Theology Club: The Priesthood of Christ

[SaulToPaul 2]

The High Priest rules the priesthood
The Priesthood judges the twelve tribes of Israel
Israel is the head of the nations, the Gentiles

 

[Arsenios]

Christians have been chosen/called "out of darkness."

There is darkness today, so this applies today.

Priests offer sacrifices.

Priestly actions cleanse people.

Christians are in "His marvelous light;" "a Royal Priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." We are peculiar because we are in "His marvelous light." Everybody else is in darkness.

Yours is the first direct answer - Thank-you...

Do you offer sacrifices and cleanse people?

If the Light of Christ is invisible to the worldly, what makes us peculiar?

Arsenios

 

[patrick jane]

Matthew 19:28
And Jesus said unto them,
"Verily I say unto you,
That ye which have followed me,
in the regeneration
when the Son of man shall sit
in the throne of his glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

Are we to disregard all Christ said that was not to the Gentiles?

Or is the Kingdom of Heaven Christ's?

And is His Body those reborn into Him?

Arsenios

We never disregard anything Christ says, we pay attention to His words more than any part of the Bible. That's the way to understanding

 

[Idolater]

I didn't say that priests cleanse people, but that priestly actions cleanse people. Christ cleanses people through priestly actions.

We are peculiar because we can see.

Yours is the first direct answer - Thank-you...

Do you offer sacrifices and cleanse people?

If the Light of Christ is invisible to the worldly, what makes us peculiar?

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

We never disregard anything Christ says,
we pay attention to His words
more than any part of the Bible.
That's the way to understanding

Good... I could not agree more...

So... Here is my little issue...

Whenever I use a citation from anyone other than Paul in the New Testament, I am cast out because it was only addressed to the Jews, and not to the Gentiles, as were virtually all of Paul's epistles addressed mostly to Gentiles... Since we are not Jews and do not observe the Levitical Law, we are, under this guidance, compelled to disregard all of the Bible that is addressed only to Jews...

The idea in this (false) line of thinking is that Christ preached TWO Gospels, one to the Jews prior to His Passion, and one to the Gentiles after that, as given to Paul to preach to them...

So that we are to only receive the Gospel of St. Paul, and NOT the Gospel of Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and only the epistles of Paul, and not those of anyone else...

So here come my issue: Following this line, are we not compelled to disregard the Gospel of Christ as He preached it because it was ONLY addressed to and intended for the Jews???

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I didn't say that priests cleanse people,
but that priestly actions cleanse people.
Christ cleanses people through priestly actions.

OK - If priestly actions cleanse people,
And if we are Christ's Royal Priesthood...
Do WE cleanse people by OUR priestly actions IN Christ?

We are peculiar because we can see.

What is so peculiar about seeing?

I mean...

When someone is hallucinating,

then THAT is peculiar...

Arsenios

 

[Idolater]

Christ cleanses people. It's not a/an hallucination.

OK - If priestly actions cleanse people,
And if we are Christ's Royal Priesthood...
Do WE cleanse people by OUR priestly actions IN Christ?



What is so peculiar about seeing?

I mean...

When someone is hallucinating,

then THAT is peculiar...

Arsenios

 

[musterion]

Arsie.

What need now for any priest if the one true Sacrifice was made and accepted by God?

 

[Idolater]

Today is the holiest day on the Idolaters' of Christ calendar: Thanksgiving. It's the Anglicized Greek, rather than the transliterated Greek Eucharist.

In America, it is customary to celebrate Thanksgiving with what's colloquially as well as accurately known as a "four-day-week-end." It's the only four day weekend on almost every American's calendar; and it is on every Idolater's of Christ calendar. Holiest four days, every year.

We begin by feasting. And then we take it easy. With family.

Happy Thanksgiving Arsenios.

 

[Arsenios]

Today is the holiest day on the Idolaters' of Christ calendar: Thanksgiving. It's the Anglicized Greek, rather than the transliterated Greek Eucharist.

In America, it is customary to celebrate Thanksgiving with what's colloquially as well as accurately known as a "four-day-week-end." It's the only four day weekend on almost every American's calendar; and it is on every Idolater's of Christ calendar. Holiest four days, every year.

We begin by feasting. And then we take it easy. With family.

Happy Thanksgiving Arsenios.

Blessings to you too, my Friend...

As worshipers of the Ancient Eastern Orthodox Faith in the US, we made an accommodation in our parish for Thanksgiving. You see, we fast for 40 days in preparation for the Nativity of Christ on the 25th, and Thanksgiving always falls during the Nativity Fast, so we break out the turkey and trimmings on the Sunday before the commencement of the Fast, and today we celebrate the Eucharist of Christ in an 8AM Service of the Divine Liturgy, and then do our Thanksgiving feast with a blessing to eat fish, wine and oil for the day...

I am gladdened to see that you follow a Christian Calendar... In the West, we seem to have lost track of the fact that holidays are in fact Holy Days, as we secularate our Faith with carnal and materialistic substitutions... Even Thanksgiving has its aptly named BLACK FRIDAY... Black indeed...

Arsenios

 

[musterion]

Yoo hoo...Arsie...fair questions pending your attention.

 

[Arsenios]

Arsie.

What need now for any priest if the one true Sacrifice was made and accepted by God?

Moose-Tea...

We are a peculiar nation, this Christian Faith - And the world itself needs the Priestly Ministry that our Faith provides for the world...

Paul fervently desired that we should become like himself:

Being:

Those who are last,
As it were appointed to death:
A spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
Fools for Christ's sake,
Weak,
Despised.
We both hunger, and thirst,
Naked,
Buffeted,
Having no certain dwelling place;
We labour, working with our own hands:
Being reviled, we bless;
Being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat:
The filth of the world,
The offscouring of all things
Unto this very day.

A peculiar priestly nation indeed!

And while Paul is describing those called to be Apostles, lest we think we are to be preening in our own self-glory in Christ, he then writes:

In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you:
Be ye followers of me.

So to those of you who embrace Paul and despise the followers of Christ who are merely Jews, I must earnestly ask this:

Does YOUR life LOOK LIKE the life Paul describes above?

For this is Paul's teaching of his Gospel...

The same Gospel as that of Jesus Christ on the Mount...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Yoo Hoo Arsie.

Are you mocking me?

Mark 10:34
And they shall mock him,
and shall scourge him,
and shall spit upon him,
and shall kill him:

Are you warming your way up to scourging and spitting and killing?

I mean, you are siding with a kinda' rough crowd there...

The mock, scourge, spit upon, and kill crowd...

Nasty little suckers...

Not to mention malodorous when they move...

Unworthy of your joining together with in your crusade against Christian arrogance...

A.

 

[musterion]

Moose-Tea...

We are a peculiar nation, this Christian Faith - And the world itself needs the Priestly Ministry that our Faith provides for the world...

Paul fervently desired that we should become like himself:

Being:

Those who are last,
As it were appointed to death:
A spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
Fools for Christ's sake,
Weak,
Despised.
We both hunger, and thirst,
Naked,
Buffeted,
Having no certain dwelling place;
We labour, working with our own hands:
Being reviled, we bless;
Being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat:
The filth of the world,
The offscouring of all things
Unto this very day.

A peculiar priestly nation indeed!

And while Paul is describing those called to be Apostles, lest we think we are to be preening in our own self-glory in Christ, he then writes:

In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you:
Be ye followers of me.

So to those of you who embrace Paul and despise the followers of Christ who are merely Jews, I must earnestly ask this:

Does YOUR life LOOK LIKE the life Paul describes above?

For this is Paul's teaching of his Gospel...

The same Gospel as that of Jesus Christ on the Mount...

Arsenios

Are you mocking me?

Mark 10:34
And they shall mock him,
and shall scourge him,
and shall spit upon him,
and shall kill him:

Are you warming your way up to scourging and spitting and killing?

I mean, you are siding with a kinda' rough crowd there...

The mock, scourge, spit upon, and kill crowd...

Nasty little suckers...

Not to mention malodorous when they move...

Unworthy of your joining together with in your crusade against Christian arrogance...

A.

Calm down.

You did not address my question, but I will address your reply.

1. Paul nowhere calls members of the Body of Christ "priests." Ambassadors, yes, himself and his associates...ambassadors bringing good news. But priests? No, and there's a good reason for that.

2. A priest is a necessary mediator, by means of sacrifice or rite, between God and man when man cannot approach God on his own.

3. However, the one saving Sacrifice is forever done, never to be repeated nor "represented" as billions blasphemously believe.

4. Now think: what need could there possibly be for a priest during a dispensation where the Sacrifice is not only completed but all anyone need do to avail himself to that Sacrifice is to simply trust, without works of any kind, the good news that it was done for his sin...when the only human intermediary isn't an intermediary but just someone who shares the Word? Answer: in such a case, there is no need for priests and it's blasphemous to say there IS a need for priests.

5. That is why use of hiereus jumps from Acts straight to Hebrews, clean over Paul's epistles. There are no human priests today; no need for them. Anyone trusting in a "priest" is deceived. Anyone claiming to be a "priest" is an enemy of the Cross and a "minister of righteousness" (2 Cor 11:15).

Now for my original question: where is Israel referred to as the Body of Christ?

 

[musterion]

You know what, don't bother reading the above because replying to it honestly and cogently is beyond you. My response to your emotionalism is:

Your thesis = Alderaan.

 

[patrick jane]

Moose-Tea...

We are a peculiar nation, this Christian Faith - And the world itself needs the Priestly Ministry that our Faith provides for the world...

Paul fervently desired that we should become like himself:

Being:

Those who are last,
As it were appointed to death:
A spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
Fools for Christ's sake,
Weak,
Despised.
We both hunger, and thirst,
Naked,
Buffeted,
Having no certain dwelling place;
We labour, working with our own hands:
Being reviled, we bless;
Being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat:
The filth of the world,
The offscouring of all things
Unto this very day.

A peculiar priestly nation indeed!

And while Paul is describing those called to be Apostles, lest we think we are to be preening in our own self-glory in Christ, he then writes:

In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you:
Be ye followers of me.

So to those of you who embrace Paul and despise the followers of Christ who are merely Jews, I must earnestly ask this:

Does YOUR life LOOK LIKE the life Paul describes above?

For this is Paul's teaching of his Gospel...

The same Gospel as that of Jesus Christ on the Mount...

Arsenios

I've been trying all my life to be hungry and naked and poor and scourged, defamed, reviled, with no certain dwelling place and persecuted. Nobody will force that upon me, so I can't be just like Paul !

 

[musterion]

I've been trying all my life to be hungry and naked and poor and scourged, defamed, reviled, with no certain dwelling place and persecuted. Nobody will force that upon me, so I can't be just like Paul !

He's just flailing.

 

[Arsenios]

You know what, don't bother reading the above because replying to it honestly and cogently is beyond you. My response to your emotionalism is:

Your thesis = Alderaan.

I appreciate your humility...

A.

 

[patrick jane]

I appreciate your humility...

A.

and candor

 

[Arsenios]

Calm down.

I was simply heading you away from a bad crowd of mockers, strikers, and murderers...

You did not address my question, but I will address your reply.

Name-calling distracts...

1. Paul nowhere calls members of the Body of Christ "priests." Ambassadors, yes, himself and his associates...ambassadors bringing good news. But priests? No, and there's a good reason for that.

First Paul wrote his epistles...
Then the Evangellists wrote the first three Gospels...
Then the other epistles were written...
Then John wrote the fourth Gospel...
Then John wrote Revelation...

John wrote at the end of the first century...
Revelation speaks of the Christian Priesthood...
Rev 1:6
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father;
to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

So my question is: In what are we kings and priests unto God?

Or are you going to play dodge-ball and say that John was writing to the Jews? When the Jews were already destroyed as a people and scattered... And thereby fail to give John what you give Paul from many decades earlier when he encountered Christ?

Luke, the Beloved Physician and Evangellist, was a disciple of Paul...

Surely you will cede that anything found in his Gospel is not written just for the Jews?

2. A priest is a necessary mediator, by means of sacrifice or rite, between God and man when man cannot approach God on his own.

Do you seriously think that a man can approach God on his own? The simple truth is that man cannot approach God at all - God must approach man in order for there to be a relationship... No man can provide an approach to God for another man...

3. However, the one saving Sacrifice is forever done, never to be repeated nor "represented" as billions blasphemously believe.

Paul disagrees:
1Cor 11:26
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,
ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.

Matthew agrees with Paul:
Matthew 26:26
And as they were eating,
Jesus took bread,
and blessed it,
and brake it,
and gave it
to the disciples,
and said,
"Take, eat; this is my body."

And Paul agrees with Matthew:

1Cor 11:24
And when He had given thanks,
He brake it, and said,
"Take, eat: this is my body,
which is broken for you:
this be ye doing
in remembrance of me.

All one Gospel, you see...

This is how the faithful are instructed by Christ and by Paul to partake regularly and often of the eternal Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross...

4. Now think: what need could there possibly be for a priest during a dispensation where the Sacrifice is not only completed but all anyone need do to avail himself to that Sacrifice is to simply trust, without works of any kind, the good news that it was done for his sin...when the only human intermediary isn't an intermediary but just someone who shares the Word? Answer: in such a case, there is no need for priests and it's blasphemous to say there IS a need for priests.

The need is the instruction to do so by Christ, Matthew, and Paul...

To name but a few...

5. That is why use of hiereus jumps from Acts straight to Hebrews, clean over Paul's epistles. There are no human priests today; no need for them. Anyone trusting in a "priest" is deceived. Anyone claiming to be a "priest" is an enemy of the Cross and a "minister of righteousness" (2 Cor 11:15).

The author of Acts is a disciple of Paul...

And Paul is the author of Hebrews...

And John of Revelation...

The Nation called Christian is a Royal Priesthood...

A peculiar nation indeed...

Now for my original question: where is Israel referred to as the Body of Christ?

That was my question too...

Arsenios