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?
Should you be sinless at the time of your death to go to heaven?
We all have sin nature, but we should not assume that Christ is a free pass to continue to willingly sin or be in a sin parade.
We are IMO to always fight the good fight to be better and not sin, but when we do, we should ask forgiveness and really mean it. We should be trying to sin no more.
I’ll throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Yes, the same questions have occurred to me.
If you are saved, then you won’t feel like sinning any more.
But if you do feel like sinning anyway, then you weren’t saved.
This is one of the many difficulties of Protestant theology. When is inner certainty self-deceit?
How many of your sins were in the future at the time Christ died? All of them.
Yes. This type of thread should be posted in either the General/Chat or Religion sections.
According to Protestant theology, you don’t go to heaven because you are sinless, but because the sinless one, Jesus Christ, paid the penalty for your sins, and you repented accepted him as your Savior. Of course, repentence can be insincere, but God knows the heart.
Your question brings me back to our Q&A sessions in Catholic school, back in the 3rd grade during catechism class.
"Sister Mary Jean, if you were walking to confession, and you had committed a mortal sin, and you were going to confess but you were hit by a car outside the church, would you go to hell for eternity?"
We were obsessed with legalistic questions such as these.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to answer this question. ;) good luck!
We can assume the Apostle Paul was saved. Yet he makes it very clear that he continued to feel like sinning. He had to "pummel his body and lead it as a slave," with strong implication that even so he sometimes failed to resist the temptation.
It is not for we humans to know the answers to these questions. We work out our own salvation and other people’s salvation is between them and God.
My layman’s opinion.
Yes, ALL your sins are forgiven (as Paul states.. we are not given ‘liscence’ to sin once saved by Christ), but once saved Jesus paid all our sins, every last one. I believe that isn’t a Catholic vs. Protestant though..it’s a Biblical belief/stance.
No. That's a cult.
That's what we're taught, yes.
Can a person lose his salvation?
No.
If not, can assurance of salvation become a license to sin?
No. If one's acceptance of Christ is true, then one will not wish to sin. We all transgress, of course, but deliberately going out and sinning because we think we have a free pass means that our conversion was not genuine.
Scripture uses adoption to describe salvation. When we are adopted as children, there’s no such thing as being un-adopted.
Where do they have those? j/k
Even after we have been saved and accepted the Lords as our savior and he has washed us as white as snow of our past sins, he knows that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and we shall sin again. Less than before as we will strive to follow in his name and to be salt to this earth and be of it rather than in it. Still, we must confess our sins in our hearts each day and each our and ask forgiveness.
In that final moment in our heart we must ask his forgiveness and call upon him in his name that we might enter heaven.
Sound familiar to much of the Catholic faith.
How many times can Christ die for your sins?
A lot seems to depend on feelings, as if one can do anything if drugged and unaware.
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