Mortal Sin and Romans 8

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MaryCatherine08

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I think I posted this in the wrong area. So I pasted here. Sorry!

Hi,
I just came into the church this past Easter. In my rcia class we learned that when we commit a mortal sin, we seperate ourselves from God. I am having a hard time reconciling that with Romans 8:

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
36
As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
38
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, 9 nor future things, nor powers,
39
nor height, nor depth, 10 nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

thanks for any help!

MC
 
The simplest answer is that God will never take His love away from us. He will never fail. Nothing can stop that. But you can refuse. No creatures or powers or angels can pull you away. The will is yours. None of them have that control over your union with God.

Think of it as you reaching up and grabbing God’s hand when you enter the Church…God will never let go…but you can.

To interpret Romans 8 as meaning no sin we commit could render us away from Him, would put that passage in conflict with other passages that clearly identify certain sins which do separate us, like 1 Cor 6:9-10 and others.

Good question. 🙂
 
MarcoPolo said:
The simplest answer is that God will never take His love away from us. He will never fail. Nothing can stop that. But you can refuse. No creatures or powers or angels can pull you away. The will is yours. None of them have that control over your union with God.

Think of it as you reaching up and grabbing God’s hand when you enter the Church…God will never let go…but you can.

To interpret Romans 8 as meaning no sin we commit could render us away from Him, would put that passage in conflict with other passages that clearly identify certain sins which do separate us, like 1 Cor 6:9-10 and others.

Good question. 🙂
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and great answer!!
 
Also note that in that passage, after the question “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” is posed, “mortal sin” is not one of the items listed. It is true that no creature, nor famine, nor the sword, etc., can separate us from God.

That is not true, however, of mortal sin. As MarcoPolo pointed out, there are other passages in the New Testament which do explicitly teach that serious sins can separate us from God. So there you have it.

Also, don’t let the phrase “love of Christ” confuse you: obviously nothing, not even mortal sin, could prevent Christ from loving us. It does, however, destroy our ability to truly love him. That is what I take “love of Christ” to mean in this passage.
 
MaryCatherine08 said:
In my rcia class we learned that when we commit a mortal sin, we seperate ourselves from God.
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It is practically impossible for someone to be seperated from the love of God. There is an error teaching here. Church teachers should be teaching the truth and not half-truths. Half a truth is equivalent to a lie.

1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

His love endures forever. You see, the Church teaches that we can lose our grace when we commit a sin. However that is NOT what the Bible teaches.

Romans 5:20
The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more

let me just ask a question, how did you know about sin? If someone didnt tell you that stealing was wrong, you would’ve have never known. We have the knoledge of sin from the Law. But the Law was added so that trespass might increase. The Law gave sin its power. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more!

There is no doubt that we all have sinned. But that does not mean we are seperated from the love of our Heavenly Father. The Bible calls God, “Abba”. Abba is the most affectionate word in the Hebrew language it means Daddy! We have a loving Daddy God!

I’m only 15 going on 16 this October so I have to attend the Sunday Cathechism which teaches about the church and Jesus and all that. One lesson the teacher said that Jesus has forgiven us of all our sins. All = past, present and future! I asked her a question, “If Jesus has forgiven us of all our sins, how come we must still go for confession? How is it possible for us to be punished by God when all sin is forgiven?”

Her reply was a simple, “Who are you to question the athoutrity of the Church?” The truth is that Jesus did forgive all our sins, past, present and future. We have to come to a place of believing that Jesus sacrifice was not only to forgive our past sins but also our future, moreover when Jesus died we were’nt even born! We are living in the future, if Jesus did not die for our sins, past, present and future then today we would have to work for our own righteousness!

Priest and Sunday School teahers should be teaching the truth! The punishment for our sins have already been exhausted on the body of Jesus. Jesus recieved the full punishment that we were supposed to recieve. Jesus took our punishement so that we may live a righteous life today.

We are the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus. If I should continue talking about God’s love, I think it’ll take me 3 more days!

Amen - Francisco Overee
www.indescribableisurlove.blogspot.com
 
FranciscoIsrael said:
It is practically impossible for someone to be seperated from the love of God. There is an error teaching here. Church teachers should be teaching the truth and not half-truths. Half a truth is equivalent to a lie.

1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

His love endures forever. You see, the Church teaches that we can lose our grace when we commit a sin. However that is NOT what the Bible teaches.

Romans 5:20
The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more

let me just ask a question, how did you know about sin? If someone didnt tell you that stealing was wrong, you would’ve have never known. We have the knoledge of sin from the Law. But the Law was added so that trespass might increase. The Law gave sin its power. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more!

There is no doubt that we all have sinned. But that does not mean we are seperated from the love of our Heavenly Father. The Bible calls God, “Abba”. Abba is the most affectionate word in the Hebrew language it means Daddy! We have a loving Daddy God!

I’m only 15 going on 16 this October so I have to attend the Sunday Cathechism which teaches about the church and Jesus and all that. One lesson the teacher said that Jesus has forgiven us of all our sins. All = past, present and future! I asked her a question, “If Jesus has forgiven us of all our sins, how come we must still go for confession? How is it possible for us to be punished by God when all sin is forgiven?”

Her reply was a simple, “Who are you to question the athoutrity of the Church?” The truth is that Jesus did forgive all our sins, past, present and future. We have to come to a place of believing that Jesus sacrifice was not only to forgive our past sins but also our future, moreover when Jesus died we were’nt even born! We are living in the future, if Jesus did not die for our sins, past, present and future then today we would have to work for our own righteousness!

Priest and Sunday School teahers should be teaching the truth! The punishment for our sins have already been exhausted on the body of Jesus. Jesus recieved the full punishment that we were supposed to recieve. Jesus took our punishement so that we may live a righteous life today.

We are the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus. If I should continue talking about God’s love, I think it’ll take me 3 more days!

Amen - Francisco Overee
www.indescribableisurlove.blogspot.com
Click to expand...
We do have to work, in the sense of co-operating with Jesus’ work of salvation and imitating Him in our lives. That’s where all the verses about taking up our crosses daily, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and so on come into play - these are the means by which we do so.

If no action was required on our part, then everyone would automatically be saved whether they wanted it or not, whether they belived in God or not (since belief is in itself a choice of ours, therefore a work). And the saved would include Satan himself.
 
you are saved by grace not works ephesians2:8-10.you do good works because you are saved not to get saved or be saved. Jesus paid it all and he died once for all never to be offered up again no more sacrifice Jesus said it is finished hebrews 9&10 John19:30 you cannot earn a gift or grace PLEASE READ ROMANS CH.4 ANY QUESTIONS (Edited). DO YOU KNOW FOR SURE YOU ARE GOING TO HEAVEN YOU CAN IstJOHN 5:11-13 JOHN1:12 . PLEASE TAKE GOD AT HIS WORD NOT MAN MADE DOCTRINES OR TRADITIONS MATTHEW 15:3-9 MARK 7:6-13.JESUS WARNING TO THEM AND TO US TODAY HEBREWS 13:8 TRUST HIS WORD PROVERBS 30:6 REVELATION 22:18-21 PROVERBS 14:12 16:25 HOPE I HEAR FROM YOU
 
MaryCatherine08 said:
I think I posted this in the wrong area. So I pasted here. Sorry!

Hi,
I just came into the church this past Easter. In my rcia class we learned that when we commit a mortal sin, we seperate ourselves from God. I am having a hard time reconciling that with Romans 8:

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
36
As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
38
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, 9 nor future things, nor powers,
39
nor height, nor depth, 10 nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

thanks for any help!

MC
Click to expand...
The one thing not on that list is sin.

When we sin by our own free will (and willful sin is one of the three criteria that makes sin mortal), we reject Christ. God will never take our free will from us because without it, we are mere robots and cannot love. Christ does not take our salvation from us; we orient ourSELVES away from him in a way that prevents our perseverance in holiness.
 
ijohn5 said:
you are saved by grace not works ephesians2:8-10.you do good works because you are saved not to get saved or be saved. Jesus paid it all and he died once for all never to be offered up again no more sacrifice Jesus said it is finished hebrews 9&10 John19:30 you cannot earn a gift or grace PLEASE READ ROMANS CH.4 ANY QUESTIONS (Edited). DO YOU KNOW FOR SURE YOU ARE GOING TO HEAVEN YOU CAN IstJOHN 5:11-13 JOHN1:12 . PLEASE TAKE GOD AT HIS WORD NOT MAN MADE DOCTRINES OR TRADITIONS MATTHEW 15:3-9 MARK 7:6-13.JESUS WARNING TO THEM AND TO US TODAY HEBREWS 13:8 TRUST HIS WORD PROVERBS 30:6 REVELATION 22:18-21 PROVERBS 14:12 16:25 HOPE I HEAR FROM YOU
Click to expand...
As faithful Catholics, we are well aware that salvation is by grace and not by works. Our Church teaches that; we have the true gospel. Most of us have read the Bible, and are familiar with the passages you are directing us to.

I find it truly interesting that you really think that we just haven’t read Scripture, and that you can enlighten us about our obviously unscriptural views by simply directing us to those passages.

Seriously, what do you expect? That we’ll look up those passages and say, “Gosh, thanks! Now I see that this stuff has been in the Bible all along; guess I should’ve cracked it open before now!”

Do you honestly think we haven’t read even the New Testament? Not even once?
 
In the discussions thus far, I read some great answers (Marco Polo, etc.) and objections raised on the basis of “teaching Authority” .
Why don’t we go the the TOP Authority: Jesus’ own teaching on the “Prodigal Son” (Lk 15:11-32):
The Father loved both sons: his love was not obliterated even when the Younger Son DECIDED to leave him, taking his inheritance with him! (he sinned.) The Father (and the Elder Son) learned that he was squandering his inheritance with lose living (Lk 15: 30), and we can suppose that he learned about the famine there also.
DESPITE HIS LOVE, it is significant that THE FATHER DID NOT SENT ANY SERVANT TO BRING HIS SON HOME!
IF the Son did not come to his senses, and decide to come home, he would have died! That would be MORTAL SIN: the CONSCIOUSLY SELECTED decision to stay away from God!
He could NOT get back to his father by simply saying: “I’m sorry, I want to be back home with you, Father”, without actually going to him, even though he believed that his FATHER’s love to him was unlimited (in which he was correct.). HE STILL NEEDED to WORK TO GET TO HIS FATHER!
In Summary: Christ died for us, and LOVES us IMMENSELY! But, HE WANTS US TO SHARE HIS DIVINITY - we BECOME FULLY CHILDREN OF GOD. For that we MUST WANT TO BECOME CHILDREN OF GOD, AND WE NEED TO PRACTICE BEHAVING LIKE THAT! This part is both Hard and Easy: Hard, if we keep our big Egos; Easy, if we can be like Little Children who Trust Our Father, and try to Love like Jesus, our Big Brother, Loves each of us! This takes a lot of work and effort! (By the way, what St. Paul refers to by ‘Works’ as against saving ‘Faith’ are the ‘Works’ which Jews have to follow, like Circumcision, etc.)
 
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