What must you do to be saved? The Ethiopian asked that question in Acts I believe, and was given the answer: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now you may ask what do you need to believe in Jesus Christ for, exactly? In other places in the bible this is made clear: that He is the Son of God, and that His atoning death on the cross paid for your sins in full.
Now Catholics (being a former one for 25 years) have a problem with (many) but two big things: one, they don’t know for certain they are going to go to heaven; and two, they believe that if you don’t do good works plus have faith in Christ, you will not go to heaven. They look at us protestants and say, “All you have to do is believe? What’s so hard about that?”
Well, first, the bible says that because man’s nature is naturally sinful and therefore, naturally turns away from God, there is no way without God’s help that natural man can believe in God, nor His plan for salvation. So for unregenerate man, it is impossible for him to believe in God or the promises of God.
Belief requires faith, and that faith must be given to us by God so that we can believe. This is one way we understand how “before I loved God, He loved me first.” But the fact is He has to give us the faith in order to believe Him (and in Him) in the first place, otherwise it will not happen. This is also the reason Scripture points out and we concur, that God has done everything for us. He gives us the faith to believe in Him. He pays the debt we cannot pay ourselves. He promises us the gift of everlasting life.
To say that ‘we know we will be forgiven for our future sins’ is not viewed upon by any mature Christian, protestant or Catholic, as a license to continue sinning or increase it. Paul is clear about this point in multiple passages. The mature Christian instead, knowing this to be true, has confidence in God’s promises that God will forgive Him. It is about having faith when God says that He will forgive you of your sins, He will. It is about having confidence in Jesus Christ’s atoning death, that His death is sufficient to cover all of my sins, even the ones I don’t know I will commit in the future.
As human beings in our present state, we are both sinner and saint at the same time. We are sinful yet we are saved. We have two natures at the present time, the old man as Paul says (our sinful Adam), and we also have the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ living in us as well. How can this be? Well baptism for one. Believing in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Because of our two natures now, we will never be sinless in this life. We will grow as Christians, though not at the same rate, and we all will end the race at different points of maturity, but at the end, glorification will occur in an instant (absent from the body, present with the Lord) and the old nature will be gone.
The Catholic problem with this is you look at glorification as a long term process and invent purgatory as the place where final purification begins. There is no basis for this in Scripture and what you do find in Scripture is immediate judgment after death, to heaven (glorified) with the Lord, or in Hell waiting for the final judgment day.
>>>>>Now Catholics (being a former one for 25 years) have a problem with (many) but two big things: one, they don’t know for certain they are going to go to heaven; and two, they believe that if you don’t do good works plus have faith in Christ, you will not go to heaven. They look at us protestants and say, “All you have to do is believe? What’s so hard about that?”<<<<<
The main concern that Catholics have, is that behavioral standards may be lowered, and you may end up with church leaders like the Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson.
After all, if Robinson is “saved”, then he is assured of heaven, irrespective of his personal behavior. Separating behavior from salvation has always been a concern for Catholics.
There is no basis?
"But nothing unclean shall enter it [heaven], nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life". Rev 21:27
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". Mat 5:8
How many of us are going to die completely clean and pure of heart? God is His wonderful mercy enables us to be purified even if we didn't totally take advantage of His sanctifying graces while alive.
Regards
Romans 10:9-13, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Either that scripture passage is true or it isn't, and since I believe in divine inspiration of scripture I believe it is true. I don't believe that God gave us the Gospel in riddles that can only be solved by a few chosen men and women when He explained to us how we may escape eternal damnation and gain eternal life. On that basis I am entrusting my eternal security to the absolute, unimpeachable veracity of God himself who cannot lie, not on the opinion of any man no matter how highly educated or highly ranked in Church hierarchy he may be.