Was God the Son separated from God the Father are Calvary?

Recently, a few people has told me and others on Paltalk that during the Cross Christ was "separated from the Father."  One person that said this was an antiCatholic who is a Calvinist, another was a young man that left the Church believing himself to be more Catholic than the pope (he stated Christ's separation was purely in His humanity, not Divinity), another was an anti/ex-Catholic who received education at a Protestant 'bible college.'.

People that promote this theory use many scriptures as proof texts.  They include the Scripture at Calvary where Christ says "why have you forsaken me," the passage in 1st Corinthians where St Paul declares Christ became sin for us, and other passages which state Christ "bore" our sins, and the verse in Isaiah 53 where it speaks of the suffering Servant as being "cut off"

As a note the verse about being forsaken is a quotation of Psalm 22 and Christ is expressing the words of sinners, perhaps the best explanation for this is found by St Augustine of Hippo:

"...the first verse of which the Lord Himself uttered on the Cross: "My God, My God, look upon Me; why have You forsaken Me?" For "transferring us in a figure" [1 Corinthians 4:6] to what He was saying, and to His own Body (for we are also "His Body," and He is our "Head"), He uttered from the Cross not His own cry, but ours. For God never "forsook" Him: nor did He Himself ever depart from the Father; but it was in behalf of us that He spoke this: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" For there follows, "Far from My health are the words of My offences:" and it shows in whose person He said this; for sin could not be found in Him.…"--Exposition on Psalm 44

I will deal with the other Scripture verses at a later time.

The main reason the view Christ was separated from the Father is not a viable view if for it's incompatiblity with Trinity theology and the hypostatic union.

For Christ to be separated from the Father would require either Arianism (even temporary) or some form of temporary polytheism.  For Christ being God to be separated from God the Father would mean there was some form of fracture in the Trinity.  The Trinity is a profession that God is one substance in the Persons that are united.  Many Protestants like to assert that Deuteronomy 6:4 (Hear of Israel....the Lord is One) word echad (one) refers to a compound unity.  Now if God is a compound unity, then how can God the Son be separated from God the Father and still be One God, that is a compound unity?  The answer is plain, it cannot be the case. God cannot be separated from Himself, it would be illogical in anyway.  One of the individuals told me it only seems illogical, like when God became a man.  However, God becoming a man is not illogical because God the Son did not lose His form as God by assuming a human nature, John 3:13 tells us He was in Heaven while being on Earth.  While the theory Christ was separted from the Father is absolutely illogical since it violates the profession of God being One, a 'compound unity.' 

Now for the belief that Jesus Christ was only separated from the Father in His human nature alone.  This view is less illogical and less blasphemous at the first, but it is still a great error to claim since it would split the Person of Christ into two and undue the incarnation.  If He is fully God and man united in one person, Jesus Christ, that is the hypostatic union, then the Atonement would require Him to be separated from Himself, requiring Him possibly to be present solely in His Human nature at the Cross. This person that pushed this theory (the sedevacantist) eventually seemed to admit he did not know much theology (which begs then "how are you a sedevacantist if you don't know much theology" since sedevacantists insist the Church has fallen into heresy, but perhaps he IS a sedevacantist BECAUSE he does not know much theology, but this is the subject of another article.)

In experience I have only met one person (a Protestant) that acknowledged the difficulty in believing Jesus was separated from God the Father at the Cross who accepted it. He said told me in rougly these words "Yes the Trinity was broken up at the Cross!"

To be Continued....

Baptism's Role

The Catholic Church since ancient times taught the doctrine that baptism is the sacrament that results in a believer's regeneration (being born again). Many Protestants reject the historical and Biblical doctrine that Baptism regenerates a believer in Christ and saves them. Some Protestants called hyper-dispensationalists even deny that using water in baptism is for today! Many Protestants treat baptism as a purely symbolic ritual. Ironically, they are the same people that reject calling Christianity a 'religion' because they believe Christianity is not a religion of rituals, despite the fact baptism and Communion are rituals Christ instituted.

There are a few Protestants groups that still recognize the value of baptism and hold that it does in fact regenerate, they include, but are not necessarily limited to: Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and some Pentecostals.

Before responding to the Protestants that believe baptism does not save, I will post several Scriptures showing the importance and value of baptism.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.--Mark 16:16

This verse clearly links baptism with the word "saved." However, in my experience Protestants will have 2 possible rebuttals to this: 1)the emphasis of Mark 16:16 is "belief," 2)this section is not part of the Bible.

To answer the first claim, to say the emphasis is 'belief' is just trying to ignore the fact baptism is even mentioned. This is more of a statement rather than a rebuttal. The fact is the sentence still reads "believers and is baptized will be saved." It does nothing to address the fact baptism is mentioned in connection to salvation.

The second claim is not very common since most Protestants still trust the KJV which includes this part of Mark 16. Once a Pentecostal minister told me this, then I later caught him quoting this same debated section of Scripture to lend support for speaking in tongues ie "speaking in new tongues" (Mark 16:!7). Even if, theoretically, this passage were an addition to Scripture, we do not rely solely on this passage to teach the importance of Baptism.

Now another verse that shows the role of baptism in salvation:

"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."-Acts 2:38

Peter here is making repentance and baptism necessary for the forgiveness of sins. This verse is also very straightforward in stating baptism's necessity for the forgiveness of sins. In my experience there have been a few rebuttals to this. One is the ridiculous claim that is saying sins are "remitted" in the sense of a disease, and they may come back somehow. Another rebuttal is that the word eis means they have forgiveness because they repented and because they have forgiveness they can be baptized. The third claim is a more modern and extreme claim by hyperdispensationalists who assert that this was only for that time, and now we have a "dry baptism," since it was intended for Jews.

In response to the first claim, the word remission is found in some older bibles like the KJV and DRB, however, even then the word remission typically means forgiveness, in the Greek the word remission is also used in Mark 3:29 for the forgiveness of the eternal sin, for more on this see the question and answer page on question Q7.

In response to the second claim, the word eis typically means "into" or "for." Their repentance and baptism causes their sins to be forgiven. The word is used about 1865 times in the New Testament, almost all the occurrences means "into" or "for."

In response to the third claim, Dispensationalism is false because Paul himself baptized people with water in Acts 19, 1 Corinthians 1, and Gentiles who were not proselytes to Judaism were explicitly baptized with water in Acts 10 by St Peter's order. There is no reason to believe they stopped or intended to cease water baptism. Also, the Christian baptism is not the same baptism as St John the Baptist since his followers had to be rebaptized with a Christian baptism in Acts 19.

Constantine, the Church, Christianity

Some people assert that the Catholic Church was not started til the fourth century. They never in my experience will provide any evidence, some however will point to Constantine and the Council of Nicea.

However, the fact is we have the list of the Bishops of Rome (popes as they are more commonly called now) going back to the time of St Peter in Rome, in fact many of the major Sees are able to list their Apostolic lineage, such as the See of Alexandria can show their list going back to St Mark.

Some assert Constantine made Trinitarianism the doctrine of the Church, which is not true. Constantine himself may have been Arian. Though he did help the Church gather together for the Council of Nicea which condemned Arianism (the doctrine that denies Jesus is God Almighty), Constantine's own son was an Arian, and Constantine was baptized on his death bed by an Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia. Constantine also wrote letters expressing how the controversy was some thing "small."

Trinitarianism was taught before Nicea and the 4th century. In fact the precursor to Arianism was condemned, which was the heresy of Paul of Samosata about 5 decades prior to Nicea was convened.

The Mother of God, what does this really mean?

Protestant Objection 1: Many Protestants claim the title "mother of God" means that Catholics must believe that Mary preexisted Jesus, if not God Himself! And then they assert it is an unbiblical belief.

Answer: However, this claim is not true.

The term Mother of God is derived from the term Mater Dei in Latin it is another way of saying the other Latin term "Gentrix Dei," which in turn is a translation of the Greek phrase declared at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431, theotokos, meaning God-bearer.

In short, the term "Mother of God" means only that JESUS WAS GOD, even while in her womb. It is not an assertion that Christ somehow derived his divinity from Mary, since that is heresy in Catholicism. In Catholicism we say that the Son has two nativities (births): One as God from all eternity from the Father, and one 2000 years ago in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary.

Calling Mary the Mother of God is completely biblical and it is found in the Holy Scriptures when St Elizabeth, mother of the Prophet John the Baptizer, says to the Virgin Mary:

And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?--Luke 1:43

Who is the Lord but God? And to those who may suggest Elizabeth was wrong or errant, St Luke says she was "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1:41).

Here is the Logic behind calling Mary the Mother of God.

1. Jesus was and is God (even in the Womb of Mary)

2. Mary bore Jesus in her womb.

3. A person that bears of person in her womb is called a mother.

Conclusion: Mary is the Mother of God.

Protestant Objection 3: Sometimes I have met people that object, nonetheless, to calling Mary the Mother of God, since she only gave birth to the Son, not the Trinity. They say "if she is called the 'mother of God' she would have to give birth to the Trinity, and she did not therefore we cannot call her the 'mother of God.'

Answer: However, the problem with this assertion is that it is saying you cannot call any particular person of the Trinity is God, except the whole Trinity. The person of the Word, Jesus, can be called God in His person, otherwise why does the Father say to Him:

“YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER"--Hebrew 1:7

If would anyone even use the position that Mary had to give birth to the whole Trinity? If anyone adopted this position, then they CANNOT say "Jesus is God," but rather a part of God, since according to that logic "only the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit collectively can be called God." Furthermore, this logic would prevent one from say "the Father is God" and that "the Holy Spirit is God" for the same reason it would prevent a person from saying that Jesus is God. So why would anyone even use this argument? It would just dig them into a deeper hole.

Protestant Objection 4: Some will argue that Mary is only surrogate mother and cannot really be called His mother at all.

Answer: Mary was not a surrogate, otherwise Christ would not really be the "Son of David" or the "seed of the woman"(Genesis 3:15). Furthermore, even if Mary were theoretically a surrogate, which was not, surrogate mothers still considered themselves to be mothers, for instance Sarai in Genesis 16:2:

Furthermore, the Scripture writers call Mary his mother many times, here are a few:

And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there...When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."--John 2:3,5

and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted-Luke 2:34

Protestant objection 5: Recently I heard a very strange one..."Mary stopped being Jesus' mother after He died"

Answer: How does someone stop being a mother? Regardless Acts 1:14 says:

All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.--Acts 1:14

Notice it does not say "Mary the ex-mother of Jesus..."

Conclusion: The phrase 'Mother of God' is simply an assertion that Jesus was God in the womb of Mary, something all Christians believe.