| — PLEASE NOTE: ACCULTURALIZED CHRISTIANITY IS NO LONGER AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY — |
| The acculturalizing of religion is a natural socializing effect, as is evident in Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, and some Christian denominations, but this is foreign to the essential character of Christianity, for anything of any kind that divides God's people to any degree conflicts with the unity of the Holy Spirit in Whom lies both the spiritual unity and true nature of the Christian Church. |
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I now inquire into your opinion, [to see] from what source you usurp this right to "the Church." |
If, because the Lord has said to Peter,
"Upon this rock will I build My Church," "to thee have
I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom"; or,
"Whatsoever thou shall have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound
or loosed in the heavens",
you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring [as that intention did] this personally upon Peter?
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"On thee," He says, "will I build My Church;" and, "I will give to thee the keys," not to the Church; and, "Whatsoever thou shall have loosed or bound," not what they shall have loosed or bound.
For so withal the result teaches.
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In
[Peter] himself the Church was reared; that is, through [Peter] himself;
[Peter] himself essayed the key; you see what [key]:
"Men of Israel, let what I say sink into your ears: Jesus the Nazarene,
a man destined by God for you," and so forth.
[Peter] himself, therefore, was the first to unbar, in Christ's baptism, the entrance to the heavenly
kingdom, in which [kingdom] are "loosed" the sins that were
beforetime "bound; "and those which have not been "loosed"
are "bound," in accordance with true salvation; and Ananias
he "bound" with the bond of death, and the weak in his faith
he "absolved" from his defect of health.
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Moreover,
in that dispute about the observance or non-observance of the Law, Peter
was the first of all to be endued with the Spirit, and, after making preface
touching the calling of the nations, to say, "And now why are ye
tempting the Lord, concerning the imposition upon the brethren of a yoke
which neither we nor our fathers were able to support? But however, through
the grace of Jesus we believe that we shall be saved in the same way as
they."
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This sentence both "loosed" those parts of the law which were abandoned, and "bound" those which were reserved.
Hence the power of loosing and of binding committed to Peter had nothing
to do with the capital sins of believers; and if the Lord had given him
a precept that he must grant pardon to a brother sinning against him even
"seventy times sevenfold," of course He would have commanded
him to "bind"----that is, to "retain" ----nothing
subsequently, unless perchance such [sins] as one may have committed against
the Lord, not against a brother. For the forgiveness of [sins] committed
in the case of a man is a prejudgment against the remission of sins against
God. ...
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