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Locked on 04/24/2022 5:40:39 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childishness |
Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.
In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).
But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.
(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)
The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.
In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.
Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.
How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.
Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.
Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.
At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.
Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)
There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.
It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.
(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)
A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.
Ditto bro.
The long and multiple posts go on and on, angry, repetitive, demanding, etc.
Better to move on.
What the SDA folks do well is to make corn brooms and drinking a cup of coffee when no one is watching.
Maybe this too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Seventh-day_Adventist_hospitals
Also, I’ve never heard of a corn broom. I buy all of mine at Lowes or Home Depot.
Well, I would prefer everyone be saved, but some cultists just don’t want salvation. It’s the mystery of iniquity.
😀👍 My son is still flying regularly. 👍
Better to move on.
***
Unless you want to laugh at them of course. Which I do.
I think I’ll fly to another thread.
All the life has been bashed out of this dead horse.
Only those who do the will of God will be included into the Kingdom of Heaven...
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Matthew 23:13
I think you agree with me on that. Believers of OSAS do not. It doesn’t matter what they do after they are saved by grace, they say.
I just finished watching a video entitled... Was Judas Ever Saved? A Biblical Refutation of “Once Saved Always Saved”. OSAS believers also do not believe that Judas was ever saved, and how could he, they say, he was called a devil by Christ and ended up betraying Him, and that is not something someone could have done if they were saved in the first place, let alone end up going to hell.
OSAS is a Satanic lie that will cause the loss of Salvation for innumerable Christians. I think we find common ground here. If you ever find the time, please watch/listen through it and tell me what you think. As a disclaimer I know absolutely nothing about the E511 site. But, he is spot on with this doctrinal error. He is very detailed in taking it apart. He brings out its false Calvinistic teaching roots and mentions popular authors, such as John MacArthur, as proponents, and gnostic influences. In fact, OSAS goes all the way back to the 2nd century (started by the gnostics). The first half of the video is basically explaining the errors of OSAS. The second half is specifically about Judas, AND, how OSAS fits into the the false theory that he was never saved to begin with. You may remember the laughter, jeering, and mocking I received when I proposed that Judas was saved in the beginning, then lost at the end of his life. MHGinTN lead the way on that, I believe. Well, it looks like I was right.
Essentially every argument for OSAS is BIBLICALLY refuted by this video. I watched/listened from beginning to end. It is sound doctrine. In a way, it’s sad commentary to the explaining of why so many Christians will lose their eternal salvation in the end.
I think you will find the video enlightening and instructive.
Regards
How is your Army grandson doing? My Air Force son is high above the fray. 😀 He made 1st Lieutenant. I assume your grandson did too. 👍
We’ll, I can certainly understand the entertainment…🤗
Luircin is right. Why don't you just be honest and admit you will reject/refuse out of hand ANY answer that isn't in agreement with your own? It would save everyone from having the same incessant arguments with you across threads in the Religion Forum. That is really what seems to me to be the bee in your bonnet.
I'm not going to be naïve and hope I can persuade you finally, but I think this may be another approach to your question from a different angle.
You contend there's a difference between "consequence" and "penalty". That may be true in many cases - for example, if I eat too much candy, I may get rotten teeth as a consequence but if I disobey mom and eat candy before dinner and she catches me, I have to go to bed early as my punishment (which would be a penalty). In the former example, there is a "natural" consequence to many things which are ways that God has set up to teach us right from wrong. In the latter example, we have rules/laws ordained by men as well as by God that attach a "cost" to breaking the law - these penalties/punishments are intended to maintain order within a society. In parenting, the goal of consequencing is to teach the child a lesson that leads to positive choices and behaviors. The goal of punishment is to inflict pain and seek revenge. In some cases, consequence and penalty/punishment are the SAME thing.
What seems to me to be your sticking point is you believe before God that sin - repented or unrepented - should have a penalty. And of course, there IS. His word tells us:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22)
Our Savior Jesus Christ took the penalty for all our sins by dying on the cross - His perfect sinless shed blood for the sins of the world past, present and future. The GIFT of God is eternal life through Christ. Either we pay the penalty due our sin - eternal separation from God in hell - or we accept/receive the gift of God's grace and live with Him in heaven.
As has already been explained dozens of times, the genuine child of God -- the blood-bought, born-again believer in Jesus Christ -- is saved eternally by grace through faith and not by works. When God's children fall into sin, He disciplines and chastens all those who are His. We may suffer consequences because of our sin but the PENALTY has been paid by Christ. This is not in any way a license to sin nor does it imply God winks at sin in our lives. Far from it! Just as you disciplined your own children when they did wrong, they never stopped being your child. God in His great mercy and grace leads us into holiness through the working of the indwelling Holy Spirit and we shall never perish, we will never be plucked from His hands, He will lose none of us nor cast us out. This is the blessed assurance He has promised us. We aren't saved by our own righteousness and we aren't kept saved by it either.
You're wanting there to be a penalty for "unrepentant" sin in a Christian's life but God uses love through discipline as He is conforming us into the image of Christ. I DON'T think God needs you to do a better job.
Excellent analogy.
Well; he and his wife are about 400-500 miles from the fighting over there.
They are enjoying the HUAW of the services.
Boatbums, so nice to see you again.
You are in my prayers and the prayers of others.
I’m sorry for your loss.
BTW, so much joy seeing you posting again. God bless you, sister.
——>As has already been explained dozens of times, the genuine child of God — the blood-bought, born-again believer in Jesus Christ — is saved ETERNALLY by grace through faith (and not by works)
That is certainly NOT what the bible teaches. If it was, Judas would be a saved man. But, he’s not. Judas was LOST.
Preach it sister!
Yes it is.
Maybe not according to cultists led by a false prophet, but that’s REALLY what Scripture says.
You, on the other hand, should worry about your own salvation, considering your behavior and beliefs about that behavior.
Romans 11:29 - for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable
N
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