Not my opinion. You should read Sutton's book on the Covenant of God. The Covenant of God is one of the most ignored and misunderstood truths of the Scriptures.
Agreed, but I'm not certain we agree on what you mean by "we."
Believers. We are people of the Covenant. We are New Covenant people.
I've read the book and have studied the Suzerain Vassal treaties concepts from more than this book.
You should have paid closer attention.
A covenant is a contract and can be made between 2 or more parties. God is the transcendent one we in covenant with.
Utterly wrong. This is the Calvinist/Reformed understanding of God's Covenant and His relationship to His people and it couldn't be more wrong. The Church is described as "the Bride of Christ." Is a marriage a contract or a covenant? Think carefully before you answer. Here, I'll do it for you:
"A biblical covenant is not a legal piece of paperwork. It is the relationship of two people who have given themselves without reserve to each other. The Calvinist definition in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is totally devoid of this intimacy. Listen to its language:
Q: WHAT IS A COVENANT?
A: AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN TWO OR MORE PERSONS.
That’s it. Barren. There is nothing about love between two persons. There is nothing which indicates the action of one giving oneself totally to the other. It is a legal contract and nothing more. And it is not a biblical covenant. Here is the biblical covenant:
Ezek. 16: 8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
There is the definition of covenant, according to the Bible. The analogy we are given in Scripture is marriage – the beauty of two people giving themselves completely to one another in love. They make vows to one another. We seldom hear marriage described as “the covenant of marriage” anymore. But that is exactly what marriage is – a covenant." (The Dance of Isaiah | Pg. 18 | Kings of Luighne Publishing)
We can see the hierarchy in the NC Scriptures, and it does not need to be turned into what some institutions have turned it into. You have to know by now that many of us simply reject your attempts to posit your hierarchical and true church concepts in attempts to justify your superiority and exclusivity in favor of reading and studying the word apart from your supposed authority.
Again, it is not MY supposed authority. I am just speaking about what I have found through over 50 years of searching the Bible, finding out where I was wrong, and correcting my course. I'm just sorry it took so long to discover the things that I discovered. There are people I would have RUN from (and their churches) had I known what I know now and the damage that their false doctrines and heresies were going to cause to me and my family.
Hierarchy goes all the way back to when Adam was established as covenant head over Creation. He was intended to be a vassal king to the Great Suzerain King (God) and to rule over Creation. He failed. Christ, the Last Adam, did not. He picked up the ball (to use a phrase) and ran it to the end zone. Victory. Game over. God wins. Then Christ, before leaving, established His hierarchy among men by giving His authority to the 12 Apostles (John 20:23). Paul spoke of this hierarchical authority when his leadership was being challenged, and he warned those challenging him, asking them if they wanted him to come in a spirit of love or with the rod of correction?
BTW, if you're one of those who posits that only the Greek speaking orthodox are the authority of the Greek language, then I'd ask what you do with the ability of God's Spirit working with those well-trained in the language and whether or not all men are prone to eisegesis and camp-based allegiances.
No, I'm not. In fact, one has to say that some of the Greek speaking Orthodox have distanced themselves from the original Greek through their association with Western thinking. I also think that it is entirely possible that even the best of us can be influenced by the culture around us, such as how the Roman Catholic Church was influenced by the thinking of the Roman Empire in which they lived and because of that, developed a much different soteriological understanding than that of the East.
And then Christ: became the new Great High Priest (Hebrews), the Head of His Ekklesia (Ephesians), destroyed the entire OC structure and central location (Rev, et.al.), spoke of there no longer being a certain mountain at which to bow in obeisance to God (John4), instituted the universal priesthood of believers (1Pet; Rev); made us the Temple of God (1Cor; Eph), gave us the indwelling of His Spirit (John; Rom; 1Cor; Eph; 2Tim; James); as their Head reviewed His local congregations Himself apart from delegating other than having John write the reviews, had Timothy a young Pastor-Teacher commit teachings to other faithful men apart from Rome or Greek Orthodox or Anglican or ??? approval, etc., etc., etc.
The structure of the Old Covenant remains in the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, God said that Israel was a "nation of priests" unto Him. (
Exodus 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These
are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.) Does this universal priesthood mean that just any old Israelite could offer the sacrifices for sin? Or Yom Kippur? No. And in the same manner and structure, the universal priesthood of believers in the New Covenant does not mean that you are authorized to forgive sin or offer the Eucharist.
Opinion again. No need to go into the Solas concepts.
Not my opinion. Self-evident. Look around you., Protestantism is an ecclesial clown show. I swear, any thinking African pagan, upon seeing eight different missionaries with eight competing and different "Gospels," would have to think that Christianity is the religion of the mentally unstable.
Hierarchy such as Christ, the Head?
Indeed. Christ the Great Suzerain, the bishops of the Church, successors to the Apostles, as the Vassal Kings over His people.
It's odd but not unexpected how you've answered points about Matt18 in context and answered them with Apostolic Succession theory. When we're both in eternity you can try to explain it again.
I doubt that at that moment all this exegetical fluff is going to matter much to us, eh?
