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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.
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——>You donât understand who the Nicolaitans were, either. They are the religionists who split their constituents into two classes: a clergy to dominate the âlayâ class.
Thank you for the history lesson, Professor. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they believed that after Grace, THEY HAD A LICENSE TO FORNICATE (and other sins as well). It was OSAS and nothing could touch them. I can see how your doctrine appeals to degenerates. It’s a win/win for them. They are specifically mentioned by Jesus Christ in Revelation. That should give you pause.
God swear by Himself, so the subsequent actions of Abraham are not counted against what God has done.
God counted Abraham's belief as righteousness. THEN God let Abram know that he and sarah would have a son through whom the world would be blessed thereby the world being blessed through Abraham.
What did Abram do thereafter? Well, he doubted the Promise of God and entered into a plot hatched by unbel;ieving Sara and the servant girl bore Abraham a son out of season, Ishmael, father of the Arab nations! Did the Promise of God become null and void when Abraham disbelieved and fathered Ishmael? No, for when God Promises it will come to pass. The election of God is without repentance ... God does not cancel His Promises.
When God told Moses that the disbelieving Hebrews would die in the desert and not enter into the rewards, was God removing the first principle of having rescued them from egypt, their salvation from slavery? No, He withheld their rewards but still fed them as they wandered int he desert for forty years.
Paul explains this perspective in 1 Cor 3.
So, in Hebrews where Paul raises the issue of eternal security, he makes it plain -in the Greek it is plain, but in English not so much- that so long as a saved person stumps back into unbelief int he Promise there remains no means to repent of the unbelief, BUT the impossibility of repentance ENDS when one stops disbelieving. As shown in 1 Corinthians the rest, the rewards are now unreachable but the status of saved is not annulled because it is God Who saved one before they stumped in unbelief.
The flesh does not get us into God's hands and the flesh cannot get us out of God's Hands, for He saves as Glorification to The Son Who gave us the writ of exoneration. We did not purchase it and we cannot nulligy it.
The CAtholic lack of knowledge of the Bema Seat Judgment which happens in Heaven for ONLY those Whom God has birthed from above, irrevocably, may be the key to their persistent hold on grace and works. The works get judged at the Bema Seat not the Great White Throne of Judgment. Paul even cites that as thorns and briars being burned up, and explains in 1 Cor 3 that the saved one will be saved in the Bema Judgment but as by fire which burns away all the works not done under Holy Spirit leadership.
The Catholic Apologists will not receive the above telling because it can silence their insistence that works are necessary to retain Salvation. The addition of ANYTHING to what Jesus declared finished is blasphemy. Adding anything to His work done once for all forever is claiming He did not or could not do enough so the flesh has to add to His work. That is why Purgatory is a blasphemy.
——>Do you even read anyone elseâs posts at all?
You shouldn’t talk...You must have not read all the posts where Boatbums, Metmom, and MHGintn (and others) ALL said that Ravi was saved and will definitely be in heaven (although he may be missing a few jewels in his crown, etc...(his “Penalty”).
——>Weâve only been trying to tell you for literally weeks that we canât know if *someone else* is saved because only God knows the hearts of all mankind.
My question is actually for MHGintn: Is Andy Woods saved?
I know I’m very late to this party, but my friend’s husband used to be a priest and he definitely believes his good works will get him to Heaven.
You are a cultist liar, so why would anyone even try to get through to uyour dead soul? You are ‘being’ the accuser of the brethren. Get thee behind us, satan.
That term was a seal of finished transaction. There is nothing required after that seal. Those who believe God, in Christ are a new creation and have passed from spiritual death unto Life.
All humans will be resurrected because of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Sadly some will be resurrected to shame and others to ever lasting life. Those in the Body of Christ will be resurrected in the Apostasia and will not be standing for judgment at the Great White Throne following the millennia because they have already been judged in Christ a new creation indwelt by His righteousness.
Because you are drowning in a religion which adds works to what Christ accomplished and sealed as FINISHED, you are unable to see the difference between salvation of the spirit and rectification of the behavior mechanism. God didn't send His Son to die on that cross so your flesh could be rectified. He has Promised a new behavior mechanism and new body, so the one you now have as your flesh (soul + body being 'the flesh' is destined for obliteration. There is no purgatory to cleanse the flesh in which is deadness. GOD births a new spirit in anyone, ANY ONE, who believes in their heart (the will attached tot he spirit) that Jesus is Their Savior.
There is nothing except blasphemy to adding to what Only Jesus could accomplish, and Did accomplish once, for all, forever. Some will accept that 'tetelestai' and some will not. To those who believe He gave eternal life.
Either he is, or he isn’t. Yes or no?
WHAT MORE must I do, to inherit Eternal Life?
First let me say, you sound like the rich young ruler, who asked Jesus the EXACT same question. Here was a guy, who had kept all the commandments (at least outwardly) and yet, he still had an inner feeling it wasnât enough, when he asked, what more must I do, to inherit eternal life? The answer to that question, is NOTHING. You canât do ANYTHING to inherit eternal life. You must do a John 3:3, and be born anew from above. That is called saving faith. Beyond that, there isnât ANYTHING you can do. People, including you, me, and everyone, KNOW Jesus died for sinners, including you, me and everyone. Thatâs head knowledge. You, me and everyone, need an 18 inch conversion, from your head to your heart. that would be a John 3:3 conversion, from your head to your heart. You can say Jesus died for sinners, thatâs a fact, and it doesnât help you at all. When you can say, in my heart of hearts, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus died for me personally. THATâS SALVATION BRO. Do you see the difference between head knowledge, and heart knowledge? One leads to hell, the other leads to Heaven.
The John 3:3 born anew experience happens ONLY ONCE in your life. ONLY ONCE, and it lasts forever. Thatâs a comforting thought.
Maybe the born anew experience has already happened to you. I hope so, but I donât know. Itâs between you and God.
What about good works? I am glad you asked, cuz I am going to tell you. Good works are good, but if you are relying on your good works to get saved, or stay saved, stop now. It wonât work. In Godâs eyes, our good works are filthy rags. We donât do good works to get saved, or to stay saved. We do good works, BECAUSE we are saved (forever) We do good works, to show our gratitude to God, for saving us from the fires of hell. If we could actually see the fires of hell, we would be so shocked, we would never choose to go there.
I donât care what church church or sect you may attend, itâs doesnât matter a hill of beans. I hope this helps. Itâs from the heart. If you are honestly seeking the truth, take it to heart. If you are not seeking the truth, ignore everything I say, and continue on your merry way. There really isnât anything else that can be said. The ball is in your court bro. đđ
Hear here! Selah
Amen!
To the glory of God. đđ
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