Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

  “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— Matthew 24:15 TNIV The abomination of desolation. These words relate to that passage of Daniel 9:27,  which I would render thus; “In the middle of that week,” namely, the last of the seventy, “he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, even until the wing or army of abomination shall make desolate,”; or, even by the wing of abominations making desolate. wing is an army , Isa. 8:8: and in that sense Luke 21:20 rendered these words, “when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army,” Let him that reads understand.   This is not spoken so much for the obscurity as for the certainty of the prophecy : as if he should say, “He that reads those words in Daniel, let him mind well that when the army of the prince which is to come, that army of abominations, shall compass round Jerusalem with a siege, then most cer...

 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. A.D. 1864   This document, though issued by the sole authority of Pope Plus IX., Dec. 8, 1864, must be regarded now as infallible and irreformable, even without the formal sanction of the Vatican Council. It is purely negative, but Indirectly it teaches and enjoins the very opposite of what it condemns as error. (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890), 213)  What authority attaches to this document? Cardinal Newman, in his defense of the Syllabus against Gladstone’s attack, virtually denied its dogmatic force, saying (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 108),  “We can no more accept the Syllabus as de fide, as a dogmatic document, than any other index or table of contents.”  But the Syllabus is more than a mere index, and contains as many definitions and judgments as titles. Moreover, the papal infa...

    “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, ​whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’.”  Pope Leo on Palm Sunday, Vatican City   Listen to me, you leaders of Israel! You hate justice and twist all that is right. You are building Jerusalem on a foundation of murder and corruption. You rulers make decisions based on bribes; you priests teach God’s laws only for a price; you prophets won’t prophesy unless you are paid. Yet all of you claim to depend on the LORD. “No harm can come to us,” you say, “for the LORD is here among us.” Because of you, Mount Zion will be plowed like an open field; Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins! A thicket will grow on the heights where the Temple now stands. Micah 3:9–12 NLT   Jesus told them, “In this world ...

See, I and the sons whom the LORD has given me are to be signs and portents in Israel, sent by the LORD of Hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. Isa. 8:18  Moses’s interpretation of redemptive history will become the normative pattern that later biblical authors embrace. Adam and the covenant of creation are prototypes, molds that shape and give meaning to the future biblical story line. As the Pentateuch develops, we find numerous “seeds” patterned after Adam , what we might call ectypes. Each ectype advances redemptive history and God’s reclamation of humanity from sin while also f alling short of total restoration , usually on account of each figure repeating an Adam-like “fall.”   Thus, each instantiation in the pattern creates further expectation of a coming fulfillment. These repeated patterns and the corresponding promises of eschatological salvation (e.g., Gen. 3:15; 5:29; 12:1–3; 17:1–8; 49:8–12; Num. 24:17–19) show that Moses sees Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Israel as prophe...