Protestant view on christ's sacrifice.

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johnnyjones said:
After being stuck in Fundamentalism for 20 years they would say, By the blood of Christ you are saved - his death at Calvery.
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If one is already saved,then why bother even attending any church,pray,read scripture?
 
PumpkinSeed said:
What kind of question is this?

If you think Christ died for you, and you admit he is your savior, and you follow him and worship him, then what do you think you’ll be? You’ll be saved.

If you think he died, that’s one thing. People die all the time.

Its what he died for that counts.
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So salvation is received with those three easy steps? Admit he is savior,follow him and worship him? Shoot! Hell must be empty since all takes is believing?
 
Hi all,

As I posted earlier, check out some official creeds or confessions.

I recommend the Heidelberg Catechism questions 10-20 for a classic Reformed view. Its easy to find on Google 🙂

Peace

Lincs
 
Nicea325 said:
So salvation is received with those three easy steps? Admit he is savior,follow him and worship him? Shoot! Hell must be empty since all takes is believing?
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I personally don’t believe so, but I’ve heard many protestants tell me this.

I, along with you thinks that it takes more work than just admitting something. Baptism, communion, repentance, and following the moral life come along with it. And some might say that is easy, but it takes great dedication. Repenting is not just saying you’re sorry. Repenting is saying you’re sorry and then not doing it again. It would take lots of will power to deny temptations for most people. Saying Christ is my savior is true, but it is not enough to save me. I can’t just say something and life the total opposite. So I try to follow Christ in the way that he sees morally.
 
Nicea325 said:
So salvation is received with those three easy steps? Admit he is savior,follow him and worship him? Shoot! Hell must be empty since all takes is believing?
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And how do you receive salvation? or what do you think you need to do for salvation?
 
manualman said:
This is how it was explained to me by non-denom, protestant evangelicals (whew, what a mouthful!).
  1. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
  2. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)
  3. For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son… that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
To them, it’s this simple. Sin activates the divine punishment machine. Sin has occurred, punishment MUST be meted out. Only a spotless, pure unblemished sacrifice can stand in for the sinner in said divine punishment machine. Christ volunteered to be that sacrifice, traded his perfection for our sin and accepted the punishment and torment due to all sinners throughout history. We believers make out like bandits on the deal because we trade in those sins for the ‘imputed’ righteousness of Christ. God looks at believers and does not see who they really are, but sees only the perfection of Christ (due to the switcheroo mentioned above).

Personally, I find the above a horrifyingly juvenile simplification. Distortion really. It reduces God to a mechanistic automaton who is compelled to mete out punishment and pulls a lawyer trick to beat on himself instead of we who are guilty.

The catholic version I learned is beautiful instead of grotesque. God’s justice isn’t about the need he has to mete out punishment for sin, it is about his LOVE. Sin creates its own punishment and WE humans would be the ones who make up everything that is unpleasant about hell. Christ died because he became incarnate among sinful men. He didn’t have to die to satisfy the Father’s wrath, he had to die because it was the outcome of OUR sinfulness. Fallen man inevitably kills God given the chance. The “Jews” didn’t do it, MAN did. We did. By being willing to suffer that unwarranted murder, Christ reveals in full glory how great is the love of God for us. That he loves is STILL is the greatest source of hope humanity can ever know. We look forward to eternal bliss in heaven not because we’ve deluded God (with his help) into seeing us as perfect, but because we believe that by his Grace we really WILL be perfect by then. That transformation is something that we can’t achieve on our own power and needs a lifetime (and beyond) of cooperation with Grace to complete. That calls for an AMEN! Amen to eternal bliss with the inventor of love!

The catholic explanation fits the fullness of Scripture too. Look it up!
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As I understand it the above explanation accounts for why Catholics depict Christ as on the Cross rather than an empty cross like Protestants do. Catholics depict Christ as on the Cross to show us what God had to suffer to save us. Catholics believe that Christ is risen but show Him on the Cross as a reminder of how much God values each one of us and was willing to do so we could be saved. Please correct me if I’m wrong! Thanks.🙂
 
Luvtosew said:
And how do you receive salvation? or what do you think you need to do for salvation?
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More than just believing. Does not the Epistle of James (2:19) say even the demons believe and tremble? Takes more than just belief. If I am overweight, I can believe I can drop the weight-does my belief mean it will happen? How about the “doing” part which will help?
 
PumpkinSeed said:
I personally don’t believe so, but I’ve heard many protestants tell me this.

I, along with you thinks that it takes more work than just admitting something. Baptism, communion, repentance, and following the moral life come along with it. And some might say that is easy, but it takes great dedication. Repenting is not just saying you’re sorry. Repenting is saying you’re sorry and then not doing it again. It would take lots of will power to deny temptations for most people. Saying Christ is my savior is true, but it is not enough to save me. I can’t just say something and life the total opposite. So I try to follow Christ in the way that he sees morally.
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I agree. The notion of just “believing” sounds more like watered-down theology. It is almost arrogant to the point were a mere mortal is setting his or her standards or terms over the Divine Creator.
 
Nicea325 said:
So salvation is received with those three easy steps? Admit he is savior,follow him and worship him? Shoot! Hell must be empty since all takes is believing?
Click to expand...
Well, the “follow him and worship him” part shows that there’s more to it than just believing.
 
Luvtosew said:
And how do you receive salvation? or what do you think you need to do for salvation?
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What if you could “sew” your way to salvation… That would be cool.

In any event, if there is no protestant denomination that teaches this brilliant idea, it’s not too late…
 
PumpkinSeed said:
I personally don’t believe so, but I’ve heard many protestants tell me this.

I, along with you thinks that it takes more work than just admitting something. Baptism, communion, repentance, and following the moral life come along with it. And some might say that is easy, but it takes great dedication. Repenting is not just saying you’re sorry. Repenting is saying you’re sorry and then not doing it again. It would take lots of will power to deny temptations for most people. Saying Christ is my savior is true, but it is not enough to save me. I can’t just say something and life the total opposite. So I try to follow Christ in the way that he sees morally.
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Smashing. I don’t mean this in any sort of offensive way, but it sounds positively Catholic. 👍
 
scriabin said:
A few interpretations from my Southern Baptist upbringing:

“Jesus suffered and died for my sins therefore I don’t have to suffer anymore. I claim the promise of health for my family!”

“We don’t have to do anything for salvation; Jesus did it all for us on the cross.”

“When we are covered with Christ’s righteousness we have eternal salvation–we can’t ever lose that salvation because then it wouldn’t be eternal.”
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I never heard anything about not suffering anymore or claiming the promise of health…

Actually, I never heard anyone state the things you posted above. I believe that is more a televangelist thing or non denominational. We did speak of hope, faith, charity and love.
 
Hi all,
Nicea325 said:
More than just believing. Does not the Epistle of James (2:19) say even the demons believe and tremble? Takes more than just belief. If I am overweight, I can believe I can drop the weight-does my belief mean it will happen? How about the “doing” part which will help?
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Indeed it does, a dead faith is not a saving faith. I recommend here:
wts.edu/resources/creeds/heidelberg.html - Read questions 60-65 specifically.

As the Catechsim states by quoting Titus 3:4-5, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness…” (ESV). Rather salvation is by Grace alone (Eph 2:1-10) Paul here explicitly stating not by works, the same good works he is referring to in verse 10.

Good works follow, in those truly grafted into Christ by faith (1), the Heidelberg catechism addresses this here in question 64: wts.edu/resources/creeds/heidelberg.html

Peace

Lincs

(1) - wts.edu/resources/creeds/heidelberg.html
 
stewstew03 said:
What if you could “sew” your way to salvation… That would be cool.

In any event, if there is no protestant denomination that teaches this brilliant idea, it’s not too late…
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Isn’t it a blessing I"m Catholic. What brilliant idea? and whats not to late?.
 
scriabin said:
A few interpretations from my Southern Baptist upbringing:

“Jesus suffered and died for my sins therefore I don’t have to suffer anymore. I claim the promise of health for my family!”

“We don’t have to do anything for salvation; Jesus did it all for us on the cross.”

“When we are covered with Christ’s righteousness we have eternal salvation–we can’t ever lose that salvation because then it wouldn’t be eternal.”
Click to expand...
Hi, just a question. During that time, did you ever have a inclining that even tho saved, you felt not quite sure of that? Very often? Constantly? Never?
 
PumpkinSeed said:
What kind of question is this?

If you think Christ died for you, and you admit he is your savior, and you follow him and worship him, then what do you think you’ll be? You’ll be saved.

If you think he died, that’s one thing. People die all the time.

Its what he died for that counts.
Click to expand...
It is not just what he died for, but also how he died that matters. Christ was the sacrifice. The Lamb of God. That sacrifice was part of the passover being celebrated by Christ’s followers and the first apostles. Those followers were invited to salvation through this last supper because they participated in it. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that someone who didn’t participate would be granted salvation. This is (I believe) why Christ broke the bread after the resurrection. To show them that the sacrifice was for all time. So they went forth breaking the bread for the people, inviting them to participate in that one pascal sacrifice.

Now, I feel all of this breaks down when you try to claim that our participation in that passover is symbolic or metaphorical. I feel that if we were to claim that the Eucharist was symbolic then so to would we have to claim that our salvation was symbolic. I suspected that protestants would sense this and try to provide another mechanism by which Christ brought us salvation. I am very curious about what that mechanism would be.

What I see so far are these arguments
  1. Christ appeased God’s wrath by giving his life. No explanation about how God being pleased with his son appeased his wrath with the rest of humanity is given as far as I can see. Nor is any explanation given as to how Christ’s death would satisfy God.
  2. Christ paid our debt through his death. This is true, but the question I have is HOW did Christ pay our debt? Of course he died of the cross, but how does one mans death benefit me?
  3. We are saved by repenting and believing in the Gospel. Yes! But it was never the belief in the Jewish Tradition that just repenting and believing was enough. If this is now the ONLY thing that we need because of Christ there has to be some explanation about how that came to be.
Peace be with you!
 
sllhouette said:
It is not just what he died for, but also how he died that matters. Christ was the sacrifice. The Lamb of God. That sacrifice was part of the passover being celebrated by Christ’s followers and the first apostles. Those followers were invited to salvation through this last supper because they participated in it. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that someone who didn’t participate would be granted salvation. This is (I believe) why Christ broke the bread after the resurrection. To show them that the sacrifice was for all time. So they went forth breaking the bread for the people, inviting them to participate in that one pascal sacrifice.

Now, I feel all of this breaks down when you try to claim that our participation in that passover is symbolic or metaphorical. I feel that if we were to claim that the Eucharist was symbolic then so to would we have to claim that our salvation was symbolic. I suspected that protestants would sense this and try to provide another mechanism by which Christ brought us salvation. I am very curious about what that mechanism would be.

What I see so far are these arguments
  1. Christ appeased God’s wrath by giving his life. No explanation about how God being pleased with his son appeased his wrath with the rest of humanity is given as far as I can see. Nor is any explanation given as to how Christ’s death would satisfy God.
  2. Christ paid our debt through his death. This is true, but the question I have is HOW did Christ pay our debt? Of course he died of the cross, but how does one mans death benefit me?
  3. We are saved by repenting and believing in the Gospel. Yes! But it was never the belief in the Jewish Tradition that just repenting and believing was enough. If this is now the ONLY thing that we need because of Christ there has to be some explanation about how that came to be.
Peace be with you!
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I do not think you read my second post. Go back and read it. I was simply stating what most protestants believe. There are different branches in that though.
 
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