Salvation is a free gift of God! You can have confidence you are saved.

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[Teleios Research]

Be convinced with these 4 biblical truths: 1. Each of us has sinned; 2. God is just, requiring a punishment for sin; 3. But out of love God sent His Son, Jesus Christ who by dying on the cross, provided forgiveness of sins in taking man’s deserved punishment; 4. Therefore, by faith alone in Christ’s sacrifice for our sins and belief in His resurrection, man can gain eternal life. (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 10:9-10, Romans 3:21-26) Read more at https://teleiosresearch.com/salvation-explanation/.

[HarleyD]

I quoted the Bible that proves faith is a work.

I see. So when James states:

James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

It should have been really translated

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has works but does not have works? Can that work save him?

Makes perfect sense. - NOT!

BTW-I could go down a whole list..."Oh man of little works...", Abraham was justified by his works and by his works., etc.

Works and faith are different and it does help to read the dictionary from time to time even though it is not inspired by God. Just a simple reading of the scriptures tell us that faith and works are two different things.

Romans 4:5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

There is only one work and that is to believe in the Lord Jesus.

[boatbums]

And one more time for you - PLEASE READ THIS:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. (Romans 4:1-16)

[daniel1212]

If you want responses to all your points, daniel1212 has the time and patience to refute everything you’ve said, and for the most case, already has. If you’ve been refuted already, why spend my time smacking you down again? But Catholics have so much invested in truly meriting eternal life and will one day attain to the level of actual holiness necessary for final salvation. Surely the contrite criminal on the right side of the crucified Christ became good enough to be with God in the few hours on the cross, being tempted in all points like as we are, so that he coul

Every Catholic apologist I’ve ever met has opened the discussion with a storm of breathless accusations, goalpost moving, and general inability to think or speak logically.

I am leaving here for a while to install an OS.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

boatbums, my sibling in the faith, you seem to be assuming that:

1. This one is an actual seeker of truth
2. That the unregenerate mind can understand Scripture
3. That those with a closed mind can receive truth.

On reflection, I’m sure you understand this.

[Mark17]

Again, no point in discussing the meaning of Scripture with the unsaved.

Maybe what you mean, is there is no point in discussing the meaning of Scripture, with SOME unsaved, such as, one who is bound and determined, to establish his own righteousness. THAT one can’t possibly be saved.
I know a retired Air Force Colonel, who e mailed me yesterday. He rather amused me, by the terns he used, to describe someone who is trying to establish their own righteousness. I must admit, I never heard it in those terms before. He said front loading the gospel, indicates a “saved by works” theology. Backloading the gospel, indicates a “kept by works” theology. Either way, it’s the kind of theology that leads straight to the Lake of Fire. 🔥
Praise God for assurance of salvation. If some don’t have any, that’s on them. 😁

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Mark, to be more specific...

The unsaved are to hear the Gospel of Grace.

We are to proclaim it to all.

“If sinners be damned,
at least let them leap to hell over our bodies.

If they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees.
Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

– Charles Spurgeon

Except the heart-hardened, to whom it is as pearls before swine. We share our faith and if there is a hardened response, we move on. Though sometimes God puts people in our lives we continue to pray for and witness to over a long time. They tend to not be hard-hearted, like Pharaoh, though.

Nor is there value in discussing the rest of scripture that is spiritually discerned with an unregenerate person, who cannot understand it.

They need the Gospel to become regenerate first.

[boatbums]

Eternal security is a prime example of false idea that came from uninspired men. Jesus nor any of His Apostles ever taught it.

Izzat so??? Pretty sure Jesus AND His Apostles taught it:

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. (John 6:47)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him." (John 3:36)

Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (I John 5:13)

NOT a false idea at all! The only false ideas are coming from those who imagine no one can know they are saved.

[Mark17]

Except the heart-hardened, to whom it is as pearls before swine. We share our faith and if there is a hardened response, we move on.

Exactly. I should have been more specific too. I figure if I have explained the Gospel to someone 4 million times, although Elsie told me a billion times not to exaggerate, 🤪 then it might be time to move on. 👍 I find lots of Catholics here, who are willing to listen. 🤗😁👍

[aMorePerfectUnion]

I find lots of Catholics here, who are willing to listen

I believe when a Catholic has their eyes open to the gospel of grace, they are so grateful and humbled and fulfilled.

As you know, that was my story.

[boatbums]

Which one do followers of Luther’s faith only serve? They cannot be serving obedience unto righteousness since faith only denies that idea. So that does not leave them a very good master to be serving.

Why ask questions then not READ the answers given back to you??? Luther never taught that a Christian shouldn't live a life of holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit as befitting genuine faith. He never advocated "easy believism" or a sinful lifestyle though he was wrongly accused of it by his Catholic detractors. He declared that a true faith cannot help but do good works. He just clarified that it was not those good works that saved us but only faith. You knock down straw men of your own making and it's pitiful that you refuse to see it.

Do you imagine that we "faith alone" people live wildly sinful lives oblivious to Almighty God's chastening??? Can you see there is a difference between trusting in the grace of God to save you through faith as He promised and trusting in your "obedience" to God's works to save you? One gives ALL the glory to God and the other tries to glorify the obedient one. If after all this backing and forthing you still don't/won't/can't understand, then all I can do is to keep praying for the Lord to open your heart to His grace.

[boatbums]

Hope springs eternal, right? :o)

Besides, if the one to whom the reply addresses refuses to hear it, I know there may be others who are reading and I know the word of God does not return to Him without accomplishing what He wants.

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants. (Deuteronomy 32:2)

It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. (I Corinthians 3:7)

[metmom]

Eph 2:8-9 Paul shows salvation takes both God’s grace AND man’s faith. So grace alone will not save apart from man’s faith nor faith alone saves apart from God’s grace.

Paul.

He was on his way to persecute Christians when God broke into his world and saved him.

And faith is not the kind of work that works based religionists claim is necessary for salvation.

Faith is simply believing God and that’s all it takes, taking God at His word.

Any physical actions that result from such faith do not save a person, be it baptism, communion, works of mercy, Law keeping, financially giving, church attendance, Bible reading, whatever.

Those actions are simply manifestations of being born again while still yet a sinner.

One sin is all it takes to condemn a soul. An entire lifetime of perfect righteousness aside from that one sin is still not enough to atone for that sin which is why works based salvation is useless.

[metmom]

Here’s the Scriptural definition of faith as GOD defines it, because your attempt to define faith was wrong.

Hebrews 11:1-2 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.

[daniel1212]

Luther never taught that a Christian shouldn't live a life of holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit as befitting genuine faith. He never advocated "easy believism" or a sinful lifestyle though he was wrongly accused of it by his Catholic detractors. He declared that a true faith cannot help but do good works. He just clarified that it was not those good works that saved us but only faith. You knock down straw men of your own making and it's pitiful that you refuse to see it.

While Luther said many things and was very prone to using hyperbole, some of which is construed by enemies as even advocating sin, yet as documented, we see clear proper teaching such as I have provided in which Luther makes it clear that to believe (as enabled and motivated by God) is to morally obey, though it is not the moral obedience that faith effects that actually appropriates justification and merit eternal life, but God-given faith that is imputed for righteousness. One can argue that since to believe means one is obeying Christ (again, as enabled and motivated by God in grace) and thus salvation is by a work (of faith), however, the exclusion of works refers to a response that one can take credit for, and or makes one actually morally deserving of salvation, and or otherwise that justification is a result of actually being made good enough to be with God, being justified by his own righteousness as in Roman Catholicism, versus heart-purifying regenerating faith being counted for righteousness, justifying the one who is now washed and sanctified and enabled and motivated to follow the Lord in whom He believed, and overall will, all by grace.

In Scriptural sola fide teaching, while the sinner is regenerated, it is not his new nature that is the basis for his justification, but that of (repentant) faith being counted for righteousness, thus even the penitent publican (LK. 18) and contrite criminal of Lk. 23 was justified and went to be with the Lord at death as with all believers (or at His return), even though not perfect in character. However, while justified by imputed righteousness, this is not separate from regeneration, which would mean the justified are merely "whitewashed sinners," but which is how agents such as Catholic Answers describes sola fide. And the Catholic encyclopedia teaches that under sola fide neither the absence of charity or good works can deprive the just man of anything. (Catholic Encyclopedia > Justification) However, this ignores the nature of the faith that justifies, for it faith out a humble and contrite heart, (cf. Ps. 34:18) prepared by God, and is faith in the righteousness sin-hating Lord Jesus, not merely faith in a promise of salvation abstract from who and what He is, with no moral ramifications. Therefore one cannot truly salvifically believe on the Lord Jesus without seeking to do what He says.

In Catholicism justification is by actually by being made holy thru the act itself (ex opere operato) of baptism being the agent providing "infused" righteousness/charity in the heart. At this point it is expected that the newly baptized would go directly to God is they died then. However, since the sinful nature is all too much alive and soon has its outworking, then unless the person attains to and dies with the level of practical holiness necessary to be with God or else one must attain this state ("perfectly purified," "every imperfection of the soul corrected" "purged of all selfishness and bad habits and character faults" "of spiritual excellence needed to experience the full-force presence of God" as expressed with sources in post 84) thru "purifying punishments" (INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA; cp. 1. 1967) - and atone for sins they fail to sufficiently do while on earth - in RC Purgatory (though which, with its related indulgences, the EO's tend to hold is not of Tradition)

The Catholic Encyclopedia teaches that "Although the sinner is justified by the justice of Christ, inasmuch as the Redeemer has merited for him the grace of justification (causa meritoria), nevertheless he is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis).” ( Catholic Encyclopedia > Sanctifying Grace) Yet the problem with being justified by actually being made good enough in practical terms to be with God is that you never can be in this life pr Purgatory. Couple this with the emphasis on merit in teaching such as by Trent that believers are justified by the good works that they perform by the grace of God and truly merit the attainment of eternal life itself, (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32) and we can see how this fosters the expectation Catholics typically express, that their hope of salvation is due to them being good enough.

While there is the sense of merit in which believers are accounted to be worthy of rewards, in that their God-enabled and motivated obedience of faith manifests them as being true believers, and whom, under grace, God rewards even though He is the only one worthy of any credit (for in conversion and obedience, man is enabled and motivated to do what he otherwise could not and would not do), yet it is not because man actually morally attained to the level necessary to be with God in this life or mythical Purgatory.

[Elsie]

I don’t know how more plain it can be that obedience = salvation.

Like THIS??

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:16 KJV

Faith & Works

HMMMmmm…

It ain't the lack of works that leads to damnation.

[Elsie]

Some folks are colorblind in that they cannot understand things printed in purple text.

[Elsie]

John 10:27-28

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“ I know the word of God does not return to Him without accomplishing what He wants.”

Right on! Right on!

[Oneanddone]

Mark 16:16 clearly puts obedience in believing and being baptized BEFORE ‘saved’. As Acts 2:38 puts obedience in repenting and submitting to baptism BEFORE salvation/remission of sins.

Again, in Rom 10:3 it was lack of obedience in doing God’s righteousness those Jews were lost.

[Oneanddone]

I already showed verses that call faith a work and Heb 11:1 does not contradict those verses.

Heb 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Heb 11:1 is not really a definition of faith but gives a description of what faith does. Faith causes one to act on what is ‘not seen’ as if it already exist in substance. Example, I cannot see heaven but my faith moves me to be obedient to God as if heaven is a real thing even though I cannot see it, touch it right now as a substance. Therefore faith is giving substance to things hoped for, giving substance to things not seen thereby moving one to act as if it already is a reality.

Also, I cannot see how Heb 11:1 can be a definition of faith when it does not fully tell us everything about faith. In Heb 10:38 faith is how one lives, faith is not just a mental assent of the mind, not just acknowledgement of certain facts and nothing more.