Your comment: “While your view makes for a good story, this is not what the scriptures teaches. Only His sheep hear his voice.”
Why do some use a quote from the Bible to attempt to justify their comment without understanding (or ignoring) the rest of the teachings of Jesus?
We are all created by God and He wants all of us to join Him in Heaven by accepting His teachings and following God’s will to holiness. God gave us free will to either accept or reject God and His salvation for us. God is Love and he wants us to love Him and our neighbor. Everyone is His sheep and if allowed to hear the Truth may accept the Salvation that Jesus gained for us.
While not able to judge who gains or loses salvation, it appears that Luther even if he had good intentions may have rejected salvation and led others to reject salvation.
“Within his own framework, Luther was surely right in saying that his church would stand or fall with his idea of justification by faith. So we ask: Is it standing or falling? The answer: It has fallen—and for a double reason, according to his own calculations.”
There are two key words, not just one, in the expression “justification by faith.”
First, “justification”: Luther thought that a sinner who is forgiven is still totally corrupt, unable to get away from sinning constantly.
Did Paul mean that? Not really.
He spoke of Christians as a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). They are made over from scratch— they are not at all merely the same old total corruption! And he says more than once that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us as in a temple (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16). Can we imagine the Holy Spirit living in a temple that is total corruption?
Even more telling, if possible, is the idea Paul has of faith. Luther did not even make a good try at finding out what Paul meant by the word. He assumed what appealed to his scrupulous fears and said faith means confidence the merits of Christ apply to me. But there is an obvious way to find out what Paul really meant by faith: Read every place where Paul uses the word and related words. We can use a concordance to locate them, to keep notes, and to add them up.
If we do so this is what we get:”If God speaks a truth, faith requires that we believe it in our minds (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Cor. 5:7). If God makes a promise, faith requires that we be confident he will keep it (cf. Gal. 5:5; Rom .5:1). If God tells us to do something, we must obey (cf. Rom .1:5; 6:16). All this is to be done in love (Gal. 5:6).
How does this compare with just being confident that the merits of Christ apply to you? Quite a difference. So, by his own standard, Luther’s church has fallen. What he thought was a great discovery was just a great mistake, and his whole system stands or falls on his error, as he himself admitted.”
The rest of the article: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/luthers-obituary-for-lutheranism
Did Paul mean that? Not really.
He spoke of Christians as a "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). They are made over from scratch-- they are not at all merely the same old total corruption! And he says more than once that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us as in a temple (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16). Can we imagine the Holy Spirit living in a temple that is total corruption?
The failed human logic of your religion falls flat on its face when it comes to scripture...
So you imagine then the Holy Spirit living in a body/temple that is only partially corrupt??? Or in only a Catholic who is not corrupt at all???
Christians are made over from scratch??? What utter nonsense...
You do realize Paul struggled with the old self....right?
The concept of "free will" was deemed heresy at the Council of Orange.
CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, "The will is prepared by the Lord" (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).
I. God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined good, or evil.[1]
II. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God;[2] but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.[3]
III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation:[4] so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,[5] and dead in sin,[6] is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.[7]
IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin;[8] and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;[9] yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, or only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.[10]
V. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.[11]
[1] MAT 17:12, [2] ECC 7:29, [3] GEN 2:16, [4] ROM 5:6, [5] ROM 3:10, [6] EPH 2:1, [7] JOH 6:44, EPH 2:2-5, 1CO 2:14, TIT 3:3-5, [8] COL 1:13, [9] PHI 2:13, [10] GAL 5:17, ROM 7:15-23, [11] EPH 4:13
If you miss this concept it baffled me for 30 years. But it is very clear and with a little bit of review and an open heart it is plainly taught in scripture. We are wicked people who are saved only by God's grace. It is no different than God appearing to Paul on the Damascus Road, God revealing Himself to Moses via a burning bush, God calling to Samuel as he was trying to get some sleep. We are all saved exactly the same way, by God grace. Christ comes up to us, tells us to get up and follow Him, and so we do it. This is NOT of yourself, it is a gift from God. (Eph 2:8-9) This is the reason we pray for the salvation of others. Please consider the most obvious verse of all verses:
Luther thought that a sinner who is forgiven is still totally corrupt, unable to get away from sinning constantly.
I'm not sure that is correct. Before Christ we are in bondage to sin. After Christ, Christians no longer practice sin, but they still sin as residue of their old nature (1 John). But despite the poorly worded title in the Westminster Confession, there is no such thing as "free will". There is God's will and there is our will. Our will strives with God's will and God works to bring it into subjection to Him (to the praise of His glory). We don't "freely" do the things of God unless God empowers us to do His will. As Augustine writes, "Command what you will, and grant what you command." As I've asked many times, "If you really, really have a "free will", then why do you sin?" I have yet to get a response to that question. Our sinfulness as Christians is a hold over of our old nature and is evidence of our willful, sinful self as we once were. May God grant us His power to be submissive to His will.
See what Luther actually taught in post 110 , then tell me why I should heed what some parroting propagandist says about Luther, whose polemical hyperbole is often taken out of context by such, when they are not passing on fabrications?