Posted on 04/01/2016 12:41:08 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in.
Let me explain.
I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church:
1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be Scripture. The Holy Bible is the only unchanging and definitive word of God that a Christian can build his or her life upon. Everything else, including the Catholic claims to authority, in the end, amount to ever-changing and ultimately sinking sand.
2. I believe works or any sense of salvific cooperation with God’s grace as constitutive to a Christian’s eternal life is unbiblical. “… not of works” (cf. Eph. 2:8-9) means not of works.
3. The idea of Mary and the saints being involved in the salvation of a Christian is tantamount to a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s redeeming work on Calvary’s cross.
4. #3 can also be said of Purgatory, the “sacrifice” of the Mass, the Catholic view of salvation/justification, and more. These and more of the elements of Catholic teaching result in a denial of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. More to follow in a more detailed post.
5. What Catholics call the “veneration” of Mary and the saints is actually idolatry.
These are just for starters here. Many of you know that for the last 28 years I have defended the above teachings and more from the Catholic Church. I can no longer do so in clear conscience.
And by the way, just so you know…
April fools!
It’s ironic
I saw this foolish thread and thought wow...there’s a Catholic who gets it
Even though I avoid these fights that fake article was exactly how I thought a reformed Catholic would say it
Too funny
Did the prankster intend it to be so....uncanny?
I hope we're talking past each other here. I have already received the Grace of Justification, now the question is will I cooperate with the Lord and do His Will and gain something more for it.
Yet, ealgeone is correct.
CATHOLICS love to overlook it and continually talk about meriting grace, but anything that is merited is not grace.
While you can point to certain sections of the CCC, CATHOLICS as a rule, tend to deviate from it with predictable regularity, if they even know it at all.
I suppose you could say that if there was anything that we could do to merit grace, it would be to sin. Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
Where there’s no sin, there is no need for grace.
There’s Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace, we can not merit Sanctifying Grace, we receive Actual Grace based on our responsiveness to God’s Will.
Relying on the guidance of the Holy Spirit does not make every single individual a *magisterium*.
Nor does it mean they are depending on other men or even themselves to decide doctrine etc for them.
You can spin it how you want, but no church governing body decides for me what God means in Scripture, and tells me how to live, how to worship, how to pray, etc.
I do listen to other sources but if I see what I perceive as a contradiction, I dismiss it.
Just for the record, I do not think that everyone who doesn’t agree with me is going to hell, nor do I demand it, or think it’s necessary.
I have dear friends who are born again believers with whom I disagree on certain matters of doctrine. God allows for that in Romans 14 under what is often referred to as *disputable matters*.
But they are still saved and I accept and love them anyway and some day we’ll find out who’s right, if we even care when we come into the presence of God.
Tell me, do you think that a person has to have *correct* doctrine and theology to be saved? That if they don’t, God will reject them?
I have no idea.
It's CHRIST you need.
So are you sure you're going to heaven now?
Serious question.
Just what do you feel you need to cooperate with God for and what do you expect to gain from it?
Got a chapter and verse for that, cause that's not anything I ever found mentioned in Scripture.
All grace sanctifies through forgiveness. That's what grace is all about and it's all real, true grace.
If this is a gift from God, and it is, then only He can take it back.
Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us we are sealed by the Holy Spirit who is given as a pledge of our future inheritance. Paul notes this sealing in three places including Ephesians.
As it is God Who seals us it is only God Who can unseal us. Nowhere do we have any note of God ever unsealing anyone in the NT.
As we are adopted, as Paul notes in Romans, we are not kicked out of His family. Drawing on the Roman adoption system...when one was adopted into a Roman family the child could not legally be kicked out of that family.
However, catholics reject this aspect of grace.
This is why I said catholics overlook grace.
We won't go into the requirement catholicism places upon Mary for their salvation.
If it's grace, there can be nothing we can do to have salvation as the grace comes from God only.
Paul makes this clear about grace in Ephesians.
8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Eph 2:8-10 NASB
Well, yes it does. The very word means teaching authority.
Tell me, do you think that a person has to have *correct* doctrine and theology to be saved? That if they don’t, God will reject them?
I think someone who has no/little opportunity to learn the Truth about God, will be judged according to his capacity to know and love God. The more we COULD have learned and loved the more we will be judged. My children for instance are all at different levels of development, I don't expect the 9 year old to operate with the knowledge of the 16 year old.
NOW, and I think this is very important, the 11 year old tried to convince me that she didn't know that talking back to an adult was a punishable offense. I don't care how you slice it, she should have known that, in fact she DID know it she just wasn't interested in admitting it.
So too it will be with God: If my love of God isn't what it should be I will suffer loss. I have no excuses to offer, I have seen the Protestant positions and have rejected them. I have explored the different religions and found them all lacking. I am constantly learning more about the Catholic Faith and incorporating the new knowledge into my love of God. If MY theology is messed up and it could have been correct then I'm in serious trouble, I'm staking my eternal soul on this... as I think we all are.
Answering questions of that type causes the asker to assume that the dig is accepted.
Ask questions in a civil manner and Christian posters will not hesitate to answer.
I can't speak for Catholics as they many times do not answer questions.
Judge for yourself which is more appropriate.
Interesting how appropriate that question and statement is considering your post I am replying to.
"April fools is gone and past and you are the biggest fool at last"-A well known quote. And a haiku.
If I were to die right now... pause... ok well that didn't happen. Anyhow, if I were to die now I believe I would go to purgatory, which means I will reach Heaven. I may turn out the lights in purgatory, but I'll get out.
Just what do you feel you need to cooperate with God for and what do you expect to gain from it?
I need to lead my children to God, kicking and screaming if necessary, the graces He grants me to accomplish that purpose I MUST cooperate with, if I do I might get some reward. Just a scrap from His table is all I ask.
So too it will be with God: If my love of God isn't what it should be I will suffer loss. I have no excuses to offer, I have seen the Protestant positions and have rejected them. I have explored the different religions and found them all lacking. I am constantly learning more about the Catholic Faith and incorporating the new knowledge into my love of God. If MY theology is messed up and it could have been correct then I'm in serious trouble, I'm staking my eternal soul on this... as I think we all are.
Using your thinking only a very, very mature believer will ever be saved.
Your position rules out the possibility of a young person being saved.
Jesus tells us to believe in Him. It is about faith. He doesn't expect, nor require us, to know every facet of the faith.
That's where the Grace you claim catholics have comes in to play.
Well, "real" flesh and blood but which is unbloody and looks, tastes, and scientifically tests as bread and wine seems too neoplatonic and much a form of gnosticism, if not as extreme as,
That great modern representative of the Gnosis, C.G. Jung, had a great interest in the Christian sacraments, particularly in the Mass. He repeatedly stated that he considered Catholicism a far more complete religion than its Protestant counterparts...According to Jung, the Mass, when properly understood, is best treated as an act of high magic. - http://gnosis.org/gnosis_eucharist1.html
However, there is no indication of purgatory in the NT.
Colossians 2:13-14 tells us all of our sins have been forgiven and cancelled and nailed to the cross. The catholic position of having to "work off" your sins in purgatory is not supported in the NT.
13When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14 NASB
That leaves one holy catholic apostolic church that is historical and found in abundance in every century since founded by the Jewish apostles with the Jewish Messiah as the chief cornerstone, this being the universal corporate body of Christ, as that is what Christ purchased with His sinless shed blood...as it alone always consists 100% of true believers.Amen and such a simple truth backed up by scriptures and the words of Jesus, He who is the Word Itself.
It's nice to see the phrase "one holy catholic apostolic church" properly applied.
I think I was saying the opposite, the younger person has had fewer opportunities to receive OR reject grace, therefore being in a better position to achieve glory. Using my way of thinking a very, very mature believer had better have responded positively to grace a lot.
But we are all saved with the same amount of grace. Paul's salvation is no greater than your salvation or mine or any other follower of Christ.
This is not to be confused with a different gift of the Holy Spirit.
If one’s salvation depended on correct theology, there’s not a one of us who would make it.
People in Scripture knew they needed Jesus.
The tax collector simply asked God to be merciful to him, a sinner.
Throwing yourself on the mercy of the court, so to speak, is all that one has to do.
The correct theology will come later as the Holy Spirit guides a person.
The first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13 address that.
All God wants is our hearts.
And yes, I do believe that as we mature in Christ we are held more accountable with the light we’ve been given, but I absolutely do not find anywhere in Scripture that our salvation hangs in the balance over ANYTHING we can do.
God saved us, He sealed us, we are adopted into His family and He does not disown us for disobedience any more than you do with your children.
Does it break your heart when they disobey? Certainly.
Does it interfere with your relationship so that it’s not at the level you want? Absolutely.
Do you write them out our you will and kick them our of the home every time they do it? Taking a guess here, I’d say no. (Not mind reading, just speaking from a parent’s heart.)
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