There is no doubt that God calls us all to Salvation, yet all are not saved. Some in these threads contend that all one must do to be saved is believe.
Faith is our response to God's call and faith is an act of the will. Is it your contention that we can will our own Salvation or are we to be judged? And if we are to be judged, upon what are we to be judged?
Agreed, "Many will say to me Lord, Lord ... depart from me ..."
Some in these threads contend that all one must do to be saved is believe.
And if by believe they mean mere acceptance of intellectual facts they would be wrong ... a casual reading of the NT shows that to believe involves both repentance and faith; they go hand in hand.
Mark 1:15 - The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.
Acts 20:18-21 18 You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through athe plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are many others ...
No doubt there are many who would declare that it is works in combination with faith that saves you. My conjecture is that if you are performing works in order to be saved, you are not saved. You see, when you perform works to ensure your own salvation, those works are done for a purely selfish motive ... to add to your collection pile of "good deeds" that you hope reaches high enough to get you into heaven. If you are required to do them to get there, then there is ALWAYS a sense in which the motives for them, of necessity, is selfish. "I have to do these to get me there ... so I am going to do them, for I must do them."
The true believer is one who has recognized his utter hopelessness before a holy and perfect God, that His judgment rests on him for his unbelief and for his refusal to repent, and for merely paying lip service to His Lordship, for continuing to live his life by his own rules. He repents, turns from his sin and places his trust soley in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save him, nothing else. When a person does this he passes from death to life, becomes born again, is regerated, etc. Nothing can be added to the finished work of Jesus Christ. The RCC teaches that works are necessary for salvation, and/or that you must atone for your sins in purgatory. (Your own catechism teaches it). This is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, its another gospel.
After the impartation of eternal life, the believer wants to perform works in gratitude for the forgiveness that God has already imparted. The works are no longer selfish, as they are not required, but desired in reponse to what God has done for him. He will have a passionate desire to read the Bible for himself, to have intimacy with God in prayer, to earnestly desire his lost friends and family to come to Christ.
Whether you recognize it or not ... Catholics perform their works out of selfish motives, to build their pile of works hoping it reaches high enough to get them to heaven. A Christian who has been truly regenerated recognizes that no amount of works can get you there because our works before God are rubbish. The Christian performs his works out of grateful adoration for the eternal life that has already been granted.
1 John 5:13 I write these things to you, who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
There it is ... in black and white ... for all to read ... You can KNOW that you have eternal life ... you can HAVE it now (present tense verb) and have full assurance that you will be with Christ in heaven. Not hope for, not wait until you die to find out ... you ... can ... know. If you don't know if you are saved ... then most likely you are not.
The heart of the teachings of the RCC deny this simple truth, and have propogated another gospel since its inception.
Do I believe there are Christians in the RCC? Absolutely ... but they didn't get to be Christians by following the teachings of the RCC.