Differences between Catholic and Protestant

[Silence_Dogood_1]

one problem i’ve noticed is that evne protestants who say they don’t belive in OSAS LIVE as though they really do… and so they really do believe it… even Catholics live as though OSAS is true… they act like they can do and say whatever— to whomever (Christ’s followers) – and yet God will look the other way because they go to Church and/or do other christian-like things…

Then they’re hypocrites and the Bible is very clear that they may be false converts (ie.“tares”). But that they’re hypocrites doesn’t make the doctrine of eternal security any less true.

I could say the same about Catholics who go out and drink and carouse and then go to confession, but I doubt you’d agree that their behavior makes confession untrue, would you?

In fact, I could point out that because all Christians are sinners, that would mean that Christianity is untrue, but I doubt you’d agree with that.

A doctrine isn’t untrue because someone abuses it or hides behind it to justify their bad deeds.

distracted:

there is nothing there that would indicate osas is even remotely true

1. ETERNAL LIFE IS ETERNAL! John 3:15; 10:28; Romans 6:23; 1 John 2:25; 5:11; 5:13; etc.; By definition eternal means never ending. Once a believer has eternal life it can never be taken away. If it could be it would not be eternal!
2. EVERLASTING LIFE IS EVERLASTING! Daniel 12:2; John 3:16; 3:36; 5:24; 6:40; 6:47; Romans 6:22; etc.; Likewise, everlasting life can never end. It is everlasting regardless of the believer’s behavior.
3. IT IS GOD’S WILL! John 6:39; It is God’s will that Christ lose none of those who come to Him.
4. HEAVEN IS RESERVED FOR HIM! 1 Peter 1:4; An inheritance in Heaven is reserved for the believer.
5. SALVATION (INHERITANCE) IS INCORRUPTIBLE! 1 Peter 1:4; No one can corrupt something God has made incorruptible.
6. SALVATION (INHERITANCE) CANNOT BE DEFILED! 1 Peter 1:4; No one can defile something which God says cannot be defiled.
7. HE IS SEALED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! Ephesians 1:13; No power in Heaven or earth can break God’s seal.
8. HE IS SEALED UNTO THE DAY OF REDEMPTION! Ephesians 4:30; The believer is sealed until the day God redeems his body.
9. HOLY SPIRIT WILL ABIDE FOREVER! John 14:16-17; The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is permanent.
10. HE IS PRESERVED FOREVER! Psalm 37:28; God preserves the saint forever.
11. HE IS BORN OF GOD! John 1:12-13; The believer actually becomes God’s child and cannot be “unborn.”
12. HE IS A NEW CREATURE! 2 Corinthians 5:17; God has made the believer a new creature and no one can “uncreate” him.
13. HE IS CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS! Ephesians 2:10; The saint was created in his Saviour.
14. HE IS PRESERVED UNTO THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM! 2 Timothy 4:18; The believer is preserved like Paul since God is no respecter of persons.
15. HE IS KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD! 1 Peter 1:5; Since God is keeping him, the believer cannot fall from salvation.
16. CHRIST HAS PRAYED FOR HIM! John 17:11; Jesus prayed that God would keep all who He had given Him. Has Christ ever prayed a prayer that was not answered?
17. WORKS CANNOT AFFECT HIS SALVATION! Romans 11:6; Salvation is not gained by works, so it cannot be lost by works.
18. HIS FAITH IS COUNTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS! Romans 4:5; It is faith which brings salvation to a believer.
19. NOTHING CAN SEPARATE HIM FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST! Romans 8:38-39; Nothing material, immaterial, past, present, or future can separate a believer from Christ’s love.
20. SALVATION IS OF THE LORD! Jonah 2:9; Salvation is all God’s work. He bought it and provided it.
21. GOD IS ABLE TO KEEP HIM! 2 Timothy 1:12; The believer’s salvation rests on God’s omnipotent ability to keep him.
22. HE IS PROMISED NOT TO COME INTO CONDEMNATION! John 5:24; This promise would be broken if even one believer fell into eternal condemnation.
23. HE IS PROMISED TO NEVER PERISH! John 10:27-28; Every saint has an unconditional promise to never perish.
24. HE WILL NEVER BE CAST OUT! John 6:37; Under no condition will any believer be cast out from Christ or Heaven.
25. ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO HIM! Romans 8:28; It would not be good for one to lose his salvation.

cont…

 

[Silence_Dogood_1]

…cont

1. HE IS IN CHRIST’S HAND! John 10:28; The believer is in his Saviors hand.
2. HE IS IN THE FATHER’S HAND! John 10:29-30; The saint is in his heavenly Father’s hand.
3. HE IS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, A SHEEP! John 10:27-28; A sheep represents a saved person and cannot change from being one.
4. GOD’S MERCY NEVER ENDS! Titus 3:5; The believer is saved by God’s mercy and it endures forever (Psalm 136).
5. GOD CANNOT LIE! Titus 1:2; Once God has saved a believer, He cannot go back on His word.
6. HIS SINS ARE GONE FOREVER! Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19; Isaiah 38:17; 44:22; Hebrews 10:17; The saints sins are gone.
7. HE SHALL BE LIKE CHRIST! 1 John 3:2; It is a certainty that the believer will be like Christ.
8. GOD SEES HIM AS ALREADY GLORIFIED! Romans 8:30; The saint is as good as glorified in God’s sight.
9. HE IS BORN OF INCORRUPTIBLE SEED! 1 Peter 1:23; The Christian’s new birth was from incorruptible seed.
10. HE WILL APPEAR WITH CHRIST IN GLORY! Colossians 3:4; The saint is promised to appear with Christ when He returns.
11. HE IS HIDDEN IN CHRIST! Colossians 3:3; The believer is dead to the world and alive in Christ.
12. HE IS DEAD TO AND FREED FROM SIN! Romans 6:2-7; Sin can no longer affect the saint’s destiny. He is freed from it.
13. THE LORD IS NOW PRAYING FOR HIM! Hebrews 7:25; The Lord is presently interceding in the believer’s behalf.
14. GOD WILL FINISH WHAT HE STARTED! Philippians 1:6; God began the work of salvation and will finish it.
15. HE HAS ETERNAL REDEMPTION! Hebrews 9:12; Every believer has been eternally redeemed from his sins.
16. HIS LIFE IS CHRIST’S LIFE! Colossians 3:4; The saints life is Christ’s very own life, so how could it be lost?
17. HE HAS AN EVERLASTING COVENANT WITH GOD! Hebrews 13:20; God made a covenant to give the saint everlasting life.
18. HE IS KEPT FROM FALLING BY CHRIST! Jude 24; A Christian cannot fall from grace because Christ is keeping him.
19. SALVATION IS A FREE GIFT! Romans 6:23; A free gift is given with no conditions.
20. HE HAS IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS! Romans 4:6-7; The righteousness the saint has is Christ’s perfect righteousness.
21. HE IS A PART OF CHRIST! Ephesians 5:30; Every believer is a part of Christ’s body. “Bone of His bone…”
22. CHRIST IS THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF HIS SALVATION! Hebrews 12:2; Christ began and will finish his salvation.
23. HE HAS BEEN PREDESTINATED TO BE CONFORMED TO CHRIST’S IMAGE! Romans 8:29; After salvation the believer is predestined.
24. CHRIST’S BLOOD HAS MADE PEACE FOR HIM! Colossians 1:20; The saint has peace with God through the blood.
25. THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN SO HE COULD BELIEVE AND KNOW! 1 John 5:13; The saint can know he HAS ETERNAL SALVATION!

If we could really lose our salvation, then Hebrews 6:4-6 says that if we ever sin after being saved, we’ll be lost forever with no way back, because the Lord would have to be crucified all over again to retrieve us. BTW, it only takes one sin to fall away, right? I mean, one sin before we’re saved was enough to condemn us, so one sin after we’re saved is enough to condemn us, right? Doesn’t this make the New Covenant worse than the Old? Under the Old Covenant, the Israelites were condemned for their actions, but we’d be condemned for our thoughts.

For example, they couldn’t murder. We couldn’t even be angry. They couldn’t commit adultery. We couldn’t even have a lustful thought. If you’re right, then we lose our salvation by doing less in following the law than the Israelites did!

Is this really the Good News of Jesus Christ? Are these the riches of His Grace, that we have to live in fear of sinning? Are we saved by grace only to be placed under the constraints of an even more severely administered law? You exult in your supposed “victory” over OSAS, but have you considered what eternal insecurity actually means in everyday life?

 

[Silence_Dogood_1]

Rolltide:

Most Protestants only believe in two sacraments - Baptism and Communion.

This is true, but you also have to remember that we consider them to be ordinances, not sacraments.

 

[aspirant]

There are many, but the biggest is that we have a profoundly different understanding of the doctrine of justification.

Very true. Protestants tend to hold a doctrine of justification deeply indebted to the invention of Nominalist philosophy in the late medieval era, a philosophy that did not exist in ancient times, so interpretation of scripture regarding justification (and many other topics) is a novelty of the last 500 years.

Not as much as you might think. While we [Protestants] may differ on non-essential issues, we are still so similar when it comes to essential issues

Having been a Protestant most of my life, I can tell you myself that Protestants do not even agree on what the essentials are, much less agree on the essentials themselves.

As I said: “The doctrine and practice of Episcopalians is quite different from Baptists, the doctrine and practice of Lutherans is quite different from the Assemblies of God”

Episcopalians and Lutherans, for example, believe in baptismal regeneration, that God normally effects regeneration through baptism, and they both practice paedobaptism, the baptism of infants. They believe, furthermore, that baptism can only be validly performed once. Baptists and Assemblies of God members, on the contrary, believe that baptism is a human act of obedience, that God does not effect regeneration through baptism, and utterly reject the practice of paedobaptism. Many Baptists also practice rebaptism. Episcopalians and Lutherans tend to believe that it is possible for people to be saved in Jesus even without explicit knowledge of Jesus, while Baptists and Assemblies of God members tend to believe explicit faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation. To call such important matters pertaining to salvation “non-essential,” to say that it does not matter whether God is the primary agent of baptism or whether explicit knowledge of Jesus is necessary for salvation, is utterly absurd to anyone who takes them at all seriously.

As I said: “Protestantism is not monolithic. Far from it. the doctrines of Presbyterians are in many ways irreconcilable with those of Methodists.”

Here I am thinking primarily of the radical differences between Calvinists (which Presbyterians traditionally are) and Arminians (which Methodists traditionally are). One cannot be involved in this controversy for long without realizing that the two sides, especially among those who are committed, have some very different ideas about who God is and how he interacts with humans. And they have no qualms whatsoever about calling the doctrines of the other side grave heresies. These questions also pertain to matters of salvation and, to those who hold firmly to one side or the other, they are certainly not negligible or “non-essential.”

we affirm the same creeds and confessions and catechisms

This is just nonsense. Oh yes, you will find Episcopalians, Lutherans, and many other Protestants faithfully professing the Nicene Creed. On the other hand, you will find many Protestants rejecting creeds altogether, saying there can be no such binding, authoritative confessions of faith. And this latter isn’t just a case of “we believe them though we don’t say them,” though it is for some. Baptist John MacArthur, for example, actually rejected Christ’s eternal sonship for a long time, even while he was a member in good standing of the Evangelical Theological Society. You’re not going to wander into any Assemblies of God church anytime soon and find them teaching new members doctrine from the Catechism that appears in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, nor will you find many Methodist churches instructing their children from the Westminster Confession.

What I said is true: Protestantism is not monolithic. Far from it.

 

[aspirant]

Most Protestants only believe in two sacraments - Baptism and Communion.

Many Protestants consider them sacraments, so this “we” doesn’t speak for all Protestants. As the Catechism in my old 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer puts it: “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given to us; ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same [grace signified], and a pledge to the assurance thereof.” They are not, in the words of the 39 Articles of religion, “only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather… effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.” And so baptism, for example, is actually God’s instrument of regeneration and not merely a profession of Christian faith made my man. This is one of those matters pertaining to salvation on which Protestants do not agree among themselves, since Baptists reject the Anglican faith regarding the sacraments.