ealgeone:
Yes Christ died for our sins. But lets take this further. God moves to save us first, there has to be first grace [prevenient grace in Catholic theology] as while man is not born in a sinful nature, he is due to original sin fallen and deprived of original holiness. Thus man through his own will and intellect can not on his own come to true faith. God’s grace is needed even to come to true faith.
For Catholics, the “normative means” of Gods Grace [first grace] is Trinitarian baptism. At that point, original sin is removed [if adult all personal sin] and one is now infused with God’s Grace and restored to communion with God.
It is becausse of God’s Grace that we now have faith with is not just knowledge of God or belief, but trust and as true faith it is formed by Love whereby we are to Love God which means follow Him, carry our cross and obey him [do what is good and holy, avoid sin].
So what happens after baptism when we sin, well we humbly repent and confess our sins and God’s grace restores us back.
Confession is throughout the Bible. Lets take John 20:21-23 where Christ as the Father sends me I send you and he breaths on them [”enephusēsen”, which literally means into them] and this gives the Apostles the authority to forgive sins “If you forgive sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any the are retained.
Saint Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 speaks of a ministry of reconciliation and Saint Paul says was entrusted the message of reconciliation and they [Apostles} were ambassadors for Christ and God making his appeal through us.
James 5:13-16 speaks of calling the presbyters if one is sick and then have the presbyters anoint the sick and it also commands one to confess their sins.
1 John 1:9 clearly again tells the members of the Churches [these are people who are already baptized and part of the Church] to confess their sins if they commit them.
Agree.
.But lets take this further. God moves to save us first,Agree...it is God Who always moves to save us....there is nothing on our part
....there has to be first grace [prevenient grace in Catholic theology] as while man is not born in a sinful nature,...
Disagree based on Romans 3.
... he is due to original sin fallen and deprived of original holiness. Thus man through his own will and intellect can not on his own come to true faith. God’s grace is needed even to come to true faith.
It is God Who moves to save us.
You do realize you're advancing a Calvinist argument here....right?
So what happens after baptism when we sin, well we humbly repent and confess our sins and God’s grace restores us back.
Presumes the person has lost their salvation which would contradict Scripture which tells us we're sealed by the Holy Spirit. As it is God Who does the sealing we are unable to unseal ourselves.
The same John you cites in both his Gospel and 1 John makes it clear we can know we are saved...and he writes this indicating our salvation is a state of permanence.
This is where the aforementioned Col 2:13-14 I have cited is relevant.
Christ has rubbed out our sins....cancelled the certificate of debt against us...we're made clean.