Posted on 07/03/2008 10:41:56 PM PDT by Gamecock
Secondly, we examine….
THE CHURCH BUILT UPON THE ROCK
Matthew 16:18
The church of Matthew 16:13-20 is Davidic Israel; redeemed Israel, under her King and His Kingdom principles (i.e. Matthew chapters 5 through 7), and under the New Covenant (Matthew 16:16-19; Hebrews chapter 8; Jeremiah 31:31). The church of Matthew chapter 16 (since Acts chapter 28 especially) should now be viewed as the Israelitish church of future (Millennial) prophecy. As far as its earthly presence and position, it is in abeyance. There is no scriptural warrant to suppose that Jesus’ disciples understood anything more in Matthew chapter 16 than the fulfillment of the Davidic Kingdom promises made to Israel–“keys of the kingdom of heaven” (16:19 cp. Isaiah 22:22ff; Revelation 3:7, 8). The earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, before His sufferings on Calvary, was specifically to Israel—the circumcision (Matthew 15:24; Romans 15:8), “for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.” The “fathers” here refer to the Hebrew fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so forth. The subject of a New Testament church (or of local churches, as we have known them since the time of Acts chapter 15), has no place in the physical (Abrahamic) promises made unto the fathers of Israel. The New Testament Church (the Body of Christ revealed in the Pauline Epistles) and New Testament local churches, are not subjects of Old Testament prophecy. Neither John the Baptist or Jesus Christ came to establish any New Testament Church, at least not during our Lord’s earthly ministry. The New Testament Church was established by the resurrected and ascended Head, in His ministry seated in the heavenlies; in His Father’s Throne (Ephesians 1:19-23; Colossians 1:18; etc.). At no time did John, Jesus, or the Disciples declare, or even intimate, that anything like the Body of Christ was “at hand” during our Lord’s earthly ministry.
Many mistake “the kingdom [e.g., of heaven]” for Christendom, referring to the Church as “the kingdom,” without defining “kingdom.” Failure to distinguish between the various kingdoms of Scripture, has brought much confusion into the churches. Church folks will say, “We are trying to get more people into the kingdom.” But they don’t define “kingdom.” Among Baptists, this confusion has been exacerbated by denominational Baptists which had been deeply influenced by Postmillennialism decades and centuries ago. Bible believers, however, should learn to rightly divide the word of truth better than this.
Note that Matthew chapter 2 gives the ‘ecclesiastical’ scope of the first coming and earthly ministry of our Lord and Savior.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Harod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (Matthew 2:1, 2)
Notice that those wise men did not ask, “where is he that is born Head of the Church?” Why? Because He was not born Head of the Church, but was born King of the Jews. He was later resurrected and ascended to be Head over all things to the Church (Ephesians 1:17-23). The difference between the “days of [Jesus’] flesh” (Hebrews 5:7) and Christ’s ministry from the “heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3), a difference disregarded by many, is of vital importance in the eternal purposes of God. We ignore these differences to our own confusion in understanding the things of God.
John came baptizing for the purpose of manifesting Israel’s King to the Nation (John 1:31), and to effect remission of national sins (Luke 3:3). The recipients of John’s baptism had some way to identify his baptism with the acts of Elias the forerunner (Isaiah chapter 3; Malachi chapter 4: Matthew 17:9-13; 21:23-32; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:13-17; 7:19-35; John 1:29-31; Acts 18:25 through 19:7, and the whole chapter of Matthew 11). The Baptism of John was directly related to the washings found in the service of the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple (see Hebrews 6:2, note plural baptisms; Hebrews 9:9, 10, note plural Levitical washings, Greek, baptismos; Mark 7:1-9, the Jews traditional washings, Greek, baptismos, etc.). In title, John is the only Baptist found in the Bible, and his baptism had no relationship at all to the New Testament Church (Body of Christ) or to the churches of God as we have come to know them since Acts chapter 13. Since John’s ministry had to do with the announcement of the arrival of the Prophet like unto Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 7:37), the people could have even referred back to the baptism “in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:4). John’s baptism is found repeated in that practiced by our Lord’s disciples and commanded at Pentecost (Acts 2:38,39–note: non-Trinitarian baptism).
Israel, as a nation, should have welcomed and received both the forerunner (Matthew 11:14) and the King, Jesus Christ. They did not (John 1:11)! The Nation, with rare individual exception, was so entrenched in the traditions of men (e.g. Matthew 15:6—the oral traditions later recorded, like those in the Talmud), and so wrapped up in self-righteousness (see Romans 10:1-3), that her leaders went about to destroy their Messiah-King. Eventually, they turned over their King to be murdered at the hands of Rome. Israel murdered the Lord of Glory (Acts 2:23; 3:13-15)!
Israel could have received their King (Matthew 11:28; 23:37). Had they done so, Caesar’s thugs, occupying Palestine in that day, would have arrested Christ for sedition against the Emperor (see John 11:48 in its context). Rome would have crucified Christ, and would have borne all the guilt of that murder. Christ would still have shed His precious Blood for the sins of that Nation (John 11:45-53) and for all men, as He did. The perfect Sin Offering would still have been made, as it was (Isaiah 53; Hebrews chapters 9 and 10). Redemption would still have been accomplished (Luke 9:30,31), as it was. What would have been so different had Israel received Christ? First of all, Israel would not have suffered that guilt as a Nation (Acts 2:40).
Had Israel received her King, Jesus Christ, she would not have called for His crucifixion. Rome, accusing Him of insurrection and rebellion against the Emperor, would have murdered Him, the True King. See John 19:12, 15; 11:48-51; Luke 23:2. Had Israel received Christ, and not condemned Him, Rome would have borne the guilt of killing the Prince of Life, and Israel would not have suffered that guilt. But even if Israel had been innocent of Jesus’ death, and even had Rome been the principal perpetrator, three days and three nights after His Roman-style crucifixion, the prophecies of David (Psalms 16, 22, 46, 68, 69, etc.), Jonah (Matthew 12:40), Isaiah (Isaiah chapter 53; etc.), Zechariah (Zechariah chapters 13 and 14) and the other prophets would still have been fulfilled, as they were. The world would indeed have a Risen Savior!
What would have been so different had Israel repented? The believing remnant of Israel, after being protected by God in the wilderness (yes, the extension of the church in the wilderness Revelation chapter 12 with Psalm 55:6,7; Psalm 57; Psalm 68; other), for the fulfillment of Daniel’s 70th week, would have shortly afterward received the Davidic Kingdom, as promised by Peter in Acts 3:19-26 and 2 Peter 3:8ff (Peter did not write about the Rapture of the Church).
The Kingdom which was “at hand” (not the Church which is His Body, not a succession of Baptist churches, neither Christendom, nor a “Church Age”) could have been established on this earth, perhaps, by 50 AD. The New Covenant (Hebrews chapter 8; Jeremiah chapter 31; Ezekiel chapter 37, which did not rely on the Body of Christ for its fulfillment according to revealed prophetic Scriptures) would have been realized without a New Testament Church era (e.g. without a “Church Age” as we have come to know it). Remember that the New Testament Church (the Body of Christ) had never been a subject of Old Testament prophecy, nor was it a subject of the writings of the Apostles of the Lamb (the original twelve apostles) in any direct sense. Where we see the New Testament Church in typology in the Old Testament, we see it only because we have the Revelation of the New Testament through which to view it. No Old Testament saint could ever have seen it there.
Remember that there was neither teaching nor intimation during the Old Testament era that there would be any “church age” at all. Such an age as this in which we have been living for the past nearly 2,000 years was never revealed, nor could it have been anticipated, or guessed at, before Saul’s (Paul’s) conversion. The Lord Jesus, during His earthly ministry, never spoke about or intimated any kind of dispensation, age or era as we have been born into. The Apostles, throughout the Book of Acts, could not have contemplated a protracted church age of even 100 years duration, let alone 2,000 years long.
By written Revelation, we know that there will be a seven year long period called Daniel’s 70th Week (Daniel chapter 9). We know by written Revelation that there will be a 1,000 year Reign on earth of our Lord Jesus Christ (Revelation chapter 19). But where, in any portion of written Scripture, did God reveal a “Church Age” of 2,000 years duration? God, simply, did not reveal this! Many Bible teachers and preachers today treat and apply the Gospels and early chapters of Acts as if it were somehow known by the Apostles that there would be a protracted age such as we know to have passed behind us now in 2006. The Bible, its precepts and its commissions to the Church are, in our times, often applied as if the Apostles could have looked into the future to envision church buildings with steeples and all of the modern trappings of Christendom. Preachers wrongly interpret the Scriptures according to what we see around us today, instead of judging what we see around us by the Scriptures, which are the Divine Standard. Preachers try and try to find what we are practicing in our churches in certain passages of Scripture. Preachers thereby often wrest and twist the Scriptures to justify modern Christendom.
But before we do speak about the “Church Age” in which you and I find ourselves, we must digress, returning to the context of the church found in Matthew chapter 16. What does that church have to do with the Kingdom of Heaven? What does that church have to do with Hell and its gates?
Literal Gates
“The gates of hell” (Matthew 16:18) are literal gates! There is no cross-reference in Scripture to indicate that the phrase “gates of hell” refers merely to the influence of demonic forces. Many Baptists want us to believe that “...the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” means that Hell’s influences shall not prevail in stopping the perpetuity and succession of local Baptist churches through the church age. This is the basic premise in The Trail of Blood by B. H. Carroll. This is ballooned thinking, and gross failure to believe the Words of the living God literally. As we have already explained, many Baptists are reading church history back into the Scriptures as if the two thousand year church age which has transpired was actually prophesied and expected by Christ and His Apostles. The people who swallow Landmarkism read Matthew 16:18, 19 in the following way”
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will, over the following 2,000 years (the “Church Age”), tie together an unbreakable and documentable string of my local, visible Baptist churches; and the influences of hell and the devil shall not be able to stop an apostolic-type of succession and perpetuity of those churches. And I will give unto the properly ordained, commissioned and sent (in the opinion of the pastors in the succession themselves) the authority of the…ahhh, … (What is this…??) kingdom of heaven: …”
Wouldn’t it be fun to write a facetious version of Matthew’s Gospel called the BBV—the Baptist Briders’ Version, wording the entire book as it is worded in the minds of rabid Baptist Briders, Landmarkers or Carrollites! It would be useful for illustrating what they believe. There are, however, some good booklets already written on the subject, like Dr. Ken McDonald’s Here Comes the Bride!
The reading I gave above of Matthew 16:18, 19 is the basis upon which Baptist Briders and Landmarkers talk about “perpetuity” and “succession” of churches. They did not get their position from a plain reading of the context, but by a convoluted and preconceived purpose of controlling a string of local churches from the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry all the way to the Rapture. No perpetuity of churches or succession of church authority from generation to generation through the following 2,000 years was expected or even contemplated by the Apostles. Many Baptist preachers, using church history as the final authority for interpreting Matthew chapter 16, have fogged their hermeneutic windshield. They interpret allegorically instead of literally. “The gates of hell” are literal, not figurative!
Hell has gates made of bars (Jonah 2:2, 6)! Hell has keys (Revelation 20:1)! Believing members of the Church in the Wilderness, Old Testament Israel, were confined there in Hell (in the heart or center of the earth). The Old Testament believers inhabited that part of Hell that is called Abraham’s Bosom (Luke 16:19-31). Jesus Christ went there upon His death (Ephesians 4:9), preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19), and then led the believing members of the Church in the Wilderness, those generations of the “Church on the Rock” that had been then present, but had died (during the Old Testament era and during our Lord’s earthly ministry)—the captivity captive (Ephesians 4:8; Psalm 68:18), rose from among the dead, and ascended to His Father (4:9) with the souls of departed members of His Church (the only one being built and revealed at that time) following hard on! The resurrection of their bodies (Ezekiel 37, etc.) is yet future. Although they were believers, having the faith of Abraham (Romans 4:12,16—that’s why they were in Abraham’s bosom, or paradise—Luke 23:43), their souls could not enter into the presence of God until sin (Rom. 8:3) and sins (1 Cor. 15:1-4) had been dealt with by the one eternal Blood offering. “The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest...” (Hebrews 9:8), and so the Forerunner had to first enter with His own Blood (Heb. 6:20; 9:11, 12).
If any still insist that Matthew 16:18 teaches the perpetuity and succession of local Baptist churches through history, then I must ask at least six questions:
1.) Where are the Bible cross-references to prove that “gates” merely means influence? Why should “gates” in Matthew 16:18 be denied as being literal?
2.) What do the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” have to do with your local church? Maybe you are confusing the kingdom [of heaven] with individual salvation or with Christendom, just as do all liberals, modernists and covenant theologians.
3.) Where is there one local church or succession of churches on earth that the influence of Hell couldn’t destroy before next Sunday morning? Remember that our period of time is considered by most fundamentalist teachers of prophecy to be described by the church of Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22), and the devil is destroying Baptist and other Bible-believing churches on a daily basis.
4.) What Bible passages teach that there was any plan for a Church Age or Church Era? Certainly, Matthew 16:16-20 fails to prophesy or even intimate a Church Age, especially as the charge then given was “tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.” The “end of the world” spoken of in both Matthew 24:3 and 28:20, properly interpreted by the apocalyptic prophesies of Matthew chapter 24, and the subject matter of Matthew as a whole, deal with the end of Israel’s prophetic times (e.g. Daniel’s 70th Week). It does not deal with the New Testament Body of Christ.
The dispensation being administered (God’s provision and means of dealing with us) now was a mystery hid in God from the foundation of the world. Even God’s Apostle Paul, with advanced Revelation from Christ as the ascended Head of the Church, had no idea that this present age would last beyond his own lifetime, let alone for the following two millennia! Paul was looking for the Son of God from Heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:10), not for local church perpetuity, until his head was removed in Rome. Nowhere did the Apostles teach local church perpetuity, succession, or the concept of the necessity of a “mother church.” Any thoughtful student of the Scriptures and history must ask whether this “mother church” concept is not actually a religious hangover from Roman Catholicism at best (Rome and other cults also use Matthew 16:18 to teach self-perpetuity and succession). The concept has certainly proved to be an effective means of control over younger men who feel called into the ministry, and used for religious empire building by the more experienced elitist “clergy.” This has been demonstrated by the self-ascendant leaders of the independent Baptist movement in the Philippines and by their missions and fund-raising organizations.
5.) After preaching that Matthew 16:18, 19 is dealing with the perpetuity and succession of Baptist churches, and after stating to your congregation that it applies to the legitimacy of your church, and the “bastard” nature of some other local Baptist churches, why do you not also give the command to your congregation, “tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.” (Matthew 16:20)? If you answer that that command was just for that specific time, and for a specific purpose, then are you not actually allowing and admitting to a dispensational change that you will allow to nobody else?
6.) Are the ministers of your local church literally practicing the instructions of Matthew chapter 10 and Luke chapters 9 and 10 (see below), as the Apostles and the disciples certainly did…LITERALLY(!)? If you say yes, I certainly would like to go on “soul winning visitation” with you! It would be amusing, if it were not such a violation of Scriptural order for this dispensation.
The “Church on the Rock” is composed of those who would (and perhaps will also in Daniel’s 70th Week) “observe all things whatsoever [Christ] commanded” (Matthew 28:20) during His earthly ministry. Let’s see some of those things that He commanded:
i.) Don’t go to Gentiles or to Samaritans (Matt. 10:5) [The Apostles did later in the Acts period go to Samaritans and Gentiles, once commanded by their ascended Head (Acts 8, 10, &c.). The Jews will win the Gentiles during Daniel’s 70th Week.];
ii.) Only go to Israel (10:6). See again, Matthew 15:25 and Romans 15:8;
iii.) Preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (e.g., very near; ready to be established at that time) (10:7). This is not preaching that the Church or a Church Age is at hand. It’s strange that the closer we get to the Lord’s coming, the less we hear messages on the coming Kingdom of Christ on earth, which kingdom will be the restored kingdom of heaven! – “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10)
iv.) Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils (10:8). Yes, so why do we criticize the faith healers and the Charismatic movement?;
v.) Freely ye have received, freely give (10:8). So why are some Baptist mission agencies in America collecting free-will offerings from churches and lending it to foreign nationals, and demanding repayment with usury (?) while claiming to be something found in Matthew 16:18 and 28:20!;
vi.) You can’t take any money on your person to do the work of the ministry (10:9);
vii.) You can’t even take carry-on luggage to the mission field (10:10);
viii.) You can’t own a second set of clothes! (10:10);
ix.) You can’t even take a walking stick! (10:10);
x.) As you go, God will provide you with food (“our daily bread” – Matthew 6:11), enough loose change, clothes, should they ever wear out, etc., by people that God will have there to supply your need (loaves and fishes, John 6:9, hosts supplying, Luke 10:7, etc.) The account of the boy with the loaves and fishes (John chapter 6) is not given just for the purpose of teaching kindergartners! There is kingdom doctrine regarding the daily supply of the King’s messengers as they go into all the world during Daniel’s 70th week;
xi.) Go to one city and find a house of believers, and stay, live, and eat in that house until you leave that city. God will bring to you those who will hear the Word (10:11-14; Luke 9:4). This example is given in the Gospels precisely as the method of the Lord Jesus Himself during his earthly ministry (Mark 2:1-12; Matthew 9:9-13; 12:46-50; Mark 9:33ff; Luke 19:5-9);
xii.) No witnessing in the streets (Luke 10:4);
xiii.) No house-to-house visitation (Luke 10:7);
The commandments listed above are not figurative, symbolic or allegorical, nor are they to be spiritualized for convenience. They were given as literal, and were to be obeyed literally(!) by certain identified people. They were all commandments of our Lord, and were never withdrawn during His earthly ministry, or during His post-resurrection teachings to His disciples. We see a dispensational transition away from those commandments during the Acts period. I recommend that any Baptist preacher who is not obeying the above commandments quit trying to tie his ministry to Matthew 16:18 and 28:20. Be honest! You are not “observing all things whatsoever [Christ has] commanded you,” if Matthew 16:16-20 or 28:20 are the basis for your ministry. Baptist preachers like to make Matthew chapter 28 out to be the mandate for water baptism, tithing, church attendance and obedience to the pastor.
Trying to spiritualize the instructions regarding the ministry of the Twelve and the Seventy in Matthew chapter 10 and Luke chapters 9 and 10 to make those instructions fit what you are doing in the ministry won’t help you, if your Bible study is in tune with the Final Authority of the Holy Ghost. We observed in the Philippines, perhaps more than in any other place, how that young preachers will establish a practice by training or tradition, and then twist or spiritualize the Scriptures to justify their practice. But it happens in the United States, too, and it happens world wide. If you are not a Bible-literalist, then you have no argument against the doctrines and perversions of the Charismatic movement, the cults, Roman Catholicism, or Presbyterian Covenant Theology. Spiritualizing the words of Scripture to force them to fit their systems is precisely the method of all liberals, Charismatics, Postmillennialists and Amillennialists. Let’s be honest. Hasn’t hyper-spiritualing the Scriptures also become the interpretive method of the independent Baptist movement? What, then, makes your Baptist system any more authoritative than anyone else’s systems?
When the Church on the Rock (Matthew 16:13-21; 28:18-20) resumes it’s ministry (led by the 144,000 Jewish evangelists to the world—Revelation chapters 7 and 14; etc.), after the translation and departure of the Body of Christ, the set of thirteen instructions listed in Matthew chapter 10 and Luke chapters 9 and 10 may constitute that Church’s methods once again, except for the command to avoid preaching to Gentiles. Daniel’s 70th Week will have begun. When the Church which is Christ’s Body (Ephesians chapter 3; etc.) is gone, there will be a remnant of Israel that will believe on Christ. The majority of Israel will be judged under the horrors of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), and then those unbelievers will be destroyed. One hundred and Forty-Four Thousand (144,000) Jewish evangelists will go among the Gentile nations using the same methods you just read in Matthew chapter 10, 28:18-20 and Luke chapters 9 and 10.
The Jewish evangelists from the saved Jewish remnant will finally “go…and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:…” This will be Trinitarian Baptism, which was never performed by the disciples in the Acts period. “And [in continuation of that age] these signs shall follow them that believe; In [Jesus’] name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:17, 18; James chapter 5; Joel chapter 2; Revelation chapters 5 through 19)
Note that the reason that Gentiles were avoided (except those who submitted to Israel’s superior standing, e.g. the centurion in Matthew chapter 8 and the Syrophenician woman in Matthew chapter 15) during the Lord’s earthly ministry was to give first priority to the Nation of Israel. “To the Jew first” was also literally practiced by the Apostles of the Lamb and the Apostle Paul all through the Acts period (Rom. 1:16; Acts 3:26; 13:26, 46). When they didn’t listen, Paul also practiced Matthew 10:14 (Acts 13:51) Do you??? Look it up in your Bible! No, you haven’t practiced this even once in your ministry!
Here we are on Independence Day and this subject comes up yet again.
As a R.Catholic, I believe grace comes from God through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and this justifies us. It is an unearned gift. However, all the grace in the world will not save anyone if we do not manifest our love of God, and of his Son, Jesus, by loving our neighbors as ourselves - i.e. by charity. Can any sincere Christian actually believe that because God has bestowed grace upon them, they will automatically be saved regardless of whether they live a life of hedonism?
Charity should be done because we love Jesus and want to imitate Him and please Him - or - because Jesus commanded we love our neighbors as ourself, and will judge each and everyone of us someday. The first reason is the purest and most pleasing; the second, less pleasing. Yet the second is better than not performing charity at all. To believe that because you once had grace bestowed upon yourself, you are saved regardless of an unrepentent, sinful lifestyle, is idiotic.
This is such a simple concept, that I cannot understand why so many arguments come from it.
How much charity is enough to get saved???
But to answer your question, God wants us to live a life of hedonism...God wants us to find pleasure and happiness in our Christian lives...
Is it a burden for you to provide charity to others, or is it hedonism???
You don't seem to understand...Apparently you provide charity for others so that someday, you may (or may not) achieve salvation...
There are those of us (millions, in fact) that provide charity BECAUSE we already have salvation...
I don't know if it's because you don't study the scriptures, or don't rightly divide the scriptures, or you just don't believe the scriptures...
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Canon 24: "If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema."
Hopefully this will stop the double talk.
Where do you see the double talk? The anathemas are all scriptural, unlike Luther’s fantasies.
I have talked to, debated, and read numerous Protestant apologists who, because they are confused about the growth of righteousness, ask questions like, "If Catholics believe we are only made partially righteous in justification and you do good works after this to make this righteousness grow, how do you know when you have done enough good works to go to heaven? How many good works do you have to do?"Protestants who say this at least have a leg up on those who think Catholics believe we must do good works in order to become justified—a position which was explicitly condemned at Trent, which taught "nothing that precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification" (Decree on Justification 8).Catholic theology teaches we do not do good works in order to be justified, but that we are justified in order to do good works, as Paul says: "[W]e are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Justification is the cause, not the consequence, of good works.
However, these Protestants are still confused about the fact that Catholics do not teach we are made only partially righteous in justification. The Church teaches that we are made totally righteous—we receive 100% pure righteousness—in justification. Thus Trent declares: "[I]n those who are born again God hates nothing, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism unto death . . . but, putting off the old man and putting on the new one who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven" (Decree on Original Sin 5).
This one quote alone, even without the surrounding infrastructure of Catholic theology, from which the same thing could be deduced, shows how false, foolish, based on inadequate research, and motivated by a lack of comprehension of basic Catholic theological reasons is the whole, "How can you know when you have done enough?" line of argument. Nothing beyond one's initial justification and regeneration is needed in order to go to heaven. In fact, this is one of the arguments in the Catholic case for infant baptism. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Since the earliest times, baptism has been administered to children, for it is a grace and a gift of God that does not presuppose any human merit; children are baptized in the faith of the Church. Entry into Christian life gives access to true freedom" (CCC 1282).
And also: "Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God . . . [And thus] The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant baptism" (CCC 1250).
You don't have to do a diddly-do-da thing after being justified by God in baptism in order to go to heaven. There is no magic level of works one needs to achieve in order to go to heaven. One is saved the moment one is initially justified. The only things one then does is good works because one loves God (the only kind which receive rewards) and not choose to cast out God's grace by mortal sin. And even if one does cast it out by mortal sin, the only thing needed to get it back was the same thing needed to get it in the first place—repentance, faith, and sacrament, except the sacrament in this case is confession rather than baptism.
People try to make the Catholic message sound complex, but it's really simple: "Repent, believe and be baptized; then if you commit mortal sin, repent, believe, and confess. Period."—even a five year old child can understand that. All the exegesis and infrastructure of catholic soteriology I am giving in this work is strictly not necessary, any more than the exegesis and infrastructure found in Protestant soteriology books is either. From a Catholic perspective, repentance, faith, and baptism are just as easy to get across in an evangelistic appeal as they are for Protestants; in fact, they are easier since one doesn't have to explain, "Okay, repentance and faith are necessary, but baptism isn't, but it's still really important, and so you need to do it, okay?" On the Catholic view, the message of the elements we have to preach is much simpler: Repent, believe, and in the saving waters, receive the righteousness of God.
I pinged you to that thread, Iscool.
Over and over, in the NT, the Lord teaches of charity and good works. It's the way we apply our faith to our lives and making it our own. Memorizing and regurgitating scripture in clever ways is nothing... the devil can do that. Evil people profess faith in God but the way they live paints a different story..
The end of the age is when the church is in faith alone and is completely vastated. If all were in charity as part of faith, there would be no divisions over doctrine.
Right there you insert merit into the equation. Sorry. My charity does nothing to earn my Salvation.
The Lord is goodness and mercy Itself. I cannot do any charity for merit because that would be stealing from the Lord. I do charity as if from myself fully realizing that doing good works and charity is living my faith. No merit is involved.
Salvation is based on how you live your life, not what you believe. Beliefs are taught by which area of the country you were born -- indeed, which area of the world you were born. No one is condemned for that.
What I don't understand is the concept of vicarious atonement where salvation is 'granted' by Christ's' merit on the cross. We are to shun our own evils with help from the Lord -- take up our OWN cross. On one hand saying good works is for merit but not shunning evils because of 'once saved, always saved' is not doesn't make sense to me.
Charity and good works are essential components to faith.
Salvation is based on how you live your life, not what you believe.
I cannot do any charity for merit because that would be stealing from the Lord.
You guys are tripping all over each other trying to explain this...
annalex is explaining from a Catholic perspective.
I'm explaining my own non-Catholic faith where we believe as the Catholics do, just not in the details how.
I will agree that all infants go to heaven and the level of works isn't an issue. It's a matter of performing a spiritual use to the Lord's kingdom.
What is the question you want me to explain?
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