Posted on 03/09/2011 6:16:29 PM PST by Dr. Eckleburg
But the Papists insist they know better than God..... And of course when we bring up such topics WE are the ones who are practicing unGodliness.
Doc E: lol. Rome just makes stuff up.
Lorica: And this is why your exchanges are so unfruitful.
________________________________
Because Rome makes it up?
Oh, Doc... if it were only folly; I fear it's much, much worse!
Hoss
Mom.... you almost owed me a new laptop.....
:D
Hoss
Hmmm. "Initial" justification. What exactly IS justification?
Is not justification our being declared righteous in the eyes of God? How can one be "initially" declared righteous by God? Can God make mistake? So it would seem we are either justified by the blood of Christ, or we are not, no?
You cannot have it both ways: either God is sovereign, holy, and perfect... or He is not.
If I'm not mistaken, Roman Catholicism teaches that justification is an ongoing issue. And this is where Roman Catholicism fails and adds to God's word that which God's word does not teach.
Hoss
Great scripture; but IN CONTEXT, it refers to those who are unsaved.
Nice try, but not accurate.
Hoss
No, James is saying that faith without works IS dead.
the Greek word is *estin*: are, belong, call, come, consist
The word “is” in verse 17 in the Greek.
http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/2076.htm
It is the same word in verse 26.
What James is saying is that mere intellectual acknowledgment is not true faith. Even the demons believe and tremble. True faith results in works and actions, but works and actions are not what saves someone, they are what demonstrates that the faith is real. if you’re trusting in your works or actions to save you, you’re in big trouble because they can’t. They don’t grant forgiveness.
Works cannot save. Those who appealed to their works, the miracles they did clearly believed that there was a God and they had works to appeal to, and yet Jesus said He never knew them.
Catholics can point to all the works which the Catholic church has set up for them to do, but those works are not going to save them. If the Law, which God Himself gave, cannot save, then nothing man institutes as a means of salvation can save either.
It’s a person who saves, not actions.
Sometimes less is more.
Your post 142 is inaccurate. Read the whole chapter you reference. For example, try verse 10:
"And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
Or, how about verse 14:
"for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
"For all time...."
Again -- is God sovereign, holy and perfect, or not?
Hoss
Your post 142 is inaccurate. Read the whole chapter you reference. For example, try verse 10:
"And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
Or, how about verse 14:
"for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
"For all time...."
Again -- is God sovereign, holy and perfect, or not?
Hoss
Receiving a knowledge of the truth does not by default mean one was saved.
It also says *willfully persists* in sin.
It can mean that they heard the gospel and chose to reject it - spurned Christ, and chose their sin over it.
Of course all that’s left in that case is judgment, there is no other way to God. There is no other sacrifice which will grant us forgiveness of sins. There’s nothing left to turn to, so that person is STILL under God’s wrath.
That does not apply to the sin that we all stumble into every day simply as a result of being human. It doesn’t mean that if we sin between communion and next confession, we go to hell, or lose our salvation.
If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we haven’t sinned, His truth is not in us.
But there’s a world of difference between sinning in a moment of weakness and persisting in sin and habitually living a sinful lifestyle.
If someone claims to have come to Christ and evidences no change, then it’s safe to conclude that they have not been saved in the first place. It’s not a cop out. It’s just a fact.
Whoa — sorry about the double-tap!
Hoss
If I'm not mistaken, Roman Catholicism teaches that justification is an ongoing issue. And this is where Roman Catholicism fails and adds to God's word that which God's word does not teach.Yes, Rome confuses justification and sanctification. They do not recognize imputation of Christ's righteousness, calling it a "legal fiction".
Rome believes in infusion of "grace" into the soul. Rome believes water baptism infuses initial saving grace into the soul, however like a glass of water, the soul is only "half full" of grace. One must be full of grace, like Mary, to actually merit heaven. The Catholic must continually attend the sacraments, do good works, etc.. to build in enough "grace" where the soul ACTUALLY becomes pleasing to God and attains heaven. If one can "merit" the grace to make ones soul pleasing to God then one is not saved by Christ's righteousness alone. The RC is saved at best by his own merit and Christ's merit.
This is obvious merit and is excused by saying all good works to get merit are done by grace. Is Grace a heavenly currency that one collects or is it unearned favor given to sinners?
The sacrifice on the Cross only makes salvation POSSIBLE for the RC. He/She must "cooperate" with "grace" to attain enough grace where the soul is pleasing to God for entry into heaven.
FAITH is altogether another misunderstood issue by Rome. Faith to Rome is not trusting in the Resurrection merits of Christ alone for salvation but belief in ALL the various doctrines and dogmas of Rome. According to Rome, one cannot dismiss any doctrine including all the Marian doctrines on penalty of loss of salvation.
I don’t know therefore what . . .
however . . .
this post [with some added paragraphing]:
To: Quix
I would help you out on the survey here bub, but frankly I’d say my family would skew the results. We’re, well, a little sensitive, so to speak, to this type of thing. I’d say that most of my family, including my aunts, uncles and most cousins, are in the 6.5 to 7.5 range normally but lately there’s been a serious ramping up of awareness.
Now, when I say a serious ramping up of awareness, I don’t mean that they’re having visions or dreams or anything like that, but I do mean that the entire family has been having the Holy Spirit stir them up, preparing them to leave. The general message has been “you don’t have time to dither any longer, make sure everything is in preperation and ready.”
Furthermore, several of my younger cousins, some as young as five and six, have been telling, not asking but telling, their parents that they need to be saved and wanting to know what they need to do to make it happen.
Now, I’ll grant you that these children are being raised in Christian families, but two in particular have reported being told by Christ Himself that they needed to be saved if they were going to make it to Heaven to see Him and that there wasn’t time to wait. Both reported, almost word for word from what I was told, that Christ was stressing to them the importance of immediate action and not to delay.
Several of the elders of the Church, men and women who have been Christians for 40 years or more, have said that they’ve never seen the Spirit move with a sense of urgency like this among the children before.
One in particular, who just celebrated the 40th anniversary of his salvation this last Sunday and who’s been involved in the Youth Program since the mid 70’s, reported that it’s obvious that the Holy Spirit is moving with great urgency among the children of the Church because of the sheer numbers of kids coming to salvation and the determination to attain it that they’re showing.
One other point that I’d like to make is that this isn’t an emotional responce to a preacher or a particular sermon, because most of these kids have startled their parents with these requests during the middle of the week when they weren’t in church. I cannot stress enough the level of sheer determination that is showing up in these kids, especially since most are under the age of 10.
Also, these kids aren’t coming to their parents with this information in packs like you’d see if it was an emotional or peer-generated response, but they’re coming in ones and twos. In the last 30 to 60 days, I’d say that I’ve heard of close to a half-dozen kids coming to Christ for salvation in my family’s church alone, which may have 40 or 50 families that attend at the most.
Other churches in the area with which we keep in contact with are reporting the same thing though, so it’s not just one church going through a revival.
Speaking of revival, I’d also like to point out that the current revival that has broken out isn’t like before where the churches would pray for a revival to sweep through and then tried to generate it.
This has been completely God generated, with several preachers and pastors stating that they’ve been led by the Spirit, often just moments before delivering a message, to change the topic and preach on the immediate and urgent need for salvation and a return to Christ for those who are back-slidden.
It’s often a coordinated effort on the Spirit’s part, as I’ve seen Sunday School teachers forced by the Spirit to change their lesson plans at the last second and then later hear the preacher, who wasn’t in the Sunday School class and didn’t know of the changes to the lesson plan, do the exact same thing in the pulpit just moments later.
I personally saw this happen this weekend and was privilaged to sit under one of the most powerful messages that I’ve ever heard preached, bar none. The message was simple; Jesus Christ can change your life and save your soul from hell, but only if you trust Him and you don’t have time to wait any longer. It was, literally, repent or perish.
If I had to quantify the awareness now, I’d say that the average adult is around the 8.5 - 9.0 range now, but the children are completely off the scale and in a league of their own now.
A large part of the reason that the adults are so aware though is because of how adamant and stirred up the children have become. I’m not trying to diminish the changes in the preaching, because it’s some of the most powerful stuff I’ve ever sat under, but I can’t even begin to describe what is going on with the kids. It’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen before.
804 posted on Monday, March 14, 2011 8:31:24 AM by paladin1_dcs
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FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687394/posts?page=804#804
THEREFORE, IN AN EFFORT TO MAJOR MORE IN MAJORS AND MINOR MORE IN MINORS
I will likely avoid such issues and threads as this one. Maybe not 100% exclusively but close to it. NOT because I don’t feel such things are important—but because I think that the above is FAR MORE IMPORTANT.
At least here at FR :)
>>“worked out in fear and trembling.”<<
“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” John 6:28-29
FRoman Catholics complain about the New York Times, but the NYT has buried this story for weeks on page 13 and page 16, etc.
It's not being signified. That should tell us something about the "influence" of the Vatican on our "unbiased" news sources. Even the New York Times.
Pathetic.
Amen. The RCs have a very truncated Bible. They need to read ALL of it and not just the four or five incomplete verses they trot out to support their errors.
AMEN!
You cannot have it both ways: either God is sovereign, holy, and perfect... or He is not.
If I'm not mistaken, Roman Catholicism teaches that justification is an ongoing issue. And this is where Roman Catholicism fails and adds to God's word that which God's word does not teach.
Yes, Roman Catholics believe justification and sanctification are essentially the same thing -- both ongoing changes within the individual according to the individual's own actions with a little help from his friends.
As has been shown over and over, the Bible tells us Christ's justification of His sheep was a one-time event and was accomplished by Christ's offering on the cross being accepted by God as having paid-in-full for the sins of His flock.
Sanctification is a life-long process of the Holy Spirit bringing the believer closer to Christ.
"Initial justification."
They really don't read the Bible or they could not make an error like that.
"And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." -- Acts 13:39
Nothing "initial" or temporary or progressive about it.
"It is finished." Christ has atoned for all the sins of His sheep. That's the Good News of the Gospel. Very sad that some don't hear it.
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