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NASB | Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Jude 1:4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed [just as if they were sneaking in by a side door]. They are ungodly persons whose condemnation was predicted long ago, for they distort the grace of our God into decadence and immoral freedom [viewing it as an opportunity to do whatever they want], and deny and disown our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. |
Subject: Scandal of the Catholic Priesthood |
Bible Note: John O'Brien has a popular work called the Faith of Millions. And in that, he has written this. I think it's really fascinating. "When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration at the mass, he reaches up into the heavens." You've seen that image. "He brings Christ down from his throne and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man." "It is" -- listen to this -- "a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim." We're talking about a priest now. We're talking about somebody really who is considered supernatural. He has to be, if he has a greater power than angels, including seraphim and cherubim. And why do they say that? Not only because of this grace and this empowerment for a moral life and this engagement in the priesthood of Christ, but because the priest can reach into heaven, bring Christ down from His throne, place Him on our altar to be offered again as the victim for the sins of man. He literally brings Christ down for the sacrifice of the mass. He goes on writing about the priest and says: "Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the virgin Mary. While the blessed virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man not once, but a thousand times." "The priest speaks and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command." He has the power to go to heaven and pull Christ down, and sacrifice him again on the altar of the church. In the next paragraph, he writes: "Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vice-regent of Christ on earth? He continues the essential ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ. He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that name 'alter cristus,' for a priest is another Christ." Does that bring a verse to mind? If anybody "comes and preaches another" Christ, we have our own Council of Trent. "Let him be anathema." They are viewed as another Christ, "alter cristus." This bizarre mass, this bizarre attempt to put power in the hands of men, has absolutely nothing to do with the scriptures, and is a wicked twisting of spiritual responsibility and pastoral ministry. To Protestant ears, these are really disturbing assertions. They are to me. What is he talking about when he says that Christ is offered as a sacrifice upon the Roman altar, our altar? What does he mean? That Christ, the omnipotent God: "...bows His head in humble obedience to the priest's command, and comes down from heaven to be offered again and again a thousand times in sacrifice." Isn't this guy going too far? Well, the Council of Trent, in its 13th session in October of 1551, promulgated a decree concerning the most holy sacrament of the eucharist. The mass at the end of the decree was a list of canons providing anathemas for those who would reject the Council's teaching, since these canons often provide short and -- they do provide short and succinct definitions of Roman teaching. As I said earlier, I want to give you some of them, especially in the concept of transubstantiation. You know, when Christ comes down, you know how he comes down, right? They take the bread and the wine, and the priest literally turns that into the body and blood of Jesus. And that's Christ. |