Shocking is the
defeatism of the Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible:
“Third, in spite of our
faith in God, we will inevitably
fail.” (Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible, p.
11). This is fatalism, defeatism.
The Faith
of Jesus That Does Not Fail
God intends that
we have ‘the faith of
Jesus” (Revelation 14:12), a
faith that never falters or
fails. “The season of
distress and anguish before us
will require a faith that can
endure weariness, delay, and
hunger, --a faith that will not
faint, though severely
tried.” YI 7-12-84.
Renovare
Falsely Calls Abraham’s
Faith a “Lone Ranger”
Faith
Looking down on
Abraham’s experience, as
“a family without a law, a
priesthood, or a national
identity,” the Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible
declares, “For reasons
beyond his control,
Abraham’s was a ‘Lone
Ranger’ faith.” (Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible, p.
11).
Renovare has three
great falsehoods here.
1)
Abraham’s family was without
a law;
2)
Abraham’s family was without
a priesthood;
3)
Abraham’s family had no
national identity.
Abraham
Had the Law of God
Renovare’s
position is all falsehood.
Abraham and his family had the
law of God. God declared,
“Abraham obeyed My voice,
and kept my charge, My
commandments, My statues, and My laws.”
Genesis 26:5. “For I know
him, that he will command his
children and his household after
him, and they shall keep the way
of the Lord to do justice and
judgment…” Genesis
18:19. “Abraham
recognized the fact that Jehovah
had a law, and he determined that
he would keep the law as the
apple of his eye.”
ST 11-14-95.
Abraham
Was Priest of His Home
In the Patriarchal
times, the father was the priest
of the household. “In early
times the father was the ruler
and priest of his own family, and
he exercised authority over his
children, even after they had
families of their own. His
descendants were taught to look
up to him as their head, in both
religious and secular matters.
This patriarchal
system of government Abraham
endeavored to perpetuate, as it
tended to preserve the knowledge
of God.” PP 141.
“The life of Abraham, the
friend of God, was signalized by
a strict regard for the word of
the Lord. He cultivated home
religion. The fear of God
pervaded his household. He
was the priest of his household.”
CC 49.
Abraham
Had National Identity
As to national
identity, God declared, “And
the Lord said, Shall I hide from
Abraham that thing which I do:
Seeing that Abraham shall surely
become a great and mighty
nation…? Genesis
18: 17, 18. “Thy name shall
be Abraham; for a father of many
nations have I made thee.”
Genesis 17:5. “The covenant
which He made with Abraham, And
His oath unto Isaac, And
confirmed the same unto Jacob for
a statue, To Israel for an
everlasting covenant, Saying,
Unto thee will I give the
land of Canaan, The lot of your
inheritance.”
Psalms 105: 9-11. In Jesus day
the Jews identified their
national identity as being
“of Abraham’s
seed:” “They answered
Him, We be Abraham’s
seed.” John 8:33.
Thus, Abraham had
the law, a priesthood, and a
national identity.
Abraham’s
Faith is the Faith of All the
Saved
If Abraham had a
“Lone Ranger” faith,
then all who are saved will also
have a “Lone Ranger”
faith, for the great apostle Paul
tells us, “And he [Abraham]
received the sign of
circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of the faith which
he had yet being uncircumcised,
that he might be the
father of all them that believe,
though they be not circumcised;
that righteousness might be
imputed unto them also:
“And the
father of circumcision to them
who are not of the circumcision
only, but who also walk
in the steps of that
faith of our
father Abraham, which he had
being yet uncircumcised…
“Therefore it is of faith,
that it might be by grace; to the
end the promise might be sure to
all the seed; not to that only
which is of the law, but to
that also which is of
the faith of
Abraham,
who is the father of all.”
Romans 4: 11, 12, 16.
James:
Abraham an Example of True Faith
But James
declares, “Was not Abraham
our father justified by works,
when he had offered Isaac his son
upon the altar?
“Seest thou
haw faith wrought with his works,
and by works was faith made
perfect?
“And the
scripture was fulfilled which
saith, Abraham believed God, and it
was imputed unto him for
righteousness: and he was called
the friend of God.”
James 2: 21-23.
It would appear
that those who put together this Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible
were so intent upon promoting the
Jesuit concepts of Spiritual
Formation that they failed to read
the Bible itself.
Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible Is
Taking Its Readers Back to Rome
It is clear where
the authors of the Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible are
taking the reader. Of Abraham,
they write, “Although they
built altars, they had no temple,
no rituals, no ordered means of
forgiveness manifested through a
community of praise.” Well, neither
did Christ establish on earth a
temple. As rituals, of
course, Rome loves ritual, and
their “ordered means of
forgiveness manifested through a
community of praise.” What
does a community of praise have
to do with the forgiveness of
God?Abraham had
all the forgiveness he needed
from Christ Himself. Obviously,
this Renovare Spiritual Formation
Bible is designed to take the
reader right back to Roman
Catholicism.
Here I
Stand, Alone Under God
Why is it
important to understand the truth
regarding the nature of religion
being an individual relationship
between the soul and God? Because
that is the nature of
discipleship-Come, follow Me,
hating all else. That is the
nature of the Protestant
Reformation-Martin Luther’s
breakthrough came when he
understood that he could be
justified by faith alone. Because
at the time of the end, you may
be thrown into a dungeon alone,
you may be in a cave alone,
and you need to know that what is
necessary is that your soul is
right with God, as an individual.
Rome:
Social, Not Individual
Once again for
perspective, the Jesuit John L.
McKenzie, S.J., opens his book The
Roman Catholic Church, with
these words: “Religion is a
social phenomenon; that is, it is
a function of man in society and
not
of the individual
person.”
–John L. McKenzie, S.J., The
Roman Catholic Church. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1969, p. 1. This is the secret of
the formation of Rome’s
ideologies of collectivism,
socialism, feudalism, Marxism,
etc. They are rest on concept
that the fundamental determinant
of human life is social,
not individual. Even
Rome’s concept of
persecution is that the diseased
part, namely the heretic, must be
exterminated from the body
politic of the social fabric.
Freedom
Rests Upon the Concept of
Individuality
All of the
development of freedom in
Anglo-Saxon Common Law and
Constitutional Law rests upon the
concept of the individuality
of man, the concept of the state
of nature, for instance, in
Locke. This individuality, which
rests in discipleship of Christ,
is the basis of human freedom.
The fundamental element is the
union between the soul and Christ
by faith.
Adam,
Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus
on the Cross
We ask, What about
Adam when he was alone on earth?
What about Elijah, when he was
alone at the brook of Cherith?
When he practiced his faith for
three and half year’s
underground? What about John the
Baptist, who made the decision to
separate even from his family
when very young to grow up in the
wilderness with the tutelage of
God alone? Of John the Baptist
Jesus said that no one greater
than he had been born of woman.
His faith was in direct conflict
with society-with established
religion. What about those cast
into solitary confinement for
decades in the Inquisition for
their faith? What about Jesus on
the Cross-? Where was the social
element there? What about
Jesus and his followers who were
excommunicated from the Jewish
religious establishment? What
about John the Revelator on the
isle of Patmos?
John Knox:
From the Eternal God Alone
John Knox declared
before the queen of Scotland:
“As right religion took
neither original strength nor
authority from worldly princes,
but from the eternal God
alone, so are not
subjects bound to frame their
religion according to the
appetites of their princes. For
oft it is that princes are the
most ignorant of all others in
God’s true religion… If
all the seed of Abraham had been
of the religion of Pharaoh, whose
subjects they long were, I pray
you, madam, what religion would
there have been in the world? Or
of all men in the days of the
apostles had been of the religion
of the Roman emperors, what
religion would there have been
upon the face of the earth?…
And so, madam, ye perceive that
subjects are not bound to the
religion of their princes, albeit
they are commanded to give them
obedience.” GC 250,
251.
Luther: I
Am Alone
“To the
reproaches of his enemies, who
taunted him with the weakness of
his cause, Luther answered:
“Who knows if God has not
chosen and called me to perform
this needed work, and if these
babblers ought not to fear that
by despising me, they despise God
Himself? They say I am
alone; no, for Jehovah is with
me. In their sense, Moses was
alone at the departure from
Egypt; Elijah was alone in the
reign of King Ahab; Isaiah was
alone in Jerusalem; Ezekiel was
alone in Babylon. Hear
this, O Rome: God never selected
as a prophet either the high
priest or any great personage;
but rather, he chose low and
despised men, once even the
shepherd Amos. In every age the
saints have been compelled to
rebuke kings, princes, recreant
priests, and wise men at the
peril of their lives.”
“I do not say that I also am
a prophet; but I do say that they
ought to fear precisely because I
am alone, while on the side of
the oppressor are numbers caste,
wealth, and mocking letters. Yes,
I am alone; but I stand serene,
because side by side with me is
the Word of God; and
with all their boasted numbers,
this, the greatest of powers, is
not with them.” GC88 142.
The Renovare
Spiritual Formation Bible
declares that “Abraham
embodied the prayer of Thomas a
Kempis.” (p. 37.), thus
seeking to link Abraham with a
Roman Catholic monk who was
“widely sought after as a
spiritual advisor.” (Oxford
Dictionary. Of the Christian
Church).
