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?
Selah! We have a Mighty Savior.
JOhn 3:18, 3:36, but they need to be read in context.
John 3:18 gives me cause to believe the judgment of unbelievers to condemnation has already occurred, although since every knee will bow, the Great White Throne Judgment still awaits them, I believe.
BTW, thanks for the links.
Do the Good.
**so I find the parallel of generational passage of power within the RCC to be a religious artifice at best and blasphemous at worst.**
I don’t find it blasphemous at all because a priestly power was passed down from Christ, the high priest, to Peter and then down through the generations. Christ knew that the Gentiles would also be converted and he sent the Apostles out (72 is an estimated number) two by two to convert first, Israel, and then later he sent them out to the whole world.
As I said in my previous post — I believe we will have to agree to disagree. You just don’t see the present day priests and being endowed. But then, you do not believe in the Sacrament of Holy Orders either, where priests are given that same power.
Good night.
I just reread Romans today, Romans 14:17 comes to mind regarding the kingdom of God.
Rom 14:17-18
(17) For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
(18) For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.
That is incredibly awesome!! :-) :-)
Thank you so much for the link!!
I do recognize the authority of priests, but many RCC do not recognize the priesthood of their fellow brethren and substitute the authority of manmade institutions over those of the God made body.
I want to expand on this. The problem that some of the RCC posters have here about this is ‘what if a person’s conscience does not make him feel repentant ENOUGH?’ He may ‘slack off’ and not ‘do enough’ to be forgiven by God.
Given the fact there is nothing we can do to repay one sin completely (you break the law in one place, you break it everywhere - it’s as bad as breaking the entire law because the punishment is the same whether it’s small or not) tell me what is enough? Living the rest of your life perfectly is not enough, because it still doesn’t pay for you breaking the law beforehand - living perfectly is only doing what God EXPECTS of you. Doing only what’s expected of you from now until you die does not pay for your past crimes.
The whole RCC problem is that they want to be your conscience and tell you when you’ve done enough to be forgiven. They want to displace your own God-given conscience, and there are many, many people who willingly want to turn their own conscience off and simply listen to what others say they need to do (legalism) in order to stay in God’s good graces. They say if we leave it up to the lay people then most will not ‘behave right’ - not go to church, not support the church, not ‘do what they should do.’
I ask, who are any of them, priests or lay people, to play the part of someone else’s conscience and tell them they don’t have salvation unless you do x, y, and z and tell Father everything and say 25 Our Fathers and 100 Hail Marys and then you’ll be forgiven. You don’t even give them a chance to figure out the seriousness of what they may have done on their own, you want to play the part of their own conscience - for their own good you say.
It is not your job to force people to be ‘repentant’ enough in your opinion. You are not their conscience. God has given them one. Do you know how you feel when your conscience is bugging you? You feel really bad. You want to feel better. The RCC, though, at this point holds this person hostage by saying their salvation may be in jeopardy (or is lost) until you do a bunch of things and another person tells you you are officially forgiven. This is not biblical. A truly repentant person wants forgiveness and understands why they need it (and if it is in question if they do or not, it is easily and quickly explained to them). A repentant person, who is told they are forgiven, once the fear of eternal consequences is gone, can move forward with confidence with his pastor or other Christians and say, what can I do to make up for what I’ve done? And start moving forward from that point, knowing he has been forgiven, not having to do a number of tasks before someone will tell him he is forgiven.
By letting others be your conscience and set up a legalistic system of confession/penance/absolution controlled by others, the way the RCC has done it, I believe that a lot of lay Christians in that church do not have the opportunity to grow into more mature Christians because their own consciences are not maturing and ‘the mind of Christ’ we are supposed to have is not being molded and growing like it should. They are not able to discern things for themselves as they should, and be repentant as they should, as forgiveness becomes a ritualistic, legalistic-formula exercise.
He sure is! He has saved billions of people. And counting! And only He could do it. Thank you Lord, for doing what none of us could. We couldn’t even save ourselves, much less anyone else.
How do you know that the New Testament was originally in Greek?
The Old Testament was not in Greek.
Just curious about your assumption when you consider that if it was written in Greek, it was written in the second language of those who authored it.
“Throwing out mistatements about Catholic beliefs without stating the truth as Catholics believe.”
Replace Catholics with Lutherans and we have the same thing...the point I’m trying to make is that we all can be better at asking rather than telling...by the by I think you are quite fair in your posts whether I agree with you or not is not relevant, rather it is how you state your viewpoint that is key...
Blessings in Christ to you and yours!
Interesting post with agreeable comment, although some believers here though faith in other aspects of Scripture might have fellowship with him by other priorities. I recall now the Scriptures in Romans to not cause offense even if it is allowable so as not to cause a stumbling block,..something I am probably guilty of indubitably.
Repentance is simply turning back to Him with an element of volition included. So such thing as not turning back enough. We’re either facing Him or we aren’t.
On another note, I really think there is a tremendous issue here regarding debt/works and grace associated in our fellowship with Him. The more we perform works which are dead works, works not through faith in Him, the greater our debt to Him actually becomes.
Romans 4:4,5
Great quotes. It makes me want to ask:
And how can one have peace and joy in the Holy Spirit if one is never certain of their own salvation? I see a lot of people out there who are Christians who have no real idea if they are saved or not. I have a Catholic priest friend who has told me point blank he doesn’t know if he is saved or not. He believes that he could even ‘screw up’ in purgatory (another topic) and lose salvation.
I am a practical guy. I know the kinds of fears that are in the back of my head as very distant but never out of the realm of possibility. Joblessness. Homelessness. Natural disasters. Debiliating illness or injury.
In all honesty, the fear of not knowing whether I am saved, IF I HAD IT, would totally and completely dwarf all the fears I could have living life on earth. There would be no way, NO WAY, for someone who has seriously, seriously considered what eternal separation from God, in Hell, being tormented forever into eternity, if they took a hard, long, sober look at what that really means, IN MY GOD-FEARING HONEST OPINION, to have ANY peace, or ANY joy in the Holy Spirit. I don’t see how anyone could. Uncertainty on the weightiest issue that faces us personally would cause tremendous anxiety, stress, fear, panic and distress. Did I do enough? Was what I did do really sufficient?
I tell you, my priest friend, he has no peace. He has no blessed assurance in his salvation. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He’s not even sure he can make it through purgatory to heaven. This is a RCC priest! Who forgives others! Who leads others! Who is supposed to comfort others?
If you don’t think so, that you can have peace and joy in the Spirit without knowing if you are saved or not, you’ve never thought about this long and hard. If you think you have and still think so, I guarantee you have not.
Yes, I agree that we could substitute Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Presbyterians.................any in that clause.
We all, at times, fall prey to the temptation to bash someone who might not agree with our own point of view.
Not necessarily limited to religion. Look how it happens in politics, greens or pro-life discussions for example. I have been harped at for my beliefs that euthanasia is misused in the cases of elderly as well as Downs babies. (I have a Down’s grandchild.) It’s interesting just to sit back and watch sometimes, isn’t it?
Blessings to you.
Great point. And you know what else, there will be Christians who are saved but may hear varying levels of “welcome unto the Lord, thy good and faithful servant”. Not everyone is going to hear that. And some may hear it more than others. I believe that how much we grow in maturity here will be rewarded appropriately and recognized appropriately when we are judged.
But the bottom line is you can’t force people to do good works. It’s like forced giving. There isn’t forced giving, it is either forced, or it’s given freely. We have taxes, and we have charity. There are things we as people have to do, and there are things we do voluntarily. You can’t force people to be charitable (although Hillary is sure going to give it a try!) Sorry, I just had to say that!
Great verses to quote. Note that was we are saved in this Church Age, we are indwelt by the Holy Ghost. When we sin, the Holy Ghost isn’t removed, but we are no longer in fellowship with Him in our thinking. In order to return to that fellowship, we follow the instructions per 1stjohn 1:9, thereby placing ourselves in position where He is free to continue our sanctification.
We might be unfaithful, but He is never unfaithful.
Walking in the Spirit or fellowship with the spirit are the same things, but the indwelling is independent of our actions or thinking or volition. It is purely a work of God in every believer, so in many cases it isn’t even experienced in the believer, although in some, they may have spiritual experiences which reveal His presence.
2 Tim. 1:16-18 - Onesiphorus is dead but Paul asks for mercy on him “on that day.” Paul’s use of “that day” demonstrates its eschatological usage (see, for example, Rom. 2.5,16; 1 Cor. 1.8; 3.13; 5.5; 2 Cor. 1.14; Phil. 1.6,10; 2.16; 1 Thess. 5.2,4,5,8; 2 Thess. 2.2,3; 2 Tim. 4.8). Of course, there is no need for mercy in heaven, and there is no mercy given in hell. Where is Onesiphorus? He is in purgatory.
First of all Onesiphorus was not dead, yet whoever is writing this pro purgatory article is assuming he is.
This next passage is taken completely out of context from what the KJV says. Here is the article:
Luke 12:47-48 - when the Master comes (at the end of time), some will receive light or heavy beatings but will live. This state is not heaven or hell, because in heaven there are no beatings, and in hell we will no longer live with the Master
Now here is the actual verse from the KJV:
Luk 12:46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for [him], and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. Luk 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not [himself], neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many [stripes]. Luk 12:48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few [stripes]. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
The author of the article assumes wrongly again that when in Luke 12:46 it states "The lord of that servant" to mean the Lord God, he is wrong, it actually means some servants master. So this servant getting beaten isn't in some purgatory, he is at his master's house getting disciplined. I'd spend more time going through the purgatory article but I have better things to do than try to disprove something I already know is false.
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