Vatican News with My Comments

On December 8, 2015 on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis launched his Jubilee known as the “Year of Mercy.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35037740

Pope Francis pushed opened the huge bronze Holy Door of St Peter's Basilica in Rome to launch the Catholic Church's "Year of Mercy".

Tens of thousands attended a Mass in St Peter's Square for the start of the Pope's "revolution of tenderness"….

At the end of the Mass, Francis opened the basilica's Holy Door. He said that by passing through it, Catholics should take on the role of the Good Samaritan.

It is the first time the Holy Door has been opened since the Great Jubilee in the 2000 called for by St John Paul II. It has been bricked up since then….

Announcing the extraordinary jubilee in March, the Pope said the Holy Door was a "Door of Mercy, through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons and instils hope".

For the first time, he has instructed churches and cathedrals to take part in the tradition of the Holy Door, to help Catholics mark the jubilee at home rather than coming to Rome.

Pope Francis has long signalled his wish to change the Church's approach from condemnation of wrongdoing to a Church that is more forgiving and understanding of its flock, our correspondent says.

This extraordinary jubilee year is seen as a practical way of giving expression to that wish.

Pope Francis took many by surprise when he announced in September that, as part of the jubilee, parish priests across the world would be allowed to absolve repentant women who asked for forgiveness for having an abortion, even though Church teaching still terms abortion a grave sin.

My Comment:

Our revelation is that the coming year is the Year of the Wind, taken from Ezekiel 37:9 KJV. The breath of the Holy Spirit is coming. When they opened the “Holy Door” at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, this may also indicate something about the Open Door ministry that is just beginning.

Perhaps the Vatican’s new “forgiving and understanding” approach to repentant women who have had abortions indicates a connection to the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37.

The Vatican Now Says Jews are Already Saved

I do not know if this is connected to the Vatican’s Jubilee year or not, but a huge change has also taken place at the same time. Catholics now no longer need to try to convert Jews, because Jews already are under covenant with God. So says Pope Francis, echoing a recent belief held by some well-known Christians Zionists such as John Hagee.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/12/10/catholics-should-not-try-to-convert-jews-vatican-says/21281576/?icid=maing-grid7|htmlws-sb-bb|dl38|sec1_lnk3&pLid=-648873427

Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a major new document that drew the Church further away from the strained relations of the past.

Christianity and Judaism are intertwined and God never annulled his covenant with the Jewish people, said the document from the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

"The Church is therefore obliged to view evangelization to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views," it said….

The document coincided with the 50th anniversary of a revolutionary Vatican statement that repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Jesus' death and launched a theological dialogue that traditionalists have rejected….

A Vatican expert in Catholic-Jewish dialogue said it was the first time a repudiation of active conversion of Jews had been so clearly stated in a Vatican document.

My Comment:

As I have said many times before, this decision is based on Dual Covenant Theology, which says that Jews are saved by the Old Covenant, while Christians are saved by the New Covenant. It also says that Jews are saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ. Hence, there is no need for a Jew to believe in Jesus. All he has to do is believe in Moses, or at least give lip service to Moses by following the traditions of men (Talmud).

I don’t think that the Apostle Paul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, believed that he was saved by the Old Covenant, or that he had no need to be converted to Jesus Christ.

It is unclear if the “covenant” that saves all Jews today is the Mosaic covenant or the Abrahamic covenant. The proponents of Dual Covenant Theology seem to mix the two and treat them as one. The Abrahamic covenant was to benefit “all the families of the earth,” not just Jews (Genesis 12:3). Paul says in Galatians 3:9,

⁹ So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

Galatians 3:26, 29 continues, saying,

²⁶ For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus… ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

In other words, Paul says that anyone who belongs to Christ is Abraham’s offspring (“seed”). Conversely, those who do not belong to Christ are not Abraham’s seed. Jesus told the Pharisees in John 8:37-41,

³⁷ I know that you are Abraham’s offspring; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you… ³⁹ They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. ⁴⁰ But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. ⁴¹ You are doing the deeds of your father.”

It is plain that both Jesus and Paul disavowed the idea that one’s genealogical descent from Abraham made a person Abraham’s seed. Both took the word “seed” in a metaphorical sense, basing it on whether or not a person was doing the works and faith of Abraham. In fact, the blessing of Abraham is defined in Acts 3:25, 26,

²⁵ It is you who are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” ²⁶ For you first, God raised up His Servant [Jesus], and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.

The Abrahamic blessing is a call to repentance. This call went to the Jews first. That means Jews need to repent, along with everyone else. But how can they repent unless they hear the word of Jesus, Who was sent for this very purpose?

But now the Vatican says Jews don’t have to repent in order to be in a covenant relationship with God. Really? So the Catholic Church was wrong for nearly 2000 years?? Hundreds of past popes were wrong?? How does that inspire people to believe this new teaching?

As I see it, the Dual Covenant Theology folks might be referring either to the Mosaic covenant or the Abrahamic covenant—or both. If they think that the Jews are saved by the Mosaic covenant (i.e., the Old Covenant), then they are advocating that Jews are saved by works, contrary to the clear teachings of Paul.

If they think that the Jews are saved by the Abrahamic covenant apart from faith in Christ, then they are saying that Jews are the “seed of Abraham” even while they concur with their past leaders who wanted to kill Jesus.

Then there is the secondary issue: Which branch of Jewry does a Jew have to belong to in order to be saved—or are they all saved by virtue of their genealogy?? There are Orthodox Jews, Reform Jews, and Conservative Jews. These Jewish denominations cannot agree among themselves as to what constitutes true Judaism. And what about secular Jews, who really do not practice Judaism at all? Are they saved if they can trace their genealogy to Abraham?

The theologians of Dual Covenant Theology may not want to enter the dispute, but Jews would certainly dispute the issue among themselves. It appears that Dual Covenant Theology is content to blur the issues and include all Jews, regardless of their beliefs. In doing so, however, they settle on the doctrinal position that Jews are saved by genealogy.

This, then, raises another issue. What about Jewish converts who have no genealogy traceable to Abraham? Can one be saved apart from Christ if one converts to Judaism? If so, which branch? What about the Khazar nation that converted to Judaism, beginning in 640 A.D.?

There is a host of problems with Dual Covenant Theology. Whoever invented it was either a certified biblical fool or had ulterior motives. Most likely, he was the latter.

In the end, however, I believe that God is opening the eyes of the Laodicean church in order to expose its spiritual poverty (Revelation 3:17). God is applying spiritual eye salve to the eyes of the blind in order to set them free from the power of the Nicolaitan spirit. The Vatican II Church Council (1962-1965) was the first to shake the Roman church, and millions lost confidence when it changed a host of doctrines and practices. Today we are seeing the next phase, where millions more will see that neither the Roman church nor its popes are infallible.

Expect to see a lot of fallout after this announcement, as God sets people free from the traditions of men and from the rule of “Saul.”