The Roman Mass (White vs Sungenis)

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I am Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, and I am functioning as the moderator here this evening.

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We have two very distinguished speakers. On my left, we have Mr. Robert Synginus.

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He is the Executive Director of Catholic Apologetics International. He authored

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Not by Faith Alone, the Biblical Evidence of the Catholic Doctrine of Justification, and hosted an

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EWTN series by the same title. He also wrote and co -hosted The Truth About Scripture and Tradition with Patrick Madrid on EWTN.

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His other books include Not by Scripture Alone, a Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and Not by Bread Alone, the

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Biblical and Historical Evidence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. On my right, we have Dr.

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James White. He is a Protestant apologist with Alpha and Omega Ministries in Phoenix, Arizona.

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He is the author of roughly 20 books, including Letters to a

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Mormon Elder, The Roman Catholic Controversy, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

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He is also a professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

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It's a mouthful. My brother -in -law is actually a professor there as well. It is a great pleasure to have both of them here.

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The subject for tonight's debate is whether the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice.

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We're going to begin with Mr. St. Genes. First, let me welcome you all for coming, and I appreciate everybody taking the time to come out to an event like this, and I'm sure this is not on the top of your list of things to do on weekends, but these are very rare events, and I'm glad I have the opportunity again to debate

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James. It is difficult for me, however, to compress 2 ,000 years of Catholic teaching on the

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Mass into 20 minutes, but that's what my task is before you tonight. If you want any more detail about it,

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I have written a book on it, 500 pages, called Not By Bread Alone, and it has all the thing you would ever want to know about the

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Catholic Mass but were afraid to ask, and sometimes probably didn't want to ask, but it is all there for you, so what

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I don't cover here, please afford yourself the opportunity to read the book, and I am also giving a 10 % discount on it.

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It was $14 .95, and so if you really are interested in it, please do so.

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I would like to say, first of all, that before I start my debating, that I as a

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Catholic believe that scripture is inspired and it is inerrant. I say that because some in my

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Catholic church have fallen by the wayside and no longer believe that, or they believe a deluded form of that, but I don't.

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I hold to the traditional dogma of the Catholic church, and that is that the scripture is inspired and inerrant.

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Dr. White also knows that I hold to that, so he will be debating tonight from the vantage point that the traditional dogmas of the

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Catholic church are what is being given to you tonight, and he knows that they will not change, and thus he can argue quite steadfastly against them if he so chooses, and knows that all the traditional dogmas that have been taught by the church are still true today.

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And despite our belief that scripture teaches that the church and tradition are also authorities, for the sake of this debate,

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I will confine my analysis to scripture, since that is what Dr. White accepts as his only authority.

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In most cases I will be arguing against Dr. White's interpretation of scripture, but ironically in some cases

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I will be agreeing with Dr. White's interpretation, since as you will see at times, his interpretation is quite

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Catholic. I know that raised a few eyebrows.

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For instance, in his book, The Fatal Flaw, on page 134,

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Dr. White says this. He quotes Hebrews 9, verses 11 and 12, and I'll read those verses as they appear in his book.

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But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of his creation, neither did he enter the holy place once for all, through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

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And unquote. And then Dr. White goes on to argue this. On what basis does Christ enter into the holy place?

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Not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood. He enters into the presence of the

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Father, having obtained eternal redemption. Christ presents himself before the

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Father as the perfect oblation in behalf of his people. His work of intercession, then, is based on his work of atonement.

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Intercession is not another or different kind of work, but is the presentation of the work of the cross before the

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Father. Jesus does not implore the Father to be merciful to men without grounds for that mercy, does he?

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Would the Son ask the Father to compromise his holiness and justice by simply overlooking sin? Surely not.

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Rather, the Son intercedes for men before the Father on the basis of the fact that in his death he has taken away the sins of God's people, and therefore, by presenting his finished work on Calvary before the

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Father, he assures the application of the benefits of his death to those for whom he intercedes.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that whatever else Dr. White believes about the

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Catholic Church, this statement of his is in full support of the essence of the

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Catholic Mass. Let me read parts of it again for you, in case you didn't hear it the first time.

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His work of intercession, then, is based on his work of atonement. Intercession is not another or different kind of work, but is the presentation of the work of the cross before the

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Father. He has taken away the sins of God's people, and therefore, by presenting his finished work on Calvary before the

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Father, he assures the application of the benefits of his death to those for whom he intercedes.

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Now let's find out what Dr. White means about that statement. In the footnote attached to the paragraph in the back of his book, it reads this.

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The intimate relationship between the propitiatory work of Christ and his work of intercession can be seen as well in 1

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John 2, verses 1 and 2. Now if you have a Bible, you might want to look that verse up, 1

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John 2, verses 1 and 2, which says that Christ is the propitiation for our sins when we sin.

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So here we have Dr. White talking about a propitiatory work of Christ connected with intercession, and so we know what he means in the previous statement when he talked about Christ interceding for us before the

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Father. But this is precisely what happens at the Catholic Mass. Christ offers his propitiatory sacrifice on the cross to the

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Father in heaven for our sins. Listen to what the Council of Trent said, which is also recorded in Dr.

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White's book. Whereby that bloody sacrifice once to be accomplished on the cross might be represented, the memory thereof remain even to the end of the world, and its salutary effects applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit, declaring himself constituted a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, offered up to God the

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Father his own body and blood under the form of bread and wine. The Holy Council teaches that this is truly propitiatory, and has this effect, that if we, contrite and penitent, with sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence draw nigh to God, we obtain mercy and find forgiveness in seasonable aid.

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For appeased by this sacrifice, the Lord grants the grace and gift of penitence and pardons even the gravest crimes and sins.

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Again, I submit to you that Dr. White's statement is almost identical to that of the Council of Trent, even to the point of Dr.

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White saying in his footnote that the intercession of Hebrews 9, verse 12, that Christ now presents to the

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Father is the propitiatory work of the cross. Now let's pause for a moment and ask, why would this message of a propitiatory intercession be so important in the book of Hebrews?

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The simple answer is, 51 % of the book of Hebrews concerns the issue of sin and the temptation to fall away from the faith.

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Fifty -one percent. Eight percent talks about the new covenant, forty percent talks about the intercessory work of Christ.

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The message of Hebrews then is, if you find yourself falling into sin and being tempted to fall away, go to Christ, your heavenly intercessor.

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You'll notice that some of the grievous sins that Hebrews talks about, for example, in Hebrews 10, verse 26, it says that if we willfully sin, there remains no more sacrifice for sin.

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Now, it's interesting that he used the word sacrifice there, because that means the sacrifice is not being applied to someone who willfully sins.

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I submit to you, there is a better intercession, there is no better intercession, than the

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Catholic Mass, which presents the propitiatory power of the cross to the

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Father. In our last debate on the Mass in 1999, Dr.

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White tried to answer this statement of his, that I read from his book, by saying that the presentation of the work of the cross to the

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Father, quote, was not a different work, but the same work, unquote.

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But this only further corners Dr. White, since Catholic doctrine does not consider the

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Mass a different work, but the same precise sacrifice of Calvary. If it was different, then we would have two separate sacrifices.

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But the Roman Catholic Church insists there is only one sacrifice, as Dr. White knows very well.

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Incidentally, critics often accuse Catholicism of ignoring the verses that say

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Christ was sacrificed once for all. You'll find that about a half a dozen times or more in the book of Hebrews.

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But we don't ignore them any more than Dr. White ignores them by saying that Christ, as part of his office of continual intercession, presents the work of the cross to the

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Father. Moreover, Hebrews 9 verse 12 says that Christ entered the holy place once for all.

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The only reason this phrase, once for all, appears in this context is to contrast what the high priest did in the

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Old Testament as to what Christ does in the New Covenant. For example, once a year, as Hebrews 9 goes on to explain, the high priest would go in to the

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Holy of Holies and he would offer the sacrifice. He would have to do that every year.

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He would go in. As a matter of fact, it was such a solemn ceremony that they used to put bells on his ankles and tie a rope to his ankle and the rope would extend outside so the men could hold on to that rope while the priest was in the

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Holy of Holies. And the reason they did that was that if for a chance he had sinned, then the

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Lord would have struck him dead in the Holy of Holies and they wouldn't hear the bells ringing anymore because he would be dead on the floor so they would pull him out by the rope.

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That's how solemn of a ceremony that was. But what the Hebrew writer is doing is contrasting the fact that the high priest had to go in to the

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Holy of Holies once per year and then go out again and then go back in again the next year and then go out and then the next year and on infinitum.

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But Christ does not. The Hebrew writer is telling us his argument is that Christ enters once in to the

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Holy of Holies and he does not go out anymore. That's his argument in Hebrews 9 verse 12.

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He shed his own blood, not somebody else's blood and therefore when he goes in to the Holy of Holies, he stays and does not go out and thus he only has to do it one time.

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Once Christ enters, he is there to stay. While he is there, what is he doing?

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Well as Dr. White agreed and as I agree from the Council of Trent, he is presenting his work of the cross to the

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Father as he stays in the Holy of Holies, not having to come out any longer.

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In fact, in Hebrews 9, 23 and 24, it goes on to argue, again comparing the

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Old Covenant to the New Covenant, therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, that is the

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Old Testament sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these, that is the

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Old Testament sacrifices. Let me read that again. But the heavenly things, the things in heaven with better sacrifices than those, those over there, the

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Old Covenant. And then in verse 24, for Christ, the word for is telling us what is the reasoning behind why they need better sacrifices in heaven.

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24 goes on to tell us, it says, for Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

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Note the words better sacrifices in the plural. There are no Greek textual variants to this verse.

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I've read Protestant commentaries on this passage, and they are puzzled as to why Paul would suddenly shift from singular to plural.

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What could that mean? Apparently the Hebrew writer neither has a problem in referring to Christ's propitiatory intercession in heaven as sacrifices, plural, nor that they are, he has no problem saying that they're plural sacrifices, and he has no problem saying that they're sacrifices to begin with.

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You see, in heaven, Christ is presenting a sacrifice, according to the Hebrew writer.

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And it's not only a sacrifice, he says it's sacrifices. Provided, as Hebrews 9 .25

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goes on to say, that Christ offer himself, that Christ does not offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with the blood not his own.

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It's not saying that Christ can't offer the sacrifices in heaven, but that he does not do it like the priest of the

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Old Testament who had to go in the holy of holies and then go out because he was a sinful man and used someone else's blood.

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The high priest goes in and he goes out. Christ goes in and he stays.

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And there he offers the propitiatory sacrifice, or as the Hebrew writer says, sacrifices.

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In other words, Christ need not keep entering the holy place by shedding his blood and dying again. And this is why

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St. John Chrysostom and many other fathers said these things.

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Chrysostom said, quote, as then while offered in many places, he is one body and not many bodies.

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So also, he is one sacrifice that we offer now also, which was then offered, which cannot be exhausted.

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This is done in remembrance of what was then done. It is not another sacrifice as the high priest, but we offer always the same, or rather we perform a remembrance of a sacrifice.

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Homilies on Hebrews. Now notice, Chrysostom said, it is not another sacrifice as the high priest did.

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He's giving the same argument that the author of Hebrews gave. But we always offer the same sacrifice.

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It's no different. Theodore of Mopsuestia says, the sacrifice of the new covenant was a memorial of the one true oblation, an image or representation of the eternal liturgy, which is celebrated in heaven, where Christ, our high priest and intercessor, now fulfills his ministry.

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What he offers to the Father in the Eucharist is his very self, once delivered to death on behalf of us all.

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Catechetical homilies. Jerome held that, quote, the victim of the church's daily sacrifice is the

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Savior himself. Letters 21, 26. Ambrose says this, the oblation consists in his perpetual intercession for us before the

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Father, offering his death on behalf of us all. He is also immolated on the altar so that we, so that what we receive in communion is the paschal lamb slain on the cross, on the 12

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Psalms, 39 .8. I could go on and on and on with the fathers. I think this is a representative sample of what they held.

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This is nothing new. These men were recipients of what the apostles taught.

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Where did they get their information? They didn't make it up. If these gentlemen preached these kinds of things in those days and it was wrong, they would have been deemed heretics on the spot, because every other thing that Dr.

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Wade and I believe today about certain things came from the fathers. There's a lot that we agree on that came from the fathers.

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So it's hard to pick and choose from these gentlemen what we're going to believe and not believe, especially when we have a consensus that they have regarding the

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Catholic mass. And you'll notice they're giving the same argument that I gave. It is not a new sacrifice.

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It is representative of Christ going into heaven and offering a propitiatory sacrifice in heaven to the

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Father on our behalf as his role of intercessor. And again, I will reiterate that that is exactly or something very similar to what

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I read in Dr. White's book. And so I'm sure he'll want to explain that when he gets his chance to come up here.

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Thank you very much. We will now have opening statements from Dr.

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White. Well, good evening, especially to those of you who are here for two nights in a row.

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You are truly a glutton for punishment. And I appreciate your being here on a second evening, much less clement weather than we had last evening.

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As you have probably already seen, the majority of our debate this evening, and I think properly, will be on the subject of what the book of Hebrews teaches concerning the nature of the atoning sacrifice to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But I don't want us to skip past a couple of things I think are important to keep in mind.

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Let me begin my time with these words. It is plain to those who have been instructed in divine things that we do not offer any other sacrifice, but we make commemoration of that one saving sacrifice.

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For the Lord himself commanded us, saying, Do this in remembrance of me. And this we do in order that by contemplation we may call to mind the figure of the sufferings which he underwent for us, and may stir up our love toward our benefactor and await the fruition of good things to come.

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Now who could have made a comment such as this in regards to the Lord's Supper?

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Was it a Baptist? Was it someone in modern times? No, that was a man from the 5th century by the name of Theodoret.

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This perspective, we have already heard it said, claims to be 2 ,000 years old.

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But I would simply point out to you that major elements that are important to our discussion this evening are admitted even by Roman Catholic historians and theologians to not be 2 ,000 years old.

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That is really the whole reason why such things as the development hypothesis had to come into vogue was to explain how things that dogmatically have been defined as being apostolic in nature actually do not appear in the early church.

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For example, the very term transubstantiation, which is important, in fact vital, to the understanding of the

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Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice. For without Christ being physically present upon the altar, you could not have a propitiatory sacrifice or really any kind of sacrifice for sins at all.

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That concept obviously does not come into vogue or even the terminology itself until much later, and we can demonstrate that if that is something we need to address.

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But since this is a little bit of a shorter debate than we normally have, I think it's good that we focus primarily this evening, trusting you, the audience, to do the requisite study afterwards, if our comments should cause you to be interested in these things and to want to study them further, to focus this evening upon the nature of the atoning work of Christ.

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Now, I would invite you to look to the book of Hebrews and to consider it. We were just told that 51 % of the book of Hebrews contains warnings about falling away and apostasy.

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I would like to correct that. I would say that 100 % of the book of Hebrews is about one thing, the superiority of Jesus Christ to the old way.

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And if we understand this and understand that the writer to the Hebrews is writing to a mixed audience, that is, he's writing to the gathered church.

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He's writing to Hebrew believers who are under a tremendous amount of pressure to return back to the ways that they have left to follow

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Jesus Christ. We know that they were put out of the synagogues. We know that they would lose family members, that there was tremendous pressure put upon them to return to the old ways.

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100 % of the book of Hebrews is an argument to demonstrate that there's nothing to go back to, that Christ is the final sacrifice, the final high priest, that he is superior to everything that was a part of the old covenant to which they would be called back in the temple worship or synagogue worship, wherever they might be.

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And so keeping that in mind, then we can understand the purpose of the writer to the Hebrews.

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And when we interpret him within his own context, not within the context of dogmas defined by a church a thousand years and more, for example, the

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Fourth Lateran Council in regards to transubstantiation, not within that context, but the original context of the writer himself, then we can see exactly what it is that he would have us to understand.

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Now, really the issue this evening is going to focus around whether Jesus Christ saves sinners or whether he attempts to save sinners and makes a way, if we cooperate, available.

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And if you were here last night, that came up a number of times then. We are looking at again the conflict between monergism and synergism, between that perspective that says

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God saves by his power alone and that which says God makes us savable, but that there are things that we must do.

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We are reminded of Paul's words in 1 Timothy 1 .15, it is a faithful saying, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not simply to make sinners savable.

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But the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, Luke 19 .10. And I simply ask us the question, does he do so?

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Or again, do we need to modify that statement and say, well, he tries to seek and tries to save, but there is this problem that is in his way.

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And this comes up especially when we encounter the passages in the book of Hebrews. And I'd like to look at just a few of them.

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No one in the amount of time that we have up here can do much more than just simply present these things to you and again, place the responsibility upon you to consider the greater context that we are unable to address.

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But if we look at Hebrews 7, verses 24 -25, here the writer is demonstrating the superiority of Christ's priesthood.

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And he says, but Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently.

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Contrasting this with the old priests who, because they died, had to give up their priesthood. They were not able to perfect anyone who came unto

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God by them because of the fact of their sinfulness and the fact they did not have an abiding life.

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Continuing on, therefore, describing Jesus, he is able to do what? He is able also to save forever or to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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Now here we have the assertion of the capability and capacity and power of Christ.

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Since he holds his priesthood permanently, he is able to save the uttermost.

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Now in 1999, since Mr. St. Genes mentioned this, when we discussed this passage, Mr. St.

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Genes responded at one point, yes, Jesus wants to save, but the problem is this thing of sin.

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Well, my assertion to you is Jesus is the sin bearer. He is the one who bore our sins in his body upon the cross and therefore sin has been banished by him and therefore it is not an impediment to his accomplishing his desire in saving to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him and why is he able to do so?

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Since he always lives to make intercession for them. Jesus indeed does enter in but one time.

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However, keep in mind one thing as we look at all of these passages this evening. What is being presented as the biblical perspective on the nature of the death of Christ and its relationship to the

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Roman Catholic doctrine of the mass? You must remember that in Roman Catholic theology, and some of you may be former

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Catholics. I know of individuals here who are. You may have experienced this yourself.

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You can go to mass a thousand times, five thousand times, ten thousand times, twenty thousand times in your life and yet die impure with the temporal punishments of sin upon your soul requiring you to go to purgatory and undergo satis passio before you can enter into the presence of Christ.

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In fact, at least historic Roman Catholic theology taught, this is not popular amongst many today in the

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Roman Catholic Church, but historic Roman Catholic theology taught that you could approach the mass all those times and in fact then commit a mortal sin and be lost for eternity.

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So keep in mind that when we hear it said, well Christ is presenting his work and actually what

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James is saying in his book is the same thing as what Rome is saying, that there is a major, major difference.

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That is when I'm talking about the work of Jesus Christ and his propitiation of the sins of his people.

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I am talking about a completed work that perfects those for whom it is made, which is why

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Jesus is then able to save the uttermost, those who draw nigh unto God through him since he ever lives to make intercession for them.

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There is nothing to be added. It is not a matter of my disposition when

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I come to a sacrament that then remits a certain portion of the punishments of my sins, but not all of the punishments of my sins, hence resulting in the need for penances and things to be added to perfect me and to bring me into the presence of Christ.

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I am in no way, shape or form promoting anything like that and we must keep in mind throughout the debate this evening that this will be the fundamental issue.

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Does the death of Christ make us savable, that is, is the mass a repetitive representation of the sacrifice of Christ that gives a certain portion of grace, a certain amount of grace, a certain amount of forgiveness, but does not perfect utterly those for whom it is made or is the entire argument of the book of Hebrews in opposition to that very concept?

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Look back with me to Hebrews chapter 9. We've already looked at them in Mr. St. Janice's presentation, but listen again and keep in mind the context of the argument.

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Make yourself an individual in the early church. You're being wooed back to the old ways.

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You're being wooed back to the synagogue. You're being wooed back to Judaism. Listen to the argument of the writer.

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But when Christ appeared as a high priest to the good things to come, Hebrews 9, 11, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and cows but through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption.

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Stop right there. You see the contrast. You have the sacrifices. You have the high priest.

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You have the shedding of the blood of the goats and calves and you're being drawn back to that and the writer of Hebrews says, don't you see what has happened?

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There has been one final sacrifice and the high priest does not have to go back and forth with an imperfect sacrifice.

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He instead enters in and why does he enter in? So that he then can present an imperfect sacrifice in there that does not perfect anyone for whom it is made over and over again?

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Is the place where this imperfect, non -perfecting sacrifice made has just changed from being on the altar of the temple to being in heaven itself?

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Or is the argument that he has obtained eternal redemption? There are no bells and ropes on Jesus' leg because we know the

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Father is satisfied with his perfect oblation, his perfect sacrifice.

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You see he enters in and he sits down. The high priest had no place to sit in the holy place.

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There was no place to sit because his work was never done. But you see the Son's work is done so he sits down.

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He has obtained eternal redemption. We continue on. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, again referring to the old covenant, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, notice offered himself, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

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God. For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant so that since a death has taken place, the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

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His work is perfect in behalf of all of his people. That is why it is said in Hebrews chapter 2 that he makes propitiation for the sins of the people.

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And that is why the angel said he will save his people from their sins. That's why he is even called

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Jesus. And hence in verses 24 -28 of chapter 9, for Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

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Nor was it that he would offer himself often. And here is something I would challenge you to consider. I believe that to make any sense of the presentation that Mr.

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St. Genes is making concerning his particular understanding of these things, the idea of Christ's iterative sacrifice, what does iterative mean?

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Well, it's a linguistic term. It refers to, for example, in Luke it is said that the people would go up to the feasts.

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They were going up to the feasts. Well, it doesn't mean they were always going up. It was an iterative concept. They would go up at the appointed times.

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There was this repetition, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. That's the kind of presentation the Mass is. The Mass in an individual person's experience is not something that they're going to all the time.

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It is something they go to with frequency. Now is the idea of the sacrifice of Christ in the book of Hebrews consistent with this iterative idea of this constant representation over time?

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I do not believe that it is. In fact, the argument here is it was not that he would offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own.

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Notice it's not the going in and out. It's the offering. It's the actual offering, the sacrifice, which is emphasized by the writer of the

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Hebrews as being once for all. Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world.

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And I would point out to you that in Roman Catholic piety, the idea of Christ's oblation upon the altar, that he is called down to make that.

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It's an unbloody sacrifice, but it is still the same sacrifice. That is what is alleged anyways.

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Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to do what?

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Put away sin. And if in this debate this evening, we do not see how the writer of the

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Hebrews could say that Christ put away sin, then I would say the debate is decided. And I would remind

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Mr. St. Genes that in 1999, and by the way, I think you make those tapes available on your website? We make them available as well.

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You can get them from whichever site you'd like to get them. That was a longer debate than we have this evening, and it covered a wider range of topics.

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So I'd invite you to listen to it. Take the time to do so. But in 1999, Mr. St.

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Genes said in that debate that when we go to Mass, we are reminded of our sins.

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We are reminded of our sins. And yet the writer of the Hebrews says he has been manifested to do what?

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Put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now let me point out in just a few moments

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I have left how important this is. He continues to say, and inasmuch as it appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many, he will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

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Now, keeping in mind this important central issue and the assertion that going to Mass reminds us of our sins, look at Hebrews chapter 10.

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For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had the consciousness of sins?

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But look at this next verse, very important. But in those sacrifices, plural, there is a reminder of sins year by year.

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A reminder. The old sacrifices, by their being repetitious, is a reminder of sin.

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That was the old covenant. And if Mass reminds us of our sins, then that is also descriptive of the

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Roman Catholic perspective. But what do we have? What do we have? Look at verses 10 through 14 of chapter 10.

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By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time. See the repetitive idea?

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Time after time, the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, but he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, not one sacrifice to make sins removable through sacramental penances and forgivenesses, but having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies made a footstool for his feet.

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He is not being made present upon altars all across the world. He has sat down at the right hand of God, for by one offering, he has perfected for all time, notice those words, perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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That is the work that he accomplishes. That is what makes him the Savior. And that is why that term, reminder, that is used in Hebrews chapter 10, those repetitive sacrifices are a reminder of sins.

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Mrs. St. Janice said the mass reminds us. We are reminded of our sins. And yet when we go to Paul's discussion in 1

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Corinthians about the supper of the Lord, what does he tell us? What are the words?

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Do this in remembrance of what? Me. Not of your sins, but of one who bears your sins.

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In the old covenant, an anamnesis, a reminder of sin, there must be something more that is going to come.

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There must be something greater than the blood of goats and cows. In the new covenant, we don't look forward to some hoped for thing.

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We don't hope that we do enough things so that we can obtain justification, and we hope we don't do enough penances so that we can work off the temporal punishments of sins, and we hope that we don't commit a mortal sin right before we die and be lost.

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We are not looking forward to something. We look back to the consummation of the ages on the cross, and there upon the cross, the

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Lord Jesus Christ takes away sin. He has made an end of it. He has taken all of those things that were against us, all those commandments that were contrary to us, and what has

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He done? He has nailed them to the cross. And that then becomes the greatest apologetic to those who would be drawn back into Judaism.

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There's nothing to go to. The old has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in Him alone.

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Thank you very much. We'll now have a seven -minute rebuttal from Mr.

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St. Genes. Thank you,

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Dr. White. I will start with the last thing he said first and work my way backwards until the time runs out.

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He said that do this in remembrance of me, and then he mentioned the word anamnesis.

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But if you do a lexical analysis on the word anamnesis, and you can check this out in Not By Bread Alone, there's a whole, I think, 15 pages on it, you will find out that that is the word for memorial sacrifice.

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From the Septuagint, from its Hebrew derivatives, its cognates in other languages, that's what the word means.

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And sacrifices are offered for sin. So when we say, do this in remembrance of me, it is a connotation of sin that is being brought forth.

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It's not just a remembrance as if we're just remembering Jesus. We're remembering Him for a reason.

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He said that, he went and talked about the repetitive idea about the priest offering sacrifices over and over again.

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I've already said that. Priests did offer sacrifices, but what Mr. White, or Dr. White didn't answer is the fact that he has stated in his book that Christ is offering a repetitive propitiation to the

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Father as an intercessor. That's what he didn't answer. That is not done just one time.

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That is done over and over again. That itself is repetitive. So it's not the idea of repetitive that is the key issue here.

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It is what is the purpose and nature of what is being done. He said that,

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I said that we are reminded of our sins when we go to Mass. But if you remember when I read Dr.

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White's statement in his Fatal Flaw book, the footnote that he gave us in conjunction with that statement about Christ being the intercessor to the

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Father in Heaven was the passage in 1 John 1, verses 1 and 2. Let me read that for you.

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It says, My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin.

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And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

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And he himself is their propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

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Now you see the emphasis on sin in connection with propitiation? So if I'm going to say that we're reminded of our sins when we see the propitiatory sacrifice, is that out of line?

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No. That's exactly the passage that Dr. White quoted in his book when he talked about the propitiatory intercession to the

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Father in Heaven. He said that if we believe the

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Catholic understanding of this, that Christ would have to suffer. No, that is not correct. Christ would not have to suffer or die.

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That's why we call it an unbloody sacrifice. He suffered and died once, and he will suffer and die no longer.

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What is done is a representation of his sacrifice, of his suffering and death to the

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Father. And again, that's why it's very similar to what Dr. White wrote in his book. He said it's not iterative.

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But the fact is that Hebrews 9 .23 says sacrifices that are being offered to the

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Father in Heaven. It doesn't say sacrifice. It says sacrifices, plural. That is repetitive.

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That is more than iterative. That is something that's going on continually.

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Dr. White did not deal with that. He says, does

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Christ go into the Holy of Holies with an imperfect sacrifice? Well, of course not.

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I never said that he did. He goes in with a perfect sacrifice. He says that Christ obtained eternal redemption, and he assumes that that means that this eternal redemption is being applied automatically to a certain group of people.

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It doesn't say that. It says Christ obtained eternal redemption. It doesn't say who he applied it to.

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That's not even an issue in that verse. It says he obtained it. Why did he obtain it? Because he accomplished the work on the cross, and therefore he obtained this right of eternal redemption, whoever he wants to apply it to.

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We don't argue with that, but that's all the verse says. It doesn't say that someone is now saved and he's going to be saved forever.

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It doesn't go into that issue in that particular verse. And he says that his intercession to the

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Father is a completed work of Christ. Well, we never said it was an incomplete work of Christ.

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We say that the cross is the sacrifice. It's such a great sacrifice that we can take that very sacrifice and represent it to the

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Father at the Catholic Mass as that true sacrifice. It's a complete sacrifice, not incomplete in any way, shape, or form.

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He says that in the Catholic faith that mortal sin will make you lose your salvation. Well, that's exactly why

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I stress the point that the book of Hebrews talks about losing or falling into apostasy 51 percent of the time.

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Now granted, Dr. White said, well, it talks about Christ being the new way. Of course, I agree with that. From a general perspective, yes, the whole book of Hebrews talks about Christ being the new way, but we want to get down to specific verses.

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Hebrews 6, 1 to 6. Hebrews 10, 26 to 31. Hebrews 5, 1 to 13.

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And many more verses like that talk about falling away from the faith, very specifically.

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And Hebrews 10, 26 says, if we deliberately sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sin.

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Yes, that's why we believe in mortal sin in the Catholic Church, because it says if you deliberately sin, that sin is a mortal sin.

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And if you sin that way, there is no more sacrifice. That sacrifice is not being applied to you until you repent of that sin.

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He says in Hebrews 7, 25 that he is able to save those who draw near, and I agree with that, but it says he's able to save those who draw near.

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What if they don't draw near? Or what if they were drawing near and they stopped drawing near?

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Are they still going to be saved? The answer would have to be no. Even Dr. White would have to agree to that in his predestinarian theology.

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If they stop drawing near, that means they can't be saved. So, it's not that it's an automatic salvation that because Christ did all this work, automatically these people are going to be saved.

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No. It says he will save those who draw near. Again, it's the volitional part of man that is also required here, as all the rest of the book of Hebrews talks about.

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Thank you. We'll now have a seven -minute rebuttal by Dr.

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White. Now is when

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I have the opportunity of responding to what Mr. Sessions has had to say this time, and so we'll look at the idea of sacrifices and things like that, but I want to read you a quotation first, just so you understand exactly what is being said within Roman Catholic theology concerning what takes place in the

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Mass. John O 'Brien, in his book The Faith of Millions, wrote, When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings

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Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of men.

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It is a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the

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Virgin Mary, while the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incurrent a single time. The priest brings

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Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once, but a thousand times.

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The priest speaks, and lo, Christ the eternal and omnipotent God bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.

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Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vicegerent of Christ on earth.

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He continues the essential ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ.

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He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of alter

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Christus, for the priest is and should be another Christ."

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End quote. That is the concept to which I am responding when I speak of the once for all sacrifice of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there has been much discussion concerning, for example, the use of the plural sacrifices in Hebrews 9 .23.

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I think this is a simple category error. The simple argument of the text is that there needs to be a substantive difference between the sacrifices that cleanse in the old and sacrifices that would cleanse in the new.

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To think that the writer of Hebrews is then saying, oh, there are multiple sacrifices.

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When he over and over and over again says, one high priest, one sacrifice, takes away sin, enters in, does not come back out, is there having obtained eternal redemption on the basis of a comparison, is to completely miss the entire substance of the argument which again is addressed to the mixed audience of the church, those who are being drawn back, those who have that pressure being placed upon them.

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That completely misses, again, the argumentation of the book of Hebrews itself.

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Mr. St. Genes says that my presentation is the same thing as what Rome is saying. That is not the case in any way, shape, or form.

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When I speak of the son standing before the Father, interceding in our behalf, I am speaking of that intercession as the continuation of one work.

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Jesus Christ is the high priest. He is also, however, the offering. He has offered himself upon the cross, and now as the high priest, the high priest must offer the blood of the sacrifice on behalf of those for whom it is made.

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Remember, the Old Testament sacrifices had a specific audience, and this Jesus does.

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Now that is the presentation of a finished work. Remember the view of the Lamb in heaven. He is the

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Lamb standing as what? As if slain. He is standing. He is alive, but he is as if slain.

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Now that is the nature of this intercession for those who are in union with Christ versus the iterative, non -specific mass that does not perfect anyone.

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And Mr. St. Genes keeps saying it is a perfect sacrifice. Okay, then does it perfect anyone?

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If it is a perfect sacrifice, then who does it perfect? Why can you go to mass 20 ,000 times in your life and not be perfected by that?

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If it is the same sacrifice as the cross of Jesus Christ, and Hebrews chapter 10 tells us that it perfects those for whom it is made, then we have a disconnection here.

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It cannot be the same sacrifice. Now, Mr. St. Genes said that an omniscient has to do with sacrifice.

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Well, of course it did. But the point is that the remembrance is not offering a sacrifice for sins.

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The remembrance is of the one who sacrificed himself for our sins, and hence the complete difference between the two perspectives.

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We are remembering the sin -bearer who does what? Puts away sin, not just simply makes it possible for us to do so.

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A couple of times a reference has been made to my citation of 1 John 2 .2, as if somehow this was in reference to making my statement similar to that of Roman Catholicism.

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Again, there is everything to recognize about the foundation of salvation, being in Christ Jesus, and the perfection of his work, and my experience of it.

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Indeed, that explains the present tense of Halaskamai in Hebrews 2 .17, an issue that Mr.

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St. Genes has raised in the past as well. There is everything to recognize about the fact that I was once an enemy of God.

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Even though biblically God elects his people from eternity, there is an experience in my life of where God, being rich in mercy, calls me to himself, and the act of regeneration takes place.

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I am given faith and repentance. There is everything about that is right and proper to recognize the fact that I experience the work of Christ on an ongoing basis in my life.

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But you see, again, keep your eye on the ball. That does not make the work of Christ dependent upon me.

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For example, in the last minute that I have here, consider Hebrews 7 .24 -25 again, where it is said that Jesus is able to save the uttermost, those who draw nigh unto

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God through him, seeing he always lives to make a recession for them. See what happens when you read that text from an anthropocentric perspective?

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The description of the people who are saved by Jesus, those who draw nigh unto God by him, becomes the very limitation of the power of Christ.

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It is there continuing to come. It is there continuing to draw nigh that becomes the basis of the entirety of the work of Christ.

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And would that not destroy the very argument of the writer of Hebrews of the supremacy of Christ?

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Because I would argue that was the same thing in the Old Covenant. You see, once you identify the context of these passages, you can see that what we are talking about here is a perfect work.

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And if you add in the works of man, you destroy the argument of the writer to the

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Hebrews. Thank you very much. We will now have another seven minute rebuttal from Mr.

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St. Genes. I want to mention a couple of points

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I didn't get to mention the last time. Dr.

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White talked about the word transubstantiation as if that was something new invented by the

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Lateran Council. If you look at page 141 of my book, Not by Bread Alone, you will see all the words that the

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Latin and Greek fathers used to describe the change of substance that was happening in the

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Eucharist in the early centuries of the church. The Greeks had about nine different words. The Latin had three different words that they used.

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And finally, the word transubstantiatum in the Latin came about, and that was a development of those other words.

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So it's not a new idea that suddenly popped on the scene. He also said that this idea of ours is not 2 ,000 years old, but that's why

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I belabored the point of reading those fathers to you that talked about the sacrifice of Christ being offered to the

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Father in heaven based on the sacrifice of Calvary. I quote it to you, Chrysostom, Theodore, Jerome, and Ambrose, four major fathers of the patristic era.

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Now, on to the other points that Dr. White made. Again, he says that John O 'Brien talks about not once, but 1 ,000 times.

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Now, first of all, I would probably say at this point to Dr. White that it's better to respond to Catholic dogma than John O 'Brien, not that John O 'Brien is wrong, but that his language may not be as precise as Catholic dogma at the

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Council of Trent or a catechism or something of that sort. Second, I would say this, that the 1 ,000 times, whether it's one time, twice, 100 times, 1 ,000 times, 10 ,000 times, really makes no difference.

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I think the effect Dr. White was trying to bring about was the fact that if you hear the word 1 ,000, you think of a lot, and suddenly it becomes repetitive and all this.

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Well, the same thing is true in Dr. White's statement that he made in his book. Christ's intercession to the

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Father does not happen just one time. It happens thousands of times, and that's exactly what we say at our

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Catholic Mass. That intercession or the propitiatory sacrifice happens thousands of times for each

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Mass that occurs because people need it, because people are weak, people fall into sin, people are tempted to fall away, people have problems, and so they want to appeal to the

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Father's graces, and they can go and offer this propitiatory sacrifice to the Father, and the graces will flow to them from that.

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And they can do it as often as they want. They can do it a million times if they want to do it, and they will get those graces.

01:00:05

He says to think that the Hebrew writer is saying the word sacrifices is meaning a plural sacrifices when you read the rest of the book of Hebrews is, you know, something that we can't accept.

01:00:21

Well, basically the way I interpret what Dr. White is saying is he doesn't like the fact that the Hebrew writer uses the word sacrifices plural in this passage in Hebrews 9, 23 and 24, and so he has to say, well, when

01:00:34

I use my interpretation of the rest of the book of Hebrews, it doesn't make sense, so I'm going to discount the fact that he used this plural, and I'm not going to give you another explanation for it.

01:00:44

I just think it doesn't really mean what it says. It's plural, but we can dismiss that.

01:00:50

I'm sorry, but that's not what the inerrant Word of God would want us to do. It's sacrifices for a reason, and apparently, as I said before, the

01:01:00

Hebrew writer has no problem in calling these thousands or billions of intercessions that Christ does to the

01:01:07

Father in heaven as sacrifices. He has no problem with that. Dr. White has a problem with it, but the

01:01:13

Hebrew writer doesn't have a problem with it. He says that his sacrifice that he talks about, his propitiatory intercession that he talks about in his statement in The Fatal Flaw is the continuation of one work, but isn't that exactly what

01:01:30

I said in my opening statement and repeated in my previous rebuttal? That that is exactly what the

01:01:36

Catholic Church says about the Mass. It is the one work of the Christ of Calvary represented to the

01:01:42

Father. It is not another sacrifice. So it's superfluous to say that it's the continuation of one work, because we both agree to that.

01:01:53

He says in Hebrews 9, I think it was 10, 25 to 27, about the fact that Christ offered this perfect sacrifice, and he says if it's perfect, why doesn't

01:02:05

Christ perfect anybody? Well, if you read on page 66 of my book, Not By A Bread Alone, I deal with this very argument of Dr.

01:02:12

White, and this is what I say. The apologist overlooks several things in his reasoning.

01:02:18

One, the cross itself is limited in its power to atone, simply because according to scripture, not everyone will go to heaven, even though the same scriptures say

01:02:30

Christ died for the whole world. We read that in 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2. He says he is a propitiation for the whole world.

01:02:37

Well, if he is the propitiation for the whole world, and it's a perfect sacrifice, then why isn't everybody saved?

01:02:45

Matthew 7, 13 and 14 and many other passages say that they won't be saved. Apparently another factor exists which retards the atoning work of the cross.

01:02:56

According to scripture, that factor is faithless disobedience. Consequently, the

01:03:02

Catholic Church teaches that faithlessness retards the atoning work of the mass.

01:03:07

As St. John Chrysostom said, quote, so also was Christ offered once, but he did not take away the sins of all men because they did not will it.

01:03:18

Homilies on the epistle to the Hebrews. Number two, the person cannot benefit from the cross in the apologist's own words, quote, outside of the cooperation of the person drawing near to it.

01:03:31

Yet even Dr. White's religion says that faith in the cross is required in order to appropriate and benefit from the atonement of Christ.

01:03:40

We must also add that the apologist would be the first to criticize the Catholic Church if it taught that the Eucharistic sacrifice forgave sins mechanically without the cooperation of the participant.

01:03:51

Number three, the apologist, Calvinistic belief, Dr. White, claims that once a

01:03:57

Christian is saved, he cannot lose his salvation for any reason, including sin. Thus his attempted critique of the mass in conjunction with the possibility of being lost for eternity is only coincidental.

01:04:08

Number four, the apologist claims that Christ's suffering is sufficient, yet he does not reveal for what the suffering is sufficient, except to quote from Hebrews 9 .26,

01:04:20

sorry, my time is up. We'll now have a seven -minute rebuttal by Dr.

01:04:31

White. Ah, seven minutes is so short.

01:04:48

It may not seem that way to you, but it does to us. Mr. St. Genes said earlier that there is no better intercession than the

01:04:55

Catholic mass. But again, since the intercessory work of Christ allows him to save to the uttermost those who draw near unto

01:05:04

God by him, which is a description of them, not something they have to do to make Christ a savior, since he is able to save the uttermost, and since the mass saves no one for whom it is made, because as it has already been said, you can approach that sacrifice many times and die impure, then how can it be a better intercession than anything else, especially that which is presented in Scripture?

01:05:25

Mr. St. Genes said that the book of Hebrews does not tell us when it says Christ obtained eternal redemption who he obtained it for.

01:05:32

Yet Hebrews 9 .15 specifically says those who have been called so that they might receive the inheritance.

01:05:41

It is right there in the text from Hebrews 2 to Hebrews 9, repetitively used.

01:05:47

We heard a number of the passages about falling away from Hebrews 6, for example. We didn't hear, of course, about the passage that says, but we are convinced of better things concerning you, things which accompany salvation.

01:05:57

Again, keep in mind the audience to whom Hebrews is addressed is a mixed audience, and to assume that they're all of the regenerate is the problem that is with taking those passages in that way.

01:06:09

Now, it was said that this is the belief of all the early fathers, and yet isn't it interesting that when we read

01:06:18

Galatians, the bishop of Rome, the bishop of Rome at the end of the fifth century, he says, surely the sacrament we take of the

01:06:25

Lord's body and blood is a divine thing, on account of which and by the same we are made partakers of the divine nature.

01:06:31

And listen to this, and yet the substance of the bread and wine does not cease to be.

01:06:37

Now, if you know anything about transubstantiation, and that issue was just brought up briefly, then you know that the whole idea of transubstantiation is a change of the substance.

01:06:47

Edward J. Kilmartin, a Jesuit scholar, says, according to Galatians, the sacraments of the

01:06:52

Eucharist communicate the grace, the principal mystery. His main concern, however, is to stress, as did

01:06:58

Theodoret, the fact that after the consecration, the elements remain what they were before the consecration, which is certainly not a part of the dogma that became codified in 1215.

01:07:12

Historians recognize that this was, in fact, something that developed over time.

01:07:19

Now, again, you just heard, and I hope you caught, and again this is really putting a lot of emphasis upon you doing some note -taking or some very careful listening,

01:07:29

I hope you heard again this idea that intercession and the work of Christ is an iterative thing.

01:07:38

It is something that is repeated. While it's one work, it has to be repeated in the presence of the

01:07:43

Father. I never indicated that. That is contradictory to the perspective that I took in a book that is now 13 years old and has been out of print since about 1993.

01:07:53

That is not the position that I took. I do not believe it is an iterative thing. It is not something that just happens when we need it to happen.

01:08:01

Christ stands in the presence of the Father, sits actually, I'll take that back, sits at the

01:08:06

Father's right hand, and His finished work is what intercedes, not the application of a little bit at a time that only gives a small amount of forgiveness.

01:08:17

Remember, keep your eye on the ball. Does this allegedly perfect sacrifice perfect anyone?

01:08:24

And if it does not, it is not the sacrifice the writer of Hebrews is talking about in any way, shape, or form.

01:08:30

We also need to recognize that one of the fundamental differences between my belief in the work on the cross of Jesus Christ and our standing before God is the subject of imputed righteousness, the fact that we have

01:08:42

His righteousness imputed to us, our sins imputed to Him. That is not a part of the Catholic position, so therefore, to say that my words would somehow be consistent with that simply doesn't follow.

01:08:54

Mr. St. Genes said that when we go to Mass, we can get the required graces from the

01:08:59

Mass, but that's not the same thing as perfected. If that does not bring about our perfect peace with God, if there are still the temporal punishments of sins, it must be atoned for through satispassio in purgatory, or even the possibility of falling away completely and being lost, then that is not perfection in any way, shape, or form.

01:09:20

That is a very important issue to keep in mind as we consider these issues. Now, I want you to hear what was just said, since it's always good to focus upon what's still fresh in your thinking from what

01:09:31

Mr. St. Genes was presenting to us. He said, the cross is limited. Even in my own view, the cross is limited.

01:09:40

Well, I think we just heard an excellent presentation of why I think you all should be reformed, just like I am.

01:09:47

Because if you are reformed, you are going, wait a minute, that's not relevant to Dr.

01:09:52

White's position, because he openly affirms, writes about, discusses particular redemption.

01:09:59

And the objection that was raised was not against my position.

01:10:06

To say the power of the cross is limited, I say God's intention, salvificly, in the giving of His Son was limited and harmonious with His intention of saving a perfect people in Christ Jesus.

01:10:23

There is a perfect unity that exists between God's intention and His working that out in the cross of Christ.

01:10:31

And so, Mr. St. Genes said, well, 1 John 2 do, the whole world, yes, of Jews and Gentiles. Listen to what all the text says, and look at Hebrews again, those who are called, those who are called.

01:10:42

These are the ones for whom Christ intercedes. These are the ones for whom His sacrifice is intended.

01:10:48

And so, there's a perfect harmony here between particular redemption. I would say that the argument that he presented is very good if you're an

01:10:55

Arminian, and if you're an Arminian this evening, I hope you listen to it. Let me finish with these words from Augustine.

01:11:02

He's speaking of John chapter 6, and the Jews are asking

01:11:07

Jesus, what shall we do, they ask. By observing what, shall we be able to fill this precept? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent.

01:11:17

This is then to eat the meat, not that which perishes, but that which endures unto eternal life.

01:11:23

To what purpose do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten already.

01:11:31

That was the intention of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 6. He said, if you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourself.

01:11:38

That means if you are not spiritually united with Christ, you can have no life in yourself. It does not make reference to a physical sacramental ceremony.

01:11:47

Thank you. We're now going to be taking a short break.

01:11:55

We will resume with 15 -minute questions among the speakers, followed by 5 -minute closing statements and questions from the audience.

01:12:03

If you have questions, please submit them on a small piece of paper. There are 3x5 cards on the table in the back, starting with Mr.

01:12:14

St. Genes having questions for Dr. White. Dr. White, you mentioned

01:12:59

Pope Galatius as saying that the substance does not change. Are you aware that in Catholic teaching and the making of dogma, that the word of a pope does not create or make a

01:13:13

Catholic dogma? Yes. You mentioned that Augustine said, believe and you have already eaten.

01:13:23

Are you aware that in many of Augustine's writings, he says that he believes in the change of substance in the

01:13:31

Eucharist, that he believes it's a sacrifice, that he believes all the things that I have spoken about regarding the

01:13:38

Mass. Are you aware of that? I would not agree with that, especially in light of his teaching concerning the fact that the

01:13:47

Church has been deprived of the bodily presence of Christ until the very end of the world.

01:13:55

That is found in Tractate 92 .1 on John and in numerous other writings of Augustine.

01:14:03

I believe that there is a very wide and broad scholarly opinion that Augustine's teaching and Augustine's doctrine of the

01:14:12

Eucharist was substantially different than that of the modern defined dogma on numerous points.

01:14:22

That was pretty succinct. Are you aware that I cover the

01:14:28

Tractate 92 in Not By A Bread Alone? I'm sure that you addressed a number of issues, yes.

01:14:35

To clarify that, from pages 210 to 236, all those quotes of Augustine, including the one you brought up, are dealt with.

01:14:43

So I would encourage anyone who wants to see the explanation of what Dr. White is saying to read those portions.

01:14:51

Dr. White, you said that 1 John 1 verses 1 and 2 refers to, quote,

01:14:58

Jew and Gentile. Can you tell me where you see that in the text? Actually, it's 1 John chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, and that's the simple usage of a

01:15:07

Jewish person and the consistent usage of the Apostle John in regards to the nature of defining the

01:15:15

Greek term kosmos. As you know, John defines it, uses it in many, many different ways, and that is the consistent reading in light of John chapter 11 and numerous other passages in the

01:15:25

Apostle John. Do you know how many times the Bible uses the phrase Jew and Gentile? Jew and Gentile?

01:15:31

Yes. No, I don't think that it would necessarily always be Jew and Gentile. Sometimes it's Jew and Greek. Sometimes it's barbarian.

01:15:38

There are actually a couple of different variants of that phrase. Are you aware of how many times the Bible uses either Jew and Greek or Jew and Gentile?

01:15:45

No, I've not counted the number of appearances. There's actually three of them. I would then again ask, so my question to you is that you don't see the words

01:15:56

Jew and Gentile in this passage. You are interpreting the whole world as somehow being specified to be

01:16:05

Jew and Gentile. Can you tell me the reason for that? Like I just said, John is consistent with himself.

01:16:10

Therefore, in Revelation chapter 5, when that same author writes that Jesus Christ, by his sacrifice in John chapter 5, verse 9, and they sang a new song, saying,

01:16:20

Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you are slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and that same writer in John chapter 11 had likewise recorded these words of Caiaphas when he specifically says in verse 50,

01:16:38

Nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people and the whole nation and not perish.

01:16:45

These particular passages then come together to explain John's usage of that term in 1

01:16:51

John 2 too. I think it's just a matter of...

01:16:58

John uses the word world in at least 14 different ways between his gospel and his epistle. For example, in chapter 2, he will then say,

01:17:05

Do not love the world, nor the things of the world. That's obviously a different use of the term kosmos. All right. So if you say that the whole world refers to Jew and Gentile, are there any other ethnic groups that would be included in that?

01:17:20

Well, for a Jew, you're either a Jew or a Gentile, so that's everybody. So the answer is what? That would be everybody.

01:17:27

Okay. In other words... So that would be the whole world, would it not? Revelation chapter 5, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Okay. So that's the whole world, is it not?

01:17:35

In categories, yes. Okay. So really, it's superfluous to say that it's Jew and Gentile because there's really no other ethnic groups that John would be talking about, is there?

01:17:44

No. It's not superfluous in referring to the extent and intention of the atonement, especially when that passage is utilized by individuals to attempt to say that the propitiation is in behalf of every single individual.

01:17:57

It certainly was not under the old covenant, and to make that association under the new covenant is to...

01:18:03

John doesn't deny that, does he? I'm sorry? John doesn't deny that, does he? He certainly does. The very meaning of the word propitiation would turn

01:18:08

John into a universalist if that were the understanding of that. Where does John say that the word propitiation does not apply to everyone in the world?

01:18:17

He doesn't, because he says the word world in a different way than you're using it. Okay. So that's just your interpretation, then? Well, we all do interpret the text, hopefully, consistently with the individual.

01:18:25

I just want to make it clear that the text itself doesn't say that that's your interpretation. Is that correct? Just as your interpretation is that same thing, yes.

01:18:32

Okay. Fine. Okay. You quoted Hebrews that Christ said that he would save to the uttermost.

01:18:39

My contention is that, yes, he does save to the uttermost, but I would ask, as a corollary to that, how would you interpret 2

01:18:47

Timothy 2, verses 11 and 12? Well, I would interpret them the same way that I think we've seen...

01:18:56

Can you read those for us first, please? It is trustworthy statement if we died with him, we will also live with him.

01:19:01

If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

01:19:08

Okay. Can you read verse 12 again? If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.

01:19:15

Okay. Can you interpret that for me? Gladly. Again, this is the difference between anthropocentric religion and theocentric religion.

01:19:21

You can either understand these passages as prescriptive, things that we must do to become Christians or to stay Christians, or descriptive, descriptive of what

01:19:28

Christians do and do not do. Okay. Let me at least try to finish at least enough of the answer to give the substance of it.

01:19:35

An individual who has been united with Christ and has been changed in the act of regeneration is an individual who will not deny

01:19:44

Christ. And therefore, that is the substance of my response. Does that passage say that?

01:19:51

I'm sorry? Does that passage say anything about regenerated people? No, I always interpret scripture in its whole context, including the context of the author.

01:19:58

That wasn't my question. My question is, does that passage say anything about what you just said about regeneration?

01:20:04

No, it does not bring up the issue of regeneration. Okay. Thank you. You said that the work of Christ was complete, and I agree.

01:20:11

But the problem that I see is your application of that completed work. For example, do you not believe that faith is required for salvation?

01:20:22

Yes, it most certainly is. It is a gift of God that is one of the acts of the Holy Spirit, one of the gifts of the

01:20:28

Holy Spirit to his redeemed people. Okay. What kind of faith would you say is required of an individual to obtain the atonement?

01:20:35

Well, I didn't say that. I said that faith is something that is given by the

01:20:41

Holy Spirit. Saving faith is something that is given by the Holy Spirit to the redeemed individual, to the individual that he regenerates.

01:20:47

I did not make an act of faith a requirement for something for the atonement. All right. So then, in your view then,

01:20:55

Dr. White, when the Holy Spirit saves you, he gives you the gift of faith, you do nothing of your own.

01:21:01

Is that correct? Well, again, when you say you do nothing of your own, if you mean something that is outside of his grace, yes.

01:21:06

But faith is something that we do. It is a capacity that the Holy Spirit works in the new creation, the person who is created in Christ Jesus.

01:21:13

All right. Now you just said faith is something that we do, but then you said it's a gift of the Holy Spirit. Can you clarify that for me?

01:21:19

I think it's very clear that the Holy Spirit of God is also the source of our love, also the source of our faithfulness, the source of our forgiveness.

01:21:27

Of being merciful. Obviously the Holy Spirit of God who indwells us is able to imbue us with capacities, propensities, desires, et cetera, et cetera.

01:21:39

Okay. But you said it's something that we do. Well, faith is, yeah, faith is, God's not believing in himself.

01:21:46

Okay. So the Holy Spirit gives us the power to have faith. Would that be a correct way to assess your view?

01:21:52

True. Saving faith is, yes. Okay. Answer me this question then. Does the Holy Spirit give us the power to do good works?

01:22:00

Yes. Okay. So would you agree then that when we do good works, we are not doing something of ourselves, although in your terminology you would say it's something that we do, but it's not something that you would divorce from the grace of the

01:22:14

Holy Spirit. Is that correct? As Ephesians 2 .10 says, we have been creating Christ Jesus unto good works, which

01:22:20

God hath before ordained that we should walk in. Okay. But you agree that those good works that we were created unto are done by us by the power of the

01:22:28

Holy Spirit. Correct? Yes. Okay. You believe also the same thing about faith. Is that correct?

01:22:34

That is the gift of God by the Holy Spirit, yes. Right. So essentially there's really no difference between faith and good works since they both come from the

01:22:42

Holy Spirit. Is that correct? No. That is a tremendous logical disconnect. Okay.

01:22:47

That would be the same thing as saying since the Holy Spirit gives us patience, that makes patience the same as faith or the same as love, the same as all the rest of those things.

01:22:53

I don't mean as far as the specific operation of that particular thing.

01:23:02

I'm talking about the fact that since both come from the Holy Spirit, would it then be safe to say that they are not of my own?

01:23:11

They do not come from an unregenerate heart. They do not find their source within a human being.

01:23:17

Okay. So in that sense then there's no difference between faith and good works in the sense that they both come from the

01:23:23

Holy Spirit. Is that correct? In the regenerate person's life, yes. Okay. So then if I am given faith and good works by the

01:23:32

Holy Spirit when I'm saved, that means that my good works are also a part of the process of salvation.

01:23:41

Is that correct? Obviously I would distinguish the same way the Apostle Paul did in Ephesians 2.

01:23:48

He identified faith as a gift there and then good works being the result of sanctification in our life.

01:23:54

There is a clear distinction between those two issues. So I would allow the

01:23:59

Scriptures to speak to those distinctions. Well, if there were other passages that says that works were involved with the justification of the individual, what would you say then, that they would also be the result of the sanctification process?

01:24:11

Well, we'd have to look at specific passages to know what the context is. Well, let's say

01:24:16

Romans chapter 2 verses 6, 7, and 8, Romans 2 .13, James 2 .21

01:24:23

and 24. Well, obviously we discussed this in our debate on justification.

01:24:29

You've written an entire book on the subject. So if I, we can look at the exegesis of both Romans 2 and James 2 that you and I have offered.

01:24:35

I obviously believe Romans chapter 2 is speaking to Jewish individuals and indicating to them that the mere possession of the law does not make them right before God.

01:24:44

And in James chapter 2, obviously I argue that Tzedek Numi that is used there is a demonstration of one's relationship to God.

01:24:51

Interestingly enough, just as Roman Catholic interpreters do as well. Doesn't Romans 2 verse 6 and 7 say that everyone will be judged?

01:24:59

It does not apply just to Jews? Yes, that is a general truth. Yes, everyone will be judged.

01:25:04

Well, it's a general truth in the context that the works are going to be judged. It's not just a general truth. Is that correct? Yes, all of our works will be judged.

01:25:11

Okay. There's no question about that. Does James chapter 2 verse 21 to 24 apply to everyone in the world, not just Jews?

01:25:18

James chapter 2 verses 21 through 24, if we allow them to stand in context, refer to specifically the individual under discussion as a person who has a said faith.

01:25:29

And what James is demonstrating is the inconsistency between a person who says he has faith and has no evidence of it, just as James had demonstrated the inconsistency of a mouth that blesses

01:25:40

God and then curses men. That is the point of James. I'm not sure what you mean by applies to every man in the world.

01:25:47

Well, because everybody who's saved is going to be receiving the gift of good works from the Holy Spirit. So in that sense, there's really no difference between faith and good works.

01:25:55

So there's really no reason for you to say faith alone, because you already agree that good works are a gift of the

01:26:02

Holy Spirit, as you believe faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. So there's really no difference between the two. I'm sorry.

01:26:07

There are a truckload of logical errors there that simply ignore the basic meanings of words.

01:26:13

What are they? Aside from the fact that I thought we were debating the atonement tonight. Well, you shifted the argument to one of anthropocentric religion as opposed to theocentric.

01:26:23

So I'm just dealing with what you offered me. Well, in response, yes, you're in error, because you are ignoring the difference between sanctification and justification, the relationship between good works and faith.

01:26:36

Faith is a gift that is given by God, resulting in good works flowing from the nature. I mean, there's no end to the various clear distinctions.

01:26:43

Can you tell me a place where faith is limited to justification and does not also include sanctification? I did not say that.

01:26:49

I made the distinction between the role of faith in bringing about justification and the role that faith has in the

01:26:54

Christian life as we live day by day. All right. My time's up. We'll now have questions from Dr.

01:27:08

White to Mr. St. Genes. Mr. St.

01:27:19

Genes, according to Hebrews chapter 9, verse 26, the purpose of Christ's manifestation is to, quote, put away sin.

01:27:31

You said earlier this evening, sin is the factor that limits the effect of the cross.

01:27:41

How can sin be the factor that limits the cross if the purpose of the cross was to put away sin?

01:27:48

Well, obviously, Mr. White, since Christ has already died and went to heaven, and people are still sinning, it looks like the cross of Christ did not stop people from sinning.

01:27:57

Okay. So is it your understanding then that what I just asked is that, is it your understanding that my perspective is that the cross of Christ was to stop all human sin?

01:28:09

Or was I not asking about your assertion that it is human sin that limits the effect of the cross?

01:28:17

Well, that's why I asked you to interpret 2 Timothy 2, 11, and 12, because it says if we deny him, he will deny us.

01:28:23

Obviously, that passage taken at face value says that we do put a limitation on what

01:28:28

Christ has done. And if the intention of Christ was to save his people from their sins, and the individual who denies

01:28:36

Christ is not one of his people, wouldn't your response be rendered without merit? Well, yeah, if you want to look at it in that sense.

01:28:42

Okay. If you want to say that the people that end up saved are his people, yes, I could agree with it from that sense. But that's not where the scripture is talking about.

01:28:49

It's talking about those here and now. His people, in that sense, can be referring to the people that he talked to.

01:28:56

They're his people. He came to save them. Whether they will accept him or not, John 6 tells us that many heard his word but did not believe.

01:29:04

So what does it mean that the intention, the purpose of Christ's manifestation was to put away sin?

01:29:12

What does that mean? Well, Hebrews 2, verse 14 says that he came to destroy the power of Satan.

01:29:19

John 16, 11 says that the prince of this world will now be cast out. John 12, 31 says the same thing.

01:29:25

There's all kinds of verses that talk about Christ's work on the cross, putting away sin, destroying the works of the devil.

01:29:33

But those passages have to be looked at in the light of the fact that this work is not complete yet. It won't be complete until the end of time.

01:29:41

It is now in process right now. So the reason people sin is because Christ's work, although it was completed on the cross, the process of its working out has not been completed yet.

01:29:52

You focused upon the plural, the term sacrifices. Where does the writer of the

01:29:58

Hebrews refer to sacrifices of Christ? Say that again? Where does the writer of Hebrews? Where does the writer to the

01:30:04

Hebrews refer to sacrifices of Christ? Well, in Hebrews 9, 23 it says, with better sacrifices than these.

01:30:12

And then the next sentence in verse 24 says, for Christ did not enter a holy place made without hands.

01:30:18

The only one that can be offering those sacrifices is Christ. But the phrase sacrifices of Christ does not appear, is that correct?

01:30:25

Well, I didn't say it did. Okay, I'm just using the same questions you asked me. John 6, 35, in the words of the

01:30:33

Lord Jesus, I'll go ahead and read it if you'd like. It says, I'm sorry, 6, 53.

01:30:40

It says, so Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the

01:30:45

Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Now, I'm sure you're aware, and you may even have the direct citation of the

01:30:54

Council of Florence, which said the Jews' schismatics and heretics cannot inherit eternal life.

01:31:03

Yet today, the Church of Rome calls me a separated brother. Can I have eternal life outside of the

01:31:14

Roman Catholic Mass, the concept of the Eucharistic sacrifice? Can I have life as a person who holds the position that I hold?

01:31:23

And if so, how can I be a separated brother? I'm not your judge, Dr. White. I really can't say whether God will save you or not.

01:31:30

So from that perspective, I can't answer your question. What I will say is this, that the

01:31:36

Catholic Church teaches that unless you abide by all the teachings of the

01:31:41

Church and of Scripture and of tradition that have been handed down to us, then you will indeed not be saved.

01:31:47

Now, the Church does make an exception as to those who do things ignorantly or what they call invincible ignorance.

01:31:55

How far that extends has not really been elaborated by the Church, but there is room for people like yourself who may be ignorant of the fact that he is required to do these things, and you might still be saved.

01:32:08

But again, that's not my issue with you. I really have no room to judge whether you will be saved or not.

01:32:15

But could you comment on the phrase separated brother? How could a person who does not have eternal life within themselves be a separated brother?

01:32:25

Separated brother is not a dogmatic phrase used by the Church. It's just a colloquial phrase coming out of Vatican II that is ascribed to people of beliefs that might be similar to ours in some respects, but it really has no dogmatic value, so I really can't give you any more information on that.

01:32:41

Okay. You would admit, though, that that's a position that is very different than, for example, what you've taken in the past in our debates on this very issue.

01:32:52

It all depends on how you look at it, because I could call you my brother in many ways, just like you said the word world could be used in many ways, and the fact that you're separated from the

01:33:00

Catholic Church, I could say you're a separated brother. It all depends on how you understand the phrase. Again, it's not dogmatic, and it really is not defined, so I really can't comment any further.

01:33:10

Would you agree or disagree with the citation I gave of the

01:33:15

Jesuit scholar Kilmartin in regards to Galatius' quote? You mentioned that you talk about it in your book, but not everyone here has looked at that.

01:33:26

In light of his insistence, Galatius' insistence, that the substance remains the same, is

01:33:34

Kilmartin in error in his understanding of that?

01:33:40

And most importantly, if this was the Bishop of Rome, how could he be unaware of such an important apostolic tradition?

01:33:49

Whether Kilmartin is in error or Pope Galatius is in error, that will be decided. To answer your question, however, a pope can be in error, whether he's the

01:33:59

Bishop of Rome or the Bishop of Constantinople or whatever. The Vatican Council I, when it was formulating its dogma on infallibility, found 41 errors made by previous popes to Vatican I.

01:34:12

The dogma does not say that a pope can't make an error. What it says is when he speaks ex cathedra, that is to the whole church, universal church, on a matter of faith and morals, and it's binding on everyone, that is what is infallible.

01:34:26

Right, I wasn't raising the issue of infallibility at all. My question was, if we are going to assume that there is a uniform 2 ,000 -year -old doctrine, as you have asserted in both the debates we've done on this subject, doesn't it strike you as at least somewhat strange that the

01:34:43

Bishop of Rome would be unaware of an apostolic tradition that at that point would be a minimum of 420 to 450 years of age?

01:34:52

He might have been aware of it and just didn't agree with it. But he would be one of the very rare people in those days that didn't agree with it.

01:34:59

And that was my point to you before, was that you can't pick an isolated case out, and just because it's a pope, you know, think you have some weight with that.

01:35:07

He's an isolated case. I can give you reams of information about people surrounding his very time that believe just the opposite of what he believed.

01:35:14

And yet, of course, when you say that believe just the opposite, you are interpreting these particular words within the context of modern

01:35:24

Roman Catholic dogma. Are you not aware of many historians, both of non -Catholic and Catholic persuasion, that believe that this teaching and belief was something that developed slowly over time?

01:35:38

I don't know too many doctrines in the Catholic Church that haven't developed over time, but that does not take away from the fact that they were believed in their essence in the early periods.

01:35:47

And again, if you want to read, not by bread alone, on page 141, you'll see all the words they used were transubstantiation among the

01:35:53

Greeks and Latins, and all the times that the fathers talked about sacrifice of the mass and things of that nature.

01:35:59

But to say that because they developed somehow they were not legitimate doctrines in the beginning of time is fallacious.

01:36:05

So when you say that they used those words in such a way as to represent transubstantiation, since transubstantiation requires the philosophical basis of believing in accidents and substance and things like that, is it your assertion that all of these fathers actually held to Aristotelian philosophical categories and understood these things?

01:36:26

No, actually, Aristotelian categories are only helps to understand a very complicated issue. The fathers and the medievals took the stance that the

01:36:34

Scripture said, this is my body. That's what they began with. That's called de fide. That means that they start with that issue that this is

01:36:42

Christ's body. Then they have to try to explain how that can be. One of the helps to that was Aristotelian metaphysics of substance and accidents.

01:36:51

But that doesn't mean that the church is dependent on that. That was just the best mental concept we had at the time to try to understand what was occurring in the transubstantiation.

01:37:02

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Now, Mr. Syngenis, getting to the, I think, most important issue, you have said, have you not, that the sacrifice of Christ is perfect.

01:37:16

Can you define perfect for me? I was just asking whether you, I believe you made that specific assertion in your presentations, that it is a perfect sacrifice and yet you just said it is being worked out over time.

01:37:29

I guess my question is what you would mean when you say, and you did say that it is a perfect sacrifice, in light of the fact that I don't believe it's a bone of contention between us, that a person can approach to the mass many times in their life and yet not be perfected by it.

01:37:50

Well, who says they're not being perfected? Perfected can be understood in a progressive sense as well as it can be understood in a stative sense.

01:37:57

So is it your perspective, then, that in Hebrews chapter 10, when the apostle speaks the sacrifice of Christ and he uses this very term in verse 14, for by one offering he has perfected for all time.

01:38:13

What does perfected for all time mean to you? Well, what's the object of perfected? It doesn't give one, does it?

01:38:19

Yes, it does. Those who are sanctified. Which, when you go back to chapter 10, or verse 10, is by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

01:38:30

Okay, that would just fit into my previous explanation that the sanctification, as you well know, is a process, is it not?

01:38:37

So you believe that verse 14 means for by one offering he has perfected for all time those who will be sanctified?

01:38:49

It says are sanctified. Right. Okay. So the sanctification that you're seeing here is sanctification in, say, growth and holiness or something like that.

01:39:03

Then what is the sanctification in verse 10? Sanctified is being used as a noun. It's talking about the group of people that are sanctified and his perfect sacrifice is being applied to them.

01:39:12

It doesn't say that these people that are sanctified now are going to be saved in the future.

01:39:19

It doesn't say that they won't fall away in the future. It doesn't say anything like that. It just says that this perfect sacrifice is applied to these people that are sanctified.

01:39:27

That's all it says. Well, again, isn't perfected the verb that has as its subject he has perfected?

01:39:38

Yeah. What does that mean? What does it mean that he has? Are you not saying he will? It depends on what is being perfected.

01:39:46

That's why I asked you the question, what's the object of perfected? You said it was the sanctified.

01:39:51

The sanctified are not the object. They're the things that the perfected thing is being applied to.

01:39:57

But what is the thing that's being perfected is my question to you, if I can ask a question. Well, I was going to ask you, as I pointed out, verse 10, by this will, by this testament, we have been sanctified to the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

01:40:13

It sounds to me like you're using the term sanctified in two different ways within just a few words of themselves.

01:40:19

No, because the phrase once for all has a particular meaning in this context, as you well know. It doesn't mean that the sanctification is once for all.

01:40:27

How could it be if sanctification is a process, which you agree to? I didn't agree to that.

01:40:33

So, yes, once for all is a temporal adverb, is it not? Do you not agree that sanctification is a process?

01:40:40

Not as it's being used by the writer of Hebrews here. It means to be set apart and made holy. Okay, but do you not agree that that's a process also?

01:40:50

That's not the writer of the Hebrews' purpose here, which is what I'm asking about, since it says that it is the result of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once that results in a past tense sanctification in verse 10, being set apart and made holy.

01:41:08

How then can that fit in verse 14 when you throw it into the future and say, if we die sanctified, then

01:41:15

Christ's sacrifice will perfect us? Well, because as you well know, we don't interpret this one passage.

01:41:20

As you say, we interpret the whole Bible, do we not? We'll now close the stage and begin with Mr.

01:41:31

St. James. I want to start out by saying that the passage

01:42:23

I asked Dr. White to interpret, 2 Timothy 2, verses 11 and 12, it says,

01:42:30

If we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.

01:42:37

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

01:42:44

Now, I submit to you that that last passage I just read, verse 13, is the answer to what

01:42:50

Mr. White or Dr. White has been trying to say regarding the perfect sacrifice of Christ.

01:42:56

It says in 2 Timothy 2, verse 13, He remains faithful, he cannot deny himself.

01:43:04

That means he will do, because he has made a perfect sacrifice, all that is necessary for our salvation, because he is perfect.

01:43:14

He does nothing imperfectly. If Christ does something for me, I would expect every bit of it to be the best thing he could possibly do for me.

01:43:25

And that's exactly what this passage says. He cannot deny himself. If he were to give me something that was imperfect, he would be lying, and he would be denying himself.

01:43:39

And we know that can't happen. And I think most of Dr. White's whole contention during this debate has been that if it's a perfect sacrifice, it automatically has to end up in saving somebody.

01:43:52

That is a fallacy. That cannot be proven from Scripture. I know I understand where he gets that from.

01:43:59

He gets it from his Calvinistic theology. But that is a whole other can of worms that we don't have time to get into right now.

01:44:06

I'm taking these passages at face value. I take 1

01:44:12

John 2, verses 1 and 2 at face value. That said, that Christ is the propitiation for the whole world.

01:44:21

And Dr. White tried to lessen the impact of that by saying it referred to Jew and Gentile, but that really doesn't do anything, because there are no other ethnic categories.

01:44:32

There are Jews or there are Gentiles. So in essence, then, it is the whole world. And it says in that passage that Christ is the propitiation for all of them.

01:44:42

There is no passage in John's epistles or in the Gospel of John that says that he's not the propitiation for everyone.

01:44:52

But yet Dr. White's theology does not like that. And so he tries to lessen it by saying

01:44:58

Jew and Gentile until someone like myself comes along and says, that doesn't do anything.

01:45:04

You're stuck with what the verse says. He's also stuck with what 2 Timothy 2, verses 12 and 13 say.

01:45:12

It says, although he remains faithful and he will not deny himself, we can deny him.

01:45:21

And that is the essence of this debate tonight. Because that's why I said that the book of Hebrews, 51 % of the time, says the same thing that 2

01:45:30

Timothy 2, 12 and 13 just said, that we can deny him. If that is the case, then that means that the atonement of Christ is limited to those who do not deny him.

01:45:48

That's just logical thinking. I'm not making any of this up. If he's the propitiation of the whole world, and the whole world is not saved, then obviously the atonement is not applied to them.

01:46:00

And yet the propitiation was given to them, because it was given to the whole world.

01:46:07

Something is wrong here. It's out of balance. Now Dr. White would try to explain that by saying that, well, only the elect are propitiated, and only elect are atoned for.

01:46:20

And maybe in a sense we could all say, yes, eventually when everybody gets to heaven, we can say they're the elect and the atonement has been applied to them.

01:46:28

Yes, we could all say that in that sense. But that's not what the book of Hebrews is talking about. It's talking about us right here and now.

01:46:36

And it says that many people fall away. And it has very explicit passages that say that.

01:46:43

As a matter of fact, there's not one book in the New Testament that does not in some way say that people can fall away from the faith.

01:46:53

Every book of the New Testament, except possibly for the book of Philemon. And so when we're talking about the

01:47:01

Mass, and we say that the other part of Hebrews is talking about the sacrifice, the propitiatory sacrifice that Christ gives, we're talking about the need for that for people who want to remain in the graces of salvation.

01:47:16

And the Mass is the perfect sacrifice for that. We will now have a closing statement by Dr.

01:47:32

White. And if you have questions, please be getting them ready so that we can move quickly through those. The subject of our debate this evening is the

01:47:52

Mass, a propitiatory sacrifice. Other issues have come up. A poetic passage, in fact, it's written in poetic form in 2

01:48:01

Timothy chapter 2, addressed to the church, has been raised. And if we were discussing the issue of eternal security,

01:48:08

I'd be glad to point out the fact that this is just like Hebrews, since it is something that was said by the church.

01:48:14

We always bring those warnings to the gathered church because we do not know who amongst those sitting in front of us are of the elect and who are not.

01:48:22

Compare that, however, with the words of Titus chapter 2, verses 13 through 14, where, again, we see the difference between focusing upon a man -centered gospel and a

01:48:34

God -centered gospel. Titus chapter 2. Christians are described as those looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

01:48:41

God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us for a purpose, to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

01:48:56

Is Christ able to do that? John chapter 6 teaches us that he is able to do that. He is the good shepherd that gives his life for the sheep, and not one of those sheep can be lost.

01:49:06

When we allow the Scriptures to teach, we allow them to teach fully. When John speaks of the world, he speaks of men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

01:49:16

That does describe the very meaning of the propitiatory work of Christ. But as I point out, or tried to point out in my answer, that which is propitiatory removes the wrath of God.

01:49:27

What is the basis for God's wrath against anyone if their sins have been removed through a propitiatory act?

01:49:35

Now, I don't know if Mr. Tsigenas accepts the views of C .H. Dodd. He cites them in his book.

01:49:41

He tries to say that heloskemi, propitiation, does not actually mean to remove wrath, but it should be understood as expiation.

01:49:47

I don't know. We didn't get a chance to get into that. But Dodd has been, I think, very thoroughly refuted on that particular subject.

01:49:52

I simply finish our time this evening before our questions by reminding you of what just took place in the cross -examination.

01:50:00

We looked at Hebrews 10, and we tried to follow the thought of the inspired

01:50:05

Word. Hebrews 10, verse 10 says, By this will we have been sanctified.

01:50:11

Not, we hope someday in the future to, through a process, achieve a state of sanctification.

01:50:20

And then, because we've gone through these things, because we've remained faithful, because we've gone through the sacraments, because we've done all these things, then, will the work of Christ perfect us?

01:50:33

No. The writer says, By this will we have been sanctified.

01:50:39

We have been set apart. We have been made holy. He's not talking here about sanctification in the sense of walking through the

01:50:46

Christian life. He's talking about something that has happened. We have been set apart.

01:50:52

We have been made holy. How? Through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

01:50:59

One time. Now, if the offering of the Mass does not, as a finished action, sanctify those for whom it is made, and make them holy in God's sight, it is not the sacrifice of Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross of Calvary.

01:51:20

That is the substance of the issue. And I've said that from the beginning this evening, and if you've kept your eye on the ball, you've seen that.

01:51:28

The substance of the issue this evening is what does the death of Christ accomplish?

01:51:35

Yes, we can talk about for whom it is intended. And I think it is very, very clear that Christ lays down his life for his sheep, for his friends, for his bride, for the church.

01:51:46

We could debate all of those issues and discuss some of those a little bit even last night, but that's not the point here.

01:51:53

The point here is Rome tells us that her Mass, her

01:51:59

Eucharistic sacrifice, is the same sacrifice as the cross. And I say to you that since we see very clearly and did not get,

01:52:08

I believe, an exegetically sound response to the reading of Hebrews chapter 10, that if it stands that that sacrifice perfects for all time those that are sanctified, if it completes that work and the

01:52:26

Roman Catholic Mass does not, so that you can come to it thousands of times and be incomplete, well, the issue of the debate has been settled.

01:52:37

Now it's up to you. We've covered a lot of things this evening. Thank you for being here. But please do not leave here and go, oh, that was interesting.

01:52:46

I ask that you will go home, look to the Word of God, think on these things. Thank you very much. God bless.

01:52:56

If you have questions, please bring them up as quickly as possible. Alright, we're going to begin with Mr.

01:53:18

St. Genes. The question is, do you believe Christ's intercessory work is itself propitiatory?

01:53:27

Yes. Dr. White, same question to you. Do you believe Christ's intercessory work is itself propitiatory?

01:53:34

I'm afraid I didn't hear the response last time. He said yes. He said yes? Okay. Well, the problem with the question is that I do not differentiate,

01:53:46

I do not separate the intercessory work. The high priest must offer the sacrifice that he has made.

01:53:54

And so it is the death that is propitiatory that removes wrath. The intercession is merely the finished, completed, always present reality of that substitutionary atonement, that union of God's people with Christ.

01:54:09

Okay, Mr. St. Genes. Is it possible,

01:54:14

I'm going to paraphrase some of these to bring some of them under an umbrella. Is it possible for a

01:54:19

Protestant who understands the claims of the Catholic Church and its teachings, who rejects them, to be saved?

01:54:34

If he understands them and he knowingly and deliberately rejects them, then no, he can't be saved.

01:54:43

Dr. White, do you believe yourself to be perfect? Obviously the question,

01:54:54

I hope, was based upon the comments in the debate. And if what you're asking is do

01:55:01

I believe that my status in Christ Jesus as one united with him is that I have been set apart and perfected by Christ so that I have peace with God, yes.

01:55:14

If you mean perfect in any other way, I can assure you that everyone who knows me will testify no.

01:55:24

Hey, stop that. Mr. St. Genes, you have said that...

01:55:30

Don't I get to answer that question too? Go ahead.

01:55:37

Dr. White is not perfect. I do have to elaborate a little bit theologically.

01:55:47

And I think that's a very good question. Very, very good question. Because it gets to the essence of his problem with Hebrews 10 .14.

01:55:55

And that is that perfected does not mean that the person is automatically saved and cannot fall away.

01:56:02

Dr. White, without any information in the verse, is saying that that's what it means.

01:56:09

That's what perfected means. Now, what he is doing is he's putting his theology into the word perfected and he says that because I'm saved once, that means

01:56:19

I can't fall away. But this passage does not say that. All it says is that he has perfected.

01:56:26

It doesn't tell us what the perfection is, you see. And along those lines, if we want to argue about the fact that perfection does not mean that once you're saved, you are automatically saved and can't fall away,

01:56:37

I again refer you to the rest of the book of Hebrews. I think it's crystal clear that that book talks more than any other book about falling away.

01:56:46

Dr. White, could you explain the relationship between the warnings of 2

01:56:54

Timothy and the assurance of a believer? Yes, as I mentioned in my closing statement, both the warnings found in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 6,

01:57:06

Hebrews chapter 10, and that found in 2 Timothy chapter 2, are addressed to the church as the gathered body.

01:57:12

As such, we as the elders of the church do not have the ability to look into the hearts and minds of men and women and know who there is true in their faith and who is not.

01:57:21

And therefore, we do bring these warnings to bear, knowing that they will make those who are elect more sober in their faith, and of course our hope is that they will cause anyone to take seriously, that God will use them to take anyone seriously, the things of God.

01:57:40

But obviously, the fundamental difference between us this evening is the difference between a gospel that says

01:57:47

God has done what he can do, the rest is up to you, and a gospel that says Jesus Christ has done everything there needs to be done, and it is solely faith in him that is the means of justification.

01:58:00

That becomes, I think, the fundamental difference between the two perspectives. Mr. St.

01:58:06

Genes, you have said... Do you want to get to answer that question, too? Actually, we're doing... We're running late. Oh, okay.

01:58:13

Mr. St. Genes, you have said that popes have erred. Is there an authoritative list of when popes have spoken ex cathedra, and how do we know when a pope has erred?

01:58:25

There is no authoritative list. The Vatican Council, one, gave us 41 instances of papal error that was not ex cathedra, but there is no list

01:58:38

I can give you that says, you know, this pope spoke ex cathedra here. The Church only deals with those issues when they come up because she once tried to catalog all the traditions, and she decided not to do that, so it's a cumbersome task, and I do not vouch for the fact that they didn't do it.

01:59:00

I'm just saying that there is no such list. What was the other part of the question? How can we know when a pope has erred?

01:59:08

You can know a pope has erred automatically because another pope will say that he has erred. Dr. White, would you please comment on this?

01:59:17

Let me just elaborate, because since there was some laughter on that, it's not a funny matter. This is what the

01:59:23

Church has done. For example, James White and I have debated on Pope Honorius.

01:59:28

Pope Honorius made an error, and he said something that was wrong theologically, that he believed that there was one nature to Christ.

01:59:41

Yeah. Was it one nature? One will. One will, I'm sorry. One will to Christ. And the next pope after him said that that was an error, and he was condemned as a heretic for that.

01:59:53

So that's why I'm saying that a pope can call another pope a heretic. Dr. White, could you please comment further on Mr.

02:00:01

St. Genes' statement, quote, They can offer this propitiatory sacrifice to the

02:00:07

Father, unquote, in the light of Hebrews 9 .14, where Christ offers himself to the

02:00:13

Father. Yes. Hebrews 9 .14 specifically makes the statement that Christ, who is the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God.

02:00:26

The offering of Christ is done by the high priest and the high priest alone. We didn't get a chance to really develop this much, but I believe that the citation that I quoted, though it's not from a dogmatic source, is certainly not unrepresentative of Roman Catholic piety regarding the priesthood and the concept of a priest offering

02:00:48

Christ rather than Christ's sacrifice being solely his own self -offering is something that is not only unbiblical, but again it would go back to denying the apologetic argument of the book of Hebrews if we were to adopt that perspective.

02:01:05

Mr. St. Genes, in the light of Hebrews 6, 4 through 6, do you believe that apostasy is an unforgivable sin, that it is impossible to renew someone to repentance?

02:01:17

Yes, except the fact that it says in verse 3, if God permits. It's impossible for the person himself unless God permits it.

02:01:27

And one of the ways God would permit it is if someone else prays for that person. So, there's a yes and no to that question.

02:01:35

Yes, it is impossible unless God permits. Dr. White, this is an unusual question, but it says, is your desire to know truth or simply to be right?

02:01:52

If you know him who is the truth, then your passion will be for his truth and your desire will be to see, first of all, him glorified.

02:02:02

When you say just to be right, it almost sounds like a post -modernist question, as if you could know the truth and yet be wrong.

02:02:13

I think a person who is consistent, and I try to be very consistent in my exegesis,

02:02:19

I do not just deal with this issue. Those of you here tonight, were here last night, know this to be the case.

02:02:27

Know that my focus is not merely upon one particular group.

02:02:32

I'm not an ex -anything. My desire is to handle the word of God accurately and to honor him who is the truth that walks its every page.

02:02:42

It has been a great honor to have two men of this caliber to speak to us this evening.

02:02:48

They both have book tables in the back. If you would like to be on our mailing list for future debates involving

02:02:54

Dr. White, there's information on the church, and I believe there's some cards you can sign up in the back.