purgatory

[paul_c]

Where in Scriptures does it teach that infants must be baptized to erase original sin? We find no infant baptisms in all of the N.T. We read a couple of examples where whole households were saved, but we cannot make the claim that: “well, there probably was infants in these households.” You can’t make a doctrine out of silence, vague or ambiguous passages. In all of the NT we see that preaching was always the medium used. By the hearing of the Gospel people responded. They confessed Christ as Lord and Savior and then they got baptized… One never gets baptized first. Unsaved people see no need for baptism, only those who belong to Christ. In every case we see adults were totally immersed. What was Christ’s lead? Jesus, as our primary example, did not get baptized while an infant but while an adult.

I don’t know why you took this into a discussion on infant baptism rather than focus on what I wrote, but scripture does not eliminate infant baptism as you pointed out and in fact states that whole households were baptized. Faith is required for baptism but in the case of infants, its the faith of the parents who agree to raise the child in the faith.

What theology would satan prefer? To usurp Christ.To turn man away from Christ and onto man himself. According to 2 Cor. 4:4, the “god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Satan’s agenda is pushing a false philosophy onto the unbelieving world, a false philosophy that man can earn God’s favor by a certain act or acts. In fact, earning eternal life is a predominate theme among the cults… Earning God’s favor by works, however, is contrary to biblical revelation. Man cannot work to earn God’s favor; eternal life is a free gift ( Eph 2:8-9). And that free gift is available through Jesus Christ and Him alone (John 3:16; 14:6). Satan’s agenda is: do not trust Jesus. But I trust in Jesus alone for my salvation, not in myself or any good works. And, yes, sin does matter.

You completely ignore where I showed you that scripture requires action for salvation, not just words of Faith. Catholics trust Christ so implicitly that we follow his example and do his will. This is more meaningful than saying that you beleive him. It is demonstrating this belief through our actions.

Paul, can you avoid sinning? Can you be sinless for an entire day? A week? You are caught up in a never ending cycle where you believe you must do countless penances, rosary repetitions and many other works all through your life. How can you be sure you’ve done enough to satisfy God? How many Hail Marys and Our Fathers will appease Him? How much works of charity? Catholics do these things believing it will make them right with God.Then comes the suffering of an unknown length of time after death for purification!

You don’t know Catholics at all if you think this. We do the things we do out of love and devotion for God not out of fear of punishment. Protestants seem very worried about whether they are saved or not. You never hear this from Catholics. We aren’t looking for assurance. We aren’t worried about judgement. Our focus is on love. Really. You may not get this, but I feel absolutely compelled to pray, compelled to go to Mass daily. compelled to partake of the various devotions. I just need to do it. And the more I do, the more I want to do. I am not in the least bit concerned over my salvation. If I wasn’t on these threads talking to Protestants, I would never even think about it. If I do sin, I want to ask forgiveness, not for fear of punishment but because it offends God. If you truly want peace, spend an hour in eucharistic adoration, in the presence of the Lord. the difference from what you currently seem to be experiencing might surprise you.

 

[yankee_drifter]

paul c.wrote:

You are so in denial. Paul says we should not boast because without Faith Christ we can’t be saved.

Is that what the apostle Paul really wrote? You twisted it. Look again at Eph 2:8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: **Not of works, lest any man should boast.” **

It is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.That’s what we can’t boast about paul c. But you confused it and made it look like the boasting part is on faith, when its on our works!

Saved - God's act of rescuing people from a negative state and changing that negative state into a positive one. For example, God rescues us from sin and evil, and then gives us forgiveness and a new life.

Faith - The primary meaning is trust in and commitment to Jesus Christ.

Now we can restate the first part of the Eph. passage: God loves you and saved you through your trust in and commitment to Jesus Christ.

The second part: “and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” It is God who saves people, and God saves them because of God’s love for them which they don’t deserve. If this is so, then salvation is the gift of God, pure and simple. You do not pay for a gift and you do not earn it in the same way that you earn a salary. You do not deserve it, neither do you work for it.

The third part: “not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Salvation is a gift from God and not a result of human endeavor and effort. “Not of works.” You do not work for your salvation," or “you do not do anything in order to be saved.” If you work for your salvation, then it is no longer a gift. Salvation is God’s gift to those who trust in Christ.

This doesn’t mean that that Faith alone saves us. You say that Paul talks about justification by Faith alone. This is in error. He never, EVER, says that we are justified by FAITH ALONE

.

Paul did: Eph 2:8, 9. He said we are saved by grace through faith. Its not of works or else it cannot be a gift.

What was the condition upon which Abraham had entrance to heaven? He had done good works but they did not mean a thing before God! (Rom. 4:3) He was not saved because of obedience to the 10 Commandments, for they had not yet been given. He was not saved by a church, for there was none. He never heard of baptism or the sacraments. His salvation was through faith in his Redeemer and through faith alone. (Rom. 4:6)

 

[Randy_Carson]

Where in Scriptures does it teach that infants must be baptized to erase original sin? We find no infant baptisms in all of the N.T. We read a couple of examples where whole households were saved, but we cannot make the claim that: “well, there probably was infants in these households.” You can’t make a doctrine out of silence, vague or ambiguous passages.

Nor can you make a prohibition against the “circumcision of Christ” based upon silence nor upon the “tradition of men” that arose 1500 years after the Apostles baptized those households.

Moreover, we know that:

Clement would have learned it from Peter.

Irenaeus would have learned it from Polycarp.

Polycarp would have learned it from John.

Timothy and Titus would have learned it from Paul.

And so on down to our present day. This is how you know that the 27 books in your New Testament are the word of God…because someone before you told you that it is so. Tradition is the unwritten teaching of the Apostles handed on through the life of the Church.

The Church has baptized infants from the very beginning. It is part Apostolic Tradition.

 

[Thing]

Paul, can you avoid sinning? Can you be sinless for an entire day? A week? You are caught up in a never ending cycle where you believe you must do countless penances, …
Born-again Christians do good works because **they are already right with God **…It has nothing to do with one’s own righteousness,

How is one ever ‘right with God’ if he sins and believes it does not matter when in Galatians 5 we are told that they who do **will not inherit the kingdom of God. **
How do they regain the Kingdom of God when they lose it by sinning?

I wonder.

 

[AwGusTeen]

How is one ever ‘right with God’ if he sins and believes it does not matter when in Galatians 5 we are told that they who do **will not inherit the kingdom of God. **
How do they regain the Kingdom of God when they lose it by sinning?

I wonder.

Well, wonder no more – it’s through the sacrament of reconciliation.
And how many times has this been pointed out to you? Hmm… I wonder.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Paul did: Eph 2:8, 9. He said we are saved by grace through faith. Its not of works or else it cannot be a gift.

Yankee_drifter hasn’t come right out and said it (unless I missed it somewhere), but he is convinced that Catholics believe they can EARN their way into heaven. He was never taught this when he was a Catholic, of course, but now that he has left the Church, he has learned MORE about Catholicism than he ever knew in his youth. One can almost picture him pouring over the anti-Catholic works of James White, James Swan, or James McCarthy night after night in a feverish attempt to learn more arguments against the faith he has abandoned.

The trouble is, what he is learning about the Catholic Church is clearly untrue.

For example, the Catholic Church teaches that we are saved by grace through faith…just as Paul did in Ephesians 2:8-9. But isn’t it curious that the Apostle Paul used the word “faith” and related terms more than 200 times in the New Testament, yet he never once used the phrase “faith alone”?

This seems strange considering how concerned Paul was with passing on the faith accurately and the means to justification would be among the most important truths he would preach. In fact, throughout all of his works, he goes to great lengths to choose his words with precision, so it seems odd that “faith alone” does not appear once in all of his writings.

This is even more surprising given the fact that Paul also used the words “alone” and “only” more than any other New Testament author. Clearly, Paul was well-accustomed to using these powerful qualifiers.

Could it be that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from ever writing “faith alone” to describe the process of justification? And that same check prevented any of the gospel writers from ascribing “faith alone” to Jesus, either.

In fact, the only time that the Holy Spirit allowed any author to use that infamous phrase is when He inspired James to write, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24)

Therefore, for those who propose that Paul taught justification by faith alone, a very haunting question remains: Why didn’t Paul use the specific phrase “faith alone” anywhere in his New Testament writings?

 

[Thing]

Well, wonder no more – it’s through the sacrament of reconciliation.
And how many times has this been pointed out to you? Hmm… I wonder.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation? Whos great idea was that?

 

[ncgolf]

How do you, as a catholic, reconcile your church’s teaching on this with the apostle Paul who wrote in Eph. 2:8,9 that we are saved by grace through faith, its the gift of God, and not of works lest anyone should boast?

Because we don’t believe in a works gospel.

James is speaking to believers. They are already saved. James illustrates a point by saying that if we see a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of food, and one of you says to them: “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” and yet do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is it?

I wonder why all this ink is spent on people obviously saved? In your theology they cannot lose it so why the reminders if they are all believers? Seems like James is preaching to the choir … in the way you see it. How many times can you not feed the poor or help your neighbor or speak ill of someone before you figure out you were never really saved in the first place? I imagine if you “feel” remorse all is good.

The person who claims Jesus Christ as their Savior but takes advantage of the poor, and does not show love to others, is not a true Christian and is not spiritually born-again.

Are these not sins … in your theology haven’t future sins already been forgiven at the moment of personal profession of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. It has been stated on this thread that all future sins have been forgiven at that moment of personal faith in Jesus Christ and now you are saying that the profession given in the past is of no avail?

Not because they did not do good works, but because their own actions prove they don’t truly have faith in Jesus Christ. The point is you can’t have saving faith and not naturally have good works or fruits.

This is double speak … because they did not do good works proves their faith was not saving. Why was not the original profession good enough. Are you going to tell me that every person who has made a personal profession of accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior is saved … if so then you stated earlier that by lacking good works you are not a Christian. What saves … the faith or the good works proving the faith.

 

[AwGusTeen]

The Sacrament of Reconciliation? Whos great idea was that?

Jesus’

 

[Thing]

Lord ha’ Mercy, it *was *a good idea.

 

[TheWay]

yankee drifter, I have limited typing ability on my iPhone, but I thought that at least your point regarding Ephesians 2:8-9 cannot go unaddressed. Paul does not say “we are saved by grace through faith,” as you claimed above. Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith…”. Notice, and this is important, that Paul says “you have been saved (past tense),” not “we are saved.”. Paul is addressing saved Christians (Protestant terminology), or Christians in a state of grace (Catholic terminology).

This is Catholic doctrine and teaching. No one (except for Jesus Himself) can earn God’s grace through works, it’s a free gift. (You discredit yourself when you do not correctly represent the Catholic position.)

This next part is important. “Faith” for Paul as evidenced by his epistles includes the three theological virtues of belief, hope (or trust in God), and charity. “Faith” in James means “intellectual belief.”. So it is true, on the one hand, that we are saved by a faith that believes in God’s divinely revealed truth, trusts in God’s mercy, and manifests itself in charity. It is also true, on the other hand, that we are not saved by intellectual belief alone.

The major problem with popular Evangelical theology (and it greatest biblical inconsistency in my opinion) is it’s assertion that salvation is a declaration with no future aspects to it. The Catholics on here, I am sure, would be more than happy to give you the verses that show future aspects to salvation. One I will point out is 2 Thessalonians 2:13. Paul says that sanctification plays a role in salvation. I can’t reconcile this with Evangelical Protestant theology.

 

[paul_c]

paul c.wrote:

Is that what the apostle Paul really wrote? You twisted it. Look again at Eph 2:8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: **Not of works, lest any man should boast.” **

It is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.That’s what we can’t boast about paul c. But you confused it and made it look like the boasting part is on faith, when its on our works!

Saved - God's act of rescuing people from a negative state and changing that negative state into a positive one. For example, God rescues us from sin and evil, and then gives us forgiveness and a new life.

Faith - The primary meaning is trust in and commitment to Jesus Christ.

Now we can restate the first part of the Eph. passage: God loves you and saved you through your trust in and commitment to Jesus Christ.

The second part: “and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” It is God who saves people, and God saves them because of God’s love for them which they don’t deserve. If this is so, then salvation is the gift of God, pure and simple. You do not pay for a gift and you do not earn it in the same way that you earn a salary. You do not deserve it, neither do you work for it.

The third part: “not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Salvation is a gift from God and not a result of human endeavor and effort. “Not of works.” You do not work for your salvation," or “you do not do anything in order to be saved.” If you work for your salvation, then it is no longer a gift. Salvation is God’s gift to those who trust in Christ.

.

Paul did: Eph 2:8, 9. He said we are saved by grace through faith. Its not of works or else it cannot be a gift.

What was the condition upon which Abraham had entrance to heaven? He had done good works but they did not mean a thing before God! (Rom. 4:3) He was not saved because of obedience to the 10 Commandments, for they had not yet been given. He was not saved by a church, for there was none. He never heard of baptism or the sacraments. His salvation was through faith in his Redeemer and through faith alone. (Rom. 4:6)

He did not say that We are saved by FAITH ALONE. Here is the whole sentence, from ephesians 2 8-10:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them
He’s saying we are not saved by works but for works. and in romans 2: 5-8, Paul says:
By your stubbornness and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness

How can you read this, and Say that Paul advocates salvation by FAITH ALONE?

As for Abraham, have you never read James 2:
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
17 So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.
19 You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
20 Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?
21 **Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works.
23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of God.” **
24 See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25 And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route?
26 For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

 

[JacobG]

I don’t know why you took this into a discussion on infant baptism rather than focus on what I wrote, but scripture does not eliminate infant baptism as you pointed out and in fact states that whole households were baptized. Faith is required for baptism but in the case of infants, its the faith of the parents who agree to raise the child in the faith.

You completely ignore where I showed you that scripture requires action for salvation, not just words of Faith. Catholics trust Christ so implicitly that we follow his example and do his will. This is more meaningful than saying that you beleive him. It is demonstrating this belief through our actions.

You don’t know Catholics at all if you think this. We do the things we do out of love and devotion for God not out of fear of punishment. Protestants seem very worried about whether they are saved or not. You never hear this from Catholics. We aren’t looking for assurance. We aren’t worried about judgement. Our focus is on love. Really. You may not get this, but I feel absolutely compelled to pray, compelled to go to Mass daily. compelled to partake of the various devotions. I just need to do it. And the more I do, the more I want to do. I am not in the least bit concerned over my salvation. If I wasn’t on these threads talking to Protestants, I would never even think about it. If I do sin, I want to ask forgiveness, not for fear of punishment but because it offends God. If you truly want peace, spend an hour in eucharistic adoration, in the presence of the Lord. the difference from what you currently seem to be experiencing might surprise you.

I used to be Catholic, born, raised, baptized, confirmed, etc. Been there…done that…No assurance that I was doing enough…no peace… Still felt the guilt after I repented. Was told its a sin to miss Mass or eat meat on fridays. A sin to disagree with any teaching of the church. Can’t have salvation outside the catholic church or apart from the roman pontiff. So many traditions that can’t be proven they came straight from the apostles. Many teachings that clearly contradict the Scriptures.

Who says Protestants are worried whether they are saved or not? Bald statements are meaningless. Its the catholic who is taught that to have assurance is committing the sin of Presumption!

I am not in the least bit concerned over my salvation

Paul, be careful here. You should be concerned. The fact is, you haven’t even dealt with your sins. You think you have via church works and a sacramental system but that’s a false sense of security. You have been taught to believe these things you do in and of themselves, pleases and satisfies God. The Bible says unless you accept the finished work of Christ on the Cross and admit that you are a lost sinner who cannot save yourself, your works are meaningless. Remember Matt 7. Jesus did not commend a single work done by anyone. He cast them all out. They were trusting in their works and not in the work of Christ.

You completely ignore where I showed you that scripture requires action for salvation, not just words of Faith

If I ignored some of what you wrote I apologize but its because Scripture simply doesn’t teach what you claim. And I never said salvation is words of faith. It takes more than belief in Jesus. Even the demons believe and tremble. To believe means to comprehend exactly what Christ accomplished at Calvary.To fully understand that salvation is in Christ alone. Nothing else; not in a church, works, rules, rituals. Jesus is the one we can go directly to. No need for a human mediator. Jesus said He is the Way, the Life and the Truth. No man comes to the Father except through him. You are trying to get to God through yourself and your works. You don’t realize how much your church usurps Christ. You go to a priest instead of to God. If a priest can absolve you, then why all the penance and other works afterwards? The Bible says if we confess our sins to God He is faithful to forgive and He promises to remember those sins no more. But you don’t believe that Paul, do you. You have made Mary co-redeemer/Mediatrix, when Christ is the only Redeemer/Mediator. Christ is confined to the wafer/host in the sanctuary. He is the Word made flesh and yet you elevate tradition and church teachings on par with the very Word of God. The pope claims to be acting as Christ on earth, but Jesus sent the Holy Spirit in His place to teach and guide Christians.

but I feel absolutely compelled to pray, compelled to go to Mass daily. compelled to partake of the various devotions

That’s the point Paul. You feel compelled to do all these things. I do them because I love God and want to be in church with other Christians, singing, worshiping, praising, receiving spiritual food, etc.

Anyway, I can say the same about you. You have repeatedly ignore the things I have written and the Scriptures I showed you. You can’t find one verse in all of the NT that says a baby was ever baptized. You rely on assumption or reading into a passage something that isn’t there. Jesus was immersed in the river. He came up out of the water. Does that sound like pouring/sprinkling on the forehead? Where in the NT was anyone ever baptized before hearing the Gospel and accepting Christ as their Savior? Why do I bring this up? Because the catholic believes being born-again happens when an infant is baptized.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I used to be Catholic, born, raised, baptized, confirmed, etc. Been there…done that…No assurance that I was doing enough…no peace… Still felt the guilt after I repented. Was told its a sin to miss Mass or eat meat on fridays. A sin to disagree with any teaching of the church. Can’t have salvation outside the catholic church or apart from the roman pontiff. So many traditions that can’t be proven they came straight from the apostles. Many teachings that clearly contradict the Scriptures.

Who says Protestants are worried whether they are saved or not? Bald statements are meaningless. Its the catholic who is taught that to have assurance is committing the sin of Presumption!

Catholics can have assurance that they are in a state of Grace if they have not committed any mortal sin that cuts them off from God.

However, Protestants have little to comfort them but their own individual, fallible interpretations of the Word of God, and there is nothing that suggests that these interpretations are correct.

While one group of Protestants is touting “once saved always saved” theology, another group is stating that you can never really be sure who has REAL faith until the end because it might turn out that one is “overcome” by the world at the last minute. I’m just curious, which of these groups is “rightly dividing the word of God” and which is wrongly dividing it? They can’t both be right—yet both claim scripture as their sole rule of faith. So much for the doctrine of sola scriptura.

When Catholics speak of mortal sin, OSAS Protestants will begin screaming about how “wrong” Catholics are to hold that someone could live a good life according to the Word of God and still lose out on salvation because they are not in a state of grace due to mortal sin at the time of their death. Yet, other Protestants will declare that if one is “overcome” by the world and does not persevere (in what? good works?) to the end, that is evidence that one does not have saving faith to being with!

Our OSAS friends are in a difficult situation for they cannot know for sure right now if they REALLY have that saving faith or not, and they won’t know this side of heaven. They realize (or should, if they are honest) that they could be overcome at some point in the future…perhaps their time of testing has not yet come.

This uncertainty is what drives much of the “good works” of Protestantism—the evangelizing, the tithing, the missionary work, etc. They do these things, in part, to give evidence that they have saving faith that perseveres to the end.

This is the treadmill they are on—and then they condemn Catholics because they mistakenly believe Catholics think they can earn their way into heaven! They attribute this false idea to Catholics because many of them are actually attempting to do that very thing themselves!

+++

So, have you been saved, brother? And how can you know for sure?

 

[paul_c]

I used to be Catholic, born, raised, baptized, confirmed, etc. Been there…done that…No assurance that I was doing enough…no peace… Still felt the guilt after I repented. Was told its a sin to miss Mass or eat meat on fridays. A sin to disagree with any teaching of the church. Can’t have salvation outside the catholic church or apart from the roman pontiff. So many traditions that can’t be proven they came straight from the apostles. Many teachings that clearly contradict the Scriptures.

Who says Protestants are worried whether they are saved or not? Bald statements are meaningless. Its the catholic who is taught that to have assurance is committing the sin of Presumption!

yes, we shouldn’t presume we have been saved. But Protestants talk about being saved all the time, at least on this forum.

Paul, be careful here. You should be concerned. The fact is, you haven’t even dealt with your sins. You think you have via church works and a sacramental system but that’s a false sense of security. You have been taught to believe these things you do in and of themselves, pleases and satisfies God. The Bible says unless you accept the finished work of Christ on the Cross and admit that you are a lost sinner who cannot save yourself, your works are meaningless. Remember Matt 7. Jesus did not commend a single work done by anyone. He cast them all out. They were trusting in their works and not in the work of Christ.

Based on your intepretation of the bible, you are telling me I should be worried for my soul? Frankly, you have no credentials to make me believe you have it right. The Church however, is the pillar of truth.

If I ignored some of what you wrote I apologize but its because Scripture simply doesn’t teach what you claim. And I never said salvation is words of faith. It takes more than belief in Jesus. Even the demons believe and tremble. To believe means to comprehend exactly what Christ accomplished at Calvary.To fully understand that salvation is in Christ alone. Nothing else; not in a church, works, rules, rituals. Jesus is the one we can go directly to. No need for a human mediator. Jesus said He is the Way, the Life and the Truth. No man comes to the Father except through him. You are trying to get to God through yourself and your works. You don’t realize how much your church usurps Christ. You go to a priest instead of to God. If a priest can absolve you, then why all the penance and other works afterwards? The Bible says if we confess our sins to God He is faithful to forgive and He promises to remember those sins no more. But you don’t believe that Paul, do you. You have made Mary co-redeemer/Mediatrix, when Christ is the only Redeemer/Mediator. Christ is confined to the wafer/host in the sanctuary. He is the Word made flesh and yet you elevate tradition and church teachings on par with the very Word of God. The pope claims to be acting as Christ on earth, but Jesus sent the Holy Spirit in His place to teach and guide Christians.

The Catholic Church serves Christ, it does not usurp anything. What makes you think you now have it right, anyway? Why should we believe you?

That’s the point Paul. You feel compelled to do all these things. I do them because I love God and want to be in church with other Christians, singing, worshiping, praising, receiving spiritual food, etc.

I told you I felt compelled out of love, yet you immediately assume its something else. Your biases are showing.

Anyway, I can say the same about you. You have repeatedly ignore the things I have written and the Scriptures I showed you. You can’t find one verse in all of the NT that says a baby was ever baptized. You rely on assumption or reading into a passage something that isn’t there. Jesus was immersed in the river. He came up out of the water. Does that sound like pouring/sprinkling on the forehead? Where in the NT was anyone ever baptized before hearing the Gospel and accepting Christ as their Savior? Why do I bring this up? Because the catholic believes being born-again happens when an infant is baptized.

I didn’t ignore anythiing that I know of, I simply showed you where you were wrong. Why are you so fixated on infant baptism. Its an ancient tradition, alluded to in scripture when the household of Cornelius and the household of the jailor are baptized. It never says in scipture that dunking is the only valid form of baptism. In the Didache, dated 80AD, there is confirmation that sprinkly was acceptable.

 

[brb2]

the Apostle Paul taught that for saved believers to be absent from the body is to be “home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-9). He taught nothing concerning Catholic “Purgatory.”

Not correct. You are ‘cherry picking’ Paul’s testimony on the topic. St. Peter also taught Purgatory as reality.

You might consider serving your purgatory in the ‘here and now’ … by taking up your cross, deny your ‘protestant’ ideas of OSAS, and become united with the Catholic Church.

 

[brb2]

Why do you continue to drive home a false point about a belief to the very people who hold the belief? Purgatory is for the purpose of cleansing the temporal effects of sin, not the sins themselves. Whether you agree with this statement or not, this is what Purgatory is about. It is not, nor will it ever will be, about the sins themselves. We repeatedly tell you this and yet you continue to type this statement.

Excellent rebutal BG32

 

[brb2]

Biblical salvation doesn’t at all rely on the works or sufferings of “penitent” sinners, but solely upon Christ who “made purification of sins” on the cross - once for all. Therefore, no such thing as “temporal punishment” remains for which the believer must atone. But it’s Scripturally revealed that Jesus Himself is the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn. 2:2; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 Jn. 4:10). IOW, the sacrificial death and shed blood of Christ completely satisfied (propitiated) the offended holiness of God because of man’s sins. That is, through the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross God IS propitiated. God looks to only one Man, and ONE alone, as the satisfaction of His offended holiness because of sin: the Man Christ Jesus.

True enuf … for Initial Justification. But, then as Christ told everyone he healed …“Go and sin no more”.

Why did He teach this command … if their / your FUTURE SINS were forgiven IN ADVANCE ?

 

[brb2]

The sins I commit in this world do not follow me into paradise. God dealt with them, once for all, at Calvary, imputing them to Christ, and He DIED in my stead, and rose to new LIFE - and me with Him. In the risen Christ there’s no place for such things as “temporal punishment” or “Purgatory.”

Only if you Fully confess them on regular basis.

Define Apostate for us. Then, realize your above 3 statements don’t cover all Post- Baptismal sins you commit, or address the ever possible apostasy option satan offers you.

 

[moondweller]

Heaven is above.
Hell is below.
The Purging fire, between, is portrayed; where the last farthing is repaid of what you owe before you can be released.

Matthew 5

26 Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing.

Can you show me in the CCC where it states that your Purgatory is the time when Catholics “pay” for their sins? I thought it was about “cleansing,” not paying debts (cf. Col. 2: 13-14).

Frankly, Thing, I really don’t think you can apply Matt. 5:25-26 to your doctrine of purgatory. Certainly you’re reading it into that verse, but what’s stated there doesn’t begin to describe “purgatory.” Who’s your opponent at law you’re to quickly make friends with on the way (on the way to where?) before he hands you over to the judge and you get thrown into prison (purgatory)? What does it mean to make friends with him while you’re with him on the way? You’re in purgatory because you didn’t quickly “make friends” with your opponent at law? Explain that to me, please.