Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: MHGinTN
What you have outlined is not faith alone but faith + repentance.

No lifetime of works is going to change an unrepentant heart, because ONLY God brings the sinner to the point of repenting and believing in Jesus as The Christ, The Son of the Living God. It is God's Holy Spirit Who brings the heart to the state of contrition that meets repentance.

This is as Catholics believe. Again, the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Mt 4:17) Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man. (Council of Trent (1547):DS1528)
Pegs and 'whole' aside, the Bible very clearly and repeatedly tells you that it is by God's Grace that your are Saved through Faith in Jesus Christ as The Deliverer and Lord. This is accomplished in you ONLY by His Spirit first bringing you to contrition and repentance, then placing your faith solely in His Promise to be your redeemer, your Savior, your Lord of Life.

Agree, and very Catholic.

Catholicism teaches a different means to be 'born from above', a means which looks more like an installment plan birth which requires your works to be completed.

A false understanding of Catholicism. Works do not bring salvation, it is a pure gift through the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life: (Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1529)
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:21-26)
Although frequently leveled by Protestants, the charge that Catholics believe in salvation through works is false. Where we do differ is that the reception of the Holy Spirit that comes with faith is progressive and not all at once. This is what we mean by an increase in Grace. It does not mean an increase in our own merit through our works. Nor does this need to be completed before death in order to earn Heaven. This cleansing of the soul is finished by God after death in Purgatory.
103 posted on 07/01/2015 8:03:23 PM PDT by Petrosius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies ]


To: Petrosius
I realize you are unable to see the double talk in your post. It is hard to step back from what you have inculcated into you for so long.

Claiming what I posted is what catholics believe doesn't make it so. Catholicism is an installment plan salvation. I did not show you an installment plan, I showed you where the Bible prove Salvation is immediate, evidenced by God's Spirit coming into believers immediately upon their believing the same profession Peter uttered to Jesus.

catholicism does not allow adherents to believe they're born from above as soon as they place their faith in Christ. It may allow the adherent to believe they have been started along the installment plan toward obtaining salvation, and the rest of the installments are through the sacraments and then purgatory. These are contradictory to what the Bible teaches and ILLUSTRATES.

Justification is not something you can obtain by following an installment plan of sacraments and bead reading and confessionals and Brown scalpuli wor and kissed. It is by Grace you are Justified through Faith in Jesus Christ. The truly repentant heart God will in no wise cast out and His response to such an heart is immediate, as evidenced again at Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius.

Once you are Justified you are IMMEDIATELY adopted into God's family, born from above to never ever be out of His family BY HIS PROMISE TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE in He Whom God sent to be Savior and Lord. This is not what your religion teaches. Be honest. You know this is not what your catholic religion teaches.

I have asked twice for a catholic apologist to post a list of the things which catholicism requires in order be 'born from above'. She will not post a list. Will you? Will you honestly post a list of catholic requirements for Salvation and tell us honestly if Salvation is immediate by the Washing Of Regeneration through the blood of Christ?

And if you will be honest, look then at the blasphemy of the catholic Mass which asserts to the adherents that the priest bring Jesus Christ down from Heaven to be body, blood, soul and divinity, truly real and substantial in the wafer the priest is holding up for the adherents to say amen to.

Jesus shed His blood. He was not a victim. Yet the Catechism states that the priest at Mass places the victim on the catholic altar, as if the real Jesus Christ has been magically transported to the earth for consumption by those present at the Mass. Jesus refutes this foolery by telling His Disciples He will not set foot on Earth again until the Second Coming, at the end of the Great Tribulation.

And this notion of purgatory is also a blasphemy against what Scriptures teach clearly. The catholic church claims Mary can shorten your time in purgatory, that fingering the 59 beads of the Rosary can influence Mary to shorten your time in purgatory. That you can pray and do penance for those whoa re supposedly in purgatory and shorten their time there. This is utter paganism writ large in cahtolicism.

Catholic apologists deny that they are taught to worship Mary. But what else is it when the catechisms of your religion assert she is a mediatrix and co-redemptrix with Christ Jesus and that you can and should pray to her for whatever. Yes, these heresies are in the catholic catechism.

Your chosen religion is not Christianity, it is cahtolicism. Your religion teaches a different Jesus from the Bible. Your religion teaches pagan demigoddess servitude. That gentle man, John Paul II dedicated his pontificate to Mary, not Jesus, to Mary!

Cahtolicism is a religion posing as Christianity but is far from God's heart. The poor deluded adherents, sincere though they are, do not have Eternal Life in the now, for they are being taught it must come to them in installments, administered by the church authority. Not God's authority, the church's authority, which is wholly based in magic thinking and magic rites not delivered by God to men.

No matter how devout, if catholics continue to adhere to the blasphemous catholic ism they will die in their sins and there is no such magical cleaner as purgatory to remove the condemnation they will dive into their graves with. BUT God in His mercy has allowed time yet to obtain Salvation IMMEDIATELY and be born from above top have His Life in you forever more. Jesus died and rose again Once for All, Forever. He is not sacrificed a victim day after day in catholic Mass of wafers.

107 posted on 07/01/2015 8:37:51 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Is it really all relative, Mister Einstein?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies ]

To: Petrosius
Your won words expose you: "Where we do differ is that the reception of the Holy Spirit that comes with faith is progressive [That is the installment plan writ openly but denied by your religion] and not all at once. This is what we mean by an increase in Grace. It does not mean an increase in our own merit through our works. Nor does this need to be completed before death in order to earn Heaven. [Your own words contradict what you asserted regarding the reality that is cahtolicism. You do have a religion of the installment plan. You r religion is one which requires you to work along a path to earn Justification. You deny it then affirm it. That is rather double-minded, and very deceptive to your own soul!
108 posted on 07/01/2015 8:44:20 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Is it really all relative, Mister Einstein?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies ]

To: Petrosius; MHGinTN; Alex Murphy; bkaycee; blue-duncan; boatbums; caww; CynicalBear; daniel1212; ...
This cleansing of the soul is finished by God after death in Purgatory.

Which cannot ever happen.

There is no such thing as purgatory. There's not a shred of Scriptural support for it. Jesus NEVER taught anything remotely close to that.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from ALL our sin. ALL of it. There's nothing left to be purged from.

Purgatory cannot cleanse from sin because it's not the correct means for cleansing sin.

When a person is born again/born from above/saved, he is a new creature in Christ, regenerated, given a new nature, made alive in Christ the spirit. That part of him does not sin.

The sin comes from the flesh that we still live in.

When our body of flesh dies physically, all that's left of us is the new nature, the redeemed, regenerated spirit, which has no sin attached to it. Therefore, there is no sin left to atone for, to cleanse from, to account for.

Salvation is not merely a reworking of the old person, it's death and new life. We DIE in Christ and are raised in the newness of life.

122 posted on 07/01/2015 9:44:07 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies ]

To: Petrosius
This is what we mean by an increase in Grace.

Can a Catholic tell when their 'grace' has reached the necessary point for salvation?

146 posted on 07/02/2015 5:10:49 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson