johnd
01-19-2010, 02:19 AM
Let's remain on topic please. My thread. On Walter Martin. Not Catholic bashing or Lutheran Watch. Thank you.
Why do you no longer consider yourself a WM fan? Is it just the aggressive approach to apologetics?
Martin's main goal was to equip the saints because the Churches weren't doing this. Certainly the Lutherans were not. Had he lived long enough, Martin may well have concluded that all denominations have their flaws (even his preferred Southern Baptist denomination) which were Gentilized versions of what God originally intended to be New Testament Judaism.
I say New Testament Judaism (rather than Messianic) because the (historically recent) Messianic movement is a mish-mosh of groups and congregations of varying degrees of imitating the brand of Judaism that rejected Jesus 2000 (from the regurgitated venom of a corrupt Sanhedrin).
What the early church lacked was the completed cannon of scripture with which to settle disputes between early church fathers and to establish the biblical doctrines of the trinity the deity of Christ and so on. That canonization took place when the Roman Empire was in the process of morphing into the Roman Catholic Church (4th Century thru 10th Century CE). Which made it all the more necessary for the leaders of that formation to expunge Christianity of every vestige of Judaism like a second wife would any remnant of a first wife.
Out went all the painstaking provisions by God in Judaism which were to point to Christ the Messiah prophecy and fulfillment (evidence to show Christianity is real and true and thereby put down other religions by this evidence). And in the void came paganism typically incorporations of conquered pagans to appease them (Christianizing them so-to-speak to ease their own nagging consciences).
Along came the Reformation which did not reform anywhere near enough. Lutheranism is thought by some to be like the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches (Pope-less versions of Roman Catholicism). Then the Baptists are all hung up on an ordinance (water baptism), the Methodists on their saw, Pentecostals etc.
All of which draw people away from the Bible to the creeds catechisms, traditions of man... which is why there are so many denominations and versions and sects. The absolution of scripture is polluted by subjective opinions and whims of mere mortal men.
Had he lived long enough, I believe Martin would have figured out that this alone was the reason for the apostasy in the Church he recognized to have occurred centuries before his time. He simply had not carried out to a two millennial time frame and therefore its logical conclusion.
The rise of the cults was due to the humanism infesting the doctrines and unity of the Church (chiefest and oldest among them Roman Catholicism). This removed truth from the objective to the subjective. The cults were put down in antiquity only by brutish Church councils and the henchmen who did their bloody bidding. The cults are resurgent only because such brutality is no longer tolerated.
The cults would be easy to put down by apologetics if the Church had subscribed to objective scripture rather than subjective human traditions and additions to scripture (which are indefensible). That inability to defend a given denominations version of "truth" is what flung the doors open to cultism and false religions.
As with all things, only the right way works.
Why do you no longer consider yourself a WM fan? Is it just the aggressive approach to apologetics?
Martin's main goal was to equip the saints because the Churches weren't doing this. Certainly the Lutherans were not. Had he lived long enough, Martin may well have concluded that all denominations have their flaws (even his preferred Southern Baptist denomination) which were Gentilized versions of what God originally intended to be New Testament Judaism.
I say New Testament Judaism (rather than Messianic) because the (historically recent) Messianic movement is a mish-mosh of groups and congregations of varying degrees of imitating the brand of Judaism that rejected Jesus 2000 (from the regurgitated venom of a corrupt Sanhedrin).
What the early church lacked was the completed cannon of scripture with which to settle disputes between early church fathers and to establish the biblical doctrines of the trinity the deity of Christ and so on. That canonization took place when the Roman Empire was in the process of morphing into the Roman Catholic Church (4th Century thru 10th Century CE). Which made it all the more necessary for the leaders of that formation to expunge Christianity of every vestige of Judaism like a second wife would any remnant of a first wife.
Out went all the painstaking provisions by God in Judaism which were to point to Christ the Messiah prophecy and fulfillment (evidence to show Christianity is real and true and thereby put down other religions by this evidence). And in the void came paganism typically incorporations of conquered pagans to appease them (Christianizing them so-to-speak to ease their own nagging consciences).
Along came the Reformation which did not reform anywhere near enough. Lutheranism is thought by some to be like the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches (Pope-less versions of Roman Catholicism). Then the Baptists are all hung up on an ordinance (water baptism), the Methodists on their saw, Pentecostals etc.
All of which draw people away from the Bible to the creeds catechisms, traditions of man... which is why there are so many denominations and versions and sects. The absolution of scripture is polluted by subjective opinions and whims of mere mortal men.
Had he lived long enough, I believe Martin would have figured out that this alone was the reason for the apostasy in the Church he recognized to have occurred centuries before his time. He simply had not carried out to a two millennial time frame and therefore its logical conclusion.
The rise of the cults was due to the humanism infesting the doctrines and unity of the Church (chiefest and oldest among them Roman Catholicism). This removed truth from the objective to the subjective. The cults were put down in antiquity only by brutish Church councils and the henchmen who did their bloody bidding. The cults are resurgent only because such brutality is no longer tolerated.
The cults would be easy to put down by apologetics if the Church had subscribed to objective scripture rather than subjective human traditions and additions to scripture (which are indefensible). That inability to defend a given denominations version of "truth" is what flung the doors open to cultism and false religions.
As with all things, only the right way works.