SALVATION: A "Free Gift" from God for those who believe

Status
Not open for further replies.
glorydaz

glorydaz

Well-known member
nikolai_42 said:
EDIT : Before you answer, consider some of the other gifts God gives. Families, possessions, understanding etc... When does God ever give any of those and there is even the possibility of people not accepting the gift? Even their non-acceptance doesn't negate the fact that God may have given these things to them. When someone receives understanding from God, does it even make sense to consider that that person could tell God "No. I don't want that understanding." and to refuse it so that he never actually possesses it?? The gifts and calling of God are without repentance - NOT without repentance as long as you agree.
Click to expand...

Yes, there are lots of gifts, but eternal life is a gift that people receive when they turn to God and believe. I think all those other gifts from God are a good reason, a draw if you will, for people to believe. We consider ourselves blessed when a child is born. We consider ourselves blessed when a loved one survives in spite of all odds. Many such things are a call from God to His creation. We are drawn....

Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?​
 
Nanja

Nanja

Well-known member
Pate

People are saved and come to Christ by hearing and believing the Gospel
Click to expand...


Correction: Hearing and believing the Gospel is the result of being Born of God John 8:47; Gal. 5:22.


You ignore the truths of scripture and relentlessly preach a false gospel of works a person does to get himself saved Eph. 2:8-9.


Those in the flesh cannot please God.


Rom. 8:7-8

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.


It's only once a person is Born of the Spirit can he please God.


Rom. 8:9
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
 
R

Robert Pate

Well-known member
Banned
Nanja said:
Pate




Correction: Hearing and believing the Gospel is the result of being Born of God John 8:47; Gal. 5:22.


You ignore the truths of scripture and relentlessly preach a false gospel of works a person does to get himself saved Eph. 2:8-9.


Those in the flesh cannot please God.


Rom. 8:7-8

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.


It's only once a person is Born of the Spirit can he please God.


Rom. 8:9
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Click to expand...


Strange. You don't have the Holy Spirit, yet you think that you are one of his.

The Holy Spirit is only given to those who are trusting in Christ and his Gospel for their salvation, Galatians 3:2.

You are trusting in predestination.
 
Catholic Crusader

Catholic Crusader

Kyrie Eleison
Banned
CatholicCrusader said:
Hearing, not reading. Yes.
The Gospel was meant to be taught by those in authority, not read and personally interpreted.
Click to expand...
Robert Pate said:
Who told you that, the Catholic priest?
Click to expand...

Nope, the Bible. Try reading it correctly sometime. Reading the Bible will help you more than making your snotty remarks

Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

2 Peter 1:20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet's own interpretation

And as for authority.....

ARTICLE posted with permission
Apostolic Succession Is Assurance of Truth
SOURCE LINK

Why should we care what the Church Fathers said? For many Catholics, the question may seem odd, and the answer may seem obvious. But for some Catholics, and I suspect for many Protestants, it’s a fair question.

You see, ever since the dawn of the modern age (not very long ago in the big picture), the Western world has been laboring under the mistaken assumption that simply because we live later in time than ancient people we are naturally more enlightened than they were. Then, in the last century, advances in medicine and technology have convinced us that we must be smarter than anyone who lived even a few hundred years ago, let alone almost 2,000 years ago.

But is that true? Do obvious improvements in some areas of life necessarily mean that philosophy and theology are also improving over time?

Our Catholic Faith—and really any faith that is handed down from one generation to the next—is built on the assumption that truth does not, in fact, evolve, and get “more true” over time. Instead, truth has a source. For us that source is God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. This is the historical event that we call the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), which means the divine Word, the Son of the Father and Second Person of the Trinity, acquired a human nature in order to reach out to humanity and reconcile us to our Creator.

And since this happened in human history, that means that there were real people who knew Jesus personally. Some of these were called his disciples, and most of those disciples (along with some others) became the people we call apostles. The word apostle means one who is sent out, and the apostles were the ones sent by Jesus to take his message of reconciliation into the world. So, rather than thinking we are naturally smarter than people who lived in the time of Jesus and the apostles, we actually believe that it’s important to listen to the people who lived closer in time to the Source of truth.

But the apostles couldn’t live forever, and when the time came, they handed the baton to those whom they chose and commissioned to succeed them. These successors of the apostles were the first bishops of the Church. Those bishops were the custodians of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. It was their job to pass on those teachings faithfully, and we believe that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they did (see John 14:26).

This is part of the point of my book, Handed Down. The teachings of the Catholic Faith of today are trustworthy because they have been faithfully handed down through the generations in an unbroken chain that goes all the way back to the apostles and Jesus. We call this chain of teaching authority “apostolic succession.”

So who are the Church fathers? They are the early bishops—the successors of the apostles—along with other early theologians and catechists who passed on the Faith. But in addition to passing the Faith along, every generation had to further clarify and explain the Tradition and practices of the Church as well as interpret the Scripture that is itself a part of that Tradition. To be clear, every generation confirmed the conclusions of the previous generations, so we’re not saying that later generations changed Tradition. But each generation did build on the foundation of prior Tradition.

This is important, because in many ways it was the Church Fathers who defined Christianity itself by clarifying important doctrines like that of the Trinity. Even though the word Trinity doesn’t appear in Scripture, I would say that anyone who does not believe in God as a Trinity cannot call himself a Christian (let alone a Catholic). Of course, the concept of the Trinity is quite biblical (see, for example, Matthew 28:19), but it was the Church Fathers who had to interpret and clarify Scripture regarding the Trinity—and it took them 300 years before they were ready even to begin writing the Nicene Creed.

Truth doesn’t evolve. In fact, if we’re not careful, the transmission of it will devolve over time, like a game of “telephone.” But we can be confident that our Faith has not lost anything to the passing of time because of apostolic succession and because of the promise of Jesus recorded in Matthew 16:18: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

I take that promise to mean that the Holy Spirit will guide and protect the Church so that it can never become something other than what Jesus intended it to be. Contrary to what the Protestant Reformers thought, the Church could never go off the rails to such an extent that it would cease to be the Church. If it did, then hell would win. But that can never happen, because Jesus made this promise.

Therefore, for us to remain connected to our faith, we also have to remain connected to those who came before us in the Faith. In the computer world, we hear a lot about being connected to “the cloud.” But there is a much more important cloud, what the author of the letter to the Hebrews called the “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1-2). This is the communion of the saints who went before us and who now cheer us on and intercede for us as we run the race of faith.

So we as Catholics may find that we have to answer the question, Why should we care what the Church Fathers said? We care because our Faith is historical. It is not mythical; it has its origins in God’s intervention in the history of the Hebrew people, and especially in God’s revelation in the person of Jesus Christ. And the people who lived closest to that time might just have understood something about Jesus’ life and message that we will miss if we look only at the Bible, and only through our twenty-first-century eyes.

The good news is that there is a lot of material left to us by the Church Fathers, and a lot of it is accessible online. To see writings of the Church Fathers, with links to the documents online, go to: https://www.ccel.org/fathers.html

 
Nanja

Nanja

Well-known member
Robert Pate said:
Strange. You don't have the Holy Spirit, yet you think that you are one of his.

The Holy Spirit is only given to those who are trusting in Christ and his Gospel for their salvation, Galatians 3:2.

You are trusting in predestination.
Click to expand...


My Faith is In Christ Jesus Gal. 5:22 who took upon Himself my sins Is. 53:6; Ps. 32:1-2.

All the Election of Grace 2 Tim.1:9; Eph. 1:4-7 exclusively shall be Born of the Spirit, Spiritually regenerated, in their lifetime.

Rom. 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
 
Catholic Crusader

Catholic Crusader

Kyrie Eleison
Banned

Question

I heard a radio preacher talk about the "biblical plan of salvation"--which, of course, he said the Catholic Church didn't obey. How does our Church understand the biblical plan of salvation?

Answer

The Church understands that we are all sinners in need of a savior (Rom 5:12-21). We are inheritors of original sin and all its consequences, and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God. We can't save ourselves, but we don't need to: Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation comes through Jesus alone (Acts 4:12), since he is the "one mediator between God and man" (1 Tm 2:5-6).

The saving grace won by Jesus is offered as a free gift to us, accessible through repentance, faith, and baptism. We turn away from our sins, we are sorry for them, and we believe in Jesus Christ and the gospel. Repentance shows our willingness to turn from things that keep us from God, and baptism renews us, filling us with the grace necessary to have faith and to live it. This belief is more than just "head knowledge." Even the demons have that (Jas 2:19). It's more than just believing you're saved. Even the Pharisees had that (Jn 5:39). True, saving faith is one lived and exhibited daily: It is "faith working through love" (Gal 5:6, cf. Jas 2:1-26).

Sometimes the Church is accused of teaching "salvation by works," but this is an empty accusation. This idea has been consistently condemned by the Church. Good works are required by God because he requires obedience to his commands (Mt 6:1-21, 1 Cor 3:8, 13-15) and promises to reward us with eternal life if we obey (Mt 25:34-40, Rom 2:6-7, Gal 6:6-10, Jas 1:12). But even our obedience is impossible without God's grace; even our good works are God's gift (Rom 5:5, Phil 2:13). This is the real biblical plan of salvation.

source link
 
T

Truster

New member
I got as far as this,"and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God". And had to stop. Here you go again giving glory to man and attempting to diminish Sovereign justness, holiness and justice.

It was the Eternal Almighty who separated Himself from the filth of sinful and fallen man. Your doctrine is disgusting.
 
Catholic Crusader

Catholic Crusader

Kyrie Eleison
Banned
Truster said:
I got as far as this,"and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God". And had to stop. Here you go again giving glory to man and attempting to diminish Sovereign justness, holiness and justice........
Click to expand...

Not at all. Your man-made ideology is making you falsely see something that I never wrote.

Truster said:
......It was the Eternal Almighty who separated Himself from the filth of sinful and fallen man.........
Click to expand...

No, it was man who seperated himself from God with the first sin, and it is man who separates himself from God every time he sins.

Truster said:
.........Your doctrine is disgusting.
Click to expand...

My doctrine is Christian. Your post is what is disgusting, typical fringe protestant extremism. You follow teachings of men that nullify the Word of God
 
T

Truster

New member
CatholicCrusader said:
Not at all. Your man-made ideology is making you falsely see something that I never wrote.



No, it was man who seperated himself from God with the first sin, and it is man who separates himself from God every time he sins.



My doctrine is Christian. Your post is what is disgusting, typical fringe protestant extremism. You follow teachings of men that nullify the Word of God
Click to expand...

..."thou shalt surely die" is the separation and it was The Almighty that made the threat and carried it out. Adam became mortal along with his entire race. Separated by the decree and power of Elohim.
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
glorydaz said:
Yes, there are lots of gifts, but eternal life is a gift that people receive when they turn to God and believe. I think all those other gifts from God are a good reason, a draw if you will, for people to believe. We consider ourselves blessed when a child is born. We consider ourselves blessed when a loved one survives in spite of all odds. Many such things are a call from God to His creation. We are drawn....

Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?​
Click to expand...

Yes, but in the end one does not believe because he is given reasons to believe. One believes because he is given faith. Reasoning is based on logical progression to reach a conclusion. Belief is an expression of what is. An expression of the state and nature of the enlightened heart. It either is believing or it is not believing. Reasoning can (slowly?) persuade someone to agree, but belief is reflective of the change of the inner man. Otherwise, one’s faith could (and probably would) rest in the ability of man. Instead, it is a direct result of the work of God.(I Cor 2:5). Reasoning may help in stripping defenses and bolstering existing understanding, but it does not make a man believe.


Sent from my iPhone using TOL
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top