When I was younger, I remember the Church sounding a warning of the New Age bogeyman (religious relativism). As I aged, I watched this “New Age movement” infiltrate society. Many Christians thought it simply burnt out and disappeared, but it didn’t. As a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough, this fringe boggart adapted and expanded and assumed new monikers: moral relativism and cultural relativism. These further progressed into post modernism.
What happens when large segments of society adopt this spiritual poison? Well, the members of your Church are made up of that society, and their children are steeped in this satanic philosophy. It infects these kids, which as they age backwards infects the Church from within.
And what is it called when the New Age movement infects the Church? Ecumenism.
The fruit of this progressive anti-God movement was the stupification of the Church. Ecumenism is not possible if Christians are educated and Biblically literate. But the embracement of moral relativism has lead to a quenching of the Spirit’s guiding voice, as the Church stumbles over itself to appease Satan and spite God; embracing lifestyles that God has told us He hates. Yes, hates. The Churches new Golden Rule is “to be nice”. And nice apparently includes accepting and loving that which is detestable to God.
So I will redefine ecumenism as theological relativism (or denominational relativism). And this takes us back to our confused Pentecostal pastor and his mistaken views on the Catholic Church.
I did mention there are things I admire about the Catholic Church. One such thing is their stead fast adherence to Catholic doctrine. Ecumenism doesn’t affect them. It is affecting the Protestant churches. The Catholics have taken more care and due diligence in maintaining their aberrant religiosity than the Protestants have at maintaining Biblical truth. But this article is not to sieve Catholicism to find specks of gold, it is to look at all the filthy dirt that those specks are buried in. Today we will look at the elephant in the middle of the living room, the pachyderm the Pentecostal couldn’t see.
May I ask you, what is the Gospel?
The Gospel is the New Covenant. The New Covenant is God’s instruction to us on how to approach Him, and on how to please Him. It is different than the Old Covenant and replaced it.
The Old Covenant had a priest class and a sacrificial system. God resided in a temple: One specific temple on one specific point of land. This is why Jews would point towards that temple when they offered their prayers three times a day: because God was there. The temple was where man could find God’s holy presence. Yet we could not approach Him in that temple. He is absolute holiness, and our iniquity is an affront to that holiness. Imagine the level of pride that a man would have to have to presume himself worthy to step into God’s holy presence. The man might as well step into a vat of acid and presume it will not burn him. Holiness and iniquity go together like matter and antimatter: they don’t. The unclean are destroyed in God’s presence.
But when they came to the threshing floor …, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. 7 And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. 8 David became angry because of the Lord’s outburst against Uzzah (…). 9 So David was afraid of the Lord that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” 10 And David was unwilling to move the ark of the Lord into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11 Thus the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. (2 Samuel 6:6-11 NASB)
The arc of God was holy. Holiness is absolute. If I stick my hand into an electrical panel I will electrocute myself and die. God made electricity and God made the laws of science that govern electricity. Yet no one would question God for my electrocution. If electricity is mishandled it kills us. We know that, we accept it. How much more so for God’s holiness? And notice how this affected David. “David was afraid of the Lord that day”. So afraid of God’s holiness that he refused to bring the arc into the city where he resided. David was afraid because he knew he was sinful (“How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”), and this fear guided David not to vex the Holy God he served.
This is part of the purpose of the Old Covenant. God is holy. We are sinful. God is terrifying. And fear removes our irreverence towards God. Isaiah stepped into the presence of the Holy God, and he was terrified, because he knew he was sinful, and that God was holy. And he knew what that meant.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)
Yet God’s angel took a coal from the alter of burnt offering and touched Isaiah’s lips and made them clean.
“Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7 BSB)
(Notice that not even a seraphim would touch the holy coal with it’s bare hands. It used tongs).
Isaiah had found his unholy self in the presence of the holy God. Hikers feel terror when they encounter an enraged grizzly bear charging at them. And that’s just a bear. Imagine finding yourself standing in the presence of God Almighty!! Isaiah was like Uzzah, his hand was metaphorically on the arc, his hand was in an electrical panel, he was a dead man standing, awaiting God’s burning anger to consume him.
But there was a difference. Uzzah had thrust himself into God’s holy presence on his own terms. He was unworthy and came uninvited. Uzzah’s pride led him to approach God in a cavalier manner. He disobeyed God’s explicit warnings, meaning he presumed to attempt to please God contrary to God’s explicit instruction. God told him not to touch the arc, yet he put his hand upon that which is holy. God told him he would die if he did this. Yet he did it anyway. And his life was demanded of him for his insolence, as (I surmise) an invisible angel struck him down with a sword (Numbers 22:22-24).
Yet this is markedly different than what occurred to Isaiah. Isaiah did not arrogantly enter God’s presence uninvited. God brought him there. And irrespective of how it occurred, Isaiah knew he was dead, because uncleanliness is the antithesis of holiness.
“"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined!”.
Isaiah knew he was unworthy to enter God’s presence and that there was nothing he could do or say to curb his imminent destruction.
Yet God loves a man of a contrite and humble heart. He loves a man that fears Him enough to listen to Him and to respect Him. Isaiah was impotent to save himself, so God provided a seraphim that used the alter of sacrifice to make him clean. A seraphim acted as his intermediary, on God’s behalf, to make him worthy to stand in God’s presence. Isaiah could not do it himself.
We can not presume to enter God’s presence on our own terms, of our own accord. In medieval times there was protocol to enter the presence of a monarch. If you broke the protocol it was disrespectful, and your head could be chopped off. God provides the means for us to approach Him. And His protocol is not arbitrary, it is essential. His holiness predates creation. His moral law predates the law of gravity. It flows from His character. It is who He is.
God tells us how to approach Him safely. And He teaches us the importance of holiness in the process. And how serious sin is.
God made a covenant with Moses, the Old Testament documents this covenant. Within it God provides intermediaries for His people to preform sacrifices for the removal of our sins. This special class of servant was called the priesthood. God indwelt the temple. To remove my sins, I would travel to where God was, to His temple, and provide a priest with the required ingredients for the sacrifice that God required of me (such as a lamb). The priest would preform this on my behalf and the blood of the lamb would remove my sins making me clean in God’s eyes.
God is holy. We must approach Him in exactly the way He instructs. To do otherwise is to act in the arrogance of Uzzah. Even if our flawed measures come from good intentions, we bring destruction upon ourselves. This is because our good intentions are not really good intentions, but disobedience. We are telling God we will not approach Him as per His instruction, but will instead approach Him according to our instruction. We will provide the means for our salvation and He will comply. Such arrogance.
Saul exhibited this arrogance. He did not comply with God’s instruction. Saul felt a priest unnecessary to offer the sacrifice, but would instead take that mantle upon himself and preform the rite of the priest himself, contrary to covenantal law.
8 Saul waited there seven days for Samuel, as Samuel had instructed him earlier, but Samuel still didn’t come. Saul realized that his troops were rapidly slipping away. 9 So he demanded, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings!” And Saul sacrificed the burnt offering himself.
10 Just as Saul was finishing with the burnt offering, Samuel arrived. Saul went out to meet and welcome him, 11 but Samuel said, “What is this you have done?”
Saul replied, “I saw my men scattering from me, and you didn’t arrive when you said you would, and the Philistines are at Micmash ready for battle. 12 So I said, ‘The Philistines are ready to march against us at Gilgal, and I haven’t even asked for the Lord’s help!’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came.”
13 “How foolish!” Samuel exclaimed. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. Had you kept it, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. (1Sam 13:8-13 NLT)
As you can see, Saul actually seemed to have good intentions. He believed in God and wanted God’s blessing in the approaching battle. But he didn’t respect God enough to obey Him. He trivialized God’s commandments. And his pride was such that he thought he could break God’s commandments while seeking God’s favour. Saul acted as a priest, contrary to the covenantal law. Perhaps he presumed God was too loving to care. Perhaps he thought good intentions were enough? Whatever his rational, he was wrong and didn’t understand the affront to God’s holiness he had committed. But this is reflective of his heart, and we see it again later.
God commanded Saul, “‘I have decided to settle accounts with the nation of Amalek for opposing Israel when they came from Egypt. 3 Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalekite nation—men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.” (1Sam 15:2-3 NLT).
God was orchestrating a righteous judgement and had chosen Saul to implement it on an iniquitous people: a people that were beyond saving. But as Saul always does, he only partially obeyed. Meaning, he disobeyed. He disliked aspects of God’s plan and corrected them.
7 Then Saul slaughtered the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, east of Egypt. 8 He captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everyone else. 9 Saul and his men spared Agag’s life and kept the best of the sheep and goats, the cattle, the fat calves, and the lambs—everything, in fact, that appealed to them. They destroyed only what was worthless or of poor quality. (1Sam 15:7-9 NLT).
13 When Samuel finally found him, Saul greeted him cheerfully. “May the Lord bless you,” he said. “I have carried out the Lord’s command!”
There’s something that I find frightening in this verse, Saul doesn’t seem aware of his foolishness. He was willingly disobeying what God had told him to do. He defied the Lord’s instruction. Yes, he had upheld much of what the Lord instructed, but he didn’t kill the king. Furthermore, God had told him to kill all the animals and Saul had essentially said, “no”. There is no doubt that Saul believed in God. And Saul did wish to offer God sacrifices from those captured animals. But that was not enough! We do not dictate how we approach God. God will not accept us if we disregard His holiness and consider our opinions above His instruction. We are not truly serving Him then, we’re only serving ourselves. Saul wanted to profit by playing odds against God. And he lost. Samual pops Saul’s bubble and offers colossal righteous correction:
14 “Then what is all the bleating of sheep and goats and the lowing of cattle I hear?” Samuel demanded.
15 “It’s true that the army spared the best of the sheep, goats, and cattle,” Saul admitted. “But they are going to sacrifice them to the Lord your God. We have destroyed everything else.”
16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Listen to what the Lord told me last night!”
“What did he tell you?” Saul asked.
17 And Samuel told him, … the Lord sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ 19 Why haven’t you obeyed the Lord? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord’s sight?”
20 “But I did obey the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but I destroyed everyone else. 21 Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied, … because you have rejected the command of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king.” (1Sam 15:14-22 NLT)
Saul thought that he was pleasing God, even though he didn’t adhere strictly to God’s instruction. He wasn’t pleasing God, he was delusional.
“Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” (1Sam 15:10-11 NLT)
This is not where we want to find ourselves. We approach God reverently and obediently. Saul disregarded God’s specifics as generalities and was rejected by God. Old Testament protocol is laid out like a legal document. A priesthood would be our intermediaries between God and ourselves. To try and atone for your sin outside of God’s ordained priesthood was impossible. You do it God’s way or the highway, and that highway leads to hell.
Enter the New Covenant.
The New Covenant is a new legal agreement between God and us.
Imagine I was leasing an apartment. I had signed a tenant agreement which contractually obligated me to pay 1000 dollars per month for rent. This contract would remain in force for 2 years. And it further dictated that I wasn’t allowed to own pets.
At the end of those 2 years it would be null and void. A new rental agreement would then have to be signed. Under my new agreement I only had to pay 500 dollars per month for 5 years. And I was now allowed to have a pet. But not just any pet, It specifically said I could only have a cat.
The point here, is that even though the two contracts might still have some commonalities, I am no longer under the old contract. I do not have to pay 1000 dollars anymore. And I can now own a cat. If I get a dog I will violate the agreement and will be kicked out of the apartment. It has to be a cat or nothing. If the landlord informed me my rent was due and he wanted a 1000 dollars, I would inform him that that was the price under the old contract, and that under the new one I only had to pay him 500 dollars. The contracts are different. Similarly, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are different.
We can not please God by abiding by the Old Covenant. We need the New one.
Under the New Covenant, Jesus died for our sin. He was the sacrificial lamb that the Old Testament sacrificial system foreshadowed (Colossians 2:17). We no longer need to sacrifice animals for our sins. We do not need their blood anymore. He died once, for all sin (Heb 10:12).
Under the New Covenant, Jesus has become our high priest and we are His priesthood of believers (Heb 4:14-16). The Old Testament priesthood is obsolete under the New Covenant. We do not need priests, we are priests (1Pet 2:5-9). And the high priest which could enter the presence of God, in the Holy of Holies, has been replaced by Jesus, Who intercedes to God directly on our behalf.
God used to dwell in the holy of holies in the temple. Now God dwells inside of His followers. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God indwells us. Immanuel means God with us.
Back to the Catholics.
If you look around the world today, you’ll see there are a couple groups that are trying to adhere to one of these covenants.
One is the orthodox Jews. They have missed the Messiah and as such, have missed the New Covenant. They live under the Old Covenant. Yet, they live in violation of it, for they do not offer sacrifices for the remission of sins. They try to reinterpret a couple of verses to justify this, but the weight of the Torah is against them. They are like Saul and feel they are doing good enough, despite violating the virtual entirety of Old Testament law. And even if they did maintain the sacrificial system, it is insufficient and has been replace with a new deal. God told them this, but they did not listen. They are destined for damnation and need to repent and accept the Saviour they rejected.
The second group are the children of God. They follow the New Covenant.
And the last group are the Catholics. They are an amalgamation of the two. They did not fully leave the Old Covenant behind, nor did they fully embrace the New one. They are the theological offspring of the Judaizers of the New Testament. They are a confused mishmash that seek holiness on their own terms, and not on Gods.
Every sabbath the Catholics venture to their Church where a priesthood awaits them. A fake priesthood that is a remnant of an old and expired Covenant. This priest is still performing the weekly sacrifice. The priest offers the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass. Literally, the blood and body of a Lamb (the Lamb of God) are sacrificed on an alter for the removal of our sins. They have maintained this vestige from the Old Testament, merely substituting Jesus in with a miraculous transubstantiation. This is a dangerous blurring between the Old and New Covenants. As I have mentioned, God is holy, and demands our obedience in approaching Him. Just as Saul could not offer atonement for the sins of Israel, so a Catholic priest cannot offer atonement for Catholics, or for anybody. Good intentions are irrelevant. Saul had good intentions. But they were sinful because he disobeyed what God had told him to do. Catholics are breaking the New Covenant and are not covered by it’s grace. They are following in Saul’s footsteps.
Jesus Christ is the Mediator between us and God. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). The Bible tells us that “Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us." (Acts 4:12 GNB).
Why would I plant another man between God and myself? Why would I make a man-made addendum to God’s covenant that creates an additional mediator for my sins? I do not need a priest to enter the temple on my behalf. I am the temple and God indwells me (1 Corinthians 3:16: 1 Corinthians 6:19). These priests disobediently elevate themselves like Saul did, and consider themselves worthy to preform an act of atonement in violation to God’s clear instruction. This is exactly what Saul did. They follow Saul’s folly and will reap his reward. God does not take these things lightly.
And yet Catholics do not limit their sacrilege merely to a fake priesthood and a fake sacrificial system, they further compound their errors by also positioning Mary as a intermediary between us and the Lord. And they even do this with the saints. These are not mediators that bridge Catholics to God, these are walls that keep them away from God.
Idolatry is a big deal. And Catholics are idolizing Mary and praying to her. As Jesus was a perfect man without sin, so they have crafted the odd doctrine of the immaculate Mary, and pronounced by papal bull that she was also free of original sin (Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854). To them, Mary was without sin, the perpetual virgin, and they pray to her to intercede for them to Jesus, and then Jesus likewise intercedes for her, for them, to the Father (yes, that is confusing). They are dangerously close to making Mary an anti-Christ. Mary is not supposed to be in this equation. She will not intercede to Jesus for you. That is forbidden and unnecessary. Why would I call out to wherever Mary might be stationed in this huge universe, when Jesus’ Spirit resides within me, in communion with my soul? Mary is not with me. The Holy Spirit is.
I attended my great nephew’s christening at a Catholic church. I noticed an odd room to the side of the sanctuary that was full of statues. They were statues of saints. And people were in the room praying to the saints. I don’t care how they try to explain it, those statues were idols. These Catholics were bowing and praying to idols. Good intentions pave the roadway to hell.
The idols of the nations are … made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. Psalm 135:15-18 (NIV)
Those who trust in them will be like them, blind and deaf to God. Damned.
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