More Evangelical Confusion and Heresy
A Judaized Evangelical offered the first confusion and heresy.
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- All Prophecy is pointing one direction; the rapture of the overcomers and the Tribulation this fall. I do not see how it can go another year. Feast of Trumpets is September 28...
ProphetPastor Jerry Toney9 Comments
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Archpriest Symeon Elias
You Dispensationalists are going to be very shaken when you have to endure the Great Tribulation with the rest of us.
Jesus IsGod
Archpriest Symeon Elias, but we already are enduring it! We've been in it for a while now! The
temple has already been rendered desolate! The human body!
Michael Alirez
Archpriest, The Tribulation Is NOT For The OBEDIENT, Run From CHRISLAM Religion Of The ANTICHRIST.
Archpriest Symeon Elias
Jesus
IsGod - you don't read your sola-scriptura carefully. And Michael
Alirez, it can be said that the End Time Tribulation started when Christ
Ascended into heaven. There is coming the Great Tribulation, as Jesus
himself said, "Mat 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever
shall be. " Over and over in the history of the church, this prophecy
has been fulfilled, that there was stress and suffering (which is what
θλίψις means,) greater than any time before. There were more Christian
martyrs in the 20th century than in all the history of the church till
them, COMBINED. Was the twentieth century the "Megas Thlipsis" Jesus
mentioned, is it now? We don't know. We do not yet know how bad it can
get. And "tribulation" is a condition, not a time period.
Pastor John McArthur offered the second confusion and heresy.
Pastor John McArthur offered the second confusion and heresy.
Sophrony Feix
This perfectly highlights the astronomical world of differences that exist between evangelical/reformed protestant and Orthodox theology. For all their insistence on the centrality of soteriology for Christian belief and praxis, they have as of yet still failed to grasp the meaning of the apostolic deposit, handed down and preserved by our holy fathers for more than two millennium, that makes up the very content of our salvation. They still inadvertently confess the false teachings of heretics long ago condemned who "confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," (1 John 4:3) in other words, they have unwittingly become antichrists. The great boast of the Christian message is indeed that the divine life that existed from all eternity has now been communicated to us, created mortals, through the mediating life and work of Jesus Christ, Who unites both man and God through His hypostatic union, making His flesh and blood truly divine, and therefore deifying human nature through all those united to Him. It was God Himself who saved us, and not a substitute, nor angel nor man. MacArthur sides with Arius, Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Pyrrhus, and we with luminaries and holy fathers St Athanasius the Great, St Cyril of Alexandria, St Maximus the Confessor and all of our truly god-bearing fathers.
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Archpriest Symeon Elias
When I was on my way to Orthodoxy, I remember a conversation with Monsignor Michael Regan as we walked at sunset about thirty years ago. He pointed at an Evangelical Church nearby and said, "Father Rob, we live in a sea of Arian and Nestorian heretics. They all claim to love Jesus, and few of them have the slightest clue who he is. They diminish Jesus Christ and think they have a "full Gospel." I was Old Catholic at the time, and Father Michael's theology was more Orthodox than mine. I had not really thought of my battle to grasp the real significance of Blessed Mary, the Trinitarian reality of Jesus in the womb, and so on, as a struggled with the errors of the heretic Arius and Nestorius. Fr. Michael continued, asking, "How badly do you diminish Christ?" I answered honestly, "I'm beginning to realize quite a lot. I diminish his godhood quite a lot."
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Archpriest Symeon Elias
When I was on my way to Orthodoxy, I remember a conversation with Monsignor Michael Regan as we walked at sunset about thirty years ago. He pointed at an Evangelical Church nearby and said, "Father Rob, we live in a sea of Arian and Nestorian heretics. They all claim to love Jesus, and few of them have the slightest clue who he is. They diminish Jesus Christ and think they have a "full Gospel." I was Old Catholic at the time, and Father Michael's theology was more Orthodox than mine. I had not really thought of my battle to grasp the real significance of Blessed Mary, the Trinitarian reality of Jesus in the womb, and so on, as a struggled with the errors of the heretic Arius and Nestorius. Fr. Michael continued, asking, "How badly do you diminish Christ?" I answered honestly, "I'm beginning to realize quite a lot. I diminish his godhood quite a lot."
"Remember the monarchy of the Father, but also remember that as human beings, we are incapable of exalting Jesus Christ too much. You will come to realize the importance of the name above every name." It took me another six to eight years before I held a Christology that today would not shame me, but not that long to realize that Monsignor Regan wasn't a "cheerleader for Jesus" but was stating profound and fundamental truth.
As a young railroad engineer fifty years ago, having rejected my pentecostal/evangelical roots, but not my faith in Jesus Christ, my Lutheran pastor asked me to write a short piece for a Lenten devotional. Several of us were asked and were given a list of verses as the subject. I chose Philippians 3:8-14.
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Php 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Php 3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Straining Toward the Goal
Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
THERE IS NO RELATIVE COMPARISON
Harnessed by the frail limitations of human thought and language, how can we express the worth of knowing Christ? We stammer and say everything else is worthless, but that statement only hints at the priceless privileged, the overwhelming preciousness, the fantastic advantage of daily becoming more deeply acquainted with the Heart and Soul of the Universe, Jesus Christ.
It is fantastically possible to be found and known as in him. This is not a human achievement of ritualistic uprightness or supposed uprightness. No, instead it is an intimate relationship of faith and love.
We can have the determined purpose to progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. We can be more perceptive of Him. We can see more clearly and strongly the wonders of His Person. These are not our achievements but as believers we can not help being caught in the power out-flowing from His resurrection. In that overflowing power we can actually share His life, His death, His resurrection, and be lifted out from among the dead and become an eternally alive being.
When the limitless aspects of His person begin to dawn on our consciousness it is easy to hear Paul saying, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead." Only then, when we are straining forward to what lies ahead do our spiritual eyes come into focus and we begin to perceive the supreme and heavenly culmination of our existence in Him.
Here half a century later, there are only a few phrases in that short exposition that I would change. I would change "heavenly culmination" to Glorious and eternal Journey in him" because there are stages to our glorification in him, but there is no culmination, no ending. "Culmination" means having achieved the highest point, planting that flag on the mountaintop, so to speak. That simply is not so in the cosmic journey of salvation in Christ. Why? Because eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither is the heart and imagination of man capable of picturing what awaits us, in our journey, in Him. We are facing an INfinite reality incomprehensible to our finite minds. And still our minds will be finite, but our experience on ever higher planes of existence. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansion, that is, many dwelling places. It is not a static place of harps and song.
Now, based upon what I just said, it would be easy to paint some New Age cosmic journey upon my words. However, fifty years later, as an Orthodox Christian, I know that I was created as a human being, and there will never be a time I am not a
human being. But of the divine-human nature and being that is Christ, and in that journey as a deified, or glorified human being, we cannot imagine and must not limit the exaltation of that Divine Human being that is Christ or our experience of HIS divine-human life.
1Co 2:7ff But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: (WHAT? Unto OUR Glory?)
Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Php 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Php 3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Straining Toward the Goal
Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
THERE IS NO RELATIVE COMPARISON
Harnessed by the frail limitations of human thought and language, how can we express the worth of knowing Christ? We stammer and say everything else is worthless, but that statement only hints at the priceless privileged, the overwhelming preciousness, the fantastic advantage of daily becoming more deeply acquainted with the Heart and Soul of the Universe, Jesus Christ.
It is fantastically possible to be found and known as in him. This is not a human achievement of ritualistic uprightness or supposed uprightness. No, instead it is an intimate relationship of faith and love.
We can have the determined purpose to progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. We can be more perceptive of Him. We can see more clearly and strongly the wonders of His Person. These are not our achievements but as believers we can not help being caught in the power out-flowing from His resurrection. In that overflowing power we can actually share His life, His death, His resurrection, and be lifted out from among the dead and become an eternally alive being.
When the limitless aspects of His person begin to dawn on our consciousness it is easy to hear Paul saying, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead." Only then, when we are straining forward to what lies ahead do our spiritual eyes come into focus and we begin to perceive the supreme and heavenly culmination of our existence in Him.
Here half a century later, there are only a few phrases in that short exposition that I would change. I would change "heavenly culmination" to Glorious and eternal Journey in him" because there are stages to our glorification in him, but there is no culmination, no ending. "Culmination" means having achieved the highest point, planting that flag on the mountaintop, so to speak. That simply is not so in the cosmic journey of salvation in Christ. Why? Because eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither is the heart and imagination of man capable of picturing what awaits us, in our journey, in Him. We are facing an INfinite reality incomprehensible to our finite minds. And still our minds will be finite, but our experience on ever higher planes of existence. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansion, that is, many dwelling places. It is not a static place of harps and song.
Now, based upon what I just said, it would be easy to paint some New Age cosmic journey upon my words. However, fifty years later, as an Orthodox Christian, I know that I was created as a human being, and there will never be a time I am not a
human being. But of the divine-human nature and being that is Christ, and in that journey as a deified, or glorified human being, we cannot imagine and must not limit the exaltation of that Divine Human being that is Christ or our experience of HIS divine-human life.
1Co 2:7ff But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: (WHAT? Unto OUR Glory?)
Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Also, I would not use the word, "fantastic." Even in the idiom of the 1970s, the phrase "that's fantastic" had lost its root meaning and meant only "very good." "Hey, you got a 99 on that test. That's fantastic!" But the root of the word, fantastic is "of fantasy." Based on or existing only in fantasy; unreal, unrealistic; irrational, etc. And the Good News of Jesus Christ, that he has created a new creation in Himself in which we may live eternally is anything but "fantastic" that is, a fantasy. No, it is the ultimate reality, the one thing that holds true, is Real Hope that holds awe inspiring POWER, in the sea of suffering and death we are experiencing here.
When you start monkeying with the fullness and healing reality of the Gospel, the Apostolic Deposit, as our friend coined it, as all Roman Catholic Scholastic, Protestant Reformers, and Evangelical secular academics and fanciful "ministries" do, (they monkey with it) you rob it of part or all of its power. You turn what is filled with saving grace into what is mundane and ordinary; into just one of the many religions of man, easy to twist from prideful speculations to demonic conclusions, to emotional illusions, to spiritual delusion; death producing
fantasies, killing the souls of their devotees. Even the scriptures devoid of the True Spirit, uninspired by the Holy Spirit, are killing. And the proliferation of sola-scriptura death cults proves this. Those who commit spiritual suicide in hedonism painted as celebration and worship, and those who commit actual physical suicide, as history has demonstrated many times.
When you start monkeying with the fullness and healing reality of the Gospel, the Apostolic Deposit, as our friend coined it, as all Roman Catholic Scholastic, Protestant Reformers, and Evangelical secular academics and fanciful "ministries" do, (they monkey with it) you rob it of part or all of its power. You turn what is filled with saving grace into what is mundane and ordinary; into just one of the many religions of man, easy to twist from prideful speculations to demonic conclusions, to emotional illusions, to spiritual delusion; death producing
fantasies, killing the souls of their devotees. Even the scriptures devoid of the True Spirit, uninspired by the Holy Spirit, are killing. And the proliferation of sola-scriptura death cults proves this. Those who commit spiritual suicide in hedonism painted as celebration and worship, and those who commit actual physical suicide, as history has demonstrated many times.
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