Are you saved?

The assurance of salvation is the most important thing in life. It should be the number one concern of every human being. Sadly, too often it is not.

The good news is, the Bible teaches that you can know for sure that you are going to heaven. I John 5:13 says: "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW THAT YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE..." Notice that this verse doesn't say, "that ye may HOPE that you can GET eternal life." It says that you can know that you have it, as a present possession.

Acts 16:31 says: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved..." Notice again that it doesn't say, "Believe and you will someday be saved." It rather says, "Believe...and BE saved." Of course, the word "saved" makes a lot of people nervous.

A man told me once, "We don't speak in those terms at our church." But that's a shame, because the Bible uses this word over and over again. John Newton used it hundreds of years ago when he wrote that most beloved of all Christian hymns, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that SAVED a wretch like me." You've probably even sung that song! Well, it was written by a man who was saved, and you can be saved too. Ephesians 2:8,9 says: "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” “Not of works, lest any man should boast."

Here we see that people are saved "by grace," and "through faith." By God's grace. Through your faith. Faith and believing are the same thing. If you believe something, it means you have faith in it. Notice also the contrast to "works." Works are things that we can DO.

Most people think that they can be saved by the things that they do. If they don't do bad things, if they instead do good things, they think that they will be saved. The problem with this system is that you can never be SURE that you've done enough good things, and avoided enough bad things, to be saved. That's why the people who believe this are generally not sure they are saved. But Romans 4:16 says, "Therefore it is OF FAITH, that it might be BY GRACE, to the end THE PROMISE MIGHT BE SURE..." The only way you can be sure of salvation is by faith. If you had to do as little as lift your finger to be saved, you could never be sure that you had done it right.

But by faith we can believe that the Lord Jesus Christ did it right. We can be sure that He lived a sinless life. He never did anything wrong, He did everything right. A person like that didn't deserve to die. The Bible says that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). But He was no sinner. Why did He have to die? Ah, He died OUR death. He died our death so that we could have His righteousness and be saved. II Corinthians 5:21 says: "For God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Two thousand years ago, God laid all of our sins on Christ as He hung on Calvary. But that doesn't mean that everyone is saved! Two thousand years later, WHEN YOU BELIEVE that Christ paid for all of your sins, God then takes Christ's righteousness and puts it on you, completing the transaction that must be completed for the redemption of your soul.

I like to explain it this way. God says to us in the Bible that Christ paid for all of your sins. The only question is,

Do you BELIEVE God when He says that all of your sins are paid for? Do you TRUST Him when He says that?

If you don't, well, you just have to go on trying to pay for your sins in your own way. By being good. By not being bad. But these are things the Bible says you can't do well enough to be saved. Romans 4:5 says: "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, HIS FAITH is COUNTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Titus 3:5 says: "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."

That big word "regeneration" is just a big word that means to be "born again," as the Lord talked about in John 3. But in both of these verses, you can see that salvation is by faith alone, and has nothing to do with your conduct. Most people think that we are all born GOOD, and on our way to heaven, and that we have to do something REALLY BAD to blow it and go to hell. But the Bible teaches the opposite. The Bible teaches that we are all born bad, and have to get saved by faith to go to heaven. Sometimes when we explain this, people then ask, "Why then should I be good?"

The answer to this question is, we should be good out of gratitude for God for saving us. Earlier I quoted Ephesians 2:8,9 to show that we are saved "by grace" and "through faith." But the NEXT verse in Ephesians 2 tells us where "being good" comes in: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

When we are saved, we are made "new creatures" in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). But Ephesians 2:10 here says that we were "created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works." That is, we were saved by faith, but we were saved FOR A PURPOSE, for a reason. God saved us and made us new creatures in Christ so that we would THEN do good works.

Most people get the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. Most people think you do good works, then God saves you. The Bible teaches that instead we are saved by believing, then we SHOULD do good works. Right after Titus 3:5 says we are saved "not by works of righteousness," three verses later it says, "...these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful TO MAINTAIN GOOD WORKS. These things are good and profitable unto men."

Do you see it? We are not saved by good works, but after we are saved by faith, we are told we should do good works to please the One who saved us. Romans 6:23 says: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Here there is a contrast drawn between "wages" and a "gift." Wages are something that we EARN. We go to work, and work all week, and the boss pays us. If we want to be polite, we can say "thank you" when he hands us the check, but we don't have to. He OWES us that money, we EARNED it.

But a gift is something altogether different. You can't earn a gift. If you did, it wouldn't be a gift. That's why the verses BEFORE Romans 4:5 says, "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." You can't earn a gift, you can only receive it. And the way you receive the gift of salvation is by faith, by believing God when He says your sins are paid for. Suppose you were a gambler, and racked up a debt of a million dollars to the Mafia. They threatened to kill you unless you paid up. A wealthy friend learns of your plight and comes to you and says, "Don't worry, I've paid your debt."

Now in this case, you must REALLY BELIEVE that your friend paid your debt. You must really TRUST your friend when he says that. That's why the other word that the Bible uses besides "believe" is "trust." Ephesians 1:12 talks about people... "...who first TRUSTED in Christ "In whom ye also TRUSTED, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13).

If you DON'T trust that your friend paid your gambling debt, then you will most likely continue to make payments to your bookie or loan shark. But if you DO trust your friend when he says that your debt has been paid, then you will rest comfortably in that knowledge, knowing that you've been "saved" from an awful fate, and you will be forever grateful to the one who saved you. That's how salvation works too.

In John 5:24, the Lord said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, HATH EVERLASTING LIFE, and SHALL NOT COME INTO CONDEMNATION, but IS PASSED FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE." Here we see that the Bible teaches that not only are you saved if you believe on the Lord, you already possess eternal life, and it is NOT POSSIBLE for you to ever be condemned for your sins, for you are ALREADY passed "from death unto [eternal] life." Remember, Acts 16:31 says, "believe...and...be saved." It DOESN'T say, "Believe and be good." It doesn't even say, "Believe and be religious." It just says believe and be saved.

If you believe that Christ died to pay for all of your sins, and that you don't have to pay for any of them, the Bible says you are saved. In I Corinthians 15:1-4, the Apostle Paul identifies “the gospel” that he preached to the Corinthians, by which they were “saved”: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; “And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” You too can be among those who are “saved,” if you will simply put your faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 3:25).

One can not be unified in love of Christ if one refuses to join the Church He established or to Worship as He Commanded. With all due respect, you are asking me to unify around indifference. That is precisely the opposite of Jesus' prayer in the Gospel of John.

These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee.

I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they were, and to me thou gavest them; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known, that all things which thou hast given me, are from thee: Because the words which thou gavest me, I have given to them; and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me: because they are thine: And all my things are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou has given me; that they may be one, as we also are. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. And now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy filled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil.

They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me;

That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me. Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me; that they may see my glory which thou hast given me, because thou hast loved me before the creation of the world. Just Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee: and these have known that thou hast sent me.

And I have made known thy name to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.

* Brother, you are bringing me another Gospel. I reject it

In the Sixteenth Century, there was a sudden and deadly outbreak of deracinated, demented, and damnable darnel in the form of the protestant revolutionaries.

Revolutionising within the form of orthopraxis, they did to their Churches what the phylloxera louse did to vineyards.

For over FIFTEEN CENTURIES, Christians Worshipped as Malachias prophesied and Christ Commanded.

Christian Worship was - and still IS in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches - about the action of Jesus. Working through the Priesthood He established, Jesus, as both Priest and Victim, offered/offers Himself as the Pluperfect Sacrifice of the New Covenant as an act of Propitiation.

Jesus also offered/offers Himself to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Pluperfect meal of the New Covenant. That is how Jesus communicates His Divine life to us and that is how we advance on the road of Theosis. God became man so man could become God, as the great Saint memorably summarised the truth.

We Christians, as members of the Royal Priesthood, gathered/gather with the Ordained Priest at the altar and joined/join with Him in offering ourselves, our prayers, works, joys and sufferings and that offering was/is joined to the Pluperfect Sacrifice of Jesus and the innumerable angels, gathered about the Altar, take that Pluperfect and acceptable offering to the Altar in Heaven.

Once the protestant revolutionaries had completely denuded the vineyard and chased Jesus out of the Sanctuary, there was no need of a priest. He was treated as a pest; an annoyance; an unacceptable accretion who, in the sick and twisted ideology of the Heresiarchs, was superfluous.

So, emptied of the actions of Jesus, the protestant revolutionaries filled their churches with a hymn sandwich - the work of man; a sermon sandwiched between hymns. It was/is solely the work of man. And only man.

Where once the odor of Sanctity permeated the Sanctuary, there was/is now but bloody rags, the work of man having supplanted the actions of Jesus, and worship was killed, Jesus dethroned and man, ascending into the sides of the North like Satan, substituted a service for the Eucharist/Divine Liturgy/Mass.

Bereft of the actions of Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour, the services of man are worse than a poor substitute. They reflect the triumph of Satan who used the 16th Century Satanic Mini-me's to chase Christ out of the protestant churches. The ego-maniacal revolutionaries had to have Jesus decrease so their oral traditions could increase.

The sad truth is that hundreds of millions of well-intentioned Christian protestants have never had the truth preached to them in words that will prick their ears and make them sit-up and take notice.

I am preaching it to them now. The hour is late. Time is running out.

Protestants must return to the Church - be it Orthodox or Catholic (y'all know my druthers) so they can reclaim their rightful heritage, Worship God as Jesus Himself Commanded us to do at the Last Supper/First Mass, and to enter the Ark of Salvation, outside of which is but satanic shark-infested water where one's soul is imperiled and drowned.

Thanks for the ping! This looks like a very interesting thread; one on which I would normally spend lots of time. Unfortunately, I have to work all weekend but may be able to revisit this later today. The following caught my attention:

Acts 16:31 says: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved..." Notice again that it doesn't say, "Believe and you will someday be saved." It rather says, "Believe...and BE saved."

The "Once Saved, Always Saved" doctrine is fundamentally flawed. The perfect example of how this doctrine is false is Judas Iscariot. He believed in Jesus Christ, walked with Him, was one of the Twelve and was given the same powers from Him as the others. Yet what Christian believes that Judas Iscariot went to Heaven?

How can we be assured of our own salvation if St. Paul wasn't (1 Corinthians 9:27)? Salvation is not a "one time" event, but an ongoing process until "the end" (Matthew 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses the issue of Salvation.

161. "Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. [Cf. Mk 16:16 ; Jn 3:36 ; Jn 6:40 ; et al.] 'Since 'without faith it is impossible to please (God)' and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life 'But he who endures to the end.'']"

162. "Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: 'Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.' [1 Tim 1:18-19 .] To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; [Cf. Mk 9:24 ; Lk 17:5 ; Lk 22:32.] it must be 'working through charity,' abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church. [Gal 5:6 ; Rom 15:13 ; cf. Jam 2:14-26.]"

Thank you for stating your true perspective. You have no interest in the love of Christ with out your being right first. That is obvious.

What I would like the Catholics to stop doing is pretending that there is any other way to heaven, yet saying Protestents have no salvation, as you just did. Because if I am presenting another Gospel then you are obligated by St. Paul in Galations 1:8-9 to declare us eternally condemned and a follower of demonic teaching. The Counsel of Trent stated this clearly; 146 times declaring any not supporting their tradition to be anathema.

The Word Anathema comes with all of the below associated with it:

"Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive _____ himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment." This is the ceremony of Anathematization according to the Catholic Church.

Why wont you declare what The Catholic Church has already? Do you not believe the products of your church?

Please state this clearly for everyone to understand so that we are not decieved.

If you are trapped in a works based theology it is hard to understand. Judas lacked FAITH.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses the issue of Salvation.

Just as the catechism also states:

424 Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. On the rock of this faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church.

Okay, a challenge:

1. find any Church Father, East or West, who objected to asking the intercessions of the saints.

2. find three.

While you're hunting, you can muse on the fact that they are not dead, but alive in Christ, even if their souls in paradise are not yet reunited with their bodies, and puzzle over why the Martyrdom of Polycarp, written at most
70 years after the Gospel of St. John (and perhaps as little as 30 years) speaks of the martyred bishop's bones as being "more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold" and his receiving the "crown of immortality".

I'll address the honorifics given to the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary in a later post once you rise to the challenge. (We Orthodox have a *really* long list of very flowery ones in the Akathist Hymn, normally sung at Small Compline during Great Lent, which starts quite early this year.)

As to purgatory and indulgences, you'll have to get a defense of those from the Latins, we Orthodox object to both, and have from well before Luther raised hue and cry against them (cf. St. Mark of Ephesus's Refutations of the Latin Chapters Concerning Purgatorial Fire--which, alas, seems to not be available online. The one English translation I know is published as an appendix to Fr. Seraphim Rose's The Soul After Death).

The whole article--and indeed the whole protestant notion of 'assurance of salvation'--turns on a faulty understanding of Greek verb tenses. English has not equivalent of the aorist tense, which indicates an action begun in the past and ongoing in the present. The nearest one can get in English is the slightly awkard "are [or am] being saved", which only suggests continuing action in the present.

Being aware of when the Evangelists or Apostles (or Our Lord as recorded by them) are using the aorist tense can be important to correct Scriptural exegesis. There is, for instance, a passage in one of St. John's Epistles, where he speaks of Christ being made known in 'the water and the blood', and uses the aorist tense. This makes it clear that he is referring to the ongoing action of the Holy Mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist, rather than the flow of water and blood from Our Lord's side on the occasion of His Saving and Ever-Memorable Death.

There are countless millions who follow Christ yet hold no allegance to Rome. You do need to make up your mind if we are or are not saved. If saved, then we are part of God's Church.

The post-concilar RCC has twisted and tortured its previously proclaimed doctrinal statements to the point of absurdity. When the "there is no salvation outside the Church" and "one must be subject to the Pope for salvation" doctrines were put forth, there was no confusion. Unless you were a card-carying Catholic, you were damned. That has now been twisted and contorted. Now, the Church essentially states that anyone that is saved is saved through the Church. Not only Protestants, but even those rejecting Christ as Saviour, such as the Muslims, are potentially saved. About the only person that can't be saved is one who, knowing that the Church is necessary for salvation, leaves it none the less. Tell me, who, "knowing" that the Church is necessary for salvation would leave it? Everyone else is potentially "savable" (by the Church, of course). Apparently they get "credit" for lack of knowledge or understanding. Ignorance is bliss, apparently. This false ecumenism of the modern RCC is what bothers me most. It is dangerously universalist and leads to a thwarting of the Great Commission. Blessed Mother Teresa, who will almost certaily be a Saint one day, was an outright universalist and pantheist; apparently this is A-OK at the Vatican. Some frightening quotes from Blessed Teresa:

The following is from an interview with a Catholic nun, "Sister" Ann, who worked in Kathmandu, Nepal, with "Mother" Teresa's organization Missionaries of Charity. The interview was conducted 11/23/84 at the Pashupati Temple.

Q: Do you believe if they die believing in Shiva or in Ram [Hindu gods] they will go to heaven?

A: Yes, that is their faith. My own faith will lead me to God, ... So if they have believed in their god very strongly, if they have faith, surely they will be saved.

Q: Today it does not seem that the Catholic Church is trying to convert anymore. I know that John Paul II is saying now that those of other religions are saved. You do not believe they are lost anyway, right?

A: No, they are not lost. They are saved according to their faith, you know. If they believe whatever they believe, that is their salvation.

There you have it. Apparently, sincerity of belief and strength of faith, regardless of the object of belief and faith, is all that is needed for salvation. No doubt, Muslim suicide bombers have a strong faith; enough that they are willing to die for it. I suppose the Church recognizes that faith and steps in to provide for their salvation?

Your post 159 is a good question. I picked up my catechism to look for an answer, here's what I found.

CCC 846

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his body.

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation; the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will s they know it through the dictates of their conscience-those too may achieve eternal salvation.

"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith whithouth which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

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