As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The following is going to be a bit in depth, in the realm of St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews in dealing with Jewish intellectualism being redeemed to the Heart of Christ. I am moved in this, as the recent clergy of the Missouri Synod Lutherans who told us that he could not be our minister unless he gave us communion, posted a column which I had thought about responding to in a letter to the editor, but instead post the Truth here, as it will accomplish more in educating the widespread audience here.
The issue is the following which the clergy wrote, that was simply strange.
Are you baptised, clothed in Christ, feeding on His bodily and bloody righteousness, receiving forgiveness in your mouth?
The above sounds odd, because it is odd. It mixes Baptism with the Sacrament of the Altar or Communion, the last of which Lutherans in the Missouri Synod have the largest of ignorance of, to the extent it is akin to the denomination who are picking up poisonous snakes as signs they are Christs, because the Bible says so.
I am going to guide you by God's Holy Spirit through an explanation as most of you have no idea what Communion is, no more than Testament, no more than Covenant, no more than Marriage, in what it purely means, as they are all the same encompassing word.
In Covenant, Abraham and God, sealed by the Holy Ghost, of Jonathan and David, there are specifics in symbols and actions, for Covenant is an unbreakable contract. Covenant only ends in death.
In Covenant a bull which symbolizes strength and and a lamb which symbolizes vulnerability, are killed and split open and laid end to end. The blood pools in between the animals.
Two people then walk in figure 8 through the blood, and then they exchange clothes and weapons, as the reality they have become the other person. This is trust and when a person's pants are down and unarmed, the other person could murder them. As I said this is trust.
A second journey is then taken, and at the end of that, the two break bread and feed each other, in symbols of the broken animals who have died. They then speak the words that this bread is a symbol that the person will give their own flesh to feed the other person, than let them starve.
The cup of wine is then shared, in the blood symbol, that they will die for the other person to keep them alive.
You should notice in this, the Words of Christ in the Last Supper, in what He was instituting in a New Covenant, based upon the Passover Covenant, where a lamb was killed by each Israelite family, the blood splashed on the family home's door to keep the Angel of Death from slaughtering them, as the Angel did with Egypt's first born.
The lamb was the Passover Feast, as was the unleaven bread, as symbols of Trust in God, and that we are temporary residents of this world.
Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the sin offering, not the bread and the wine in Communion. Communion is done in remembrance of that complete offering. There was not a necessary yearly sin offering for the Congregation as in the Passover. Jesus was a one time event, because Jesus was the husband and the congregation was the wife in symbol of this Marriage, Testament, which Abraham joined himself Spiritually to God generations before this.
Martin Luther teaches in his Catechism two basic points in Communion is the body and blood of Christ, but it does not transform into the actual body and blood. To this, Martin Luther teaches that "shed for the remission of sins" is Communion is an extension of forgiving sins. THAT IS WRONG as Jesus states plainly that the Last Supper was initiated IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE COVENANT WHICH CHRIST DIED FOR AND TOOK UP HIS LIFE AGAIN.
His Body and His blood is Holy, Innocent and Precious. The wine and bread of Communion is a symbol of that.
A wedding ring with TL is not the marriage with TL. The marriage with TL or any of your spouses, is your vows and your lives together. That is what Christ is the actual event which takes away the sin of the world, and the penalty, and provides the reward for Redemption. It is not the bread and wine as this forgives nothing, redeems no one, no more than the Passover lamb and bread, saved Israelites. It is FAITH or BELIEF in GOD'S PROMISE, which gives meaning to Communion, as much as your vows give meaning to marriage.
Faith is what accounted Abraham and all of the Patriarchs Righteousness as the New Testament records. You believe Jesus, as in "he that believeth, and is Baptized, shall be saved". It is not "he that communeth".
That is where this extension of Martin Luther fails Christians. Martin Luther takes on a Vatican type teaching, as the Priest taking on the sinner's sins. This Catholic dogma is based on the Sex Cults where the priestess would have men ejaculate into them, in symbol of the man's sins. The same scenario was in the temple whores.
That is why Catholics do not get to drink the wine as Christ instituted, as the Vatican is getting in the way of the Christ and His child relationship. Jesus is the first and last Judge of forgiveness. Even when Christ gave Authority over the Apostles to forgive and retain sin in Him. Christ never intended, nor did the Apostles ever teach that they were in charge on earth. The Authority was charged to the clergy to provide people peace to people who needed to be told they were forgiven and to be a bulwark against the heinous sinner who was not changing from sin and corrupting the Church.
Martin Luther based a doctrine which was literal, and it has been degraded in this case to a clergy of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod who is mixing Baptism with Communion, and coming up with cannibal like phrases of "feeding on His bodily and bloody righteousness, receiving forgiveness in your mouth?"
Not anywhere in Scripture does it state that eating anything forgives sins. Eating and drinking is a symbol of unity with a person, a demon or God. It is the symbol of that association in the power behind it. It is the wedding ring, not the marriage ceremony.
NO ONE FEEDS ON RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness is accounted by Faith in God, and the symbol of that Faith is following the rules God gave in the Laws of the Bible, the fulfillment of them is to Honor God with all you are, and to care about others as you would appreciate to be cared about.
Martin Luther was Inspired, but he was fallible or incomplete. I invested the time in reading Martin Luther, and place the following in quotes from him, as he counts two types of Righteousness in one type comes from Christ and the other arrives from living a Godly life or living by God's rules.
Martin Luther idea of righteousness.
The first is alien righteousness, that is the righteousness of another, instilled from without. This is the righteousness of Christ by which he justifies though faith, as it is written in I Cor. 1:30: “whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
The second kind of righteousness is our proper righteousness, not because we alone work it, but because we work with that first and alien righteousness. This is that manner of life spent profitably in good works, in the first place, in slaying the flesh and crucifying the desires with respect to the self, of which we read in Gal. 5:24, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” In the second place, this righteousness consists in love to one’s neighbor, and in the third place, in meekness and fear towards God.
There is though a 3rd Righteousness which is the trinity of this, for the only Righteousness God accepts is Christs as you a worldly inferior rightness that is impure at best. You show you are Right with God by proving you are a Christian or God's by living morally. The Righteousness which unites you to God though is the one of FAITH.
Faith is not a Righteousness one feeds on. Faith is the Righteousness which forgives in Belief that Christ forgives you.
You do not get Christ's Righteousness without Faith and without Faith you do not live morally. It is Faith that Christ instituted the New Passover or Covenant or Testament or Marriage Contract for you to be saved in which accomplishes all.
One engages in Communion in honoring Christ's Sacrifice in Belief of the Faith you have in Him.
In Martin Luther's response number 312 in the Catechism, Luther does address the "given and shed for the remission of sins". If one reviews the Luther Catechism, he does not provide on Bible verse stating that Communion forgives any sins. Instead he states Communion gives us the blessings or empowerment of being children of God.
In Luther's response of 313 though, Martin Luther states this, "These words tell us that in the Sacrament Christ gives to every communicant as a pledge of the remission of sins that same body and blood which He earned for us the forgiveness of sins.
It is vital to understand Luther being translated from German to English that he utilizes the word PLEDGE, in the symbol of the body and blood in Communion to the ACTUAL Body and Blood of Christ which DOES forgive sins in Faith.
I have experienced the most off based nuttery in Missouri Synod Lutherans, which is coming from their seminary concerning the bastardization of Communion. I give 4 examples of how this is degenerated from what Jesus taught, and Martin Luther attempted to explain.
Example 1: My dad had a phobia over Communion as his pastor, who was probably the most devout and strict pastor in world history, drilled into dad's understanding that you should not need Communion in taking it too much, as if you do, you are sinning too much.
Can you comprehend the extreme of "given and shed for the remission of sins" in this "forgiveness false teaching" teaching Lutherans to not take Communion in the Depression Era?
Example 2: My sister was taught that you were not saved unless you took Communion, because "it was a communion of saints" and you could not be a Christian really until you took Communion.
That negates the Cross completely which is another false teaching.
Example 3: My other sister, with another pastor the next year, was taught that "the communion of saints" meant that dead people were there at Communion with the living. Dead Saints and live Saints all joined together at the altar.
Nowhere in the Bible does it ever teach that version.
Example 4: The last bastardization of Communion, has one eating Righteousness and receiving forgiveness of sins from that event.
Again this is a false teaching, as Christ did not tell the lame man He healed, "Eat the Passover feast, take up your bed and walk". No Christ said, "Your sins are forgiven thee, take up your bed and walk".
Forgiveness comes from Christ's Mouth, not what is going into yours.
All of this is exasperating, as the Missouri Synod Lutherans are one of the strictest constructionists or indoctrination groups in Protestantism. The Vatican only indoctrinates Priests more thoroughly with equally incorrect false teachings.
It reminds me of the "calling" that Baptists have in letting anyone preach who convinces the elders they are called. The Baptist has immense problems in this lack of structure, which created that bastardization of the Bible in Ben Carson's 7th Day Adventists.
Enoch never took Communion, and his sins were forgiven. Christ was the Promise Enoch believed in and that is why Enoch is in Heaven, as is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
The Righteousness of Job did not save him, nor did it come from eating bread and wine, as there was no Communion or Passover, as he was before it was instituted. Righteousness with Job came from being moral, but he still had to be educated in satanic affliction, that it is God Who Saves.
Communion saves no one. Communion forgives not one sin. No more than Baptism saves or forgives. Salvation and Forgiveness comes only from Jesus the Son of God, and that Redemption only comes from hearing from Christ through His Word and Believing what Jesus did to save you. It is a matter of Faith. It is always a matter of Faith, not clean and unclean foods, but what comes out of your heart in Faith.
NEVER FORGET or be led astray by satan from the ONE FACT from the One Way, the One Truth and the One Life.
John 11: 25 - 26
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Believe this:
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Get thee behind me satan, for in Christ these false teachings will not stand in keeping the children of God from His Christ. For the reality is, all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and if you preach and trust that Communion forgives sins, then those sins which you have committed since your last Communion are unforgiven, and you are at enmity with Christ, and therefore recorded as not His, in the Book of Life.
I was loved by God first and in loving Him keep His Commandments to the best of my ability. I trust not in Communion nor father confessors, I trust at my last breath or Christ's return, that it is Jesus Who forgives me to that moment, making me Righteous, as I try to live a life Right Standing with God by obeying His Commandments, and that Righteousness of Faith is the Belief in Him which accounts me worthy in answer to His Call.
There is no bloody righteousness nor fed upon forgiveness in your mouth. There is only Christ and your response to that call.
There is only Christ.
agtG
