For Lutherans...

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Hello all,

the following are answers to questions from the following thread:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=954345#post954345
Angelmessernger: Hi father,
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No hard feelings, but FYI, I am isfatherwrong?, or if you prefer, Nathan.
Christ didn’t come to tear any Church apart…There was no tearing apart…He made a new Covenant which included the gentiles.
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I never said Jesus came to tear any Church apart, though this was certainly the result of His bursting on the scene (brother vs brother, not peace but a sword). We are to blame - not him. The Church of that day tore apart because truth divides (Paul: there must be disagreements among you to show who have God’s approval) and the same thing happened in Luther’s day as Gospel light poured forth.
Obviously Saul was a zealous Jew who genuinely believed that the Christians were wrong–It took a miracle to convince him and to open his eyes to the truth. Jesus’ followers were preaching the good news in the temples, they certainly wouldn’t have been worshipping there. The new Christians met on a sunday to worship in their homes. Luther had a choice----Obey God or abandon Him—he chose the latter
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Well, I think Luther obeyed God insofar as he revealed the doctrine of justification by faith in all its glory. I want to kindly point out that you are wrong about Jesus’ followers. They did worship (pray) in THE TEMPLE – at least for a time (see end of Luke and beginning of Acts).
isfatherwrong: -----"Jesus told his followers to respect those in Moses’ seat and what was meant to be the natural extension of the worship of the OT people turned out being something that tore the Church apart! “We must obey God rather than men”.
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angelmessenger: Jesus was telling the people to listen to the leaders–as they preached the correct doctrine concerning the coming Messiah etc but as the leaders were not practicing what they preached then the people were not to do as they did! luther didn’t obey this command–He didn’t listen to the age old truths he just decided to start a new Church which would ease his conscience concerning the truth of salvation written in the gospels. In other words he tried to reinvent the wheel!
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Well, it seems that some leaders, namely the Pharisees, Jesus told his disciples to obey (listen). Of course, these same Pharisees did not teach the doctrine of the Messiah correctly as they missed Jesus! Unlike some of the Pharisees who did not practice what they preached, many Pharisees like Paul put this anti-“Jesus-as-Messiah” teaching into practice and at this point, the disciples certainly could not obey while they still, for a time at least, may have tried to respect the offices or positions of those who sat in Moses’ seat (they still were going to the temple to pray in the beginning of Acts). Eventually though, I believe things were seen to be irreconcialable. Again, I disagree that Luther started or reinvented anything – I believe He recognized in the Scriptures and in Augustine, Ambrose, John of Chyrsostom, Anselm, Bernard, etc. that which the “mainstream” teachers of the Church in his day had missed – the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

continued…
 
The early Christians knew that they could turn to the apostolic teaching of the Church as a norm for the truth (2 Tim. 1:13). For whoever heard the Church heard Christ (Luke 10:16), and Christ cannot teach error. So you tell me where in the Bible is the idea that Christ’s Church would teach error? By promising to guide the Church into all truth by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13), Christ would guard his flock from erroneous teaching.
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Priests (and pastors) in Christ’s Church teach error all the time. Of course I believe that “he who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). You see, Christ’s people are so intimately connected to Him that what we say are His Words –insofar as we speak according to His will (of course many who know we are Christians will identify whatever we say about God as coming from God Himself if they have no Scriptures as we are the only Bible some will ever read) Maybe you’ll peg me for the “insofar”. Well, He also said in one place that whatever we ask in His Name He will do. Ahhh – but that must be qualified from other Scriptures as you know – insofar as we pray according to His will it is true.
“When Jesus said to the apostles, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” he was promising a divine ratification of the Church’s teachings. In the original Greek, the tense of the binding and loosing shows that a binding occurs in heaven either prior to or simultaneous with the binding performed on earth. In addition, the Greek verb is in the passive voice which indicates that heaven is receiving the binding, not initiating it”
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Thank you for this very clear explanation. Let me look into this matter a little bit more deeply and get back to you later. For now, you see, in one sense I have no problem with this: you will acknowledge that in some sense heaven initiated all this, as it took the incarnate Word of God to make it clear, right? Insofar as a person does not follow the pattern of teaching of that incarnate word, they are not speaking for God. After all, we are His “shaliach” which means the only message we have for the world is the one He gives. Again, are you telling me there have not been bad priests who have improperly practiced their roles in the Catholic Church?
The only way that God would promise this union with heaven is if he intended to protect his Church from falsehood. After all, God is truth and he would not lead his flock into error, much less allow heaven to be bound by it. With this in mind, Christ prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail (Luke 22:32), built the Church upon him (Matt 16), and ordered him to tend and feed Christ’s sheep (John 21:15-17).
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I believe that when God promised this, He ultimately was promising that He would be lifted up and draw all people to Himself until the end. The Gospel and its fruits will not be lost but will rise to the top (like in Mel Gibson’s Passion) - as we have seen throughout history and we are seeing happen in our day. We can recognize and know the truth only like the Bereans, who tested everything (Paul encourages and commends this) according to the Scriptures in Acts 17.
“In the 1520s, Luther and other Reformers attacked doctrines previously defined by the Church that led to some irreconcilable differences. Different interpretations of the Bible led to different churches. Still, the Protestants hoped to find some unity but, since they could not agree on doctrine, they all knew they could not have unity. And they could not agree on doctrine because they could not agree on how the Scriptures should be interpreted. The task of finding unity in truth plagued the relations between Protestant leaders thereafter.”
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Yes, this may be true. However, my central point is that Luther helped make manifest the Gospel truth that had always been proclaimed throughout the ages but had been obscured for a long time. To this day, this “rediscovery” of the Gospel has affected even Rome and its teachings. Further, Rome is not so unified as RC’s often say. One only needs to look at the hoards of liberal Roman Catholics and splinter and break off movements in the Church. Somehow, I think Rome needs its own ecumenical movement. It takes more than claiming to be in fellowship with one man to be united in spirit and in truth.

Lots more to talk about Angelmessenger. Am enjoying the dialogue

Love in Christ,
Isfatherwrong?
 
Hi father,

-----"I just thought I’d add to this that the only reason there is a need for the Lutheran Church to exist is because of the issue that is being discussed here - namely the doctrine of justification, which gives assurance to the terrified and convicted sinner and eliminates the “monster of uncertainty”.

Luther solved this problem for himself by his “discovery” of justification by faith, which for him meant that it made no difference if he did sin mortally all the time. If he would just take Christ as his personal Savior, and then the merits of Christ would be thrown over him like a white cloak. He could not be lost–he was saved no matter how much he might sin.

—"By the way, I am NOT calling the office of the Papacy THE Antichrist, but people ought to know that the reason Luther did that was not for moral reasons (bad Popes, etc), but for doctrinal reasons. It was all about this stubborn refusal of Rome to let the full sweetness of the Gospel for terrified sinners to be proclaimed.

luther interpreted the “sweet gospel” to suit himself His idea of justification claims that a sinner who is forgiven is still totally corrupt, unable to get away from sinning constantly.

Paul spoke of Christians as a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). They are made over from scratch-- they are not at all merely the same old total corruption! And he says more than once that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us as in a temple (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16).

God bless

Jan
 
Jan,

Very quickly:
You said: Luther solved this problem for himself by his “discovery” of justification by faith, which for him meant that it made no difference if he did sin mortally all the time. If he would just take Christ as his personal Savior, and then the merits of Christ would be thrown over him like a white cloak. He could not be lost–he was saved no matter how much he might sin.
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Contarini has addressed this so many times on the other thread (Luther - Read! Read!)! Anyone who is familiar with Luther’s writings knows that this is not the case. Again, Luther said that faith can be lost through sin. He did not believe in OSAS
luther interpreted the “sweet gospel” to suit himself His idea of justification claims that a sinner who is forgiven is still totally corrupt, unable to get away from sinning constantly.
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Paul spoke of Christians as a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). They are made over from scratch-- they are not at all merely the same old total corruption! And he says more than once that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us as in a temple (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16).
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Well, we still believe that we are sinners and saints at the same time. Don’t you, as a Roman Catholic, call yourself a “sinner” in some sense? In Romans 7 it is quite clear that there is a war going on in a Christian. The fact that they fight against sin and cosistently call it what it is and turn to Christ their victory however is evidence that they are indeed a child of God.

Love in Christ,
isfatherwrong

Philthy- I really hope to get to your post soon! Thanks for taking my questions and writing so seriously.
 
I just stumbled across this thread about 15min ago, and I am very impressed with the level of discourse. Although I have not made it through the entirety of the thread (I will continue reading it however), I would like to offer my thoughts regarding the Catholic understanding of “assurance of salvation.”

In regards to assurance:

I believe it is well within a Catholic orthodoxy to say: “At this moment, I am infallibly certain of my salvation.”

I believe it is outside Catholic orthodoxy to say: “I am infallibly certain, at the end of my life, I will be saved.”

In regards to the uncertainty of being in a state of sin:

The very definition of mortal sin – A grave evil, committed consciously, with full consent of the will, and knowledge of the gravity of the act – means one who is a faithful Christian cannot commit a mortal sin without knowing it. A spur of the moment act, committed because we are still tainted by the fall, would rarely be a mortal sin.

In summary, it is completely within Catholic orthodoxy to be able to say: “I know, at this exact moment weather I am going to heaven or hell.” When we speak of hope, we are speaking of a hope in our own ability to accept the grace, which God is freely giving to us, in order to continue in His good graces.

Thank you for such a wonderful and respectful thread.

Ross
 
**Hi,

----“Well, we still believe that we are sinners and saints at the same time. Don’t you, as a Roman Catholic, call yourself a “sinner” in some sense? In Romans 7 it is quite clear that there is a war going on in a Christian. The fact that they fight against sin and cosistently call it what it is and turn to Christ their victory however is evidence that they are indeed a child of God.”

I’ve heard Lutherans say they have absolute assurance that they will be saved but you say here that you cannot have infallible certitude regarding salvation. That’s something we have in common then…

God bless

Jan**
 
**Hi Ross,
—“In summary, it is completely within Catholic orthodoxy to be able to say: “I know, at this exact moment weather I am going to heaven or hell.” When we speak of hope, we are speaking of a hope in our own ability to accept the grace, which God is freely giving to us, in order to continue in His good graces.”

Actually Ross you are absolutely correct. I think if I was to face God at this moment I might be facing purgatory but I would not be damned 👍 -Please God I stay in His good graces.

God bless

Jan**
 
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