Our "imitation of Christ" is God working in us and is part of our sanctification.
It is not the reason we are saved. Christ on the cross is the reason we are saved.
Rome always confuses sanctification with justification. They are two separate workings of God. God elects His family; Christ justifies that family; the Holy Spirit sanctifies that family.
I don't know if the man who falls on the grenade is redeemed by Christ or not. The Bible tells us we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. Therefore, the man who falls on the grenade is not saved because of his selfless act, but by the grace of God, if God so wills.
We are told hundreds of times in Scripture that all good works we accomplish are the result of our salvation, not the cause of it, as Rome insists over and over to its everlasting shame.
"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 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... He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." -- Romans 4:3-5;20-25 "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." -- Philippeans 2:13
Christ's righteousness imputed to us, for those with ears to hear.
“Our “imitation of Christ” is God working in us and is part of our sanctification.”
Of Course ,Dear Sister,but it is NOT Christ forcing Himself on us. It is us dying to self by an act of free will in order for Christ to use our human nature.
Here is where Calvinism goes horribly wrong again,Dear Sister
The soldiers act of unconditional love to give up his own life can only be Christ working in him.
All goodness and love is from God,Dear Sister, and there can be no evil in God,thus the soldiers act cannot in any way be not of Christ redeeming him at that very moment he gave his life for the love of another.
Blessed Saint Aquinas explains this well
That God is the Good of all Good
GOD in His goodness includes all goodnesses, and thus is the good of all good.
2. God is good by essence: all other beings by participation: therefore nothing can be called good except inasmuch as it bears some likeness to the divine goodness. He is therefore the good of all good. Hence it is said of the Divine Wisdom: There came to me all good things along with it (Wisd. vii, 11).
That in God there can be no Evil
ESSENTIAL being, and essential goodness, and all other things that bear the name of ‘essential,’ contain no admixture of any foreign element; although a thing that is good may contain something else besides being and goodness, for there is nothing to prevent the subject of one perfection being the subject also of another. Everything is contained within the bounds of its essential idea in such sort as to render it incapable of containing within itself any foreign element. But God is goodness, not merely good. There cannot therefore be in Him anything that is not goodness, and so evil cannot be in Him at all.
3. As God is His own being, nothing can be said of God that signifies participation. If therefore evil could be predicated of Him, the predication would not signify participation, but essence. Now evil cannot be predicated of any being so as to be the essence of any: for to an essentially evil thing there would be wanting being, since being is good.* There cannot be any extraneous admixture in evil, as such, any more than in goodness. Evil therefore cannot be predicated of God.
5. A thing is perfect in so far as it is in actuality: therefore it will be imperfect inasmuch as it is failing in actuality. Evil therefore is either a privation, or includes a privation, or is nothing. But the subject of privation is potentiality; and that cannot be in God: therefore neither can evil.
This truth also Holy Scripture confirms, saying: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him, (I John i, 5) Far from God impiety, and iniquity from the Almighty (Job xxxiv, 10).