Incorruptible Bodies of the Saints

Incorruptible Bodies of the Saints

Protestant Christian Understanding:  This claim of incorruptible bodies of the saints is a complete fraud, and the bodies the Catholic Church displays are wax figures and not the actual bodies of the saints.  These were made for mere tourist attractions and are not of God.

Catholic Christian Understanding:  There could not be found any evidence that the incorruptible bodies were wax figures or complete frauds.  If anyone can bring forth evidence to prove this argument in the slightest, please post in the comments and question area below.  The burden of proof is on the accuser in this situation so there is nothing this blog writer could find suggesting the bodies were a man made scheme for simple tourist attraction.  

However, from a biblical stand point, we know that God has done EXTRAORDINARY things with people's bodies.  Let's go to the new testament in Acts Chapter 5:15 where it talks about people laying their sick in the streets so even Peter's shadow would be cast over them.  Just the mere encounter with Peter's shadow was healing people back in those days.  The gospel also talks about the woman touching Jesus's garments, which were on His sacred body and that healing flowed out from his garments because they were touching His body, and healed the woman.  This is the part of the bible when Jesus asked, "Who touched me?"  When He was in a huge crowd of people and He knew the lady that had touched his garments had been healed.

In 2nd Kings it mentions Elisha and when he was buried in a tomb, someone actually takes a dead man and throws the dead body into the tomb onto Elisha's dead body and the dead man springs to life. ….. Now, why am I making all these references and what does this have to do with the incorruptible bodies of the saints that you can see in Rome and elsewhere today?  Because… God is an  incarnational God.  He is not some abstract gnostic deity that thinks "I better not use material things because thats not holy."  God created everything and all materials and came to earth in a Body of His own.  He actually used His sacred spittle to heal the eyes of a blind man along with the touch of his Hands.  It is biblically clear that God likes to use physical things to convey and show non physical blessings and graces, which He has done through the bodies of the saints and Apostles.  History shows us tracing all the way back to the 1st century when Christians would die as a martyrs, other Christians would take strands of their hair and pieces of their clothing and pass it around and it would heal them.  It became well known that miracles would happen with these artifacts from the martyrs.  Thus, there is historic and biblical evidence that we can trace all the way to the earliest centuries of relics and incorruptible bodies.  These bodies have also been inspected by secular scientists coming to mock the claims and prove them wrong, only to convert to Christianity after finding that they were indeed real.  

Another proof biblically is when God promises to Jesus and says Salms 16:10  "You will not let your holy ones see corruption."  Mary The Blessed Virgin would also fall under this where her body was preserved from corruption as well as other saints, not all saints, but God preserved bodies of the saints way before wax figures were even possible or invented.  

Now, it is true that sometimes the Church has applied a very thin wax veneer to protect the bodies from the outside, which you can tell is there and can look right through, but that has nothing to do with the bodies being incorruptible.  Decay and corruption comes from within.  The thin wax coating, which is ultra thin if it is even used, was for display purposes only to protect the body itself from being damaged in some way from the outside.  

Lastly, this topic actually has nothing to do with salvation and does not depend on anyone's salvation.  If someone did not want to believe the bodies are incorruptible, that is not dependent on their salvation or the truth that God has established on this earth, through His church.  However, if any reader of this blog can find any evidence that these bodies on display as incorruptibles are wax figures, please post in the comment section for a reply. 

2) Infant Baptism

Protestant Christian Understanding:  There is nowhere in the bible where any infants are baptized.  Jesus never intended babies to be baptized and only when a person can make a conscious decisions on the age of reason, normally ages 7-10, can they get baptized.

Catholic Christian Understanding: Let's forget the Roman Catholic Church for a moment and pretend it does not exist.  After much research on these issues, it is fact that the VAST majority of Protestant denominations believe in infant baptism and that it is biblical. Sects like Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and many many many more all practice infant baptism.  It is not some Catholic made up idea, it is a biblical idea.  

Let's start with the following verse again because it is the foundation of all the biblical beliefs when it comes to comparing the old testament and the new testament.  Matthew Chapter 5:17, "Don't think that I have come to abolish the law and the profits, I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."  Fulfill them to their tallest measure. 

In Genesis chapter 17:9 God says to Abraham I will establish a church for you and your children to be a part of.  God then established the right of passage into His church by way of circumcision, or, all infants on the 8th day after birth had to be circumcised to become a member of God's church.  It was a sign of cutting off old sinful nature and cutting off the old life and being born again in the new, establishing a fresh covenant with God.  God goes on to say, if you do not circumcise any man, then that man is cut off, he is broken from my people, which He says later in verse 14.  

What we just reviewed in the old testament is very relevant to what we now will discuss in the new testament.  As God established a sign, or right of passage, into His church in the old testament via circumcision, Jesus does the same thing in the new testament with Baptism to enter into the church.  Jesus preached the necessity of baptism and without it, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.  This can be found in Matthew 28, John 3:3, John 3:5, John 3:22.

So since baptism was so crucial and such a part of salvation, the early Church realized that we do not need to only baptize adults who profess their faith but children too.  This would allow any adult to bring their entire family into the church. Just as Abraham had to circumcise his son at 8 days old as an infant to enter his child into God's church, so do we with our children through baptism.  There is a parallel between circumcision and baptism that are the same in the old testament and the new.  This is also taught by Paul in Colosions 2:11, "In whom also you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand, in despoiling of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ: [12] Buried with him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him up from the dead." [13] 

Baptism makes us new creatures in Christ.  Therefore the early Church drew the parallel that since infants were circumcised in the old testament, infants should be baptized (the new circumcision) in the new testament.  

Granted, there is no passage in the bible that specifically says to baptize babies and infants.  However, there is also NOWHERE in the Bible where it says DO NOT baptize your babies or infants either.  BUT Peter does mention when he is asked in ACTS 2:37, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God hath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified. [37] Now when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their heart, and said to Peter, and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? [38] But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. [39] For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call" …. So here it shows everyone is welcome into the church as well as their children, there is no limitation on age given.  The bible shows entire families being baptized, for example in Acts 16:33 the Philippine jailer being baptized with ALL his family.  Also in Acts 16:15 a woman, named Lidia, is baptized with her whole household.  We also have early church martyrs talking about baptism and professing being baptized as an infant, for example, Justin Martyr, an early Church father saying right before they put him to death, "86 years I have been a servant of Christ."  Showing he was baptized as an infant because he was put to death around the age of 86.  So through these examples it is clear that there was no discrimination of age when it comes to baptism in the Bible.  

Now again, it is granted that there is nowhere in the Bible that specifically states to baptize babies, but again, no where does it state that you can't baptize them or that it is against the will of God.  God Himself commanded the old form of baptism, circumcision, on all children in the old testament.  AND more than that, it is logical to ask the question if we do not baptize our children, then are we doing the same thing Moses did when he did not circumcise his child and then got corrected by God, who was angry with him for it.  By not baptizing our infants we are denying them the new life in Christ and keeping them as a pagan during the earliest years of their lives.  Why wouldn't they need the graces of the Holy Trinity they would receive through baptism to be with them in their earliest years as they develop?   

With all of the biblical examples in mind, being against infant baptism does not make biblical logical sense. It's basically saying that God in the old testament said I have a place for adults and children in my Church, BUT SORRY, now that we are in the New Testament I am less kid friendly and what I did in the old testament was a mistake.  Well God can't make mistakes and the new testament has to be better than the old according to His law, so going backwards and excluding children would contradict that.  Also, if  not baptizing children was what Peter was saying at Pentecost, saying to all, 'you are welcome to come in but leave your children at home, they cannot come in until they are old enough to choose Christ', then why would anyone want the new testament?  It would be better to stay in the old testament where God accepted infants into His Church, that way the child is not a pagan for 8 to 12 years of its life.  Secondly, if the Child is not baptized and dies, which millions do every year between birth and the age of reason, then  did we deny them immediate entrance to heaven, because they have not received the right of passage (baptism) into God's church?  They are not baptized and Christ specifically said, "Unless you are reborn by water and baptized you will have no life in Me."  Therefore, are we putting our children on a path to limbo, or even worse, by denying them baptism as infants.  There can't be a case that can be made that they go to heaven without being baptized because that is completely unbiblical, according to Christ Himself.

Lastly, when it comes to Mark 16:15, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved."  The Protestant idea that since the infant can't believe yet that he or she should not be baptized, is also completely unbiblical.  We first cannot be rationalists and assume just because the child can't speak yet, it can't make a decision to love God or accept God.  What gives us, as fallen / sinful people, the infallible understanding or perfect knowing to judge a child's heart and assume they have not accepted Christ?  That line of thinking really undermines the whole pro-life position suggesting that a young child cannot have a true relationship with God, which is completely unbiblical. Children having relationships with God before the age of reason is proven in the bible. David in the bible talks about "in the womb God knew me", in  Psalm 1:39 and God said to Jerimiah in Jerimiah 1:5, "Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you."  In Luke Chapter One, John the Baptist is explicitly told he was filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother's womb.  So the idea that a child cannot be the recipient of God's grace (blessings) or recipient of God at a infant state is unbiblical, according to these examples in the bible.    Ir is possible that a child may be able to reply with an infant faith, even though that faith is not able to respond or be articulated.  Thus, the Catholic Church teaches baptizing  infants is the safest way to ensure their journey toward salvation, rather than not.