Giving life over to Jesus means never guilty again???

[Genuflecter]

One of my Evangelical friends said a local pastor was teaching that once we give our lives to Jesus and embrace His sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, we can never be guilty of any sin we commit in the future. We can commit sins, but guilt will not be upon our souls.

I’ve never heard of this before. Most Protestants don’t believe this, do they?

 

[The_Hidden_Life]

It wasn’t what was preached in my Presbyterian church growing up, but honestly I don’t know what the formal doctrine of our church was. I would say there was much more an attitude of just praying to God for help with your problems, no emphasis on guilt or no-guilt. I guess we were an enlightened church of the eighties! (Ha ha.)

I had friends that went to churches with a much more radical messages, but I don’t remember outside of a Bible class anyone ever actually arguing the “once saved, always saved” argument. In practice, I think the reality of life and our propensity to sin again and again, make this idea seem idiotic.

 

[Zski01]

The issue of guilt is daunting…we are all guitly of sin and deserve to spend eternity in Hell. Luckily, we believe in the atonement of sin through our faith in Christ and we hope to be saved by his grace by walking with him. We call this justification, the process of being made guiltless in God’s eyes.

Protestants have always defined Justification as the initial point in your Christian walk…that initial profession of faith where you are then “saved.” This “seven-second salvation,” while not entirely Biblical, does hit on what we call our “initial justification” by faith alone. We all view this initial point as the time where we are, for the first time, seen as guiltless in God’s eyes.

Protestant theology, for the most part, sees this as when you are “saved” and the rest of your life you can rest easy. Catholic theology has always seen justification as an ongoing process (as does the Bible). The semantics aren’t as important as the greater implications: can we be guilty of sin after giving our life to Christ? Absolutely.

Hebrews 10:26
“If we sin deliberately having received knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins.” – we know this as mortal sin

Protestants reject this theology of a “mortal sin”, and it was easy to do since the early reformers rejected the entire book of Hebrews (It was re-accepted later on into the Protestant Bible). But as we see here Scripture, while telling us to have faith and be confident in Christ’s saving power, also admonishes us to not get lazy in our salvation journey. Phillipians 2:12b “…work out your savlation with fear and trembling.” Catholic theology has always seen salvation as a past (I have been saved), present (I am being saved) and future (I hope to be saved) process. Coincidentally, Biblical language is phrased the same way, as conceded by influential Protestant author John Piper in his book The Passion of Jesus Christ.

We see the further support for the Catholic view in the Parable of the Sower…Christ explains one person receives the Gospel with “joy” but later fades away, while another (the seed that grows) is a firmly rooted Christian and is saved (Jesus once said “he who perseveres to the end will be saved”).

I hope this helps with your question.

 

[quasimodo]

Jesus tells us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like:

Study Matthew 18:21-35. It is the story of the Unforgiving Servant. The Master forgives the servant’s debt totally in response to the servant giving the Master homage and begging for mercy. When the Servant did not likewise forgive his debtor, the Master reinstated the entire debt. and the conclusion is: " So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

This does not sound like we are home free to me.

 

[Kevan]

Genuflecter:

One of my Evangelical friends said a local pastor was teaching that once we give our lives to Jesus and embrace His sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, we can never be guilty of any sin we commit in the future. We can commit sins, but guilt will not be upon our souls.

I’ve never heard of this before. Most Protestants don’t believe this, do they?

Most don’t. It’s most common among Baptists and baptistic groups such as Bible churches, brethren, etc. It’s called “eternal security.”

The logic is that you’re as secure in God’s family as you are in your own. A child may disobey, but you don’t kick him out. He can never be other than your child. He’s your child by birth, not by merit.

Protestants who disagree say that we are God’s child by faith and the infusion of life is a continuous process that can be aborted by the death of faith. That group also denies that we are saved by merit, but the"eternal security" crowd always accuses them of that very belief anyway.

Eternal security is somewhat similar to the Catholic belief in habitual grace. The Protestant believes that his eternal punishment has been canceled, but if he sins he still incurs temporal guilt and will undergo “chastening” from God until he repents and gets right. But death stops the chastening process and he’s entirely sanctified automaticaly, so there’s no purgatory for the remainder of the chastening, as the Catholic believes.

Strangely enough, plenty of the Eternal Security believers are the most devout Protestants who live the most strictly. Go figure. :getholy:

 

[David_F]

Genuflecter:

I’ve never heard of this before. Most Protestants don’t believe this, do they?

Hey Genuflecer,

You are not alone. No one had heard of this before the reformation. It’s one of the doctrines developed to attempt to combat the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. As mentioned in a prior post, it is referred to as the Doctrine of Eternal Security. Which denoms. believe and which don’t I’m not sure. Baptist do. Here are some more scripture passages that go against the ES doctrine.

Col 1:22-23 Key word is provided

22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, am a minister.

John 3:16 key word is believes, present tense

John 3:36 need to have obedience with the belief, not by your own mental assent

Mt 24:13 persevere to the end

2 Tim 2:12 we must persevere*** if we want to reign with Christ.***

Rom 11:22 Paul warned they will be*** cut off ***if the remain in kindness

Heb 6:4-6 people who are sharers in the HS and then fall away from God

1 Cor 9:27 St. Paul talk of fear that he may be disqualified

---

1 Cor 10:12 St. Paul is warning against being overconfident with a sense of complete security.

Ask you buds to reconcile these passages with their doctrine. Should be interesting. What we believe takes nothing away from what Christ did for us on Calvary. We are sufficiently warned to perserve to the end and not to fall away. As also mentioned in another post, quite ironic that many devote non-Catholics live their lives this way, their doctrine just doesn’t fly.

Peace be with you,
David

 

[Katholikos]

The doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved was invented by Luther. Calvin put his own spin on it and perpetuated it.

In Luther’s own words: No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day." (Letter to Melanchthon, 1 August 1521, full text at iclnet.org/pub/resources…r/letsinsbe.txt

In Five-Point Calvinism, it’s the P in the acronym TULIP, which summarizes Calvin’s doctrine. P is for Perseverance of the Saints – the doctrine that the predestined elect cannot lose their salvation. Many (but certainly not all) Protestants believe this.

Luther denied the necessity of Purgatory. He taught that we are saved by Faith Alone (by believing in Christ as our Savior). All prior sins are forgiven when we become believers. Any sins committed after that can’t keep us out of heaven because our salvation cannot be lost – so who needs purgatory?

Luther said all we need to do is believe – Faith Alone will save us. Guess Luther skipped over Matthew 25 and a few jillion other scriptures, not to mention the teaching of the Apostles before the New Testament was ever written.

(See the “Why Catholics Believe in Purgatory and Protestants Don’t” or “The Real Luther” threads for more.)

JMJ Jay

 

[GoodME]

I believe that many congregations try to spin up these different beliefs in an attempt to be different and therefore attract larger congregations consisting of stragglers from more mainstream congregations. I believe there is possibly a profit-motive in this practice.

I could not accept a faith that defined itself by what it is not; this is too indeterminate.

Especially when many of these faiths define themselves as simply “not Catholic”.

 

[space_ghost]

Genuflecter:

One of my Evangelical friends said a local pastor was teaching that once we give our lives to Jesus and embrace His sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, we can never be guilty of any sin we commit in the future. We can commit sins, but guilt will not be upon our souls.

I’ve never heard of this before. Most Protestants don’t believe this, do they?

Boy, don’t I wish that were true… but, it’s not scriptural, logical and traditional… so i would recommend that person read about the story of David and Bathsheba… I would probably have to get his/her definition of the “embrace His sacrifice” because we can surely fall… Judas did… Did he not know who Jesus was… the sin of greed hooked him and the sin of pride (not asking Jesus forgiveness) sunk him if you hold to the scriptures… Peter denied Christ, but Peter had the remorse to ask Jesus forgiveness… Even the Devil knows Jesus is Lord and Savior… he just chooses to go in the opposite direction…

 

[hlgomez]

quasimodo,

there is no liturgical dance in purgatory. if you are trying to make fun of it because you don’t believe it, wait till you get there and you will believe.

Pio

 

[cazayoux]

David F:

You are not alone. No one had heard of this before the reformation. It’s one of the doctrines developed to attempt to combat the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. As mentioned in a prior post, it is referred to as the Doctrine of Eternal Security.

I’ve noticed that some non-Catholics have a hard time with Purgatory … or praying for the dead (as the Jews did/still do).
I’ve been asked before to explain why we believe this.

Though provoking idea:
Why would Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, while believing Jesus to be dead, go back to the tomb? (Matthew 28:2)