True Union with God our Father or Blind Catholic Allegiance to Mother Church
By Richard Bennett and Stuart Quint
God’s Fatherly Love Revealed in Saving Us While We Were Yet Sinners
God the Father’s love in saving us was effective: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love … that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”[1] The design and intention of God the Father was that salvation should come to us while we were sinners in and through Christ Jesus. Emphatically, grace in its most proper sense is freely as given as gift. Thus as Scripture says, sinners are saved by grace: “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”[2]
The reign of sin is overcome by the reign of our loving God’s grace; as the Scripture says, “that as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord!”[3] The abundance of grace far surpasses the evils of sin. Once a sinner believingly trusts upon Christ Jesus as his only surety and substitute, he discovers that not only is he freed from his sins, but also he is made to “reign in life.” As Scripture states, “for if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”[4]
We were saved: “to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”[5]
John 20:17 is one of the most significant statements in the entire Bible. In the four Gospel accounts of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, He constantly spoke of “My Father”; however, after His death and resurrection for the first time ever, our Lord added “and your Father.”[6] Thus the Scripture states, “Jesus said unto her [Mary Magdalene], ‘Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.’”[7]
As true Bible believers we rejoice exceedingly because for the first time ever our glorious Lord said to each believer, “My Father, and your Father.”[8] Our relationship with our All Holy God is that He personally is “Father” to each of us. In all our sharing with our Father, we look to Christ Jesus as our one mediator: “for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”[9]
In Scripture, the Apostle Paul tells us how we intimately share with our Father: “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”[10] This intimate sharing with our heavenly Father is that which our Lord Jesus Christ reveals to us calling God by the intimate Hebrew name, “Abba”; specifically, Abba Father. Consequently, Scripture proclaims: “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.”[11] Then we share with our heavenly Father, persuaded that he personally loves us and His love will never end. Thus our Loving Father commands us, “my son, give me your heart.”[12] When we see our Father’s love towards us, we delight in and rest on Him. Love is an affection of union, nearness, and contentment. As long as the Father is looked upon in any other way than acting in love towards us, our souls can remain spiritually lukewarm. To love God is to obey Him, and He commands us to rest and delight in His love.
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Love of His Father
Our Lord Jesus Christ from eternity communed with His Father. Also while on earth Christ Jesus distinctively revealed God as His Abba Father. All Christ’s prayers were addressed to His Father, with the exception of His prayer while on the Cross. What happened then is recorded in Scripture: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?[13] Thus it was that our Lord Jesus Christ’s vicariously forfeited His conscious union with His Father while He endured the penalty of our sins. This was as the prophet Isaiah had foretold when he wrote: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed [spiritually]. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”[14]
The Catholic Church Suppresses True Fellowship with God the Loving Father
Officially the Catholic Church teaches:
“No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.”[15]
This official Roman Catholic teaching is horrendous. Thus, the official teaching of the Catholic Church in its Catechism states that Catholics believe that, “the Church is the mother of all believers.” It is noteworthy that in the official Catechism of the Catholic Church: part one, section two, article 9 states, “I believe in the holy Catholic church.”
Consequently, being a Catholic requires a relationship with “the Church as mother.” The fact is: there is no Mother acting as mediator between God the Father and men and women.
What the Roman Church imposes on their men and women is blasphemous. For this blasphemy, may the Lord God Almighty show His vindication against their Pope, Cardinals, Vicars Apostolic, Archbishops, Bishops, Monsignors, and their Priests.
God the Father Loves True Bible Believers
We realize that our heavenly Father is the great fountain of all gracious intercommunication and fruits of love. This is why Christ came to reveal God as His Father and our Father; even in the loving, endearing term: “Abba Father.” Then more and more we realize that “God is love.”[16] He eminently portrays Himself to us as love. Thus, His Word continues, “He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”[17] Distinctively, our Father loved us as Scripture states; “I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you.”[18]
Then the Holy Spirit unmistakably showed our Father’s love in sending His Son, Jesus Christ, who by His grace brings us to salvation and instructs us how to live the Christian life. Regarding “love,” Jesus Christ our beloved Savior told us, “I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loves you.”[19] Our loving Abba Father himself loves each one of us eminently; we should resolve to intimately share with Him in His love.
Our Father’s desire is that we should love Him with all our heart so that Scripture is fulilled as we live from day to day. As Scripture so wonderfully proclaims: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”[20] “And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.”[21] Consequently, our loving Abba Father wishes that we confidently commune with Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ offered the following prayer for all those who would genuinely believe in God as their Father, “Holy Father, keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one, as we are.”[22] In contrast, the official law of the Roman Catholic Church enunciates the necessity of submitting one’s highest faculties, that of mind and will, not to God the heavenly Father, but to the Supreme Pontiff in Rome.[23] Thus, the official law of the Roman Catholic Church states:
“A religious respect of intellect and will, even if not the assent of faith, is to be paid to the teaching which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate on faith or morals…”[24]
The Lord Jesus Christ commands, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”[25] One cannot serve two sovereigns, for the Lord’s command contradicts that of the Pontiff of the Roman Church. A man cannot be impartial between two Masters who are incompatible and demanding total allegiance. Consequently, when there arises a necessity of a choice, you as a Catholic man or woman must decide who indeed Who your Lord is. The Pope or the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Our Loving Father Is Sovereign over All
God is all-loving, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. The Lord God is sovereign with complete, supreme, and universal power of all things, in heaven and on earth. However, even on the topic of the sovereignty of God, the Catholic Church’s official oppositional claim is stated in the following words:
“For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”[26]
Consequently, the Roman Pontiff attributes to himself the sovereign rule of the entire Church that in reality belongs to the Lord God alone.
Let us make no mistake. The Catholic Church throughout its history has persistently and arrogantly assumed and appropriated to itself the offices of the Heavenly Father as original caller, Jesus Christ as supreme head, and the Holy Spirit as the only comforter of the true Church.[27] It has always been the mission of the Roman Church to proffer counterfeit doctrinal forms, specious rituals and humanly devised religious services to obscure the Divine work in the salvation of sinners. The entire Roman Catholic system is designed to obscure the true salvation message.
Catholicism binds men and women to herself in servile fear and dependence on the Church of Rome. The fact that a mere, mortal man should take the title of “Holy Father the Pope” upon himself betrays the possession of malicious pride and marks him out as one of the chief enemies of God and man.
The True Love of God Manifest by Giving His Son for Us
The Lord faced the sincere and devout Pharisees with a very strong word. They were looking to their leader and chief, Caiaphas, the High Priest. Christ the Lord said to the Pharisees at that time, “if you believe not that I am he; you shall die in your sins.”[28] Like the Pharisees, many present-day Catholics look to their Pope. And likewise today, as with the Pharisees, if you as a Catholic continue to recognize the Pope as “Holy Father,” you are in fact denying our true Father God and His Son.”[29] Also, if you persist in your sins, you likewise will die in your sins and face the angry, wrathful judgment of God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ died in place of true believers. His life and finished sacrifice alone are the ransom for true believers as Scripture states; “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”[30] That was the price demanded by the All Holy God in order that His justice might be satisfied in the forgiveness of sins. As a result of this payment, a true believer who places his or her faith in Christ Jesus alone is freed forever from his or her sins. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”[31] By our Father God’s gift of faith in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, one must believe these facts as we already saw in Scripture: For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”[32]
A Personal Word to You, Dear Catholic Friend
Dear Catholic, the Scriptures make clear that by nature, we are all born “dead in trespasses and sins,”[33] and in practice, each of us rebel against the All Holy God. Therefore, we justly fall under the curse of the Law. Yet, the love of the heavenly Father, through the Gospel of grace, rescues a person from His fiery wrath. By means of the conviction of sin, placed on the human heart by the Holy Spirit, He by His grace alone turns a person to Himself in faith alone for the salvation that He alone gives. This salvation is based on Christ’s death and resurrection. As a result men and women believe on Jesus Christ the Lord alone, again we quote Ephesians 2:8, 9: “for by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast”. If you have in your heart really prayed this salvation to be yours then you can be sure that the Lord God will faithfully hear your prayer. Salvation not in any Church but in Christ Jesus alone, praise be to God for the gift of grace in Jesus Christ’!
From all the truths we have seen in this encouraging article we lift up our hearts with deep love and gratitude to our Loving Father and Jesus Christ: His Son, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”[34]¨
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Thank you,
Richard
[1] I John 4:9-10
[2] Ephesians 2:8-9
[3] Romans 5:21
[4] Romans 5:17
[5] I Peter 1:4-5
[6] (Underling added)
[7] John 20:17 (Underlining added)
[8] Ibid.
[9] I Timothy 2:5
[10] Romans 8:15
[11] 1John 3:1
[12] Proverbs 23:26
[13] Matthew 27:45-50
[14] Isaiah 53::3-6
[15] Catechism, of the Catholic Church Para 181
[16] 1 John 4:8
[17] 1 John 4: 10
[18] Jeremiah 31:3
[19] John 16:26, 27
[20] 1 Corinthians 2:9-10
[21] Jeremiah 29:13
[22] John 17:11
[23] https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/papal_primacy.htm 3/13/19
[24] Code of Canon Law 752
[25] Matthew 22:37
[26] Catechism of the Catholic Church Para 882
[27] John 6:37-40, Vid to: 14:26, 15:26, 16:7.
[28] John 8:24
[29] “He is antichrist that denies the Father and the Son.” I John 2:22
[30] Mark 10:45
[31] Romans 6:23
[32] Ephesians 2:8-9
[33] Ephesians 2:1
[34] Romans 11:36
