Like vultures around a carcass, there is but one different spectator - Are you one?
Here is a series of VERY SERIOUS pages that will provoke thought and even enlighten you:
Do they abide by their own Bibles, and God’s Commandments or not? It is wise to note their actions NOT their words. Find out how they reverse-engineer (oppose) the Bible! These slides are not for fun or entertainment. They intend to teach the truth about the clap trap of religion, and an eye opener to save your soul.
•This document should not be taken as against the churches or priests, but against lies and deceit.
•If you believe in Christ as Our Saviour and the Bible as the Word of God, then its full significance is better understood.
•Even if you are not a believer, pointing out what priests should do, rather than what they are doing is important to highlight.
People who break the Commandments, are liars!
1 John 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth NOT His Commandments, is a LIAR, and the truth is NOT in him. We either accept this Biblical fact or not.
The 2nd Commandment debate
•The Second Commandment is perhaps the most difficult to fathom out of the other Commandments, and not just because of the different aspects within Exodus or Deuteronomy.
•There seems to be lots of moot points, especially for Roman Catholics and other Christians, but this Commandment is “clear” for Muslims and Jews.
•Nowadays the question of images and statues does not seem to bother Christians much. It did some/many centuries ago.
A review of the 2nd Commandment:
•Let us have DEUT: 5:8 Thou shalt not make thee [ANY] graven image, [or] ANY likeness [of ANY thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the waters beneath the earth [neither shalt thou possess them if others make them]:
•5:9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the "I AM" thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate [or disobey] Me,
The 2nd Commandment has three main points:
1) Not to make any graven images or likeness that is in heaven, on earth or in the waters
2) Do not bow to them
3) Do not serve them
•So if you have an “issue” with point 1, would you not at least consider point 2 and 3 above too, in combination?
Iconclasts vs Iconphiles debate
•iconodule (Greek eikono-doulos "One who serves images"; also iconodulist or iconophile) is someone who espouses iconodulism, i.e., who supports or is in favour of religious images or icons and their veneration,
•iconoclast someone against the use of religious images.
The “Images” controversy – removal & reinstalling of icons and statues
•Against Icons This was was instigated by Byzantine Emperor Leo III in 726 and ordered the removal of the image of Christ above the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople. A wider prohibition of icons followed in 730.
•In favour: “St.” John of Damascus “argued” successfully that to prohibit the use of icons was tantamount to denying the incarnation, the presence of the Word of God in the material world. Icons reminded the church of the physicality? of God as manifested in Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church, via the various Synods has undergone several “transformations” taking several centuries regarding the “image” debate
•Synods are “supposed” to be guided by God! Are they? God’s Words in the Bible, are Everlasting, but what about bishops’ deliberations? Let us see…
•Synod of Elvira (300-314)[1]
•Conclusion on the “Images” debate:
•Canon 36, forbidding the use of images in churches. "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration."
•[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Elvira
Council of Hieria
•333 bishops attended the AD. 754 council. It endorsed Constantine V's iconoclast position.
•Conclusion "the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation--namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods. . . . If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc. . . . let him be anathema."' This council declared itself the 'Seventh Ecumenical Council'
•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Hieria
Lateran Council of 769 &
Second Council of Nicaea in 787
•The rulings of the Council of Hieria were anathematized at the Lateran Council of 769 before being overturned almost entirely by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which supported the veneration of icons.
•So we see that “Divine inspiration” works differently in the minds of bishops in different Councils!
Some history
•When Leo IV died in September 780, his son Constantine VI, aged 10, crowned co-emperor by his late father, became Emperor under the regency of his mother Irene (an Athenian iconophile). The young Emperor's mother had a goal: restore the veneration of icons.
•Iconoclasm was well entrenched in the high echelons of the State, including the Church administration and the armed forces. In the Summer of 786, with the help of the new Patriarch Tarasius, who was her former secretary, she convened a Council in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople. It was a vain and failed attempt. The soldiers who served in the city garrison's regiments, faithful to the late Constantine V's Iconoclastic policies, entered by force of arms the Church and dispersed violently the assembled Iconophile clergymen.
•In 787, Irene dispatched the Iconoclastic regiments to eastern Asia Minor to fight the Muslims, to get them conveniently out of the way. In the Autumn of 787 she held quietly at Nicea, an Ecclesiastic Council (known as the Seventh Ecumenical Council). The assembled clergymen treated the attending Iconoclastic clergymen, who were willing to repent, with extreme tolerance. The Council reaffirmed the official dogmas of the Church and in October 787 condemned as heresy the Iconoclastic positions. The icons were back.
•Conclusion: The Councils had usually an agenda one way or another, and at times not according to Scripture, but according to the rulers of the day!
To be continued...