No, I am laughing at the ones who post heresy and claim it as truth. I am respecting God, not some clay creature...
Does it hurt to hear the Truth?
Roman Catholics are idolaters. There is lots of money to be made selling them...
Posted on 05/12/2015 4:21:27 PM PDT by RnMomof7
Let us begin with a church history exam question. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was a figure not to be taken lightly. He was Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Counter-Reformation movement within sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism. On one occasion, he wrote: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement.
How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords?
Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”
A moment’s reflection explains why. If justification is not by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone — if faith needs to be completed by works; if Christ’s work is somehow repeated; if grace is not free and sovereign, then something always needs to be done, to be “added” for final justification to be ours. That is exactly the problem. If final justification is dependent on something we have to complete it is not possible to enjoy assurance of salvation. For then, theologically, final justification is contingent and uncertain, and it is impossible for anyone (apart from special revelation, Rome conceded) to be sure of salvation. But if Christ has done everything, if justification is by grace, without contributory works; it is received by faith’s empty hands — then assurance, even “full assurance” is possible for every believer.
No wonder Bellarmine thought full, free, unfettered grace was dangerous! No wonder the Reformers loved the letter to the Hebrews!
This is why, as the author of Hebrews pauses for breath at the climax of his exposition of Christ’s work (Heb. 10:18), he continues his argument with a Paul-like “therefore” (Heb. 10:19). He then urges us to “draw near … in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). We do not need to re-read the whole letter to see the logical power of his “therefore.” Christ is our High Priest; our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience just as our bodies have been washed with pure water (v.22).
Christ has once-for-all become the sacrifice for our sins, and has been raised and vindicated in the power of an indestructible life as our representative priest. By faith in Him, we are as righteous before the throne of God as He is righteous. For we are justified in His righteousness, His justification alone is ours! And we can no more lose this justification than He can fall from heaven. Thus our justification does not need to be completed any more than does Christ’s!
With this in view, the author says, “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who come to God by him” (Heb. 10:14). The reason we can stand before God in full assurance is because we now experience our “hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and … bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).
“Ah,” retorted Cardinal Bellarmine’s Rome, “teach this and those who believe it will live in license and antinomianism.” But listen instead to the logic of Hebrews. Enjoying this assurance leads to four things: First, an unwavering faithfulness to our confession of faith in Jesus Christ alone as our hope (v.23); second, a careful consideration of how we can encourage each other to “love and good works” (v.24); third, an ongoing communion with other Christians in worship and every aspect of our fellowship (v.25a); fourth, a life in which we exhort one another to keep looking to Christ and to be faithful to him, as the time of his return draws ever nearer (25b).
It is the good tree that produces good fruit, not the other way round. We are not saved by works; we are saved for works. In fact we are God’s workmanship at work (Eph. 2:9–10)! Thus, rather than lead to a life of moral and spiritual indifference, the once-for-all work of Jesus Christ and the full-assurance faith it produces, provides believers with the most powerful impetus to live for God’s glory and pleasure. Furthermore, this full assurance is rooted in the fact that God Himself has done all this for us. He has revealed His heart to us in Christ. The Father does not require the death of Christ to persuade Him to love us. Christ died because the Father loves us (John 3:16). He does not lurk behind His Son with sinister intent wishing He could do us ill — were it not for the sacrifice his Son had made! No, a thousand times no! — the Father Himself loves us in the love of the Son and the love of the Spirit.
Those who enjoy such assurance do not go to the saints or to Mary. Those who look only to Jesus need look nowhere else. In Him we enjoy full assurance of salvation. The greatest of all heresies? If heresy, let me enjoy this most blessed of “heresies”! For it is God’s own truth and grace!
OK, then dig this: I’m retired now, but my coworkers in the Calvinist & Evangelical traditions said unto to me that if one is truly saved, then one stops sinning, especially those that are repetitive sins. God’s grace is that powerful, they maintained.
Being Catholic, I was also subject to their daily efforts to convert me to Christianity. Give us the airfare, they said, and we’ll journey to the Vatican and debate Pope Benedict XVI into total theological defeat.
Dominus vobiscum, y’all.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry, and at whose gullibility.
No one on this side of heaven ever stops sinning...Paul the apostle in Romans 7 addresses that situation...While we never stop sinning, we gain the desire to stop sinning...We don't fear God...We know it hurts and grieves him when we sin...I'm not an evangelical Calvinist so I won't speak for them...
Funniest 8 minutes of film ever!
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Ohhhhh context, context, context. That isn't even the full SENTENCE, let alone what he was talking about:
"If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner."
I have bachelor and graduate degrees from preeminent Evangelical Protestant colleges, and a Ph.D. in religion and theology from a Jesuit University. From which institutions of higher learning, pray tell, did you receive your degrees in theology?
Source?
I had one started about the Non English speaking Italian Angel Luigi Moroni but get tired and took a nap!
“Faith. Not quite the same as when they were good Catholics were they?”
Heck, not even popes were good Catholics!
You’ve much work to do. Please read the full Luther quote, since you only quoted part of it and in doing so, altered the meaning...
http://graceandmiracles.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-did-martin-luther-tell-us-to-sin.html
Stop and get off the catholic high horse.
You will not and cannot find anyone, save catholics, who make this false assertion.
There's not a Christian on this board who advances the position that once you are saved you can go out and do whatever you want.
We recognize we are sinners and will fail Christ in the future. It's why He offered Himself as a one time sacrifice covering all of our past, present and future sins.
No, I am laughing at the ones who post heresy and claim it as truth. I am respecting God, not some clay creature...
Does it hurt to hear the Truth?
Roman Catholics are idolaters. There is lots of money to be made selling them...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3289159/posts?page=113#113
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3289159/posts?page=42#42
These two posts are not heresy — they are straight from the Bible.
Why were my posts removed?
But the fact remains if once saved always saved the the whole statement “WORK OUT YOUR SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING” does not make sense.
Why work out?
Why FEAR and TREMBLING? What is there to be scared about?
Once saved always saved.
In spite of sophmoric parsing, if once saved always saved Paul was wrong.
I removed them because posting Bible verses followed by intense laughing was tacky. I also removed the flamette that it caused.
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