Respond to Protestant on Works/Grace

[Elijah_Baley]

Said I: Sacraments are the ordinary means of grace. God is not limited to the sacraments — but He did establish them for a reason.

Said he:
To me I read that to say “Work and you shall receive Grace” which is a euphemism for works salvation.

I’m befuddled. How should I respond?

 

[Church_Militant]

I have a short article on my blog that might help. “I Find No Sacraments In the Bible” he said.

I might also suggest Who REALLY Preaches “A Different Gospel”?

See the fact is that anyone who’s read the New Testament can see that salvation is not and never was as simple as so many modern n-Cs make it out to be. There’s a great deal of scripture that speaks about salvation and what it takes and nowhere does it ever tell us it’s the one time event so many are saying it is, and that our actions don’t make any difference. That blatantly contradicts Matthew 25:31-46 as well as the first 2 chapters of James.

You might do a search for CA articles on these topics at catholic.com/tracts.

 

[Mystophilus]

Said I: Sacraments are the ordinary means of grace. God is not limited to the sacraments — but He did establish them for a reason.

Said he:
To me I read that to say “Work and you shall receive Grace” which is a euphemism for works salvation.

I’m befuddled. How should I respond?

“1996. Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.”

You cannot work to earn undeserved favour: a sacraments is a vehicle of grace, not a vending machine for divine rewards.

 

[mab23]

Said I: Sacraments are the ordinary means of grace. God is not limited to the sacraments — but He did establish them for a reason.

Said he:
To me I read that to say “Work and you shall receive Grace” which is a euphemism for works salvation.

I’m befuddled. How should I respond?

I just had a huge discussion on Works/ Grace

I would start with No where does it sate in the Cetechism that we can work our way to Salvation - infact it is condemed has Heresy

but works prove our faith - faith and works go hand in hand - and we are saved by our Faith

you cannot have fatih without works - this is clear in James 2:24

Phil 2:12 - work our you salvation with fear and trembling

the parable of the sheep and goats matthew 25

it is clear in James 2:24 and many other passages that we are not saved by FAITH ALONE - but with faith and deeds - which proove our faith

and it is by Grace alone we are saved - and how we stay saved

 

[fred_conty]

Said I: Sacraments are the ordinary means of grace. God is not limited to the sacraments — but He did establish them for a reason.

Said he:
To me I read that to say “Work and you shall receive Grace” which is a euphemism for works salvation.

I’m befuddled. How should I respond?

Protestants see no merit in works, which catholics know increases the life of God within us, which the protestants do not accept either. To give the protestant point of view, merit belittles the grace and merits of Christ,favoring an external sanctification thru works, and is base self-interest and pharasaical righteousness.

Justification for the protestant is that a person is approved for the kingdom of heaven tho that person is still sinful and corrupt, or is not really clean. Therefore works coming from a corrupt,sinful person cannot merit anything because every action would be comming from a impure person that is still corrupt.

Justification for the catholic is that a person is thru baptism cleaned of all corruption of sin and establishes this person as holy and a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. As a person that is pure and holy, the catholic maintains that he can merit because he is a son of the Father, brother to Christ, temple of the Holy Spirit. And because he is in union with God the catholic is entitled to merit an increase of life of God within his soul by each and every good work because the Father is pleased by his will being done. The Father sees a reflection of his Son in us and
his Son’s work being carried out in us. This in turn makes us the union between us and God a closer one, and this is known as holiness.

So Catholics base merit of increasing the life of God within them because they are in union with God.

Protestants see no basis for merit since that do not recognize the goodness and holiness of the person, and that merit is impossible since the person is still corrupt, even tho stamped as justified for heaven.

This explaination is what that person needs to understand, the difference in theology, based on what justification does and how it works.

Both views are logical, but the starting points and endings are very different.

Just a thought.

 

[thenobes]

Said I: Sacraments are the ordinary means of grace. God is not limited to the sacraments — but He did establish them for a reason.

Said he:
To me I read that to say “Work and you shall receive Grace” which is a euphemism for works salvation.

I’m befuddled. How should I respond?

These are works of God.

Remember Paul says that it is God who works within you both to will and to do. Thus to even assent to the process of undergoing a sacrament is to do the work of God, not excluding the numerous subsequent assents necessary to complete the sacrament.

Is he saying that these numerous assents do not perform a work within us to conform us to Christ, especially in his obedience and faithfulness? And why wouldn’t this increase in faithfulness be the Grace received in the sacrament?

peace
steve

 

[MarcoPolo]

As suggested earlier, the sacraments are God’s work. And since we cannot even have merit unless God’s grace precedes us, Catholics don’t teach “works” salvation in competition with God’s work because it’s God’s grace at work in our work!