Portrait of Young John Calvin
Unknown Flemish artist
Espace Ami Lullin of the Bibliothèque de Genève
Posted on 06/04/2010 5:43:13 AM PDT by markomalley
This is a guest post by Dr. David Anders. David and his wife completed their undergraduate degrees at Wheaton College in 1992. He subsequently earned an M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1995, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2002, in Reformation history and historical theology. He was received into the Catholic Church in 2003. He will be on EWTN Live on June 23rd, 7:00 pm Central (8 EST), and may be discussing some of the material from this article.
Portrait of Young John Calvin
Unknown Flemish artist
Espace Ami Lullin of the Bibliothèque de Genève
I once heard a Protestant pastor preach a “Church History” sermon. He began with Christ and the apostles, dashed through the book of Acts, skipped over the Catholic Middle Ages and leaped directly to Wittenberg, 1517. From Luther he hopped to the English revivalist John Wesley, crossed the Atlantic to the American revivals and slid home to his own Church, Birmingham, Alabama, early 1990s. Cheers and singing followed him to the plate. The congregation loved it.
I loved it, too. I grew up in an Evangelical Church in the 1970s immersed in the myth of the Reformation. I was sure that my Church preached the gospel, which we received, unsullied, from the Reformers. After college, I earned a doctorate in Church history so I could flesh out the story and prove to all the poor Catholics that they were in the wrong Church. I never imagined my own founder, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, would point me to the Catholic faith.
I was raised a Presbyterian, the Church that prides itself on Calvinist origins, but I didn’t care much about denominations. My Church practiced a pared-down, Bible-focused, born-again spirituality shared by most Evangelicals. I went to a Christian college and then a seminary where I found the same attitude. Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Charismatics worshiped and studied side-by-side, all committed to the Bible but at odds on how to interpret it. But our differences didn’t bother us. Disagreements over sacraments, Church structures, and authority were less important to us than a personal relationship with Christ and fighting the Catholic Church. This is how we understood our common debt to the Reformation.
When I finished seminary, I moved on to Ph.D. studies in Reformation history. My focus was on John Calvin (1509-1564), the French Reformer who made Geneva, Switzerland into a model Protestant city. I chose Calvin not just because of my Presbyterian background, but because most American Protestants have some relationship to him. The English Puritans, the Pilgrim Fathers, Jonathan Edwards and the “Great Awakening” – all drew on Calvin and then strongly influenced American religion. My college and seminary professors portrayed Calvin as a master theologian, our theologian. I thought that if I could master Calvin, I would really know the faith.
Strangely, mastering Calvin didn’t lead me anywhere I expected. To begin with, I decided that I really didn’t like Calvin. I found him proud, judgmental and unyielding. But more importantly, I discovered that Calvin upset my Evangelical view of history. I had always assumed a perfect continuity between the Early Church, the Reformation and my Church. The more I studied Calvin, however, the more foreign he seemed, the less like Protestants today. This, in turn, caused me to question the whole Evangelical storyline: Early Church – Reformation – Evangelical Christianity, with one seamless thread running straight from one to the other. But what if Evangelicals really weren’t faithful to Calvin and the Reformation? The seamless thread breaks. And if it could break once, between the Reformation and today, why not sooner, between the Early Church and the Reformation? Was I really sure the thread had held even that far?
Calvin shocked me by rejecting key elements of my Evangelical tradition. Born-again spirituality, private interpretation of Scripture, a broad-minded approach to denominations – Calvin opposed them all. I discovered that his concerns were vastly different, more institutional, even more Catholic. Although he rejected the authority of Rome, there were things about the Catholic faith he never thought about leaving. He took for granted that the Church should have an interpretive authority, a sacramental liturgy and a single, unified faith.
These discoveries faced me with important questions. Why should Calvin treat these “Catholic things” with such seriousness? Was he right in thinking them so important? And if so, was he justified in leaving the Catholic Church? What did these discoveries teach me about Protestantism? How could my Church claim Calvin as a founder, and yet stray so far from his views? Was the whole Protestant way of doing theology doomed to confusion and inconsistency?
Understanding the Calvinist Reformation
Calvin was a second-generation Reformer, twenty-six years younger than Martin Luther (1483-1546). This meant that by the time he encountered the Reformation, it had already split into factions. In Calvin’s native France, there was no royal support for Protestantism and no unified leadership. Lawyers, humanists, intellectuals, artisans and craftsman read Luther’s writings, as well as the Scriptures, and adapted whatever they liked.
This variety struck Calvin as a recipe for disaster. He was a lawyer by training, and always hated any kind of social disorder. In 1549, he wrote a short work (Advertissement contre l’astrologie) in which he complained about this Protestant diversity:
Every state [of life] has its own Gospel, which they forge for themselves according to their appetites, so that there is as great a diversity between the Gospel of the court, and the Gospel of the justices and lawyers, and the Gospel of merchants, as there is between coins of different denominations.
I began to grasp the difference between Calvin and his descendants when I discovered his hatred of this theological diversity. Calvin was drawn to Luther’s theology, but he complained about the “crass multitude” and the “vulgar plebs” who turned Luther’s doctrine into an excuse for disorder. He wrote his first major work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), in part to address this problem.
Calvin got an opportunity to put his plans into action when he moved to Geneva, Switzerland. He first joined the Reformation in Geneva in 1537, when the city had only recently embraced Protestantism. Calvin, who had already begun to write and publish on theology, was unsatisfied with their work. Geneva had abolished the Mass, kicked out the Catholic clergy, and professed loyalty to the Bible, but Calvin wanted to go further. His first request to the city council was to impose a common confession of faith (written by Calvin) and to force all citizens to affirm it.
Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory – a sort of ecclesiastical court- to judge the moral and theological purity of his parishioners. He also persuaded the council to enforce a set of “Ecclesiastical Ordinances” that defined the authority of the Church, stated the religious obligations of the laity, and imposed an official liturgy. Church attendance was mandatory. Contradicting the ministers was outlawed as blasphemy. Calvin’s Institutes would eventually be declared official doctrine.
Calvin’s lifelong goal was to gain the right to excommunicate “unworthy” Church members. The city council finally granted this power in 1555 when French immigration and local scandal tipped the electorate in his favor. Calvin wielded it frequently. According to historian William Monter, one in fifteen citizens was summoned before the Consistory between 1559 and 1569, and up to one in twenty five was actually excommunicated.1 Calvin used this power to enforce his single vision of Christianity and to punish dissent.
A Calvinist Discovers John Calvin
I studied Calvin for years before the real significance of what I was learning began to sink in. But I finally realized that Calvin, with his passion for order and authority, was fundamentally at odds with the individualist spirit of my Evangelical tradition. Nothing brought this home to me with more clarity than his fight with the former Carmelite monk, Jerome Bolsec.
In 1551, Bolsec, a physician and convert to Protestantism, entered Geneva and attended a lecture on theology. The topic was Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, the teaching that God predetermines the eternal fate of every soul. Bolsec, who believed firmly in “Scripture alone” and “faith alone,” did not like what he heard. He thought it made God into a tyrant. When he stood up to challenge Calvin’s views, he was arrested and imprisoned.
What makes Bolsec’s case interesting is that it quickly evolved into a referendum on Church authority and the interpretation of Scripture. Bolsec, just like most Evangelicals today, argued that he was a Christian, that he had the Holy Spirit and that, therefore, he had as much right as Calvin to interpret the Bible. He promised to recant if Calvin would only prove his doctrine from the Scriptures. But Calvin would have none of it. He ridiculed Bolsec as a trouble maker (Bolsec generated a fair amount of public sympathy), rejected his appeal to Scripture, and called on the council to be harsh. He wrote privately to a friend that he wished Bolsec were “rotting in a ditch.”2
What most Evangelicals today don’t realize is that Calvin never endorsed private or lay interpretation of the Bible. While he rejected Rome’s claim to authority, he made striking claims for his own authority. He taught that the “Reformed” pastors were successors to the prophets and apostles, entrusted with the task of authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures. He insisted that laypeople should suspend judgment on difficult matters and “hold unity with the Church.”3
Calvin took very seriously the obligation of the laity to submit and obey. “Contradicting the ministers” was one of the most common reasons to be called before the Consistory and penalties could be severe. One image in particular sticks in my mind. April, 1546. Pierre Ameaux, a citizen of Geneva, was forced to crawl to the door of the Bishop’s residence, with his head uncovered and a torch in his hand. He begged the forgiveness of God, of the ministers and of the city council. His crime? He contradicted the preaching of Calvin. The council, at Calvin’s urging, had decreed Ameaux’s public humiliation as punishment.
Ameaux was not alone. Throughout the 1540s and 1550s, Geneva’s city council repeatedly outlawed speaking against the ministers or their theology. Furthermore, when Calvin gained the right to excommunicate, he did not hesitate to use it against this “blasphemy.” Evangelicals today, unaccustomed to the use of excommunication, may underestimate the severity of the penalty, but Calvin understood it in the most severe terms. He repeatedly taught that the excommunicated were “estranged from the Church, and thus, from Christ.”4
If Calvin’s ideas on Church authority were a surprise to me, his thoughts on the sacraments were shocking. Unlike Evangelicals, who treat the theology of the sacraments as one of the “non-essentials,” Calvin thought they were of the utmost importance. In fact, he taught that a proper understanding of the Eucharist was necessary for salvation. This was the thesis of his very first theological treatise in French (Petit traicté de la Sainte Cène, 1541). Frustrated by Protestant disagreement over the Eucharist, Calvin wrote the text in an attempt to unify the movement around one single doctrine.
Evangelicals are used to finding assurance in their “personal relationship with Christ,” and not through membership in any Church or participation in any ritual. Calvin, however, taught that the Eucharist provides “undoubted assurance of eternal life.”5 And while Calvin stopped short of the Catholic, or even the Lutheran, understanding of the Eucharist, he still retained a doctrine of the Real Presence. He taught that the Eucharist provides a “true and substantial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord” and he rejected the notion that communicants receive “the Spirit only, omitting flesh and blood.”6.
Calvin understood baptism in much the same way. He never taught the Evangelical doctrine that one is “born again” through personal conversion. Instead, he associated regeneration with baptism and taught that to neglect baptism was to refuse salvation. He also allowed no diversity over the manner of its reception. Anabaptists in Geneva (those who practiced adult baptism) were jailed and forced to repent. Calvin taught that Anabaptists, by refusing the sacrament to their children, had placed themselves outside the faith.
Calvin once persuaded an Anabaptist named Herman to enter the Reformed Church. His description of the event leaves no doubt about the difference between Calvin and the modern Evangelical. Calvin wrote:
Herman has, if I am not mistaken, in good faith returned to the fellowship of the Church. He has confessed that outside the Church there is no salvation, and that the true Church is with us. Therefore, it was defection when he belonged to a sect separated from it.7
Evangelicals don’t understand this type of language. They are accustomed to treating “the Church” as a purely spiritual reality, represented across denominations or wherever “true believers” are gathered. This was not Calvin’s view. His was “the true Church,” marked off by infant baptism, outside of which there was no salvation.
Making Sense of Evangelicalism
Studying Calvin raised important questions about my Evangelical identity. How could I reject as unimportant issues that my own founder considered essential? I had blithely and confidently dismissed baptism, Eucharist, and the Church itself as “merely symbolic,” “purely spiritual” or, ultimately, unnecessary. In seminary, too, I found an environment where professors disagreed entirely over these issues and no one cared! With no final court of appeal, we had devolved into a “lowest common denominator” theology.
Church history taught me that this attitude was a recent development. John Calvin had high expectations for the unity and catholicity of the faith, and for the centrality of Church and sacrament. But Calvinism couldn’t deliver it. Outside of Geneva, without the force of the state to impose one version, Calvinism itself splintered into factions. In her book Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism, historian Janice Knight details how the process unfolded very early in American Calvinism. 8
It is not surprising that by the eighteenth century, leading Calvinist Churchmen on both sides of the Atlantic had given up on the quest for complete unity. One new approach was to stress the subjective experience of “new birth” (itself a novel doctrine of Puritan origins) as the only necessary concern. The famous revivalist George Whitefield typified this view, going so far as to insist that Christ did not want agreement in other matters. He said:
It was best to preach the new birth, and the power of godliness, and not to insist so much on the form: for people would never be brought to one mind as to that; nor did Jesus Christ ever intend it.9
Since the eighteenth century, Calvinism has devolved more and more into a narrow set of questions about the nature of salvation. Indeed, in most people’s minds the word Calvinism implies only the doctrine of predestination. Calvin himself has become mainly a shadowy symbol, a myth that Evangelicals call upon only to support a spurious claim to historical continuity.
The greatest irony in my historical research was realizing that Evangelicalism, far from being the direct descendant of Calvin, actually represents the failure of Calvinism. Whereas Calvin spent his life in the quest for doctrinal unity, modern Evangelicalism is rooted in the rejection of that quest. Historian Alister McGrath notes that the term “Evangelical,” which has circulated in Christianity for centuries, took on its peculiar modern sense only in the twentieth century, with the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (1942). This society was formed to allow coordinated public action on the part of disparate groups that agreed on “the new birth,” but disagreed on just about everything else.10
A Calvinist Discovers Catholicism
I grew up believing that Evangelicalism was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I learned from Protestant Church history that it was hardly older than Whitefield, and certainly not the faith of the Protestant Reformers. What to do? Should I go back to the sixteenth century and become an authentic Calvinist? I already knew that Calvin himself, for all his insistence on unity and authority, had been unable to deliver the goods. His own followers descended into anarchy and individualism.
I realized instead that Calvin was part of the problem. He had insisted on the importance of unity and authority, but had rejected any rational or consistent basis for that authority. He knew that Scripture totally alone, Scripture interpreted by each individual conscience, was a recipe for disaster. But his own claim to authority was perfectly arbitrary. Whenever he was challenged, he simply appealed to his own conscience, or to his subjective experience, but he denied that right to Bolsec and others. As a result, Calvin became proud and censorious, brutal with his enemies, and intolerant of dissent. In all my reading of Calvin, I don’t recall him ever apologizing for a mistake or admitting an error.
It eventually occurred to me that Calvin’s attitude contrasted sharply with what I had found in the greatest Catholic theologians. Many of them were saints, recognized for their heroic charity and humility. Furthermore, I knew from reading them, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Francis de Sales, that they denied any personal authority to define doctrine. They deferred willingly, even joyfully, to the authority of Pope and council. They could maintain the biblical ideal of doctrinal unity (1 Corinthians 1:10), without claiming to be the source of that unity.
These saints also challenged the stereotypes about Catholics that I had grown up with. Evangelicals frequently assert that they are the only ones to have “a personal relationship with Christ.” Catholics, with their rituals and institutions, are supposed to be alienated from Christ and Scripture. I found instead men and women who were single-minded in their devotion to Christ and inebriated with His grace.
The Catholic theologian who had the greatest impact on me was undoubtedly St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). All of my life, I heard the claim that “the Early Church” had been Protestant and Evangelical. My seminary professors and even Calvin and Luther always pointed to St. Augustine as their great Early Church hero. When I finally dug into Augustine, however, I discovered a thorough-going Catholicism. Augustine loved Scripture and spoke profoundly about God’s grace, but he understood these in the fully Catholic sense. Augustine destroyed the final piece of my Evangelical view of history.
In the end, I began to see that everything good about Evangelicalism was already present in the Catholic Church – the warmth and devotion of Evangelical spirituality, the love of Scripture and even, to some extent, the Evangelical tolerance for diversity. Catholicism has always tolerated schools of thought, various theologies and different liturgies. But unlike Evangelicalism, the Catholic Church has a logical and consistent way to distinguish the essential from the non-essential. The Church’s Magisterium, established by Christ (Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:18-20), has provided that source of unity that Calvin sought to replace.
One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that it fully satisfied my desire for historical rootedness. I began to study history believing in that continuity of faith and trying desperately to find it. Even when I thought I had found it in the Reformation, I still had to contend with the enormous gulf of the Catholic Middle Ages. Now, thanks to what Calvin taught me, there are no more missing links. On November 16, 2003 I finally embraced the faith “once for all delivered to the Saints.” I entered the Catholic Church.
OK, not a big deal in your one man opinion of YOPIOS, but that is not the point, THE POINT IS THAT YOPIOS AGREE ON NOTHING! I would have to suspend all my faculties of reasoning to take up a system like that.
From my vantage point, you have, if you uncritically believe everything Rome claims.
That's a myth you've concocted in your head because you don't have a clue what Catholics have to believe for salvation and what we are free to debate to death.
Okay, but if one is saved by faith in Jesus Christ then it really doesn't matter where he or she comes to that faith, does it? Therefore you were "saved" while you were still a Catholic, assuming you believed in Jesus Christ. So, what changed, and what difference does it make how you worship as far as your "salvation" is concerned?
As a Catholic, faith in Christ is not the sole requirement for salvation. One must be baptized, believe all the infallible donctrines/dogmas of the church, including the papacy, the Marian dogmas, literal Eucharist, purgatory, auricular confession, etc.., the Catholic cannot dimsiss any of these. Then one must avoid mortal sin by not missing mandatory mass / holy days of obligation, avoiding serious sin like murder, rape, adultery, etc...unconfessed mortal sin at death is a ticket to hell. If one is in a state of grace you must continue to recieve the sacraments and perform good works to stay in a state of grace and to increase grace to attain greater justification/sanctification until one dies and goes to purgatory/heaven or hell.
The Catholic can never say for a certainty that he is saved (presumption), he will not know until he dies.
As a Catholic I believed that Jesus died on the Cross and rose again, but I never trusted Him alone for salvation.
So I was not biblically trusting in Him alone for salvation. I was on the faith and works treadmill cooporating to gain my own salvation with the help of His merited grace.
Furthermore, as a Calvinist, I understand that you would believe that those who are saved have been predestined to salvation before the foundation of the world, and that their salvation was never in question or in peril, nor was there any possibility that they may not be saved. Which means it makes absolutely no difference where you worship, or what denomination you belong to. Nothing you do, say, read, think, dream, or wish will change what God predestined you to be, so what did you accomplish by switching to a Protestant denomination?
Well, certainly after God opened my eyes, convicted me of my sin and gave me the Faith to believe Him fully for salvation, I could have stayed in the RCC, but why?
Rome teaches a faith/works road which is unbiblical. There was nothing for me there.
From the way you write it sure sounds like you "saved" yourself by leaving the Catholic Church!
Leaving the the Roman church has nothing to do with biblical salvation.
The only requirement is Repentance for sin and belief in the suffering, death and resurection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins as a substitutionary atonement, alone is the only way of Salvation.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Eastern-Orthodox-1456/divorce-2.htm says that:
The Orthodox Church does not grant divorces - that is done by the civil courts....
Depending on the circumstances, the Church may grant permission to remarry a second and perhaps even a third time, but not a fourth...
Three marriages is the limit, regardless of whether the previous marriages ended in divorce or in the death of the spouse.
Depending on the circumstances. Hardly doctrinal mandating of three divorces. Really, you must give up your hysterical websites. The Orthodox have Catholicism more pure than the excommunicated Feeneyites have, for sure.
It goes all the way back to Acts and every Council of the Church has affirmed it either specifically or simply by observation.
Leoni asks: What does Feeney have to do with the Catholic Church's dictrine on the supremacy of the pope? What "Church" are you talking about?
Nothing, and that is my point. I am talking about the Catholic Church, not a Feeneyite breakaway excommunicated cult. Pope BXVI is the current Pope and there is currently no vacancy in the Chair of St. Peter. The Latin Bishop (BXVI) heads the Latin branch of the Church. Do you count yourself in this Church, with BXVI as the head, primus inter pares?
That is not Reformed belief. Reformed belief is that the only requirement for salvation is that one is chosen before Time by Jesus to be saved. Reformed belief is that the road to salvation is trodden only by those chosen to be saved, and therefore repentence, belief in whatever, and perseverence to whatever, are simply incidental and not the choice, influence, agreement or the work of the individual in any way shape, or form.
Therefore, your movement to a Reformed church from the Catholic one merely removed your own personal obligation for just about everything.
I see the allure.
It doesn't matter. Now that you know otherwise, why does it matter to which church you belong?
As a Catholic I believed that Jesus died on the Cross and rose again, but I never trusted Him alone for salvation
Oh?
I was on the faith and works treadmill cooporating to gain my own salvation with the help of His merited grace
And now you can do whatever you will, sin as much as you want, and don't have to worry about your salvation. Isn't that right? How enticing.
Ever heard of Luther's pecca fortiter or "sin boldly" expression?
Really? Where does Jesus say one is saved by faith alone?
The only requirement is Repentance for sin and belief in the suffering, death and resurection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins as a substitutionary atonement, alone is the only way of Salvation
I could come up with a dozen other "salvation recipes" straight from the Bible.
Where do you find the word "atonement" in the New Testament? And you are accusing the Catholic Faith of being "unbiblical?"
STRAWMAN! I didn't say three divorces. If you would copy and paste what I wrote, it would avoid these mistakes. I was quite precise, I said:
"What about the Orthodox's teaching/practice that the laity can marry three times? That is a mortal sin for a Catholic, it is living in adultery. Where did that 3x come from? ...Catholicism has always taught that marriage is for life. The Orthodox say you can be divorced 2 times and married 3 times. When and where did the Orthodox come up with that?"
You yourself posted that they can marry three times, from your link. Here is another one:
http://www.oca.org/QA.asp?ID=139&SID=3
"While the Church stands opposed to divorce, the Church, in its concern for the salvation of its people, does permit divorced individuals to marry a second and even a third time."
I thought that you knew more than I about the Eastern Orthodox, but it appears that you are in the same boat as I. Kosta50 an Eastern Orthodox has not been able to answer my question either.
Hardly doctrinal mandating of three divorces.
Granting three marriages inside the church while the first two spouses are still alive, is a heretical soul killing doctrine, a doctrine of Orthodox church authorized adultery.
Really? Where does Jesus say one is saved by faith alone?
Matt 9:1Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city. 2 And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, "Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven."
Mark 16:16 " He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.
Luke 8:12"Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved.
Luke 7:48 Then He said to her, "Your sins have been forgiven." 49 Those who were reclining at the table with Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this man who even forgives sins?" 50 And He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
John 3:114Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
John 3:36 "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
John 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
John 6:47 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
John 7:38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'"
John 8:24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, " I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"
Jophn 12:46 "I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness."
John 3:14 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Where do you find the word "atonement" in the New Testament?
Romans 3:25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
Hebrews 2:17 For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
Are you are accusing the Catholic Faith of being "unbiblical?"
Not entirely, just in terms of salvation and the innovations they added thoughout history and now term as "development".
You better call all the Diocene Archbishops that have approved "Feeneyite" St. Benedict Centers offering masses daily (some even Novus Ordo), and call the Vatican too, inform them that they are dealing with heretics.
Shows how much you know. You call Catholics heretics, the so-called Orthodox just like catholics.
What religion are you anyways?
I am talking about the Catholic Church, not a Feeneyite breakaway excommunicated cult. Pope BXVI is the current Pope and there is currently no vacancy in the Chair of St. Peter. The Latin Bishop (BXVI) heads the Latin branch of the Church. Do you count yourself in this Church, with BXVI as the head, primus inter pares?
What a mess is your knowledge of Catholicism! The "Feeneyites" as you call them, are 99% not sedevacantes, that's two different things. The pope is the supreme pontiff that is Catholic Dogma, the Orthodox bishops are schismatic and heretical, that they admit themselves when they call Catholics the same. I am not a sedevacates.
What religion are you anyways, you know very little about Catholicism and it looks like you are not a source to ask any questions to about the schismatic Orthodox?
That is not Reformed belief. Reformed belief is that the only requirement for salvation is that one is chosen before Time by Jesus to be saved. Reformed belief is that the road to salvation is trodden only by those chosen to be saved, and therefore repentence, belief in whatever, and perseverence to whatever, are simply incidental and not the choice, influence, agreement or the work of the individual in any way shape, or form.
I dont think you understand the Reformed belief. The believer MUST repent and believe He is given the ability to CHOSE God, He is given the Faith as a gift. Salvation is a gift.
Men are free to believe, but until God opens their eyes they cannot. Chimps are free to speak french but because of their NATURE, they cannot.
Because man is dead in trespasses and sins he is free to repent and believe, but like the chimp he CANNOT until God Gifts him with the ability.
This is not new for Catholics, The Thomist view believes in uncondition election.
Read the Council of Orange around the year 500 ish. Read Augustine
And now you can do whatever you will, sin as much as you want, and don't have to worry about your salvation. Isn't that right? How enticing.
That is a common reaction to the TRUE Gospel of Grace. One that Paul has addressed in Rom 6 as he was also charged with antinomianism.
As a matter of fact, if the Gospel you believe does not create this reaction, it is NOT the Gospel that Paul preached.
In Rom 5 Paul tells of the free gift of salvation. Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Rom 5:9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ Rom 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Referring to soemone negatively and not piniging him is unaethical on this forum. I am not aware that you asked me a question I didn’t reply to. I do have others I correspond with and possibly failed to answer yours; apologies. So what was the question?
Well, as I said, the "recipes" are plentiful, and not all of them require belief.
Say the right things.
For by thy words thou shalt be justified. -- Matthew 12:37
Do the right things.
And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life. -- John 5:29
For you render to each one according to his works. -- Psalm 62:12
I the Lord ... give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. -- Jeremiah 17:10
For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. -- Matthew 16.27
For we must all appear before the jugment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. -- 2 Corinthians 5:10
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. -- 2 Corinthians 11:15
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? -- James 2:14
The Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work. -- 1 Peter 1:17
I will give unto every one of you according to your works. -- Revelation 2:23
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. -- Revelation 20:12-13
A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. -- Romans 3:28
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. -- Romans 5:1
A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. -- Galatians 2:16
For by grace are ye saved through faith. -- Ephesians 2:8
Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. -- James 2:17
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. -- Matthew 25:34-36
When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness ... and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul. -- Ezekiel 18:27
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 7:21
Who will render to each one according to his deeds. ... For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. -- Romans 2:6, 13
Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. -- John 6:40
Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. -- John 3:16
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. -- John 3:36
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. -- John 6:47
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. -- Acts 16:31
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. -- John 3:3
He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. -- John 5:24
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. -- John 3:5
It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: -- 2 Timothy 2:11
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. -- Titus 3:5
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 18:3
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. -- Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, Luke 17:33
For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. -- Matthew 10:42, Mark 9:41
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. -- Mark 16:16
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. -- Acts 16:31
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. -- 1 Corinthians 7:14
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. -- Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. -- Romans 10:9
If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. -- Matthew 19:17-19
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life. -- Revelation 22:14
And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? ... Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. ...thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.-- Luke 18:18-22
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. -- Revelation 14:12
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. -- 2 Thessalonians 2:10
He that endureth to the end shall be saved. -- Matthew 10:22, 24:13, Mark 13:13
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? -- 1 Corinthians 15:29
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. -- Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. -- 1 Timothy 2:14-15
For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? -- 1 Corinthians 7:16
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you ... deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. -- 1 Corinthians 5:1-5
And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. -- Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 18:29-30
Ye are the children of them which killed the prophets ... Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? -- Matthew 23:31-33
Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. -- Luke 13:23-24
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. -- Romans 11:26
...the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. -- Revelation 14:4
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. -- Mark 8:38
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. -- Matthew 6:1
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. -- John 6:37
For many are called, but few are chosen. -- Matthew 22:14
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:44
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate ... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. -- Romans 8:29-30
For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. -- Romans 9:11
He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us ... according to the good pleasure of his will. -- Ephesians 1:4-5
Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. -- Matthew 19:23-24
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. -- Luke 6:24
Ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. -- James 5:1
But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. -- Matthew 19:30, Mark 10:31
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 5:20
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. -- John 6:50
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. -- John 6:53-54
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. -- Matthew 7:7-8
He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. -- Luke 10:26
Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God. -- 1 John 4:7
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. -- 1 Corinthians 1:21[from Skeptic's Anotated Bible]
No Bible has it except for NIV. The word itself was not known until the 16th century. Therefore it is not biblical. In addition to that it carried Anselmian juridical "baggage" which is also not the teaching of the early Church.
You are quoting only from Paul. This is Paulianity, not Christianity. Luther said one can fornicate 1000 times as day and not worry about it a long as one believes. Obviously, since it does not make a bit of difference what you do you, you cannot lose your salvation, there is nothing to stop your fallen human nature from committing sin as much as your nature pleases. That's why Luther cheers others by syaing "pecca fortiter" (sin boldly)!
Paul's claim that you "died" to sin and therefore cannot live in it any longer is rubbish. Protestants sin every day, so either Paul is a liar or Protestants really don't believe (i.e. didn't "die" to sin) even though they claim they do. The fact that Paul calls believers "saints" seems to indicate that he really believed once you are a Christian you no longer sin. That says a lot about Paul. But I can see why this may be very attractive to some.
hmmm
I see, so you are a skeptic? Not a Christian?
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