Essential Christian confessions. "The Augsburg Confessions".

The
Essential Christian confessions


Is the Lord Jesus Christ to which He is the Chief Corner Stone on which all are built on .

i Agree with You 100%

Yet God continually lays out everything in order and enables us to understand and if we lack wisdom, we are to enquire of Him (with faith) but in this case we are to remain ignorant?

Sure Israel failed. News flash: without new life in Christ we ALL fail, but the old man is dead and we are alive in Christ

BTW? Moses didn't make it into the 'promised land' because of his anger and consequent disobedience in striking the rock (representative of Christ)

I am just sitting here in wide eyed wonder and wondering how on earth........

but Romans tells us that Israel was blinded for the Gentile's sake and they will be restored in the future. this using Israel as a punching bag for a False Doctrine is hypocrisy.

Behold! Surely thou dost speak of that nave Calvin and his torch to which he must set the wood beneath any who disagree with his principals on fire. Dost thou know he was never persuaded to confess Christ as Lord?

Well it's true. He believed in infant baptism and was himself baptized as an infant in the Catholic church and there is no record of him accepting Christ but he seems to have believed he was saved due to his sprinkling when he was but a babe.

I accept logical paradox in what I believe.

3=1
Wine is blood
Bread is flesh
God was a man
And other paradox as well.

Oh don't get stuck on details. you will mess up the paradigm of the reformed among us. duh nerve

Those are established biblical truths

What you state is not, no matter how sincere you may be in your belief. Please note that I am smiling.

You are not professing a paradox. What you are actually believing, is called a contradiction.

At this point, perhaps you can illustrate from scripture why you think we are not free to choose but we are free to unchoose

i guess he would have burnt me alive at the stake then

sometimes it's nice to understand how Jesus felt when dealing with the religious nutjobs

Article VI. Of New Obedience.
1 Also they teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God’s will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification 2 before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17:10. The same is also taught by 3 the Fathers. For Ambrose says: It is ordained of God that he who believes in Christ is saved, freely receiving remission of sins, without works, by faith alone

what is the ACT to Believe?
what is the ACT to use the Faith given unto you?

there's an EFFORT there being made by your mind to do both. that is choice or to choose.

and?

Article X
The Lord’s Supper

Article VII. Of the Church.
1 Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.

2 And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and 3 the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. 4 As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4:5-6

😊

I was going to try and put all this together but I thing DR. cooper does a better job than me.
I know he says a lot but if you give it a listen you will see where I come from.

I am not Lutheran, but Catholic; and I do not agree that a distinction between Priests and Laity is "demonic". God Himself introduced that distinction. Korah tried to destroy it, but was rejected by God and Moses in doing so. See Numbers 16-18.

Numbers 16:

"3 They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. 6 You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers 7 and tomorrow put burning coals and incense in them before the Lord. The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far! ...
31 As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions. 33 They went down alive into the realm of the dead, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. 34 At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, “The earth is going to swallow us too!” 35 And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.”

Now read in the New Testament where Jude (1:11) says "they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion." That means there is a Priestly Hierarchy in the New Testament too. The Early Church understood this: Deacons are the New Levites, Presbyters the New Priests and the Bishops the High Priests. See: https://www.catholic.com/tract/bishop-priest-and-deacon Christ Himself is called "The Bishop of our Souls" (1 Pet 2:25). Not every believer is a Presbyter or a Bishop but only the Ordained.

In the Old Covenant, God prophesied: "And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the LORD. " (Isa 66:21). Once more, the same conclusion follows. In Mal 1:11, God foretold the Ministerial Priesthood of the New Covenant would bring Him incense and pure offerings, not in Israel, but in every Gentile Nation, i.e. in the Christian Church: "My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty.

In Rom 15:16, St. Paul seems to be referring to this prophecy, in speaking of the Offering of the Gentiles, and saying he ministers as a Priest: "to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit." (Rom 15:16, NASB). All that shows the Ministerial Priesthood continues in the New Covenant; not any longer the Aaronic, but the Melchizedek Priesthood of Jesus Christ. Why indeed did Christ, the High Priest, tell His Apostles to offer His Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine, as He Himself did? Because, just like He Himself was the Great High Priest, they were ordained Priests under Him.

Strong's Concordance on the above passage in Greek: "
in the priestly service
ἱερουργοῦντα (hierourgounta)
Verb - Present Participle Active - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2418: To minister in holy things. From a compound of hieron and the base of ergon; to be a temple-worker, i.e. Officiate as a priest." https://biblehub.com/romans/15-16.htm

You read a Fourth Century Church Father like St. Augustine in the West or St. Chrysostom in the East and the New Covenant or Christian Ministerial Priesthood is very clear. In fact, it is quite clear even centuries before that, as the link above shows.

God Bless.

Here are some citations from the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries after Christ about the Episcopacy/Presbyterate.

"
As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church.

Here are examples of what early Christian writers had to say on the subject of bishops, priests, and deacons:

Ignatius of Antioch
“Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ” (Letter to the Magnesians 2 [A.D. 110]).

“Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest” (ibid., 6:1).

“Take care, therefore, to be confirmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the apostles, in order that in everything you do, you may prosper in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spirit, in beginning and in end, together with your most reverend bishop; and with that fittingly woven spiritual crown, the presbytery; and with the deacons, men of God” (ibid., 13:1–2).

“It is necessary, therefore—and such is your practice that you do nothing without the bishop, and that you be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we live in him. It is necessary also that the deacons, the dispensers of the mysteries [sacraments] of Jesus Christ, be in every way pleasing to all men” (Letter to the Trallians 2:1–3 [A.D. 110]).

“In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of the apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a church” (ibid., 3:1–2).

“He that is within the sanctuary is pure; but he that is outside the sanctuary is not pure. In other words, anyone who acts without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clear conscience” (ibid., 7:2).

“I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God: ‘Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons.’ Some suspect me of saying this because I had previous knowledge of the division certain persons had caused; but he for whom I am in chains is my witness that I had no knowledge of this from any man. It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words, ‘Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as the temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions, be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he was imitator of the Father’” (Letter to the Philadelphians 7:1–2 [A.D. 110]).

Clement of Alexandria
“A multitude of other pieces of advice to particular persons is written in the holy books: some for presbyters, some for bishops and deacons; and others for widows, of whom we shall have opportunity to speak elsewhere” (The Instructor of Children 3:12:97:2 [A.D. 191]).

“Even here in the Church the gradations of bishops, presbyters, and deacons happen to be imitations, in my opinion, of the angelic glory and of that arrangement which, the scriptures say, awaits those who have followed in the footsteps of the apostles and who have lived in complete righteousness according to the gospel” (Miscellanies 6:13:107:2 [A.D. 208]).

Hippolytus
“When a deacon is to be ordained, he is chosen after the fashion of those things said above, the bishop alone in like manner imposing his hands upon him as we have prescribed. In the ordaining of a deacon, this is the reason why the bishop alone is to impose his hands upon him: he is not ordained to the priesthood, but to serve the bishop and to fulfill the bishop’s command. He has no part in the council of the clergy, but is to attend to his own duties and is to acquaint the bishop with such matters as are needful. . . .

“On a presbyter, however, let the presbyters impose their hands because of the common and like Spirit of the clergy. Even so, the presbyter has only the power to receive [the Spirit], and not the power to give [the Spirit]. That is why a presbyter does not ordain the clergy; for at the ordaining of a presbyter, he but seals while the bishop ordains” (The Apostolic Tradition 9 [A.D. 215]).

[citations taken from the link given earlier]