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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: I was fascinated to read in Lorraine Boettner's book on Roman Catholicism this quote. "The largest collection of books in the world on the subject of sex is in the Vatican library." Who checks them out? What are they, in there doing some scholastic work? These poor people. This is a horrific sentence. Better they should go to prison and have some time limit when they're going to get out and live a normal life. In order to understand the Roman Catholic position regarding the grouping of men and women in monasteries, you need to understand the basic viewpoint that underlies that system. During the middle ages, the idea developed in Roman theology that man's work was to be divided. And this is really important in their system. In the middle ages, man's work was divided into the natural or the secular, and the spiritual, and those two things are totally separated. Only the spiritual was pleasing to God. And again, this is more of that same old dualistic philosophy. Consequently, while the natural man might be satisfied with the common virtues of daily life, the ideal was that of the mystic, who just disdained all the issues of daily life. And all he wanted to do was develop his spiritual side. And he wanted to go somewhere in deep contemplation and reach out for the spiritual. The natural was viewed as a hindrance to that; a job, a wife, kids, a house, et cetera. So the life of the monk and the life of the nun withdrawing from society, withdrawing from work, withdrawing from culture, withdrawing from the world, retiring into this cloister, losing themselves in mystic contemplation, was thought to really be the higher life. And then, you know, then they started wearing all these black things; the same stuff they've been wearing since the middle ages. Every time you see these guys parading around in these silly things. They're wearing middle age garb that's supposed to impress us with the fact that they have literally risen above the hoi-polloi, who are all caught up in the natural. And they really believe that in seclusion from the world, the image of God lost in the fall could be restored. Celibacy was the holier state. Some of them even emasculated themselves, thinking that that would remove temptation ultimately. The ascetic viewed the natural world as sinful, a sphere to be avoided as much as possible, developed a contempt for things of the world, and went into off into these places. You can read the stories about these people. They went into these kind of places and sat there, and just were tormented by the fires of temptation. Read a Heloise and Abelard story; horrific to try to live like that. And that's where the priests and the nuns, you know, as these celibate ascetics, came from. But for Protestants, the Reformation came along and just demolished all of that, and it did it with, first of all, one very important theological fact, and that was this: That in God's eyes, there's no difference between the sacred and spiritual, and the secular, because in whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, you do it -- what? "To the glory of God." God can be glorified in the way you eat your dinner. The Protestant understood, the Reformation understood: You serve God not by withdrawing from the world. Jesus even prayed: Father, I'm not asking you to keep them out of the world, but to keep them while they're in the world from the evil one. We believe the world has fallen. But it's our Father's world, isn't it? And I can look at everything in this world, except the sin, and I can see a way in it to glorify God. The Reformation spread a sacredness over everything. |