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Locked on 04/24/2022 5:40:39 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childishness |
Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.
In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).
But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.
(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)
The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.
In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.
Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.
How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.
Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.
Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.
At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.
Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)
There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.
It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.
(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)
A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.
Yes, I’d like to hear from you how God allows an unrepentant sinner into heaven after that sinner first previously accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, then later, willfully continues in sin (for whatever reason), all the while thinking he was covered by Grace. That’s going to take some explaining. I look forward to hearing from you.
So since you posted the greek word, let's continue and post a greek translation that accounts for everything in the passage...
"For I do not desire you to be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers, all of them, were under the [Shekinah] cloud and all went through the sea. And all had themselves immersed, surrounded by the cloud [above] and the sea [on both sides], thus shut up to Moses [as their leader]."
-KW
In this instance, Paul under inspiration of God points out that this was no baptism by getting wet. It was an identification with Moses. In fact, as metmom pointed out upthread, the cloud did not get them wet and they walked across the bed of the Red Sea on dry land.
That said, the passage says both identified (immersed them in Moses), which is why the conjunction is needed. Both true. Neither getting them wet.
We would say God offers a little more than "protective influence" for us, No?
Yes, but Paul isn't making all possible points. He is making this one point.
They believe, they have been saved- They CANNOT lose their Salvation - at all.
They were not promised salvation. They were promised entry into the promised land. Most died in the wilderness because of their disobedience.
Were all Cortinthian believers saved??
If you mean everyone who entered a church, sang, performed rituals, etc., probably not in any congregation.
So did they all have saving faith? Likely not.
The more important question is can a true believer fall into sin? Into a useless life that is wasted? Into a life that dishonors God? Even into a life so bad that it is sin leading to an early departure from earth or sickness? Scripture says yes.
Best to you.
PS - Disclaimer: I feel confident that after 2 cups of coffee this response would have been even better!
Contractors don’t go to Hell...
They go to purgatory.
Once a week Satan comes down, waves, and hollers, “Guys, don’t worry. You’ll be out of here next week. I promise!”
Maybe not.
Folks didn't think much of Paul when they first heard about him.
I've merely got a few templates that I use when I want to emphasize a bit more than a
When you've been on FR from dang near a quarter century you tend to pick up a few tricks here and there.
And if that doesn't combine enough; an apparition can always appear and glue some extraneous stuff onto Scripture that helps unify Rome's message.
So Phil:
Of all the sins you've committed after you accepted Jesus, how many were UNwillfull?
{Do I have to repent after EACH cookie, or can I wait until I eat them all?}
—> That’s going to take some explaining.
Or rather, it would take spiritual understanding of the gospel of Grace FRiend…
Did all of the Protestant Reformers have spiritual understanding when they identified the Catholic Church as the Antichrist power (Little Horn, etc...)?
—> Did all of the Protestant Reformers have spiritual
Guess we will know whether they were correct when it occurs.
Unfortunately, it’ll be too late for the unsaved at that point.
You have time today to be born again and cast aside pride and false works.
Today is all you have.
Guess we will know whether they were correct when it occurs.
The bigger picture is... What does it say about people who *claim* Spiritual understanding, yet can’t identify the AC from Prophecy?
—> That’s exactly the response Satan is hoping for from this world we live in. Many will be fooled, and lost.
EXIBIT ‘A’
LOL, makes the blindness of Israel a lot more understandable, eh? The blindness we are witnessing is truly astounding.
Those railing against you lack the framework to understand it. Therefore, they resort to un-Christlike attacks.
Welcome back! Where’ve you been hanging out the past 13 months?
So which cult do you belong to?
Guessing also a SDA…
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