“Hey O’Reilly, NOBODY lives a sinless aka “good” life, one deserving of entry into Heaven and eternal companionship with God. NOBODY. (With the obvious exception of Christ.) We are saved by Grace alone. For us, that means accepting Christ as Savior. Period.
Don’t like it? Well, you don’t make the rules. God does!”
Exactly. The Bible says that man’s righteousness is like -filthy rags”. O’Reilly -does- want to make the rules.
I wonder if it would stoke Bill’s outrage to learn (because I doubt he knows) that people who believe as you believe, as Rev. Graham believes, and as I believe, are under the anathema of the Catholic Church. Rome hates free grace ao much they would consign us to Hell because we believe in Christ alone through grace alone!
“At the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the declarations of which are still in force, the Roman Catholic Church formally condemned the biblical doctrine of faith alone and grace alone. Consider the following declarations of Trent:
“If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Sixth Session, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 12).
“If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Sixth Session, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 24).
http://www.wayoflife.org/database/romedeniesgrace.html