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!
That’s a Jehovah’s Witness diagram
That's easy: disunity
Many are called but few are chosen. Faithful is he that calleth you for he shall also do it. Of the many called, why so few chosen? ... Because so few will let Him do it! Now you may ask "do what"? The answer is so simple men have been manufacturing religious system for literally millennia to avoid 'it', Catholicisms priest absolution for sinners being the most hideous perversion. Usually the opposition plays dumb to avoid honesty, which is what I expect from you. What will He, the Holy Spirit, do?... Be God in you. Being God in you is THE earnest of your inheritance, the spark of The Holy Spirit in you. Pride resists this relinquishing of the will, often deceitfully pleading ignorance. A priest ordained by a man-made institution which plays jello to walls and nails cannot absolve sin. Confession to God with a contrite spirit is guaranteed to take away the guilt of sin, by the Promise of God, not the hail marys from a priest.
If I were to ask of you an honest answer to a simple question, what should I expect from you? ... So, here's the question: When is a man saved who confesses Jesus is The Christ and God raised Him from the dead to be that man's Savior?
Have you tried moving to a Lumia? What they call a Phablet? These are exceptionally good
Kudos, excellently and truly stated. Brevity is the evidence of wisdom.
Could you elaborate more on what you say about “be God in you”?
I disagree — because that’s not really a “heresy” i.e. a belief system :)
Meant to ping you guys ...
heresy consists in disbelieving — or of doubting — one of Christianity’s core principles.
Due to these two splits, when Islam came, it was easy to get Copts to fight against orthodox
Then Catholics and Orthodox disunity led to the losses against the Turks culminating in the fall of Constantinople
Then the Lutheran v/s Catholic v/s Calvinist struggle diverted resources from fighting the turk, and culminated in 1683 with Calvinist Hungarians fighting on the side of the Turk against Christendom (nationalism at rise)
You then had the French competing with the GErman Empire to be "the friend of the Moslems" and the English doing that the best (they enabled teh Wahabbi take over of Saudi arabia, that led to Al qaeda, the taliban, al-shabab, the islamic state, boko haram etc. + they also created Pakistan and caused the Palestinian problem)
Christian disunity is the constant theme throughout history which has led to Islam WINNING 3 times (in the 7th century, in the 15th and in the 16th and 17th).
If Christendom had remained united (and I see Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, Orthodox etc. all to blame in some way or the other) or at least saying "I will suspend my animosity to other people who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, GOD and Savior to fight those who don't" -- if we hadn't been disunited, Islam would still be concentrated around the Mecca-Medina area
Anyway, so you see how nationalism seems to have been very good in keeping Christians apart (though alternatively, having a distinct religion also kept nations together -- witness Jews, Armenians, YAzidi, Samaritans, Irish, Poles, etc.)
Islam is an anti-Christian movement. You have just detailed how disunity has enabled the rise in our day of the worst threat to Christianity in our world today which is perpetrating the worst persecution of Christians today.
Heresy should be so lucky.
The Catholic church DOES damn non-Catholics to hell.
From what I remember, I think, though I can't remember for sure, but the official RCC position, is that ALL non Catholics will go to Hell. Now, if you ask 100 cult members the same question, you are likely to get 100 different variations. Each individual catholic may not actually believe that drivel, but some probably do. I can't speak for other Catholics, but when I was a catholic, I hated non Catholics, and was happy to damn them all to Hell. They may not all think that way, but I did. Obviously, I don't anymore. 😇
Squabbling in house while the enemy attacks without is like the fall of Sicily or nearly the fall of Vienna.
Psalm 133: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Romans 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ
Colossians 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
2 Thessalonians 1:12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. [This harkens to the passage in John 14 where Jesus gives Philip a Physics lesson regarding being in the Father and The Father in Him.]
Hebrews 13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. [The function of Christ in you for the Christian life.]
1 John 4:4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. [The transformation of a sinner into the image of God's Son is a work of God's doing, by the Holy Spirit within working His character out through your soul, your behavior mechanism. It is by this that we may know a man is born again, because the character of God begins to show through the soul of a man.]
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. [Again, we are to be 'in Him' and He 'in us', in like manner as Jesus taught Philip in John 14.]
I’m gratified to hear you say that, however I need to learn wisdom. what I point out is just facts — wisdom is for smarter people than I whom I learn from and from God who grants it in mysterious ways
Yet you have many groups that do doubt this -- as I point out, the Oneness Pentecostals and now the Eposcopalians tossing out the devil from the baptismal
in sotuhern Iraq at the time of Mohammad, the Sassanids and the Romans were fighting each other through their Arab proxies -- the Ghassanids were Christian Arabs and the Laksmids were Zoroastrian.
Mohammad took the Gnostic, ARian beliefs he had heard along with Jewish beliefs (Medina was a Jewish town originally) and merged it with Zoroastrianism and ancient Arab polytheism to create a uniting force for ARabs
The Wahabbis are trying to do the same.
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