Does the Bible Really Say That?: Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture (7 page)

CHAPTER
16

Does “Word of God” Always Mean “The Bible”?

It never fails. In conversations about biblical authority with evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, this argument always comes up. The mistake here is in imagining that every time the phrase “Word of God” appears in Scripture, it refers to the
Bible
. The fact is, by paying attention to the context of the passage, we can see that most of the time the phrase “Word of God” does not refer to Scripture but to something else, such as Christ, the law, God’s creative utterances or apostolic and prophetic preaching. Here are some verses that prove this:

Isaiah 55:10–11
  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, / and return not thither but water the earth, / making it bring forth and sprout, / giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, / so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; / it shall not return to me empty, / but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, / and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Here, the “Word of God” refers not to Scripture, but rather to God’s creative word.

Luke 3:2–3
  “[T]he word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness; and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance.” Here the phrase refers to the inspiration Saint John the Baptist received as he was sent forth to preach the gospel of repentance in preparation for Christ.

Luke 8:11–15
  “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard.... [T]he ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.... And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience” (see Luke 4:44–5:1).

Notice the emphasis on
hearing
the Word of God—an obvious reference both to Christ’s preaching and to apostolic preaching (1 Thessalonians 2:13), as well as to the continual preaching of the gospel by the Catholic Church to all creatures in all ages (Matthew 28:19–20; Romans 10:14–15).

John 1:1, 14
  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This passage refers to the Incarnate Christ, not Scripture.

Acts 4:31
  “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.”

1 Thessalonians 2:13
  “[W]hen you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” Here Paul specifically points to oral Tradition, not to Scripture. This was his first epistle to the Thessalonians. Notice that he doesn’t enjoin them to go solely by what is written in Scripture, but reminds them to adhere to the oral teachings he had handed on to them.

Hebrews 4:12–13
  “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

Protestants frequently quote passages out of context and interpret them as referring to Scripture. But notice that it speaks of the Word of God as a “him,” not an “it”—it is before “him” (Christ) that the secrets of our hearts are laid bare and judged. The next time someone quotes this verse out of context, ask him to explain how it is that the Bible can “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Then ask if it isn’t nonsensical to think of this as Scripture, and conversely, if it’s not eminently reasonable, and even demanded by the context, that one sees “Word of God” here as referring to Christ.

Hebrews 11:3
  “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” This passage in Hebrews only reinforces the conclusion we draw from Hebrews 4:12–13 that the Word being spoken of there is not the Bible. Clearly, no Protestant will posit that “the world was created” by the Bible. If he does, head for the door, quickly!

CHAPTER
17

The Blessed Trinity

Door-to-door missionaries such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons will attempt to convince any Catholic who will listen that the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity is wrong. They argue that the concept of one God in three co-equal, co-eternal, consubstantial Persons is not biblical. The Bible, however, says otherwise.

Based on these few representative chapters, we can see that:

y      There is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29; 1 Timothy 2:5)

y      The Father is God (Deuteronomy 32:6; Colossians 1:2; Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:2; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; John 20:17; Romans 1:7)

y      The Son, Jesus Christ, is God (John 1:1–14; 8:58; 20:28; Acts 20:28)

y      The Holy Spirit is God (John 14:16–17, 26; 16:7–14; Acts 5:3–4; 13:2–4; 21:10–11)

From these explicit truths, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church “into all truth” (John 16:12–13; see 14:25–26), the Catholic Church teaches that if there is only one God, and if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each God, then the doctrine of the Trinity—one God in three Persons—must also be true. Otherwise, these revelations become a jumbled mass of irreconcilable contradictions. And though one will not find the word “Trinity” in Scripture, the above passages point us toward the doctrine, which God revealed gradually, indirectly and in various ways (Hebrews 10:1).

Saint Theophilus of Antioch used the term “Trinity” in the year
ad
180. He wrote in his
Epistle to Autolycus
(Autolycus was a pagan critic of the Catholic Church), that God, his Word and his Wisdom are a “Trinity” (Greek:
triados
). Some years later, Tertullian (
ad
160–c. 250) coined the Latin term for “Trinity” (
trinitas
) in his work
On Modesty
. He wrote about the “Trinity of the One Divinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
¹

In addition to drawing upon the many biblical references to God’s unity and transcendence, these early Church writers also cited Old Testament episodes known as
theophanies
—mysterious appearances of one or more Persons of the Trinity. References to these mysterious encounters (some of which are only implicit) are found in Genesis 1:26 (where God speaks of himself in the plural form); 3:22; 11:27; 18; Psalm 2:7; 109:1–3; Isaiah 7:14 (
Immanuel
means “God with us”); 9:6; 11:2 and 35:4. Other passages include Proverbs 8:22–31; Wisdom of Solomon 7:22–28; 8:3–8; Ezekiel 11:5, 36:27; Joel 2:28 and Malachi 3:1.

Two more explicit Trinitarian passages are found in Matthew 28:18–19 and John 1:1, 14. In the first passage, the Lord says: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Notice that Christ uses the singular form “name,” not the plural “names,” when he gives this directive. This usage implies the unity of the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity. The second passage, John 1:1, 14, reads: “In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word was
with
God and the Word
was
God.... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” Here we see that Christ is true God, the Second Person of the Trinity—a theme Saint Paul echoed when he wrote that Christ is “the
image
of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15, emphasis added) and the “radiance of the glory of God and
the very stamp of his nature
” (Hebrews 1:3, emphasis added).

As the Catholic Church matured and grew, so did its theological vocabulary. Terms such as “Trinity” were developed as a way to express more precisely what the Church meant by God. And though the Church’s understanding of her teaching deepened and developed, she did not invent new doctrines. Rather, she inferred truths with certitude from other truths. Some of these truths, such as that there is only one God, are explicitly taught in the Bible as well as Sacred Tradition. Since, in the sense described above, doctrine “develops” in the Catholic Church (though it never changes or ceases to mean what it once did), the First Council of Nicaea authoritatively defined the doctrine of the Trinity as dogma in
ad
325.

These days, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Oneness Pentecostals and other religious groups try to convince people that the Catholic Church invented the doctrine of the Trinity, but that is simply false. The Catholic Church could not have invented the truth about the Trinity anymore than it could have invented the law of gravity—it has always been true, revealed by God himself.

Further Reading
:
Matthew 3:16ff; 11:27; Mark 12:29; Luke 10:22; John 10:30, 38; 14:9ff; 16:15; 17:10; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timothy 2:5

CCC
, 232–267

CHAPTER 18

Are Catholic Prayers “Vain Repetition”?

In Matthew 6:7, Christ said, “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” The Protestant King James version renders it this way: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto them.” (see Sirach 7:10). Some Protestants understand the command to avoid “vain repetition” as a condemnation of formulaic Catholic prayers, such as the rosary. But did Christ really mean that repeating prayers, as Catholics do, is wrong?

No. And here’s how we can know this for sure.

Christ condemned “vain repetition,” but he did not condemn repetition itself. He singled out the prayers of pagans who invoked false gods (such as Zeus, Apollo, Diana and so on). Such prayers are vain because those gods don’t exist. The priests of the false god Ba’al did exactly this in their contest against Elijah in 1 Kings 18:20–40. (Read the passage and see where all that vain babbling got them!)

But Christ could not have forbidden repetitious prayers per se because in Matthew 6:9–15, immediately after forbidding vain repetition, he gave us the greatest of all prayers: the Our Father. It seems clear that he intended this prayer to be repeated for he said, when you pray, “Pray then like this” (v. 9).

During his Passion, while in the garden of Gethsemane, Christ repeated the same prayer three times during his agony. “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt’.... Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done’.... So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words” (Matthew 26:39–44). Why would Christ do something that he told us was wrong, if repeating prayers was, in fact, wrong?

The Holy Spirit inspired many repetitious prayers in Scripture, intending that they be prayed and sung frequently by believers. Consider, for example, Psalm 136, which repeats the phrase “for his steadfast love [mercy] endures forever” over a dozen times! Similarly, Psalm 150 contains eleven repetitions of the prayer “praise the Lord” and “praise him” within just five verses. Daniel 3:35–68 contains many repetitions of the prayer “Bless the Lord.”

And finally, look at Revelation 4:8–11: “And the four living creatures...day and night they never cease to sing, / ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, / who was and is and is to come.’  / And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever.” Isaiah 6:1–3 indicates that the angels in heaven also repeat this prayer continually before the throne of God.

Christ did not mean that we should not use repetitious prayers—after all, he did, the Bible does and the saints and angels in heaven do. The Bible is clear that while here on earth, we should also. Keep in mind that Christ forbade only mindless, mechanical prayers, in particular those of the pagans invoking the assistance of gods who did not even exist, much less hear and answer those prayers.

Further Reading:
Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 3:10; 5:17; 2 Timothy 1:3

CCC
, 2759–2865