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Hi Dave, welcome back. You are right about Jesus
being the cornerstone in that passage. But in any case the
cornerstone is part of the foundation and doesn't lay itself. Elsewhere Christ
is called the foundation (1 Cor 3:11, the verse that was in my head) but not in
the same sense, since Paul is laying it.
What I was trying to get across, rather
ineptly perhaps, was that the relationship of Christ to the church
is completely different from that of any other "church-founder" to the
church s/he founded. I was also talking partly just about
the connotation that the phrase "founding a church" has for me. It
sounds to me like starting a new religion or belief system (whereas note that
the prophets are included in the foundation in Ephesians), on one's own
initiative and on the basis of a private revelation. That isn't what Jesus
did. But anyway, I didn't mean to sidetrack you--continue your conversation with
John!
Debbie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 12:41
AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] TruthTalk]
Eternal Judgment
Debbie Sawczak wrote:
Here is how this "Protestant" thinks: Jesus
didn't "found a church" at all. That has jarred for me since childhood
as a thorough misunderstanding. It makes me think of a voluntary
association of people who subscribe to a new set of religious ideas and
practices thought up by (or revealed to) Jesus, and by which they
hope to find their way to God (only Jesus managed to get
it right, like solving a riddle, so it was the right church).
Jesus didn't lay a foundation, he is and always
was the foundation. DAVEH: That seems somewhat
contradictory to what Paul described in Eph 2:19-20, where the
fellowcitizens with the saints and the household of God (is that not
referring to the greater congregation of the Church as a whole?) were given a
foundation of apostles and prophets (Jesus being the cornerstone) to form the
(hierarchal) framework of the Church. Could that not be suggesting that
a True Church could not exist without apostles and prophets, nor
without such would we come to a unity of faith and perfecting of the saints as
mentioned in Eph 4:11-14? As I see it, Debbie....I respectfully
disagree. I do think Jesus gave us a foundation of A&Ps, upon which
he founded the True Church, so to speak.
What he did was of a completely
different order than any "church founder", way more radical: unite God
and humanity in life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The result is that
our corrupt humanity is made new, his faith is produced in us, and we
are included with him in the fellowship of God.
Debbie
DAVEH:
Is this a commonly accepted theory of Protestantism? LDS folks
believe such thinking is flawed, John. IOW.....I believe Jesus
founded the RIGHT CHURCH
and a measured amount of legalism is important and necessary within that
True Church.
What our
Mormon friends do not understand and what you will not admit to,
apparently, is that there was no time when the RIGHT CHURCH EXISTED
except in the Mind of God and via the blood of Christ. The
First Church was steeped in
legalism.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dave Hansen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.langlitz.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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