Posted on 04/29/2009 3:00:47 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Such is Cauvin’s lie.
What is Cauvin’s lie?
Think of it this way. We are told to worship God, and to worship God alone, with all our heart and mind. If you don’t have a relationship with God and do something “good,” it isn’t completely good, and it can’t be a “good work” in a Christian sense because you are sinning by ignoring God throughout your life. No action is good because you are breaking the first commandment throughout your life and in all actions.
Cauvin teaches the lie known as sola fide.
So you think you can do good enough works to make you right with God. It doesn’t make sense to me — I’ve never seen perfect and the wages of sin is death.
It's not faith OR works, it's faith AND works.
And you can’t have faith and not have works. Also, it’s exactly the type of faith that has works that is saving. Even the demons believe — but that is not saving faith. Works are a gift of God to us. We are allowed to participate in his glory.
Baloney.
Works are a gift of God to us.
Calvinism is full of phony traditions of men. You're making my case for me.
You can have your church founded by Cauvin, I'll stay in the Church founded by Christ.
“It is also true that the young are the most liberal and Democrat.”
Actually some of them are much wiser in this way than are people 20 years older.
They have seen the rot of liberalism and they “just say no”.
Do you know anyone that is a follower of Christ, a believer, who doesn’t have works?
Works as a gift of God: 2 Corinthians 9:
Sowing Generously
6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9As it is written:
“He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”[a] 10Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
This does not mean works are not necessary for salvation.
4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.8This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Titus 3:4-8
Insufficient on its own. That is not the full gospel.
Look at His commands regarding Holy Eucharist in John 6.
I’m at the end of my semester, but I was wondering-if no grace, then why the sacrifice? Throughout the Old Testament the sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the cross. If we need to do works, why bother with the sacrifice?
If we need to do works, why bother with the sacrifice?
It is not either/or. It is both.
>> A Calvinist could make the same sort of argument and assumptions about a Catholic who sins, confesses, repeats the sin, confesses, repeats the sin, confesses. <<
Oh, that’s certainly true. But I do believe that God repeatedly forgives the sinner, providing he has the “intention of amendment.” That’s a Catholic doctrine that says confession is only valid if the sinner truly desires to avoid the sin. The Hollywood stereotype of the confessing gangster is load of horse maneure not because the priest wouldn’t offer absolution, but because the gangster knows full well it won’t do him a lick of good. But even the alcoholic whose ashamed of his drunkenness behavior, confesses, and then goes right back to the bottle is forgiven.
As for my mindreading Calvinists, it may not be fair, but it’s correct enough I think more FReeping Calvinists need to face that fact. They write off the Calvist denominations which permit all manner of sin as if they aren’t really Calvinist, but that’s just denial. The flip side of “if you’re truly saved, you won’t commit grave sin” is the notion that “if you do commit sin, and you’re truly saved, then the sin must not be grave.” And that’s why the largest Presbyterian denominations were the first to become helplessly tolerant of all manners of sinfulness: the PCUSA, the UCC, the Disciples of Christ, etc.
Calvinists are largely accurate when they describe many Southern Baptists as Calvinistic. But a key difference between Southern Baptists and Presbyterians, for instance, is that the Southern Baptists aren’t rigidly Calvinist. enough to make syllogisms that differ from conventional wisdom. (Here, of course, I mean conventional among Christians, not worldly sense.)
I didn't want to write that "Calvinists need to quit acting as if the PCUSA liberals aren't Calvinists" because, well, I'm the first one to say that liberal heretics from the Catholic tradition aren't Catholics. But my attempt to avoid saying that was just clumsy and kind of wound up saying it anyway. So let me put it this way:
Calvinists need to recognize that Presbyterian liberals are Calvinist heretics in the same way that social-justice Catholics are Catholic heretics. They aren't good Calvinists or Catholics; in a very real way, they aren't really even Christians. But the churches which they've apostasized from are Calvinist, and Catholic, respectively. The Calvinist origin of the PCUSA is as relevant as the Catholic origin of the social-justice "Catholics." If Calvinist denomination after denomination falls to liberalism, instead of merely escaping into ever more fragmented denominations, Calvinists need to confront why this happens, not just dismiss the "heretics" as not really Calvinist. Their reasons for heresy are Calvinist reasons.
Which takes me to why I believe the papal-episcopal polity of Catholicism is superior to the congregational-coalescence polity of Presbyterians. Catholics are obligated not to divorce themselves from the institution when it goes bad, but to wrest it back onto the right course. Presbyterian congregations just divorce themselves from the larger community. And God hates divorce. Not only as it expresses itself in the severence of the institution of marriage, which is a living symbol of the relationship between God and his church, but as it expresses itself in all forms of the severence of any holy bond. Any bond which can be severed isn't very holy, so what does it say about the bonds among Presbyterians that they can be severed?
John 6:
35Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
. . .
53Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many Disciples Desert Jesus
60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[e] and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67”You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
70Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71(He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)
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