reumann, eds. Peter in the New Testament

Helen K. Bond and Larry W. Hurtado, eds. Peter in Early Christianity

Oscar Cullmann, Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr

Martin Hengel, Saint Peter: The Underestimated Apostle

Hans Küng, Infallible?

Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries

Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity

Michael Whelton, The Two Paths

Idem, Popes and Patriarchs: An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholic Claims

William Webster, The Matthew 16 Controversy

Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner, The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission

Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus

Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy: From its Origins to the Present

J.E. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine

William Shaw Kerr, A Handbook on the Papacy

Hector Burn-Murdoch, The Development of the Papacy

August Bernhard Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible

Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura

Arlo J. Nau, Peter in Matthew: Discipleship, Diplomacy, and Dispraise

Francis Sullivan, Magisterium

The Infallibility Debate, ed. John J. Kirvan

Peter Chirico, Infallibility: The Crossroads of Doctrine

Francis Simons, Infallibility and the Evidence

John Salza and Robert Siscoe, True or False Pope? Refuting Sedevacantism and Other Modern Errors

John Salza, The Biblical Basis for the Papacy

Hermann J Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I & II

James F. Puglisi, ed. How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Univeral Church?

Abbé Guettée, The Papacy: Its Historic Origin and Primitive Relations with the Eastern Churches

Adriano Garuti, Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Ecumenical Dialogue

Colin Lindsay, The Evidence for the Papacy


The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue, ed. Walter Kasper

Donald S. Prudlo, Certain Sainthood: Canonization and the Origins of Papal Infallibility in the Medieval Church

John W. O'Malley, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church

Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Papal Monarchy

Luke Rivington, The Primitive Church and the See of Peter

Christopher M. Bellitto, The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II

Geoffrey Barraclough, Mediaeval Papacy

Karl F. Morrison, Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300-1140

The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071-1453, eds. Aristeides Papadakis and John Meyendorff

Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes

A. Burt Horsley, Peter and the Popes

Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870

Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism

Peter Dimond and Michael Dimond, The Truth about What Really Happened to the Catholic Church after Vatican II

Yves Renouard, The Avignon Papacy: The Popes in Exile 1305-1403 (trans. Denis Bethell)

Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections

Paul Pavao, Rome's Audacious Claim: Should Every Christian Be Subject to the Pope?

George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity

A. Edward Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate

Despina Stratoudaki White and Joseph R. Berrigan, Jr. The Patriarch and the Prince: The Letter of Patriarch Photios of Constantinople to Khan Boris of Bulgaria

Vladimir Soloviev, Russia and the Universal Church

Arthur Edward Gayer, Papal Infallibility And Supremacy Tried by Ecclesiastical History, Scripture And Reason

Raphael Cardinal Merry Del Val, The Truth of Papal Claims

Trevor Gervase Jalland, The Church and the Papacy: An Historical Study

F.W. Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome

J. Michael Miller, What are they saying about papal primacy?

Philip Sherrard, Church, Papacy and Schism: A Theological Inquiry


Hamilton Hess, The Canons of the Council of Sardica A.D. 343: A Landmark in the Early Development of Canon Law


Patrick Granfield, The Limits of the Papacy: Authority and Autonomy in the Church

Peter L'Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils

John Hine Mundy and Kennerly M. Woody, eds., The Council of Constance: The Unification of the Church (trans. Louise Ropes Loomis)

G.G. Coulton, Papal Infallibility

Joe Heschmeyer, Pope Peter: Defending the Church’s Most Distinctive Doctrine in a Time of Crisis

Rosamond McKitterick, Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber pontificalis

Jeffrey Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752

J.H. Burns and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds., Conciliarism and Papalism

William R. Farmer and Roch Kereszty, Peter and Paul in the Church of Rome: The Ecumenical Potential of a Forgotten Perspective

Isaac Barrow, A Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy. To Which is Added a Discourse Concerning the Unity of the Church

Finn Damgaard, Rewriting Peter as an Intertextual Character in the Canonical Gospels 

J.M.R. Tillard, The Bishop of Rome

Scott Butler and John Collorafi, Keys Over the Christian World: The Evidence for Papal Authority (33 AD to 800 AD) from Ancient Latin, Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Documents

Robert Stackpole, The Papacy: God’s Gift for All Christians

Stephen K. Ray and R. Dennis Walters, The Papacy: What the Pope Does and Why it Matters

Robert Spencer, The Church and The Pope: The Case for Orthodoxy

An Inside View of the Vatican Council, in the Speech of the Most Reverend Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, ed. Leonard Woolsey Bacon

Erick Ybarra, The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox

Olivier Clément, You Are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Primacy 

Primacy in the Church: The Office of Primate and the Authority of Councils, ed. John Chryssavgis (2 vols.)

Vincent Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos: The Primacy of Rome as Reflected in the Church History of Eusebius and in the historico-apologetic writings of Saint Athanasius the Great

William George Ward, The Condemnation of Pope Honorius

Patrick Craig Truglia, The Rise and Fall of the Papacy

James Likoudis, The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church

Idem. Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism (NB as it contains translations of the 14th c. Apologia of Demetrios Kydones for Unity with Rome and Aquinas' Contra Errores Graecorum)

Pedro Gabriel, Heresy Disguised as Tradition

Ultramontanism and Tradition: The Role of Papal Authority in the Church, ed. Peter Kwasniewski

Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, ed. Paul C. Empie and T. Austin Murphy

Geoffrey D. Dunn, Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome: Questions of Papal Primacy in the Early Church

Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and Roman Primacy

Idem, The Photian Schism

Jean Launoy, Letter VII in Opera Omnia, volume 5, part b (Geneva, 1731), pp. 99-124

John Maldonatus, A Commentary on the Holy Gospels (trans. George J. Davie; 2d ed.; Catholic Standard Library; London: John Hodges, 1888), 2:34-39

C. F. B. Allnatt, Cathedra Petri; Or, the Titles and Prerogatives of St. Peter, and Of his See and By Successors

George Edmundson, The Church in Rome in the First Century

 

Bernard Green, Christianity in Ancient Rome: The First Three Centuries

Joseph Fessler, The True and False Infallibility of the Popes: A Controversial Reply to Dr. Schulte (endorsed by Pope Pius IX in 1871, one year after the scientific definition of papal infallibility was issued) 

William Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church and Other Studies in Church History

Charles Journet, The Primacy of Peter: A Study of the Protestant and the Catholic Perspectives 

The Cambridge History of the Papacy, ed.  Joëlle Rollo-Koster et al., 3 vols.

Volker L. Menze, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church

Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen, Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church

The Bishop of Rome in Late Antiquity, ed. Geoffrey D. Dunn

Stanley L. Jaki, The Keys of the Kingdom: A Tool's Witness to Truth

Idem. And on This Rock: The Witness of One Land and Two Covenants

D. L. d'Avray, Papal Jurisprudence c. 400: Sources of the Canon Law Tradition

Idem. Debating Papal History, c. 250-c. 1300: Responsive Government and the Medieval Papacy

Allen Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage

The Religious Roles of the Papacy: Ideals and Realities, 1150-1300, ed. Christopher Ryan

Ludwig Hertling, Communio: Church and Papacy in Early Christianity, ed. Jared Wicks

Steven A. Schoenig, Bonds of Wool: The Pallium & Papal Power in the Middle Ages

T. W. Allies, Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood: From St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance, ed. Paul E. Sigmund

George L. Williams, Papal Genealogy: The Families and Descendants of the Popes

Ulrich Horst, The Dominicans and the Pope: Papal Teaching Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Thomist Tradition

To Support this Blog:

 

Patreon

Paypal

Amazon Wishlist

Email for Amazon Gift card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com

Email for Logos.com Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com

The Temple Veil and the Need for a Mediator

A number of years ago on the old FAIRLDS discussion board, LDS apologist, Ben McGuire discussed the tearing of the temple veil (Matt 27:51/Mark 15:38/Luke 23:45) and its significance. While no longer online, I did save his comments which I will reproduce below, as they are very useful and cogent. In response to the following question posed by an Evangelical, "I'm just wondering why it is necessary to have men as go-betweens when Christ has taken all sin upon Himself [?]," Ben wrote the following:

I don't think it can be easily characterized this way. First, it relies on a rather simplistic and naive view of temple worship in ancient Israel.

The veil wasn't a separator to prevent mankind from entering into the most holy place. It was a protection for mankind to prevent them from being destroyed by God's presence.

Men were not required as go-betweens - except when worshipping in certain places. There is a shift, historically, first, after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, and later, in the Babylonian assault on Judah. This results in a shrinking geographic space in which Israel as a whole (and later Judah by itself) existed. Only in the later space do we get the strict requirements to worship only at the temple. Prior to that, there were many cultic centers. Certain rules seemed to have applied to some of them - although it is certain that persons could offer burnt offerings on their own altars as long as they were outside a certain radius of a cultic center. Furthermore, early on, petitioners to God could approach the tent in the wilderness directly. In many of the sacrifices at the temple, even, the petitioner played a direct and significant role in the act of sacrifice. But we get away from the real issue.

The priests and the Levites - as a rule, played their most significant roles in the rites for all Israel and not for individuals directly. The Day of Atonement sacrifices were not specifically for individuals, but were to purify all of Israel. In these cases, the intermediaries were necessary. And this carried over into the view of Christian theology. There, we have a man acting as the ultimate mediary - and this is the way that the New Testament portrays it - note the emphasis on this point in the following two passages:

Romans 5:15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

The fact that we can directly approach God (as you put it) does not limit or negate the need for us to have a mediator between us and God. This was the role of the priests in Ancient Israel. They did not exist to separate man and God but to unite them. This can also be seen in the Exodus texts when Moses first goes to set about organizing the priesthood in Israel in the wilderness. He is told that the Lord desires to make them a kingdom of priests - but even in doing so, it does not appear to limit the need for a priesthood to be the functionaries of the tabernacle, and act as mediaries between the people and God.

I think that your approach is flawed Brent - in part because you stress the divinity of Jesus Christ, and neglect the part of the atonement that makes it valid for us - his manhood: 

Staples/White debate on Sola Scriptura

The following video is a debate on Sola Scriptura between James White and Tim Staples:

Is the Bible the only infallible rule of faith? Tim Staples vs James White

 

While I disagree with Staples on many issues (e.g., Refuting Tim Staples on patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception), he mopped the floor with White on this issue.

So desperate White was to save face that he wrote an article An Open Letter to Tim Staples; this was soundly refuted by another RC apologist, Mario Lopez, James White Misrepresentations, and Errors on Sola Scriptura showing the many areas White engaged in eisegesis as well as bent the truth about the debate itself. Of course, such should not surprise readers of this blog at all—in their lame attempt to refute my article, Refuting Jeff Durbin on “Mormonism”, White/Durbin never dealt with the issues at all, instead opting to poison the well and bald assertions (see James White and Jeff Durbin “respond”). I think the following .gif sums up Durbin/White's "response" to my article ;-) 

The works of Walter Martin: Scholarly or a joke?

On the Website for a forthcoming book, The Religion that Started in a Hat, we read the following:

My reference manual will give Christians a hands-on tool that will help them prepare to witness to Mormons on a variety of important topics. My work is uniquely different from the chapter on Mormonism in the fine academic work, The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin.

“Fine academic work” and “Walter Martin” should never go together. Apart from the fact that Martin had a bogus doctorate, the book, The Kingdom of the Cults is a joke. For documentation, see the following Web Page:

Criticism of Mormonism/Books/The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised)

Walter Martin's works were as scholarly as The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop--not one bit.

Anti-Mormon Evangelical being full of Christmas cheer

In response to my article, Christ's Baptism is NOT imputed to the Believer, where I refuted Michael Flournoy on imputation and demonstrated the Bible affirms baptismal regeneration, I got the following "response"(?) from Dave Bartosiewicz, no doubt full of Christmas cheer . . .

I know in some circles this counts as a "response," but in the real world, where exegesis and integrity are taken seriously, Bartosiewicz fails. Who knows, someone might buy him an Exegesis 101 book for Christmas.

For those interested, here was my response to Dave:

Piper is wrong about the phrase in Gen 15:6 and Romans. See http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com/2014/10/does-genesis-156-prove-reformed.html for e.g.
Note that, according to Paul, it is not an alien righteousness that is credited to Abraham, but faith.

In Reformed theology, one is declared (not “made”) righteous based on the alien imputed righteousness of Jesus. However, the verse immediate after one of their favourite “proof-texts” (Rom 4:1-8) disproves this theory. In Rom 4:9 we read:

Ο μακαρισμὸς οὖν οὗτος ἐπὶ τὴν περιτομὴν ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ἀκροβυστίαν; λέγομεν γάρ· ἐλογίσθη τῷ Ἀβραὰμ ἡ πίστις εἰς δικαιοσύνην

Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.


The “blessedness” of Abraham (his “justification”) is not based on imputed righteousness, but Abraham’s faith. Indeed, based on the strict grammar of the Greek of this verse and Rom 4:5, 22 refute Reformed soteriology and its understanding of the “ground” of justification.

Note the following from Spicq:

Cf. Rom 4:5—“The one who has no works but who believes in the One who justifies (δικαιουντα) the ungodly, will have his faith counted as righteousness.” M.J. Legrange (on this verse) comments: “δικαιοω in the active cannot mean ‘forgive’: it has to be ‘declare just’ or ‘make just.’ That God should declare the ungodly righteous is a blasphemous proposition. But in addition, when would this declaration be made?” H.W. Heidland (TDNT, vol. 4, pp. 288-292) explains λογιζεσθαι: “Justification is not a fiction alongside the reality. If God counts faith as righteousness, man is wholly righteous in God’s eyes . . . He becomes a new creature through God’s λογιζεσθαι.” (Celsius Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament [trans. James D. Ernest; 3 vols.: Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994], 1:342 n. 88)

Much of the so-called "proof-texts" have been discussed in my responses to you, Dave. For a discussion of John 19:30, perhaps the proof-text for forensic atonement, see http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com/2016/07/why-latter-day-saints-cannot-believe.html

The implications of Acts 11:28 for Sola Scriptura

 One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius. (Acts 11:28 | NRSV)

Commenting on this verse and its implications for the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, one long-standing critic of this man-made doctrine wrote the following:

Acts 11:28 briefly describes one prophecy of Agabus but this is only in passing, and Scripture records none of the revelations of the other prophets that were with him. Surely they would not be called prophets if they had not received divine revelation. If one objects that these prophets were not apostles, we can point to the tongues and prophecies given to the church of Corinth in 1 Cor. 12-14 (cf., 1 Thess. 5:20; Eph. 2:20; 3:5; 4:11), of which Paul himself says that he speaks more than all the rest (1 Cor. 14:18). Where does Scripture record these tongues, along with their interpretations, and these prophecies? And even if they were recorded, where does Scripture distinguish between an inspired writing and an oral revelation that became inscripturated? To claim a distinction between the two without evidence that Scripture itself makes such a distinction is pure speculation. (Robert A. Sungenis, “Point/Counterpoint: Protestant Objections and Catholic Answers," in Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis [2d ed.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, 2013], 193-294, here, pp. 225-26, 217-18).

Happy Christmas to all!

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal 4:4-5)

Nollaig Shona Duit to all those who read and follow my blog!

Another Evangelical Apologist shoots himself in the foot on sola scriptura

In a (lame) attempted critique of Jaxon Washburn's article, My Answers to "A Defense of Sola Scriptura", one Evangelical apologist wrote, in part, the following:

Second, the doctrine of sola scriptura maintains that the *whole* Bible as a body of scriptural texts functions for the Christian church as a complete written standard for Christian doctrine and practice. This does not mean we think (for example) that Abraham or Moses had that same complete collection of Scripture; Abraham probably had no scripture at all. Thus, it is not a sound objection to sola scriptura to point out that the NT added to the OT.

Perhaps unknowingly, this Evangelical Protestant, in an attempt to defend sola scriptura, caught himself like a fly in a Venus flytrap.

Firstly, as I noted to Jaxon:

He does realise this means he cannot point to any biblical text to support the doctrine? 2 Tim 3 was not written before the completion of the *whole* Bible and the same applies for all other "proof-texts"; again, to quote Robert Sungenis:

Evangelical James White admits: “Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at the very time coming into being?” (“A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray's Article Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” 1997, on web site of Alpha and Omega Ministries). By this admission, White has unwittingly proven that Scripture does not teach Sola Scriptura, for if it cannot be a “valid concept during times of revelation,” how can Scripture teach such a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not extract sola scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either. (“Does Scripture teach Sola Scriptura?” in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed: Catholic Apologetics International: 2009], pp. 101-53, here p. 118 n. 24])

Secondly, this is not the first time that this apologist has shot himself in the foot. As I noted in a post entitled Were Apostolic Oral Traditions Retired after the New Testament era? where, in a debate (youtube link) with an Eastern Orthodox priest and apologist, this same apologist tried to relegate the on-going importance of texts that speak highly of “[oral] traditions” in the New Testament during the time the NT was being revealed/inscripturated, arguing that such was not passed down in post-apostolic times, and in his rebuttal said that "[there is no] basis for thinking that something other than Scripture provides to us today an infallible rule of faith and practice . . . . [no evidence] that such a thing exists outside of Scripture."

Answering this “objection,” one Catholic apologist wrote:

[W]e must challenge the statement that there is no "suggestion that in training these men Timothy would be passing on to them infallible tradition with authority equal to the Word of God." Since in 1 Thess. 2:13 Paul considers his oral teaching an authority equal to Scripture, and then in 2 Thess. 2:15 commands the Thessalonians to preserve this oral teaching, it is certainly reasonable to conclude that the oral teachings given to Timothy, and later entrusted to other reliable men, possessed an authority equal to that of Scripture. To deny such a conclusion there must be substantial proof that the Catholic interpretation has no possibility of being correct. Moreover, nothing suggests that the oral teaching to the Thessalonians possessed more authority than the oral teaching to Timothy and his men . . . probably the most devastating [argument against the Protestant approach to] 2 Thess. 2:15 and similar verses is that neither Paul nor any other writers, gives any statement which commands that the Church retire oral revelation, either during the writing of Scripture or once Scripture was completed. Since the Protestant is required to form his doctrine only from mandates found in Scripture, the burden of proof rests on his shoulders to show that Scripture teaches that the propagation of apostolic oral revelation must cease with the completion of Scripture . . . in reality, the debate should stop here until the Protestant can furnish the Scriptural proof for his position. If he believes in sola scriptura, then he is required to give answers from sola scriptura, not answers based on what he thinks is correct and logical. (Robert A. Sungenis, “Point/Counterpoint: Protestant Objections and Catholic Answers," in Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis [2d ed.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, 2013], 193-294, here, pp. 225-26, 236-37).

That the post-New Testament Church did not hold to sola scriptura, see the following responses to C. Michael Patton's eisegesis of the early Christian authors:

The Early Church Fathers Did Not Believe in Sola Scriptura

Irenaeus did not hold to Sola Scriptura

I have discussed sola scriptura many times on this blog; click here for pages exegeting various biblical and early Christian texts allegedly supporting this doctrine.