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To: vladimir998
Souls can be added to the visible Church through baptism and excluded from the sacraments through excommunication.

Bodies can be added to your religion but souls can't...Your visible church is physical...The spiritual church is invisible...

51 posted on 07/11/2009 3:07:07 PM PDT by Iscool (I don't understand all that I know...)
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To: Iscool
Your visible church is physical...The spiritual church is invisible...

Where does Scripture say that the Church founded by Christ is invisible?

54 posted on 07/11/2009 3:15:57 PM PDT by Titanites
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To: Iscool

You wrote:

“Bodies can be added to your religion but souls can’t...Your visible church is physical...The spiritual church is invisible...”

Actually they’re one in the same. The Apostles were physical men, not just souls. He sent them - body and soul - into the world. They were the Church.

Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Romans 6:3 “Or do you not know, that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Him we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Romans 6:3-4 says, “Or do you not know, that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death: that just as Christ Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

In John 3:3 Jesus told Nicodemus, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Then two verses later in John 3:5, Jesus tells how being born again takes place: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

2 Timothy 2:10, “Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.”

1 John 5:11 we read, “And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”

1140. What is baptism?

Baptism is the sacrament of spiritual rebirth. Through the symbolic action of washing with water and the use of appropriate ritual words, the baptized person is cleansed of all his sins and incorporated into Christ. It was foretold in Ezekiel, “I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you” (Ezekiel 36:25-26).

1151. What are the effects of baptism?

The effects of baptism are the removal of the guilt of sin and all punishment due to sin, conferral of the grace of regeneration and the infused virtues, incorporation into Christ and his Church, receiving the baptismal character and the right to heaven.

1157. How does baptism incorporate us into Christ?

By baptism we become members of Christ’s Mystical Body, which is the Church. That is why “By the sacrament of baptism, whenever it is properly conferred in the way the Lord determined and received with the proper dispositions of soul, man becomes truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ and is reborn to a sharing of the divine life, as the apostle says: ‘For you were buried together with him in baptism, and in him also rose again through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead’ (Romans 6:4)” (Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumenism, 22) (John Hardon, The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (Garden: Image, 1981).

And as someone relied on the CCC:

We are incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ

1267 Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: “Therefore . . . we are members one of another.” Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”

It creates a bond of unity among all Christians

1271 Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: “For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” “Baptism therefore constitutes the sacramental bond of unity existing among all who through it are reborn.”

It leaves an indelible mark on the soul

1272 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated.


65 posted on 07/11/2009 4:44:42 PM PDT by vladimir998
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