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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: Now what Paul wrote here is this: Those who forbid marriage are advocating a "doctrine of demons." They are listening to "deceitful spirits;" they are hypocritical liars whose consciences have literally been scarred so that they're past feeling. So you can see that the scripture associates celibacy, forbidding marriage, with Satan. And I really believe that's true. I believe Satan has managed to take control of the Catholic system. In a number of ways, this is manifest. But in clearer terms, one of the ways that he has demonstrated his presence in that system is through the forbidding of marriage; which God has created, the scripture says, "to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth." Even marriage, like food, is to be sanctified and received with gratitude because it comes from God. As a footnote to that, it is also true in Catholicism that there is certain dietary restriction. Everybody who's in the Catholic system knows about not eating meat on Friday. This, too, is drawn out of paganism. Celibacy kind of grew slowly in the Catholic world. It started in the second century. Prior to that, it existed in Asia. It existed in Buddhism. It existed in some other pagan religions; that is to say not being married, being single for devotion to your deity. It didn't say anything about sexual behavior; just said something about marriage. There were some who took a vow of utter abstinence from sexual relationships; whether or not they fulfilled them, they took them. But in the second century, this issue of being unmarried came in, and people followed that path, influenced by the third century by Gnosticism, and what's called Manicheanism; the idea that matter is evil and spirit is good. And therefore, the soul and the spirit of a person is good and the body is wicked, and anything the body does is wicked. And so in this perverted, twisted sort of Gnostic concept, they felt that the highest levels of spirituality were attained by those who literally denied their body all its desires. So they took vows of poverty. They took vows of chastity, which would be different than a vow of celibacy; celibacy having to do with marriage, chastity having to do with sexual activity. They took vows of obedience. Some of them took vows of silence. They didn't want the body to do anything. They didn't want to worry about what it wore; they didn't want to pander to any of its desires. They wanted to eat only meager and austere diets. And some of them didn't even want to hear the body speak, and so they took vows of silence. And then came the idea that this was in imitation of the virgin Mary, with utter disregard for the fact that after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph had a whole family full of children. But the lie of the system is that she was a perpetual virgin to her death. And they also elevated the celibacy because they said Christ was celibate, and this was the approximation and the imitation of Christ. And the idea began to develop that if people did this voluntarily, if lay people did this voluntarily and ascended to this high level of spiritual devotion, that wouldn't it be imperative for their leaders to go to this high level? And again, this was the influence of some of these philosophical ideas. Shouldn't bishops and priests be the models of asceticism? So by the third century, you started having celibate priests. And it was for the first time in the third century the Council of Elvira in Spain put down the first law that we can find in history enforcing celibacy. Bishops and priests and deacons also were to be deposed if they lived with their wives and begot children after their ordination. They would allow the ones that were married to stay married. But if you were ordained, that in itself said you will never marry. A similar decree was enacted by a Roman Council under Pope Serichias in 384 to 399. |