Posted on 10/28/2007 5:11:19 PM PDT by pinochet
I am a Catholic who is trying to understand Protestant history and teachings, in order to better understand the history of Christianity. There is one issue that I do not understand.
According to Protestant teachings, if a person becomes saved, are his future sins forgiven? Can a person lose his salvation? If not, can assurance of salvation become a license to sin?
If Ted Haggard had gone to be with the Lord early last year, while in the process of getting a "massage" from his male "friend", would he have gone straight to heaven?
Nope. That is the faulty assumption of a person who understands unbelievers don’t have fruits of the spirit, then confuses a believer who fails to walk in the spirit as being identical to an unbeliever. Not true. Two different classes of people. One is an unbeliever, the other a degenerate believer. Studies on carnal believers and Christian degeneracy touch on this second class of ‘loser’ believer. They merely lose many of their rewards predestined for them in heaven for all eternity.
The Early Church Fathers on Salvation Outside the Church [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
The Early Church Fathers on Justification - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
The Early Church Fathers on Hell - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
The Early Church Fathers on Purgatory - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
Yep, He sure does. In fact He just burns up everything that isn’t per His will in our soul later on. He then rewrites His Word in our soul. Once we are saved, we are His, whether we are scarred in our souls like spoiled children or not.
He isn’t forcing an unbeliever to become a believer, but he will discipline His children and if need be remove them from this first life early if they act so stubbornly as to no longer ever be in a place to perform anything which might be righteous any more.
I think you may be confusing forgiveness with salvation. Different issues.
“1 Cor. 3:10-15 — “...he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
I don’t think that one’s going to cut it.
I meant to speak of a soul in open, willful, unrepentant rebellion (think blasphemy or the like). Are you saying that even such a person would be forced into Heaven? If so, how do you square that with infinite Justice? Also, if that is the case and He "burns up everything that isn't per His will... later on," (especially given the assumption that I should have mentioned) how is that different that Purgatory for such a soul?
Thank you for your concern that our behavioral standards may be lowered. I am grateful that the RCC faithful are budgeting time to be concerned about other denominations, given the situations that exist inside the RCC itself.
I am further grateful to be in a denomination that has much more local control of who’s in the pulpit, and are able to remove problem pastors, and deal with unrepentant members much more effectively than the RCC laypeople and clergy can.
If you read my explanations, you’d see that mature/growing Christians are more than well aware of their own shortcomings. We are faced with them every day. We have to deal with them every day, just like any other Christian, regardless of denomination. I would echo the comment of a prior poster saying simply, do not confuse our confidence in our salvation, which is a promise from God so we can keep on running the good race without fear of eternal death, with antinomianism. They are not the same thing.
Now of course there are people who may very well believe “I’m saved, now I can keep doing whatever the heck I want,” but that is antinomianism and that is not what protestants believe. It was disproven by Paul and dicredited by many church fathers over the years.
You can’t force people to mature spiritually by taking the Gospel and adding the Law to it, by making them have to confess to a priest for pardon, by making them do penances of different things. By saying the rosary a number of times to finally attain forgiveness of the Gospel by following ‘the law’. It is not your place to determine who is maturing in Christ at a fast enough pace, or if your brother is sufficiently repentant enough by doing x, y, and z, and then and only then will the Gospel ‘work’ for him. That is not biblical. It is not bad to suggest things to someone who is asking, what can I do to make things better? But not to hold the Gospel hostage by attaching the law to it. The Law condemns. The Gospel saves. The Law is not merciful. The Gospel is a free gift solely of the love and mercy of God. The two are not to be mingled.
You don’t put people under your thumb and pressure them to do the right thing. That is what the RCC does by preaching and teaching “faith plus good works” saves you. You don’t do enough good works, in someone’s opinion, and you risk losing your salvation. That is not how God works, for that is why He gives people free will, to see what we will do, uncoerced, for Him. As we mature in Christ, and all Christians do - but perhaps not at the rate you may think is appropriate - we want to live a more Christ-like life. We work to better ourselves. Not out of FEAR of LOSING salvation, but out of CONFIDENCE we HAVE salvation because of God’s promises He has made to us, those who believe in what His son Jesus Christ has done for us already.
But we still have to have the humility to admit we were wrong, go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confess our sins, pray for forgiveness and receive the forgiveness as passed down from Christ to Peter to the Apostles and to the present day priests.
Are either of you familiar with the actual words of absolution that the priest says? Do you know who forgives our sins as Catholics?
Don’t throw stones until you know all the facts. Words of Absolution in the next post.
 |
1449 The formula of absolution used in the Latin Church expresses the essential elements of this sacrament: the Father of mercies is the source of all forgiveness. He effects the reconciliation of sinners through the Passover of his Son and the gift of his Spirit, through the prayer and ministry of the Church:
|
Here is something, which the more I consider it, the more i want to study how our Lord and Savior thought and responded to all situations He was faced with through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The topic being how to respond to somebody who might be an unbeliever, but indubitably not in fellowship with God, who takes offense by the least action, statement, or seemingly any thought one has through faith in Christ.
For example, Romans teaches us we are not to give offense to the person who is living by the Law and becomes offended if we were to eat meat sacrificed to idols, yet through faith in Him and the New Covenant, all things are possible, not perhaps expedient.
I consider now how many times, our Lord and Savior encountered those who did not understand, made a statement which due to their own thinking was inherantly unrighteous, but nevertheless, our Lord discerned a response which provided proper guidance, while not offering offense. Like the woman accused of adultery being brought to be stoned.
Our Lord and Savior, of all people, who knew what awaited Him, still had the grace to preserve the Law, while placing the burden upon the scribes that he who was without sin was to cast the first stone, thereby defeating their intent to appeal to the Targums, but instead maintained the Law, all the time recognizing they had used grossly improper procedure in the Law when they approached Him,...the same who would be convicted and crucified by similar lack of proper procedure in the Law by man made assemblies.
It is challenging of both intellect, mind, and human spirit to figure out ways to bear proper witness to those who are not in fellowship, yet insist they are offended by anything which is through faith in Him.
Nevertheless, we are believers 24/7, in sleep as well as our most active states.
Scripture quotes please? Thanks! :-)
“human will becomes merged with divine Logos”
God’s shekinah glory dwells in your “personal” glory seat, but I’m not sure if its a total merging or more of an embrionic recreation of one’s inner spiritual man which will shuck away the perishing outer man like a butterfly shucks away its old chrysalis.
The Bible speaks of God giving “each of his children their own “white stones with their names written on it, known only by that child and God himself”.
I suspect the relationship in the future will be much the same as Christ has with his father...”For behold we are the sons of God, but it doesn’t yet appear what we shall be...for we know that when he shall appear, we shall be LIKE HIM for we SHALL SEE HIM AS HE IS!”
Our wills are not merged they are RECREATED becoming outwarding directed conduits of God’s glory and love!
Why do you think Christ declared that those who did his father’s will would be considered as “stars of heaven”? The newly perfected wills of men will shine out for all eternity with the Glory of God! Each person will have his own personality and identity but within the total will of God(one’s own white stone with our own unique signature known only to self and to God) similar to the relationship Christ has with his father!
Whether you believe it to be in reference to Purgatory or not, that certainly "resembles" it. Catholics who look to any significant explanation on Purgatory will find that as one of the supporting verses.
“Not out of FEAR of LOSING salvation, but out of CONFIDENCE we HAVE salvation because of God’s promises He has made to us, those who believe in what His son Jesus Christ has done for us already.” And the scriptures say ... aw shucks, just read the first three chapters of Romans that you just condensed so beautifully. [’Faith’ is an action word ... as Gene Scott would teach.]
In my ‘protestant’ religion, we don’t need a middleman, be it a ‘sacrament of reconciliation’ or a person to stand between us and God. Jesus is sufficient. :*)
Who was ‘throwing stones’? Not sure what you are referring to.
BUT...it is the Holy Spirit that nudges *us* to do OUR part! It’s all God, all the time. :-)
ping-a-ling-a-ling ... once God saves your immortal spirit( Jesus said unto Nicodemus, ‘Ye must be born again ... of the Spirit’), ask yourself whom is then responsible for your Salvation, because if Satan can destroy that Salvation, The Son of God has died for you in vane. Perhaps you want to ask about the transforming process which accompanies/follows Salvation?
That's a stretch if you think that is referring to "purgatory". It's like the saying, if someone believes something enough they will convince themselves that it is true.
When you feel up to it, please find other references to purgatory. I'm sure the Catholic Church can do better than that.
There is no way to know another person's mind, we can only know our own. A sin committed in ignorance is not held with the same consequences as sin with knowledge what sin is. Our Heavenly Father is perfect in His judgment as to the mind of each of us, something that we cannot judge. There is no way to know what takes place in the transition of death of flesh and that soul returning to the Maker that sent it.
All souls return to the Maker that sent them, although there is a 'gulf' that describes a separation of those who did not overcome... meaning accept Christ. Remember at death Christ went and preached the Gospel... salvation to all those who had come before, back to even Noah.. I think is the reference.
I’m reminded of the scene in the 1950 Martin Luther movie where Luther is talking to the head of his Romanish monk order and the guy says after Luther points to Romans about how the just shall live by faith - and the guy goes off on “Dr. Luther, what if we take away the indulgences, the relics, the pilgrimages, what will we replace these with?”
Luther responds, “Christ. Man only needs Jesus Christ.”
And the Romanish monk shakes his head and walks away.
It is the same debate that is going on in this thread today.
Man refuses to accept the gift because he thinks “All I have to do is believe?” He does not realize how hard it is to live a good Christian life even knowing it’s free. A person like Paul, who understood salvation to be a gift of God, freely given, who wanted to live more Christlike, was terribly bothered by his own sins (failings, shortcomings, character flaws, etc) because he was trying to live a better Christian life and still could not do it perfectly. He begged God to take these away from him and God would not do so. His sins bothered him greatly, but he did not fear that his sins cost him his salvation.
This is the picture of the maturing Christian, engaged in the process of sanctification while alive on the earth, no matter what denomination they are in. They are not the antinomianism “I am saved so I’ll keep sinning” person.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.