Yes, Christ graces us with full, unconditional forgiveness …for all our past sins. Baptism washed us clean OF ALL PAST SINS. CHRIST didn’t forgive your Post-Baptismal sins in advance. You have a lifetime to live, and u must run that race as Paul, all the way to ur last day. You must confess these sins too, and receive grace of forgiveness for these sins. The grace for these is not imputed to you IN ADVANCE, ON YOUR FIRST BELIEF.
The book of Romans was written by a Catholic, to Catholics, about the Catholic faith. It was to the CC Jesus entrusted the preservation of sound doctrine.
Although we will be in agreement that the doctrine of imputed righteousness if foundational to believers in this age of grace, it is likely that your understanding of this doctrine represents a significant departure from what the Apostles believed and taught.
Colossians 2:13 - “He [The Lord Jesus Christ} hath forgiven you ALL trespasses…”
There are some important points that must be made about context here. One is that St. Paul is writing to those who have been baptized, which is when all trespasses are forgiven.
You will not find any statement like this in the Scriptures, because it is a man-made tradition/doctrine.
This is a very common misunderstanding of the need for forgiveness of post-baptismal sins. Our salvation from sin is dependent ONLY upon the infinite grace and mercy of God.
I agree with you on all these points. I think where we disagree is the Apostles taught that we can fall from grace, and go back to a lifestyle of sin, and thereby be separated from God. Our sins will only be forgiven if we confess them, and make a firm purpose of amendment. Failure to do this allows sin to grow in our hearts as weeds, and it will eventually choke out the Good Seed.
Quickcat …
Hi, QC!
For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without human hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in tresspasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the bond that stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
QC…
All your PRIOR sins … and all sins you later confess/repent of, AFTER you commit them.
I’ve actually had discussions with Calvinist Christians who believe God doesn’t seek our confessions or require acts of contrition for sins committed after baptism, as if sin itself cannot be placed within the three categories of time and be physically dealt with by external acts. All that is required is an inward sorrow and internal acknowledgement without any outward expressions of remorse (i.e., the ancient Jewish custom of donning a sack cloth and covering oneself with ashes or making a sacrifical goat offering). The problem with this notion is that sacred Scripture enjoins us to verbally confess our sins against each other to each other, not just confess them to ourselves internally. Neither did Jesus condemn the Jews for making sin offerings, which were prescribed by Mosaic law. Jesus came to fulfill the law in his person, not abolish it (Mt 5:17). His own personal sin offering of himself is not a substitute for our own, but rather ratifies it before God in union with ours. Also, it presupposes a personal righteousness belonging to us by God’s grace in opposition to the idea of Christ’s righteousness being externally imputed to our account. Others, on the otherhand, radically go so far as to claim that it’s redundant to express any sorrow we might feel, since God understands that we are sinful in nature and so will sin again anyway. Our sorrow cannot meet the standard of righteousness that personally belongs only to Jesus. Thus God rejects and dismisses our sorrow as justly unworthy , so what’s the point of feeling sorry for our sins and admitting them. Such an idea is diabolical, if I may say so. However, we cannot be saved unless we sincerely repent of any of our sins - past, present, and future - once we have commited them. We are culpable of all our sins, including those sins we commit after we have been baptized. To claim that we are no longer responsible for or held accountable for our sins, which we must redress, after we have placed our faith in the blood of Christ is false and unapostolic.
Catholic theology does not state that we Save Ourselves ! It clearly teaches our first justification is graced to us, a gift from God…" not of works, lest any man boast" …per Paul.
As Christians we can see where we stand in our covenant with God by identifying ourselves with His chosen people. Whether we are circumcised or baptized, our salvation depends on the opening of our hearts to God after hearing His word and walking in His ways. With the help of God’s grace, we must make every effort - day to day - not to shun God’s word and allow the allurement of sin to close our hearts and master our lives. The moment we sin, we are unbelievers and faithless, because our hearts have turned to evil by succumbing to the devil’s temptations. The fall of Adam and Eve and the breaking of their covenant with God is a daily human experience among all the faithful. In the state of mortal sin, there no longer is any confidence, but rather shame and guilt, and the need to humbly acknowledge and confess our sins before God in a genuine contrite spirit. It’s not that when we fall from grace we had no faith to begin with as some Protestants suppose. Since only through the faith we have, but have lapsed in, can we ever hope to repent by the grace of God and aim to avoid future sin with all our strength with the help of divine grace.
U say " the moment we sin, we are unbelievers and faithless"…As Christians we can see where we stand in our covenant with God by identifying ourselves with His chosen people. Whether we are circumcised or baptized, our salvation depends on the opening of our hearts to God after hearing His word and walking in His ways. With the help of God’s grace, we must make every effort - day to day - not to shun God’s word and allow the allurement of sin to close our hearts and master our lives. The moment we sin, we are unbelievers and faithless, because our hearts have turned to evil by succumbing to the devil’s temptations. The fall of Adam and Eve and the breaking of their covenant with God is a daily human experience among all the faithful. In the state of mortal sin, there no longer is any confidence, but rather shame and guilt, and the need to humbly acknowledge and confess our sins before God in a genuine contrite spirit. It’s not that when we fall from grace we had no faith to begin with as some Protestants suppose. Since only through the faith we have, but have lapsed in, can we ever hope to repent by the grace of God and aim to avoid future sin with all our strength with the help of divine grace.
***Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
"Today if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
as on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors put me to the test.
though they had seen my works for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts,
and they have not known my ways.’
As in my anger I swore,
‘They will not enter my rest.’ "
Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today”, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only*** we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
Hebrews 3, 7-14
PAX
…I think that that is exactly what is meant… only that it was worded in a dramatical tone!U say " the moment we sin, we are unbelievers and faithless"…
Now, I’d need to see scripture to back that up
My thought would be that our Free Will, used wrongly, has wounded our souls …to various degrees, based on severity of sin. God immediately knows our err, and convicts us of that err. Now, how we respond, via another Free Will action, will be crucial test we face.
If we promptly confess to the Lord and repent thereof, also following up said confession to the Lord’s earthly Priesthood, then we are restored fully InChrist…never falling fully from grace.
But, if we fail to repent, being wounded in our souls, we will continue to fall further, committing more and graver sins …and the HS will be driven out completely …as in case of Prodigal Son.
The instant Adam and Eve bit into the apple, they put their faith completely in the word of the serpent and no longer in the word of God. They believed what the serpent had told Eve about God having deceived them by keeping something they should know about themselves to Himself. In the act of sin itself we are just as deceived as they were in a flash upon sinking their teeths into the apple on account of our inherited selfishness and pride. Our love of self takes command, even if only in a flash of a second, over our love of God, although we know in our hearts that what we are doing offends God and is wrong because God doesn’t want us to do it. Surely in the instant we commit an act of sin we are being unfaithful to God, in spite of our knowledge and love for God which can be impaired by our sinful nature and the allurements of the flesh, and behave like unbelievers do. But it is because of our faith and love for God that we feel compunction for our act by His grace and know the wrong we did in our offence towards God must be redressed, despite the hypocrisy in knowing that we shouldn’t have done in the first place for God’s sake. The prodigal son was unfaithful to his father the moment he collected his inheritance and abandoned him for the pleasure of riotous living, believing he knew better what was good for him, while also knowing that what he was doing was wrong. But he returned to his father’s estate the moment he realized how wrong he was in believing that he could find personal fulfillment in something vain and transitory against what his father knew would be better for him. In his sense of shame and guilt towards his father, it would be better for him to be with his father on his estate notwithstanding how unworthy he felt to belong to it.U say " the moment we sin, we are unbelievers and faithless"…
I’d need to see scripture to back that up
…actually… the forbidden fruit–there are several reasons why not an apple (variants of size, texture, flavor…) but the most important is that that particular fruit (metaphorical or not) has been kept from full revelation other than that: 1) was one of the forbidden trees, and 2) Paradise was taken back to God.The instant Adam and Eve bit into the apple, they put their faith completely in the word of the serpent and no longer in the word of God. They believed what the serpent had told Eve about God having deceived them by keeping something they should know about themselves to Himself. In the act of sin itself we are just as deceived as they were in a flash upon sinking their teeths into the apple on account of our inherited selfishness and pride. Our love of self takes command, even if only in a flash of a second, over our love of God, although we know in our hearts that what we are doing offends God and is wrong because God doesn’t want us to do it. Surely in the instant we commit an act of sin we are being unfaithful to God, in spite of our knowledge and love for God which can be impaired by our sinful nature and the allurements of the flesh, and behave like unbelievers do. But it is because of our faith and love for God that we feel compunction for our act by His grace and know the wrong we did in our offence towards God must be redressed, despite the hypocrisy in knowing that we shouldn’t have done in the first place for God’s sake. The prodigal son was unfaithful to his father the moment he collected his inheritance and abandoned him for the pleasure of riotous living, believing he knew better what was good for him, while also knowing that what he was doing was wrong. But he returned to his father’s estate the moment he realized how wrong he was in believing that he could find personal fulfillment in something vain and transitory against what his father knew would be better for him. In his sense of shame and guilt towards his father, it would be better for him to be with his father on his estate notwithstanding how unworthy he felt to belong to it.
Here lies the paradox found in Romans 7: we want to avoid the act of sin, but nevertheless fail. Our will to do what is good and right before God is impaired by our sinful passions. Even though we know what we do is wrong, we do it anyway because of our wayward inclinations. The sin living in us is behind our personal act of sin and is at odds with our desire to do what is good. But because we have a free will and are able to reject what is evil and hateful in God’s sight for the sake of His love and goodness, it is we ourselves, not our wounded nature, who are ultimately responsible for our unfaithful acts. God expects us to resist the serpent’s influence on our human nature and act in a Christ-like way contrary to a work of the devil with the help of his grace, which we often spurn because of our sinful pride and selfishness. Despite our faith in God and our love for Him, the moment we fall from God’s grace by an unfaithful act and remain in the state of mortal sin, we are no better off than any non-believer. Only by an act of repentance in a genuine spirit of contrition through faith and our response to the influence of divine grace can we be reconciled with God. Venial sins do not affect our salvation, but we must still make satisfactory reparation for them in this life or the next in purgatory to restore the equality of justice in our relationship with God. Thus notwithstanding our faith in God, we are occasionally unfaithful to Him and even deny Him the instant we commit the act of sin, believing more in what we are deceived to believe at that precise moment when we sink our own teeth into the apple in opposition to God’s word and indifference towards the divine image we must conform to. The sin is committed as soon as our teeth penetrate the skin of the apple, having started its course upon its contemplation. But it is our faith that restores us to God’s friendship and the divine life when we sincerely repent of our sins as true children of God.
Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness… No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.
1 John 3, 4-10
Do not be mismated with unbelievers… For we are the temple of the living God.
2 Corinthians 6, 14-16
Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to make himself a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is in vain that the scriptures say, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us?” But he gives more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
James 4, 4-10
PAX
I had to pick something for them to sink their teeth into.
Good Fella, I concur!I had to pick something for them to sink their teeth into.
Anyway, at that instant when Adam and Eve sank their teeth into the forbidden fruit, they no longer had any faith in God, believing what the serpent had told them: God wasn’t to be trusted in what he said - that they would die by eating it, but rather they would become like God. By rejecting God’s word and accepting the word of the serpent, their infidelity consummated by the very act of disobedience, they no longer understood God for who he really was, righteous and true, and didn’t care, and their belief in him was nothing more than an intellectual apprehension, not a belief in who he essentially was or a conviction of how he should be honoured. They had become faithless in the full sense of what we mean by having faith. Consequently they were at enmity with God, having fallen from his grace. Christians experience the same thing at that precise moment of committing a sin: a fall or deviation from a higher standard of what it means to be human as God intended, a higher state of being, and the higher privilege of being friends with God. Surely, we don’t sin in faith, and if we sin because we believe God will forgive us in his love and mercy, that isn’t having faith, but a misconception of it. The act of repentance comes through faith by the actual grace of God after our faith has lapsed momentarily. Our faith is as good as no longer being in our possession once we are completely inattentive of it that precise moment we abandon ourselves and God and sink our teeth into the forbidden fruit. I doubt David felt any sorrow and pang of conscience the moment he ordered Bathsheba’s husband to be killed. On this occasion he certainly didn’t act as a man “after [God’s] own heart.”
Return, O faithless sons;
I will heal your faithlessness."
“Behold, we come to thee;
for thou art the Lord our God.”
Jeremiah 3, 22
PAX