Holy Cow

     Sacramentalism, which is the heart of Roman Catholicism--the belief that liturgy’s form and formulas transmit spiritual power and that salvation comes through the sacraments--too readily creeps into Protestant thinking as well. (Many Protestants still believe that baptism saves, taking the bread and cup brings life, etc.) Alas, we are all Eve’s children by nature and still prone to follow the ways of Cain and Babel.

     Every place of worship, Catholic or Protestant, which has been adorned for the purpose of hallowing it or gaining God’s favor or making worship more acceptable, violates Exodus:20:24-26 [24] An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. [25] And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. [26] Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
See All... as well as the rest of Scripture. All such “sanctuaries” are monuments to man’s rebellion and his proud and perverted religion of self-effort. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to fall into the error of imagining that belonging to a church and periodically “worshiping” in its “sanctuary” makes one a Christian and compensates for one’s lack of consistent, personal holiness.

       ---Dave Hunt, The Berean Call Reprints, June 1993