VictorC
Jesus - that's my final answer
- Mar 25, 2008
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Is a popularity contest the reason that you have embraced abject error, and won't respond to what the Bible says?My answer to you is: Truth is not popular, lies are!
There are some here who are serious about proclaiming the Gospel accurately, and we engage in discussion for the reason it forces a learning curve not found elsewhere. As Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.". We correct each other and grow from the need to locate accurate answers from Scripture in this venue.(And I would like to know who are the "academics" who are posting on the threads in question?)
I am one of those academics.
So is Tall73, who invited me here recently.
So is Sophia7, who invited me here last year to engage in another discussion.
So are Frogster, Son of Israel, bbbbbbb, Cribstyl, and I apologize for leaving others out.
Some of these guys have corrected mistakes I have made. We learn from each other.
Why you don't want to either learn from others or provide something to show us our mistakes is beyond me, and I question your reason for joining a discussion forum. So far you have only accused just about every one else of being a Jesuit conspirator or something, and you avoid the message of the Biblical Gospel as if it were a plague.
Thank you for that confirmation.I never claimed that the Jesuits wrote the Scriptures.
If the Jesuits didn't write the Scriptures, then of what interest are they to anyone?
I haven't appealed to a single extra-Biblical work (except Thayer's Lexicon), and so bringing up Jesuit nonsense is a distraction you're employing to avoid Biblical answers. The pasted contribution you offered is off-topic, not of interest, and I don't have any reason to read below this line.
I have no interest in the vain traditions of man.
Several Jesuits were instrumental in writing books that countered the efforts and theology of the Protestant Reformers. Copied below are the details:
THE JESUIT'S COUNTER INTERPRETATIONS
"The Society of Jesus was established by the papacy in 1540 as a very special ‘fighting unit' at the total and exclusive disposal of the Roman Pope. From their beginnings, the Jesuits were conceived in a military mode. Soldiers of Christ, they were given only two purposes: to propagate the religious doctrine and the moral law of the Roman Catholic Church as proposed and taught by the Roman Pope." (The Jesuits, page 41, Malachi Martin)
Their first job was to counter the Reformation. They must, by plausible exposition of Scripture break the unbroken harmony of the reformers positions.
Interestingly enough, they came up with two alternatives that were actually conflicting and contradicting each other, yet the Catholic Church sanctioned both! So much for truth! What they did achieve was to push the prophecies away from the papacy.
Through the Jesuits Ribera, of Spain and Bellarmine, of Rome came the Futurist interpretation. This interpretation leaps over the immense era of papal dominance, and crowds the antichrist prophecies into the far distant future.
THE JESUIT RIBERA'S FUTURIST COUNTER INTERPRETATIONS
Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) " assigned the first few chapters of the Apocalypse to ancient Rome, in John's own time; the rest he restricted to a literal three and a half years' reign of an infidel Antichrist, who would bitterly oppose and blaspheme the saints just before the second advent. He taught that Antichrist would be a single individual, who would rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, abolish the Christian religion, deny Christ, be received by the Jews, pretend to be God, and conquer the world--all in this brief space of three and one-half literal years!" (Prophetic Faith Vol.2 p. 490)
Here we see that Ribera "laid the foundation for the great structure of Futurism...and then, wonder of wonders, in the nineteenth century this Jesuit scheme of interpretation came to be adopted by a growing number of Protestants, until today Futurism, amplified and adorned with the rapture theory, has become the generally accepted belief of the Fundamentalist wing of popular Protestantism!" (Prophetic Faith Vol. 2 p. 493) How could Protestantism forsake it's main foundation of prophetic interpretation and adopt a Jesuit counterfeit? How did this happen?
THE JESUIT BELLARMINE'S COUNTER INTERPRETATIONS
There was also (Saint) Robert Bellarmine, Jesuit, cardinal and theologian who, as an outstanding controversialist opposing the Protestant doctrines of the Reformation, was regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as one of its most powerful defenders. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1560....He was a lecturer at the new Jesuit College in Rome.
Between 1576 and 1589, in addition to his teaching Bellarmine lectured to large audiences. He insisted that the prophecies concerning Antichrist in Daniel, Paul and John, had no application to the papal power. This formed the third part of his "Disputations de Controversiis Christianae Fidei Adversus Huius Temporis Haereticos" published between 1581-1593.
Bellarmine's assault on the Protestant interpretations of prophecy was centered upon the year-day principle which stood at the base of the historic interpretation of prophecy and had risen to general notice and wide acceptance among both Catholics and Protestants. He went out of his way to do this.
Determined to nullify the day = year prophetic principle, used by Protestants as the basis of the 1260 year period of Antichrist's tyranny, he sought to deprive this symbol of its Scriptural support. He came up with the argument that Ezekiel 4 was in reverse, that is saying a year = a day, when in actuality Ezekiel's acted out prophecy was in days and symbolized years.
Ballarmine was very methodical as he dissected the Protestant position, his works fill nine ponderous folio tomes, attacking the standard prophecies pertaining to Antichrist.
Ballarmine capitalized on Luther's weakness. Luther had declared the Bible as the source for truth, yet Luther was selective in what he considered inspired in the Bible. Luther rejected the book of Revelation. "There is too much lacking in this book to call it apostolic or prophetic," he had written in the preference to his first edition of the new Testament. Zwingli made the same mistake in interpreting prophecy. He too refused to recognize the Revelation as apostolic. Now the Jesuit Ballarmine posed himself as the defender of the Bible against the Reformers who, he declared had rejected it. He then shaped the Revelation to fit the futurist view, thereby by- passing the whole Christian era and the real antichrist.
Actually Ballarmine assigned the apocalyptic symbols to the distant past and the distant future. Antichrist, according to him, had not yet come, for he would abolish the daily sacrifice— or the Eucharist (daily mass) and would reign for three and a half literal years.
Bellarmine maintained that the little horn of Daniel 7 as well as the end power in Daniel 11 was a single king--who like Antiochus— would take away three kings and subdue seven other to himself, who, he contends, would therefore be one man only, and not a kingdom. Antiochus was a figure or symbol of the Antichrist of the last days.
THE JESUIT ALCASAR'S PRETERIST COUNTER INTERPRETATIONS
On the flip side of the Counter Reformation was another Jesuit. Jesuit Luis De Alcazar, or Alcasar (1554-1613) of Seville Spain.
Alcasar advanced the Preterist interpretation. He made all prophecy stop short of the papal domination. He maintained that the apocalypse describes the war of the church in the early centuries. Partly between the Jews and their adversaries and then the Church and paganism. Revelation 1-11 he applied to the rejection of the Jews and the desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans. Revelation 12-19 Alcazar allotted to the overthrow of Roman paganism and the conversion of the empire to the church, the judgment of the great Harlot being effected by the downfall of pagan idolatry. Revelation 20 he applied to the final persecution by Antichrist and chapters 21 referring to the New Jerusalem he made descriptive of the glorious and endless triumphant state of the Roman church. ( See Prophetic Faith vol 2 p. 507)
The three Jesuits who worked most effectively to overthrow the Protestant understanding of prophecy, and whose theories are now (in modified forms) almost universally accepted are:
Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) From Italy.
Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) of Salamanca Spain
Jesuit Luis De Alcazar, or Alcasar (1554-1613) of Seville Spain.
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