“Regarding the debate about faith and works: It’s like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most important.”
~C.S. Lewis
Next time an evangelic Christian asks me “have you been saved” I’ll tell them every time I go to communion I accept Jesus Christ as my Savoir.
hrough faith and works done in charity inspired by the Holy Spirit.
This position would be anti-Biblical since God says in multiple places that you cannot work for your salvation (but go ahead keep on trying, tire yourself out doing works), meanwhile I’ll rest in Christ’s forgiveness unearned, and knowing that there’s nothing I can do to earn it, or keep it (or lose it).
You might then say: “Well then what keeps you from doing bad things, and keep on sinning?” I’d answer that I DO sin, and Grace isn’t a license to sin, but it is taking the burden off me (where it should be) and relying ONLY on Christ, through a changed heart is one kept from living their old lives, nothing more-salvation is provided by Him, and given by Him for “to him who does not work Rom 4:5”.
IOW, the Catholic church does not believe that the death of Jesus was enough to save a person.
So when Jesus said *It is finished*, He really didn't mean it.
Sola gratia! Grace alone -- but a grace we have to co-operate with. Thinking that all one has to do is pray the "Sinner's Prayer" once to be saved is wrong. Thinking that all one has to do is be a "good person" to be saved is wrong.
But for God's grace, there's a person around who could draw their next breath.
God pours His grace on all. No one has to *co-operate* with it.
When many Protestants use the phrase "born again," they seem to be referring to an "emotional experience." They often expect instant transformation (which can certainly happen), speaking in tongues, miracles, etc. as some sort of "proof" of having been "born again."
The author does not have a clue as to what he's talking about.
It's clear that he does not understand what being born again is in the least.
This article is wrong on so many levels that it's almost unbelievable.
I don,t see any of the pagan extras the Catholic Church adds into the “must believe” in any of those passages of scripture cited. Did I purhaps miss the passages where the apostles teach the assumption of Mary? Or the ones where they teach that praying through Mary is better than going directly to the throne of the Father as Jesus taught?
It would really raise the level of meaningful conversation if you would post threads by people who actually know what the heck ANY actual Protestant believes.
This FRoman Catholic polemic isn’t fit to line the Pope’s birdcage.
Jesus establishes us by Paul's gospel...The gospel Jesus revealed to the apostle Paul...
Act_20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
And Paul's gospel given by Jesus Christ is the gospel of the grace of God...Pretty simple, eh???
Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
And here's Paul's gospel given by Jesus Christ to the Gentile church...
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
No works...Nada, nein, ne, la, none...Absolutely NOTHING of yourselves...
Can you find things in the bible that say works are required along with faith for salvation??? If you do, it is not the gospel of the grace of God given to Paul by Jesus for the Gentile church...You've got the wrong gospel for the wrong people...
Rom_1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Gal_1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
There you go Catholics...
Gal 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
If you are preaching or teaching the CHURCH any other gospel than the gospel by grace thru faith without any conceivable works, you are accursed...It doesn't matter if you can find another gospel in James or one in Matthew, THIS is the one that must be preached...
Gal 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
It is so important Jesus had Paul repeat it for the second time...
Those that teach these false gospels are in a heap of trouble...The ditch you are going to fall into is not a regular ditch...It's an eternal ditch...
Luk_6:39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
The work of God IS to believe. All other works are poured forth out of belief. If one says a sinner’s prayer truly believing then at that twinkling of an eye they are saved forever. They are born again, translated from the kingdom of darkness into God’s glorious Kingdom of Light. Old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. If they are really saved then other works will proceed out of a heart that has been made alive by The Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ died for us once for all times. Please do not think that He needs to be crucified over and over for you to remain saved. When He gave up His last breath, He said “it is finished”. The work of salvation was wrought by His perfect life being sacrificed to pay for all of our sins. We were buried with Him, and raised with Him. Praise be to God who lives forever.
Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
When will RCs realize that quoting this text in attempting to refute SS actually does not, but is more applicable to Catholics?
While it is precisely the faith behind accompanying works that appropriates justification, Reformers clearly taught that the only faith that is salvific is the kind that effects works of obedience, thus works justify one as having faith.
In his Introduction to Romans, Luther stated that saving faith is, “a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly...Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt] “
This is what I have often said, if faith be true, it will break forth and bear fruit. If the tree is green and good, it will not cease to blossom forth in leaves and fruit. It does this by nature. I need not first command it and say: Look here, tree, bear apples. For if the tree is there and is good, the fruit will follow unbidden. If faith is present works must follow.” [Sermons of Martin Luther 2.2:340-341]
More .
To believe is to do, and works is faith in action, thus if one performs an act of faith, such as being baptized, then it can be said that if he does so then he will be saved.
Thus Acts 2:38 promises the latter, while the same Peter tells the lost Gentiles that forgiveness is by believing, and they do and are regenerated before they were baptized, with Peter affirming that God purified their hearts by faith, and using this as supporting being saved by grace. (Acts 15:7-10)
Likewise to be forgiven of sin that one is being punished for is to show the effects thereof.
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. (Matthew 9:4-6)
Thus which is easier to say,
"To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." (Acts 10:43)
Or.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:38)
The latter is saying the same as the former, to believe, but as to believe is to confess, thus the "confession with the mouth " in the latter case was in body language. And thus the invalid and mute can be born again, as can those whose justifying heart faith sees immediate confession, which normatively go together.
Baptism can be the occasion of conversion, when one truly comes to saving faith, God drawing, opening the heart and granting repentance, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32; Acts 16:14; 1:18) as well as express it, but not its cause (except as a catalyst due to the faith it signifies and requires).
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Pt. 1.
The Catholic position on salvation can be summed up thus: We are saved by Christ's grace alone, through faith and works done in charity inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Catholic position on salvation can be summed up thus: We are saved by Christ's grace thru the merit of works, beginning with justification being based upon one's own holiness via baptism, and thus usually ending with becoming good enough (and atoning for sins) to enter glory via suffering in "purgatory," commencing at death. .
"Although the sinner is justified by the justice of Christ, inasmuch as the Redeemer has merited for him the grace of justification (causa meritoria), nevertheless he is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis), just as a philosopher by his own inherent learning becomes a scholar, not, however, by any exterior imputation of the wisdom of God. (Trent, Sess. VI, can. x)." Catholic Encyclopedia >Sanctifying Grace; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm
"Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification and for the attainment of eternal life (Catechism of the Catholic church, Part 3, Life in Christ, Merit, 2010)
The term “merit” refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members..., (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2006)
Trent, Canon 32 states,
"If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema." (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32.
Shortened, this teaches, "If anyone says that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God does not truly merit eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself, let him be anathema."
While Roman Catholic theologians labor to try to articulate the distinction between two ideas of merit, (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10202b.htm) interpreting Trent as to mean “merit” as meaning due to God's faithfulness to reward souls under grace, this distinction is unknown or effectively lost upon almost all of her members (as well as those without), whose natural disposition is to believe they are children of God and who will accepted into glory because they are pretty good people (compared to their neighbors who think likewise).
Which which her doctrine of purgatory only promotes, as it makes one's goodness the basis upon which one may enter Heaven to be with God. CCC 1023:
1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
While purification in the life beyond is
through fire and torments or 'purifying' punishments.” (INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA; cp. 1. 1967)
Yet in Scripture in every place which clearly describes the postmortem place or condition of believers it shows it is with the Lord. This includes even all the Thessalonian and Corinthian believers at the Lord's return, and all believers ("we") at death. (Luke 23:43; Acts 7:59; 1Cor. 15:52; 2 Cor 5:8; 1 Th 4:17; 1Jn. 3:2) And in whose presence there is fulness of joy (Ps. 16:11). To God be the glory.
Apart from stressing the depravity of man and his moral destitution by which he may escape Hell and gain Heaven, and his desperate need for a “day of salvation” (2Cor. 6:2) by personal and direct repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus to save Him on His expense and merit, then few man ever come to that point, but will suppose he will enter glory based on his relative goodness, with some mercy thrown in, usually do to his connection with the Catholic church and faith in its presumed power with God.
"We are saved by 'Faith alone'": No! It takes more than simply knowing Jesus is the Messiah to be saved; even the Evil One knows Who Christ is.
And so begins the usual recourse to SS straw men. Who are they trying to refute, "Unitarians?" Rather than refuting SS, the fact is that those who hold most strongly to Scripture being the sole and sufficient supreme authority as being the wholly inspired assured word of God, with its immutable literal moral laws and history, are overall far more committed and conservative than Catholics overall, showing their faith by their works.
The Catholic Church and Her Bible condemn the idea that one can work his way to Heaven on his own merit or that God "owes" a person for doing the right things.
Rather, this is just what the RCC effectually conveys by its emphasis upon justification by one's own holiness via baptism, and becoming good enough to enter glory via purgatory. So that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God truly merits eternal life, as reactionary Trent teaches.
Surely this can be said to be by grace, as meaning by God's grace i became good enough to enter Heaven, but which is not what Scripture means when it teaches that,
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)
In conversion faith is counted for righteousness, not because the one is baptized and made good holy inside, though he is washed and given a new heart, otherwise Abraham would have to be given a new regenerated heart in order to have been counted righteous. But by exalting God as infinitely holy and abasing oneself as being utterly unworthy to be with God, but counting God's worthy of faith, that He both is able and willing to make you His child, then God counts such a one as just, on Christ's expense and credit.
Before the cross this was effected in recognition of what Christ would do, while after Calvary it is because of the perfect atonement of Christ being made.
Thus,
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:13-14)
And as with souls after Pentecost, it was not because they were regenerated that they were righteous, as the sinful flesh remained, but because God counted them as being so on Christ's expense and credit.
Something I came across on the Internet demonstrates the obvious importance of works. Below is a (albeit rather smart-alecky) joke letter to a pastor who preaches "faith alone": I now realize that Salvation is through the finished work of Christ ALONE, and not from good works. I am now living as an active homosexual in the freedom of Jesus Christ!
The pastor, almost completely misunderstanding Catholicism but who has an entire ministry devoted to "saving Catholics", responded in part by saying...what Catholics have been saying all along!
Incredibly, in further reliance upon straw men this quote was actually from a site which responds, "Tragically you have completely misunderstood the Gospel of Grace. It is true that a person is not saved by his works and that salvation is completely of grace. However that does not mean that works have nothing to do with salvation," and uses it as representative of a "faith alone" pastor who finally gets what Catholicism teaches.
Yet this response is not contrary to what faith alone has historically taught, but is entirely consistent with it.
In his Introduction to Romans, Luther stated that saving faith is, a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever...Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt]
When many Protestants use the phrase "born again," they seem to be referring to an "emotional experience." They often expect instant transformation (which can certainly happen), speaking in tongues, miracles, etc. as some sort of "proof" of having been "born again"... anyone who's ever been "love-bombed" in a cult, experienced cocaine or Ecstasy, been to a Woodstock-like music festival,
The author somehow confuses tongues, miracles, etc. as an "emotional experience," by which straw man he attacks SS believers as if the Bible did not clearly teach that true conversion results in outward evidences, but that can include such things.
And which again is what characterizes those who hold to the historical view of Scripture most strongly, in contrast to RCs.
The fruits of the Spirit are not out of control shaking, screaming, running around, falling down, "holy laughter," vocalizations that don't edify the Church,
Indeed, and 90% of evangelical pastors reject the "prosperity gospel (Pew) which this is part of, and thus this is much another straw man.
But what the author is really trying to do is attack the evidences of a worshipful heart, that of the typical 45 corporate worship that characterizes much of Evangelical services, before the typical 45 sermon, versus the 45 minute RC liturgy theater with its perfunctory praise and professions. As my former RC priest used to vainly exhort us, "sing like Protestants!" (Some of the charismatics did.)
What the author also needs to do is defend how RC baptismal regeneration can be real when there is no manifest positive difference btwn baptized RC kids and the non-baptized, other things being equal. If anything kids from Catholic schools are the most indifferent to personal exchange about things of the Bible.
Catholics, though, don't see eternal salvation as a one-time event that one can pinpoint and relate to others by saying, for example, "I was saved at 5:30 pm on 23 October 1988 when I got on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Indeed they do not, which is a critical problem. For in Scripture we clearly see that souls did indeed have a "day of salvation," (1Cor. 6:2) < p> Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:5) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)
" We think of salvation, ultimately, as a process that is begun with faith and Baptism
Indeed, in which as described, they became good enough to enter Heaven (despite yet having a sinful nature), thus often souls like Constantine would not be baptized till on their deathbed, for as they sin afterwards then they must go to purgatory to once again become good enough to be with the Lord.
Thus the baptized are treated as believers after being sprinkled as infants, never hearing preaching in their church that would convict them of their desperate need for salvation, and end in Hell as religious, but sadly, tragically lost - to their eternal horror!!!
This does not mean we do not hold that salvation is also present in the sense of being saved from being like the world by walking in the Spirit, and look forward to being saved in the future full realization. And some perceive the many warnings to believers, warning of departing from the faith and forfeiting what it procured, but one cannot lost what he never had in the first place, which is the state of most Catholics.