Posted on 11/17/2005 4:35:36 PM PST by COBOL2Java
Nobody said anything about "working your own way to heaven". Clearly the redemption has to be applied to specific individuals in time.
Well, you'd better get to work.
If there's literally nothing left to be done by anyone (including God) because everything was accomplished 2000 years ago, we're all engaging in a vast waste of time, money, land, effort, lives ...
But that's clearly not consistent with Scripture, so why do you believe it?
Why? Are you trying to work your way into heaven? Didn't Jesus do it all?
...and if God decides you've been bad, you go to Baltimore.
Yep.
Why? Are you trying to work your way into heaven? Didn't Jesus do it all?
My ticket has already been purchased. Christ paid the price. I am simply continuing in his word and tarrying until he comes. Just keeping busy until the train arrives.
Not for you. Paul didn't think it was over for him while alive, either
"I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified." (1 Cor 9:27)
Christ calls us to be disciples. Read the Gospel of Mark if you are interested in the NECESSITY of becoming servants to others. Christ tells us over and over we must become like Him.
Regards
Your way sounds pretty cozy and easy - and just wrong. I am sure that this is what Christ meant when He said "pick up your cross daily and follow Me", or "follow the narrow road".
Brother, I urge you to re-visit the Gospels with a prayerful heart and reconsider whether we are just meant to "wait around"...
Regards
Is that supposed to be a "work"? I thought it was a privilege. Didn't Jesus say "My yoke is easy and my burden is light?" Or is that something that has been mistranslated?
Am I supposed to hate stuff like going to church, reading the bible and praying? Is that supposed to be a great burden upon my shoulders such that it will help Jesus in atoning for my sins?
What "works" do you do that are such a punishing burden upon your soul that it helps you to redeem yourself from your sins?
Not only do they say that there is nothing good in man, but that man, EVEN WITH CHRIST WITHIN US, can do nothing good. Basically, we can do nothing because we are unable to respond to the graces of God. Thus, the need for an imputed righteousness, a legal declaration, although the person is still sinful and incapable of doing good with Christ.
So, Protestant salvation is a substitutionary justification in which the sinner is clothed in righteousness. Catholic salvation is an actual transformatory justification in which humans are literally transformed. Any transformation that remains after death is taken care of in purgatory or, what the Orthodox would called the process of divinization.
You summed it up very well. According to some Protestants, man cannot be righteous, even if God is the driving force within them, placing inside them the will and desire to do God's good purposes. (Phil 2:12-13)
Regards
Love is "easy". Following rules out of external commands to OBLIGATE God to 'owe' us is a burden. Working for wages is burdensome. Loving God and others is the Way of the Savior. We are to become like Christ, a servant. We are to die to ourselves. This goes beyond "I am just waiting around until God calls me home" idea you seem to have. DYING to yourself means leaving the ego behind and becoming a servant. This is the call Christ makes to us.
Am I supposed to hate stuff like going to church, reading the bible and praying?
All of that is MEANINGLESS if you are not transformed internally. Our religious experiences boil down to charity and justice. Catholics and many other Protestants will hear from the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats, this Sunday. Our entire life boils down to whether we are led to this conversion that changes us. If you aren't changed, converted, you have nothing. Without love, Paul says, we are nothing (1 Cor 13:2).
What "works" do you do that are such a punishing burden upon your soul that it helps you to redeem yourself from your sins?
I don't do any "works", because I cannot obligate God to pay me anything. Love comes from Christ, just as faith does. With your idea that your "faith" saves you, you are now doing the very thing that Paul says we are NOT to do in Romans - obligating God. Your presumptuous attitude is demanding salvation as a payment from God through your "work" of faith.
Regards
Is Baltimore worse than Houston? I haven't been there in many years.
Thanks for the info! I'll put Baltimore on my list of places that I'd rather starve than live there!
BTTT
Your definition of the Reformation view ("nothing good left in us") is way off base, but your summary above is good re justification by itself. It is weak because it does not take into account the Reformation view of ongoing sanctification or the final glorification. Both of those appear to be inclusive to your definition of "Catholic salvation". If we want to make this an apples-to-apples comparison, we need to match up that entire redemptive process (from first repentance to final restoration/transformation) across both parties' theologies.
Always good to hear from the name-callers!/s
bttt
Neither is New Jersey. Yet here I am :)
You sure New Jersey isn't Purgatory?
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