I am a Protestant who wants an honest answer

[ANWK]

Oh, one more thing, would someone like to comment on Karl Keating’s E-Letter. I will cut and paste it below.

ADRIAN

KARL KEATING’S E-LETTER

November 16, 2004

TOPIC:

CHRISTIANS HAVE NO GUARANTEE OF HEAVEN

Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:

After a parish seminar I spoke with a young man, a Fundamentalist,
who insisted that one can have an absolute assurance of salvation.

“All you need to do is to accept Christ as your personal Lord
and Savior,” he said. That acceptance will make you a
“born-again Christian,” with heaven guaranteed. Nothing you
later might do, no sin you might commit, would exclude you from
heaven.

I proposed to him a hypothetical situation.

"Let’s say your pastor became a born-again Christian at age
fifteen. He now is 75 and for sixty years has lived an exemplary
Christian life. So far as anyone knows, and so far as he himself
knows, he never, in those sixty years, has committed a serious sin.

"Today, while being in full possession of his faculties, he
changes completely. He commits adultery, murders a stranger, robs a
bank, deliberately runs over a cat with his car, shouts obscenities
at passersby, and then commits suicide, cursing God as he dies
unrepentant.

“My question to you,” I said to the young man, “is
this: Does your minister go to heaven or hell?”

“To hell, of course.”

“How can that be, since he is a born-again Christian?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Yes, he is, as I told you at the start.”

“No, he can’t be born-again.”

“Hey, this is my hypothetical! I told you he was a born-again
Christian.”

“No born-again Christian would do those things.”

“So you mean that he fooled everyone, including himself, for
sixty years? You mean he was mistaken?”

“Of course. There’s no other answer.”

— continue —

 

[ANWK]

— continued —

Then I had a small revelation.

"What you’re saying is that you can’t tell whether a man really
is a born-again Christian until he’s safely dead. It means you can’t
tell if you yourself are a real Christian. You might be fooling
yourself, as the minister fooled himself. The conclusion is that you
can’t have the absolute assurance you’d like to have.

"In practice, if not in theory, you are perilously close to the
Catholic understanding of salvation.

"The Catholic Church teaches that we can have a moral assurance
of salvation but not an absolute assurance. We can be assured that we
will go to heaven–if we remain in the state of grace. But we can
have no assurance that we will persevere in such a state, much as we
might want to at the moment.

"The Church teaches that since ‘God wills the salvation of all
men,’ he gives each of us enough grace to be saved. Grace is a gift,
and a gift is not forced upon the recipient. A gift can be accepted
or rejected, and it can be rejected after once being accepted.

“The minister in my hypothetical once accepted grace and, on the
last day of his life, rejected it, losing his salvation. He died
grace-less and therefore disqualified for heaven.”

Our discussion went on for a while. I brought up several verses that
I have found useful when talking about the idea of an absolute
assurance of salvation. I particularly like to use a trio of verses
from Paul. (I give them here in the Revised Standard Version Catholic
Edition translation.)

In Romans 5:2 Paul writes that “we rejoice in our hope of
sharing the glory of God”–that is, we rejoice in our hope of
going to heaven. This means salvation is something we hope for.

In Romans 8:24 he says, “For in this hope we are saved. Now hope
that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” Hope
concerns things that are possible but not certain, which is why the
saints in heaven no longer have the virtue of hope. They don’t need
it. Having God, they already have everything, and there is nothing
left for them to hope for.

In 1 Corinthians 9:27 Paul says, “I pommel my body and subdue
it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be
disqualified.” Even the apostle battled earthly temptations lest
he succumb to them and lose heaven.

“Taken together,” I said to the young man, "these
verses show that Paul did not teach an absolute assurance of
salvation. Quite the opposite. Who was more a born-again Christian
than he? Which Christians of your acquaintance have been knocked off
their feet while on the road to Damascus?

“If Paul didn’t believe in an absolute assurance of salvation,
why should we?”

Until next time,

Karl

 

[Ozzie]

ANWK:

Oh, one more thing, would someone like to comment on Karl Keating’s E-Letter. I will cut and paste it below.

See my post #854 page 9.

 

[Ozzie]

ANWK:

Hi Ozzie, I think you mentioned that Jesus said that those that believe will have eternal life, while those that do not are already condemned.

1. If I believe truly in Jesus at a point in my life, say right now, and I accept Him as my Lord and Saviour, can I deliberately choose not to believe in Him and mean it, at some time in the future?
2. If I can do that un-choosing, can I still be saved?
3. If I can’t un-choose my choice for Jesus, where is that free will that God gives to all of us?

Assurance of salvation is based on revelation, not a hypothetical situation. Salvation is a GIFT (Eph. 2:8-9); the question must be, does God take back a gift? Show me in Scripture where it is stated that God actually chooses to take back that gift. Let me ask you, do the saints in Heaven have free will? At any given moment can they choose not to be in Heaven and leave? If you say no, then based on your reasoning, where is their free will? Let me ask you another question. Can you choose to be un-born? If not, then based on your reasoning, where is your free will? When one truly believes in Christ he is not only saved as a free Gift from God (based on Christ’s work on the cross), he is “born-again” (1Pet. 1:3). If you cannot choose to be un-born physically, how can you choose to be un-born-again spiritually? The spiritual is far greater than the physical. The choice is in the Gospel message, my friend, not the Gift or the re-birth in Christ.

JOHN 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

You utterly fail to understand the power and freedom God has to save forever those who draw near to Him through faith in His Son whom He sent into this world for that very purpose. You fail to fully comprehend the cross of Christ. Salvation is to the glory of Christ, not you. Now if this is just "blah, blah, blah, to your ears, then, well, what can I say?

 

[ncgolf]

Ozzie:

Assurance of salvation is based on revelation, not a hypothetical situation. QUOTE]

Ozzie,

Why cant you answer the question. It should be obvious to you … the facts of the mans life have been laid out. Based on what you have been posting, the answer, at least for you, should be obvious. Make some sort of answer based on your theology.

As a Catholic, my answer is … the man in the scenario may or may not be destined for heaven, his eternal soul is at the mercy of God.

I said … I do not know his destiny … what say you.

 

[exrc]

Pax:

The apostolic warnings were directed to contemporary Christians and to us and explicitly indicate that salvation can be lost. In 2 Peter 2:20-22 we read, "For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire."
If you look at the surrounding verses you will see that these people were never saved, they merely rejected the truth that was revealed to them.

Pax, as I’ve said before, you’re not looking at the big picture.

There are many verses which seem as though they refute eternal security, as does this one. You may cling to them if you like, but you do so out of the hate of true liberty, as did the Judaizers.

There are also many verses that seem to refute Jesus’ deity. Which the JW’s like to use in their favor. Why? They want control over you. There is no difference between RC’s & JW’s in that respect. Let Christ be the head of the church, and the Holy Spirit be our teacher individually. There will always be false teachers, let God deal with them. Learn from history, look what happened when the church was run by someone other than Christ. Brutality, savagery, corruptness, and depravity prevailed.

You want to believe the things you believe so badly that you’re willing to change the good news into something no better than what Jews had under the law.

Also in Hebrews 6: 4-8 it says, **"For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, **

since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned." If salvation could be lost, if Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough to atone for all sins, there would be no possibility for them to be saved a second time. Quite possibly these people he writes to were reverting back to animal sacrifices for atonement. If Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t sufficient to atone for sin, no other sacrifice would be either. This verse actually affirms eternal security.

And again in Hebrews 10: 26-31
"For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Sometimes God must discipline his kids with severity. This is a firm solemn warning to us, his children forever.

Please wake up Pax, Your friend Dan!

 

[exrc]

Ozzie:

Injury???

No, I just never learned.

I’m not the best typer even with all my fingers, It would be nice to have a personal editor to check for errors

I’ll second that.

It was for freedom that Christ set us free. It is amazing how RCs always state that “Protestants” have no unity. Yet it is constantly demonstrated that we have unity in our Lord Jesus Christ and the joy of our shared salvation through faith in Him alone. They get unity confused with conformity. Christ did not pray for conformity. That, through history, has proved dangerous to the preservation of a Biblical Gospel message concerning Christ and salvation through Him BY grace through faith alone. Enter the “Reformation.”

Amen!

I often think, you must feel greatly blessed now being completely free of religious legalism and knowing now who you are IN Christ. My joy is with you, bro.!!! (jumping up and clicking heals). What a joy to completely rest in Him!

Freedom indeed!

Love and blessings! Dan!

 

[MariaG]

posted by exrc

First of all Maria, I would like to thank you for your graciousness. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable opposition. I appreciate your kindness. Even though we disagree on most everything.

I suppose I can get a little callous with my responses. I’m really not attacking people, only doctrine that I believe is evil. Please understand. I love the people, but I hate the system that I believe is holding them in bondage as it did me. I know you wouldn’t understand that coming from a protestant background.

Your welcome. And I do understand, because I came from a fundamental/pentecostal background. Many of my friends who are still there feel exactly as you do. I have not noticed any personal attacks by you but if I believed what you did, your words about the One Holy Catholic Church would be mild. Truly, I do understand. And if this makes any sense, I do appreciate what you think you are doing. Only God can truly judge the heart, but I do believe your heart is in the right place. You’re wrong But your heart is in the right place:heart:

Getting back to the matter at hand,
Yes it is the fruit which Adam ate. Is not eating a stolen gumball disobedience also, and on the same level?

Who is stealing the gumball? A 2 year old? A 4 year old? An adult? Knowledge of what you are doing is wrong is required. Stealing for an adult with full knowledge of what they are doing is a mortal sin. Even if it is just a gumball.

Adam and Eve also disobeyed. And they disobeyed in order to become like God.

Give me an example of an early church father giving an exegesis on this verse.

I will definitely look for one, but silence from ECF is not mean they do not agree, it means there was no disagreement at all. I have started to study them, but my walk to the Catholic Church had nothing at all to do with ECF, it was the Bible alone and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I still love to find it in the Bible. To this date, I have not found one thing in the teaching of the Catholic Church that contradicts the Bible.

That brings up an interesting question though. If you look at the ECF, what do you think about the Real Presence? The ECF talked quite a bit on it. They believed in the Real Presence. I guess this would be a different thread, but on a quick answer, do you believe in the RP? If not, how do you square that with the ECF? If it does not matter what the ECF say, why do you want to know what they said on it concerning mortal and venial sins?

And finally, I asked for your interpretation of those verses. What do you say they mean if Catholics are wrong. You did ask for one verse saying not all sin is deadly, I gave you one. I will look for ECF on it, but what is your take on it?

Your sister in Christ, (whether you believe it or not!),
Maria

 

[Cubby]

Ozzie -

Open your eyes to the possibility that it is your ignorance of Christ’s Holy Roman Catholic Church that misleads you to continually persecute and insult us! Ozzie wrote:

RC’ism recognizes the historical crucifixion of Christ, but denies it as the basis and power of God to save forever the one who puts his faith in Christ alone (Rom. 1:16). That’s why I challenged you to check your own teachings, and that of your church, Pax.

The Church does not deny the crucifixion of Christ as the basis and power of God to save - and save forever - the one who puts his faith in Christ alone. Look at the thief on the Cross whom Jesus promised would be with him in paradise - yet he wasn’t even baptized. We are saved forever after we finish the race! The promises of God, to keep us – to not allow anything on heaven or earth or under the earth to separate us from Christ is true – after we finish the race, after we endure until the end. The OSAS heretical doctrine is extremely dangerous and is unintentionally sending people straight to Hell. OK, I could go on with the supercilious and ignorance of your persecuting statements all day, but let’s take a cut-n-paste from the Catechism, this is what the Church teaches:

…contiunued…

 

[Cubby]

PART THREE:

LIFE IN CHRIST

1691 "Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God."1****

1692 The Symbol of the faith confesses the greatness of God’s gifts to man in his work of creation, and even more in redemption and sanctification. What faith confesses, the sacraments communicate: by the sacraments of rebirth, Christians have become "children of God,"2** "partakers of the divine nature."3 Coming to see in the faith their new dignity, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life "worthy of the gospel of Christ."4 They are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and through prayer.**

 

[MariaG]

Please define assurance, as in assurance of salvation. If in assurance of salvation do you mean confidence?

God Bless,
Maria

 

[exrc]

[Catherine S]

For many Fundamentalists and Evangelicals it makes no difference—as far as salvation is concerned—how you live or end your life.

You can heed the altar call at church, announce that you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, and, so long as you really believe it, you’re set. From that point on there is nothing you can do, no sin you can commit, no matter how heinous, that will forfeit your salvation. You can’t undo your salvation, even if you wanted to. **
To deny the assurance of salvation would be to deny Christ’s perfect redemption," and this is something one can say only because one confuses the redemption that Christ accomplished for us objectively **with our individual appropriation of that redemption.The truth is that in one sense we are all redeemed by Christ’s death on the cross—Christians, Jews, Muslims, even animists in the darkest forests (1 Tim. 2:6, 4:10, 1 John 2:2)—**but our individual appropriation of what Christ provided is contingent on our response. **
That roughly somes it up.

The argument fares no better when one turns to Scripture, for one finds that Adam and Eve, who received God’s gracein a manner just as unmerited as anyone today, most definitely did

demerit it—and lost grace not only for themselves but for us as well Did they have any way of remeriting it? **

While the idea that what is received without merit cannot be lost by demerit may have a kind of poetic charm for some, it does not stand up when compared with the way things really work

** God’s ways are different than our ways. I’m sure you know that. Even if you cannot understand the full context of the bible. Such as you have demonstrated in Rom. 11:22.

Regarding the issue of whether Christians have an “absolute” assurance of salvation, regardless of their actions, consider this warning Paul gave:** "See then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off**

" (Rom. 11:22 Paul is referring to gentiles as a group. They could fall out of favor, just as the Jews had, as a group.

Your friend, Dan!

 

[Cubby]

1693 Christ Jesus always did what was pleasing to the Father,5** and always lived in perfect communion with him. Likewise Christ’s disciples are invited to live in the sight of the Father "who sees in secret,"6 in order to become “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”**7****

1694 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord.8** Following Christ and united with him,9 Christians can strive to be "imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love"10 by conforming their thoughts, words and actions to the "mind . . . which is yours in Christ Jesus,"11 and by following his example.**12****

********

********

 

[Cubby]

1695 "Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,"13** "sanctified . . . (and) called to be saints,"14 Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit.15 This “Spirit of the Son” teaches them to pray to the Father**16** and, having become their life, prompts them to act so as to bear "the fruit of the Spirit"17 by charity in action. Healing the wounds of sin, the Holy Spirit renews us interiorly through a spiritual transformation.18 He enlightens and strengthens us to live as “children of light” through “all that is good and right and true.”**19****

1696 The way of Christ “leads to life”; a contrary way "leads to destruction."20** The Gospel parable of the two ways remains ever present in the catechesis of the Church; it shows the importance of moral decisions for our salvation: “There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference.”**21****

 

[Cubby]

1697 Catechesis has to reveal in all clarity the joy and the demands of the way of Christ.22** Catechesis for the "newness of life"23 in him should be:
-a catechesis of the Holy Spirit, the interior Master of life according to Christ, a gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens this life;
-a catechesis of grace, for it is by grace that we are saved and again it is by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life;
-a catechesis of the beatitudes, for the way of Christ is summed up in the beatitudes, the only path that leads to the eternal beatitude for which the human heart longs;
-a catechesis of sin and forgiveness, for unless man acknowledges that he is a sinner he cannot know the truth about himself, which is a condition for acting justly; and without the offer of forgiveness he would not be able to bear this truth;
-a catechesis of the human virtues which causes one to grasp the beauty and attraction of right dispositions towards goodness;
-a catechesis of the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity, generously inspired by the example of the saints; -a catechesis of the twofold commandment of charity set forth in the Decalogue;
-an ecclesial catechesis, for it is through the manifold exchanges of “spiritual goods” in the “communion of saints” that Christian life can grow, develop, and be communicated.**

1698 The first and last point of reference of this catechesis will always be Jesus Christ himself, who is "the way, and the truth, and the life."24** It is by looking to him in faith that Christ’s faithful can hope that he himself fulfills his promises in them, and that, by loving him with the same love with which he has loved them, they may perform works in keeping with their dignity:**

I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head, and that you are one of his members. He belongs to you as the head belongs to its members; all that is his is yours: his spirit, his heart, his body and soul, and all his faculties. You must make use of all these as of your own, to serve, praise, love, and glorify God. You belong to him, as members belong to their head. and so he longs for you to use all that is in you, as if it were his own, for the service and glory of the Father.25****

---

For to me, to live is Christ.26****

 

[Cubby]

1** St. Leo the Great Sermo 22 in nat. Dom., 3: PL 54, 192C.

2 ⇒ Jn 1:12; 1 ⇒ Jn 3:1[ETML:C/].

3 ⇒ 2 Pet 1:4.

4 ⇒ Phil 1:27.

5 Cf. ⇒ Jn 8:29.

6 ⇒ Mt 6:6[ETML:C/].

7 ⇒ Mt 5:48.

8 ⇒ Rom 6:11 and cf. ⇒ 6:5; cf. ⇒ Col 2:12.

9 Cf. ⇒ Jn 15:5.

10 ⇒ Eph 5:1-2.

**

 

[Cubby]

11** ⇒ Phil 2:5.

12 Cf. ⇒ Jn 13:12-16.

13 ⇒ 2 Cor 6:11.

14 ⇒ 1 Cor 1:2.

15 Cf. ⇒ 1 Cor 6:19.

16 Cf. ⇒ Gal 4:6.

17 ⇒ Gal 5:22, 25.

18 Cf. ⇒ Eph 4:23.

19 ⇒ Eph 5:8, 9.

20 ⇒ Mt 7:13; cf. ⇒ Deut 30: 15-20.

**

 

[Cubby]

21** Didache 1, 1: SCh 248, 140.

22 Cf. John Paul II, CT 29.

23 ⇒ Rom 6:4.

24 ⇒ Jn 14:6.

25 St. John Eudes, Tract. de admirabili corde Jesu, 1, 5.

26 ⇒ Phil 1:21.**

 

[Cubby]

Hallelujah for the life in Christ, as a Catholic!!! Praise God!

Spread the Good News!!

…and Happy Thanksgiving & Peace to Everyone.

Cubby

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Cubby:

Hallelujah for the life in Christ, as a Catholic!!! Praise God!

Spread the Good News!!

…and Happy Thanksgiving & Peace to Everyone.

Cubby

Cubby, Thats alot of turkey pasting or is that basting? Oh well, Happy Thanksgiving to you also. God Bless.P/S I like you closing sig.