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kaycee
Guest
So if we keep the commandments, we will be saved?
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jmcrae
Guest
Maybe he was in near danger of death, and she gave him emergency baptism in a hospital. That’s the only case I can think of where a nun might baptize someone. (In which case, she could have been almost any religion, since many Protestant denominations also appoint “nuns” to serve in hospitals. She needn’t even have been Catholic.)
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jmcrae
Guest
Faith without works is dead. (James 2:17)
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kaycee
Guest
So being charitable, taking care of the sick and needy and keeping the commandments will result in salvation?
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kaycee
Guest
A brief search of the New Testament shows roughly 58 verses that indicate salvation is by Faith and belief.
Baptism is only mentioned in 3 verses being associated with salvation.
Baptism is only mentioned in 3 verses being associated with salvation.
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Maureen_Fiore
Guest
From what I understand he was in no danger, and she was a Catholic nun. So, is this still a valid baptism??? I’m mean no record of this ever being done, no documentations. Would he need to be baptised again in another denominations faith?
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jmcrae
Guest
A person of faith who is charitable, takes care of the sick and needy, and who keeps the commandments, will receive salvation, yes.
Faith without works is dead, and works without faith are also dead. We need both.
Also, although we can’t “work our way to Heaven,” we can certainly “work our way to Hell” and neglecting to be charitable, neglecting the sick and needy, and disobeying the Commandments would certainly be “works” that “merit” Hell, even for people of faith.
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kaycee
Guest
Offcourse. People who believe should be baptized ASAP, but baptism is the outward sign of what has already happend when a person believes. I counted roughly 58 verses indicating belief only for salvation. Roughly 3 verses mention baptism in relation to salvation.
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mikeledes
Guest
Romans 2:6-7 states
“Who will render to each one according to his DEEDS. ETERNAL LIFE to those who by patient continuance in DOING GOOD seek for glory, honor and immortality.”
We receive grace in order to be have fellowship with God and live a life of faith working through love. Love is not a feeling, but a word of action. How do you demonstrate your love for God and neighbor? By following God’s commandments (1 John 3:24). This includes helping your neighbor when he or she is in need. Living a life of love by doing good is how you maintain, not receive, justifying grace and it is also how you grow in that grace. If you chose not to do so by breaking God’s commandments (i.e. sin) then you lose that grace.
“Who will render to each one according to his DEEDS. ETERNAL LIFE to those who by patient continuance in DOING GOOD seek for glory, honor and immortality.”
We receive grace in order to be have fellowship with God and live a life of faith working through love. Love is not a feeling, but a word of action. How do you demonstrate your love for God and neighbor? By following God’s commandments (1 John 3:24). This includes helping your neighbor when he or she is in need. Living a life of love by doing good is how you maintain, not receive, justifying grace and it is also how you grow in that grace. If you chose not to do so by breaking God’s commandments (i.e. sin) then you lose that grace.
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jmcrae
Guest
Every jot in the Bible comes from God. If God says Baptism is necessary, He ought not to have to repeat Himself 59 times for you to believe it. If we find it in the Bible even once that Baptism is necessary, then Baptism is necessary, because God said so.
Faith is also necessary. So is everything else that the Bible says is necessary. Think “both/and,” not “either/or,” and certainly not “whichever one gets the most votes in the Bible.” The Bible isn’t a democracy. Baptism didn’t get “out-voted” by faith.
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jmcrae
Guest
I have no way of knowing.
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Mickey
Guest
The Scriptures speak of many things that contribute to our salvation: a believing spouse (1 Cor 7: 14-16), prayer (James 5:15), and baptism (1 Peter 3:21).
Here (Luke 7:50) Jesus names a basic one: personal faith.
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Verita
Guest
Not necessarily. But not doing them can result in damnation. Salvation is a free gift. However, God does want us to act in a certain way or he may not give us that free gift.
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jemfinch
Guest
This verse is the foundation for understanding what biblical “belief” really is. You want to say that belief does not involve works, that belief does not involve obedience, but this passage clearly indicates that belief includes obedience, because the opposite of “belief” is not “disbelief” but “disobedience”!
Let’s look at the passages you quoted.
What does Jesus say just following that passage? “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
Again, we see that Christ contrasts belief not with disbelief, but disobedience (evil deeds).
Even the wording of the very verse you cited seems to emphasize the importantance of subsequent acts in salvation; otherwise, why would Jesus say, “he who does not believe stands condemned already”? It seems He’s indicating that belief is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for salvation.
In fact, that’s the general fallacy you’re making in your doctrine of faith alone: what the Bible presents as a necessary condition of salvation, you interpret as a sufficient condition for salvation, without logical or biblical warrant.
Yes, it certainly is a work of God to belief in Christ. But how does this support your thesis, that belief is equivalent to intellectual assent and does not include obedience?
This teaches that belief is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
What in this proves your thesis as to what belief is?
And again here, belief is contrasted with the action of shrinking back; belief is contrasted with an action because belief itself is properly an action; an action of trusting Christ and obeying him.
Again, the only reason you think this supports your view is that you’re not understanding belief in the same way that the author meant it. You’re not understanding it in the same that the recipients of the letter understood it; you’re taking your cultural presuppositions and layering them on top of the Bible in order to support your tradition, which did not exist before the Reformation.
And that’s just irrelevant, and has been addressed elsewhere in this thread
Not a single Bible verse you quoted says that. In fact, several you quoted indicate that belief is opposed by disobedience, not by non-intellectual-assent. If we were to make a scoreboard, it would say something like “3: Catholicism; 4: Irrelevant, 0: Baptist understanding of belief.” The passages you quote, if they support any particular understanding of belief, support the understanding that makes belief an action of trusting and obeying; other passages don’t support any particular interpretation of belief at all. Please, by all means, present a passage that supports your thesis that belief is mere intellectual assent, before we can even argue about whether belief alone saves.
Jeremy
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jemfinch
Guest
In fuller measure, of course, as the Catholic belief about Confirmation indicates.
Cornelius and his household were clearly an exceptional case; their conversion was in no way normative. In fact, it was the very exceptional nature of the conversion that sparked such a tremendous change in Christian evangelism. Cornelius cannot be considered normative any more than the thief on the cross can be.
That’s what you get for using the NIV, a Bible rejected even by many Protestants for its liberal and inaccurate translation. The word “included” isn’t there. You won’t find it in the NASB, the ESV, the RSV, or any other translation which respects the Greek. There is no warrant in the Greek for that mistranslation.
Clearly? In the face of such clarity as “Baptism now saves you,” you say, “Clearly faith is the effective means of salvation”? What’s the point of having this debate with you if you’re so obstinate as to ignore “Baptism now saves you”? I don’t recall you ever addressing that passage.
An excellent quote of your denominational stance, but it’s in no way derived from the Bible. Look for it: you won’t see it. What you’ll see is, “Baptism now saves you.”
Jeremy
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NotWorthy
Guest
Once again, Faith and Belief include Obedience.
Show me in the Gospels where Jesus says we will be judged by anything other than what we do.
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kaycee
Guest
So, in order to go to Heaven a person must be a person of faith who is charitable, takes care of the sick and needy, and who keeps the commandments, is baptized, recieves grace thru the sacraments, confesses his sins, is carefull not commit any mortal sins including missing mass on days of obligation, must submit to the Pope, must believe in the Marian doctrines, must believe in purgatory, must believe in indulgances, the veneration of saints and all things the church teaches now and in the future.
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jemfinch
Guest
At least you apply your hermeneutic of “Take passages of the Bible in complete isolation as technical declarations of doctrine” consistently
The problem is, you’re applying it to other people: people who don’t abide by your hermeneutic, because it’s wrong, and because it results in bad theology.
If we Catholics followed your hermeneutic, we might say, “Oh yes: keep the commandments, and you’ll be saved,” or “Do X, Y, and Z for the poor, and you’ll be saved.” But we don’t say that, because we apply the whole Bible, not just parts of it, to answer questions.
The Bible clearly states that baptism is salvific.
The Bible clearly states that good deeds are salvific.
The Bible clearly states that faith is salvific.
The Bible clearly states that confessing Christ is salvific.
The Bible clearly states that being faithful unto death is salvific.
The Bible clearly states all of this. What you’ve done is taken the Bible and said, “Faith alone is salvific; everything else is just frosting on the cake,” with no biblical or historical warrant for such an interpretation. In the process, not only have you chosen to ignore all the other clear statements of the Bible as to the salvific nature of things other than faith, but you’ve also blatantly contradicted a clear statement of the Bible says, “Man is not justified by faith alone, but by works.”
In denying the salvific nature of baptism, you contradict the clear teaching of the Bible that “Baptism now saves you.” In denying the salvific nature of good works, you contradict the clear teaching of Christ to the sheep, “I was hungry, and you fed me, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink…” In denying the necessity of confession of Christ, you contradict the clear statement of Scripture, “For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.”
All these contradictions can be resolved biblically, if you would just understand the Bible correctly. It’s not a theology manual; it doesn’t have one single place which shows all the necessary conditions that are sufficient for salvation. You’ve taken one necessary condition and deemed it sufficient, but we Catholics cannot do that, because the Bible makes very clear that there are other necessary conditions of salvation. Instead, we understand the Bible consistently by affirming all the necessary conditions of salvation, and not declaring any single one to be sufficient without the others.
That’s why we don’t believe that only obeying the commandments saves you. That’s why we don’t believe that only baptism saves you. That why we don’t believe that only faith saves you. We can’t believe this because the Bible doesn’t teach this and because the Apostles never taught this.
Jeremy
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jmcrae
Guest
Insofar as the individual is capable of doing so, and considering his particular vocational gifts, yes.
This is why Christ set up the Church for us - so that we can all participate to some extent in all these things, using the individual gifts that God has given to us. (I Corinthians 12)
We’re all in this together: nobody can be saved by himself or by herself. We’ve each got our own oars to pull in this Ark of Salvation (the Church), and we all have to pull together.
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Mickey
Guest
We should try to keep this on topic my dear friends. This thread is about the necessity of baptism. These other subjects have been covered on many different threads.
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