Roman Road bogged down PT 1

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eleusis

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I need help with detailing exactly why, based on scripture since I am dealing with a “bible christian”, the so-called Roman road to salvation is insufficinent. I am, after 6 solid weeks of daily email discussions and nights of CCD at home cramming to relearn my faith, flat worn out. If some of you might be able to assist me in constructing an adequate answer to the simplistic view he has I would appreciate it. Please feel free to write to me in an email if you want to get long winded, lord knows my fingers are typed out between grad school and defense of the Church.
"what does Roman 10:9-10 teach? Protestants see salvation as three parts: Justification was wrought at the Cross. It is where God declares us not guilty for our sins because He has imputed the righteousness of Christ into our accounts (Romans 4:24-25) This is an instantenous act that happens whenever a person places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the plain teaching of scripture. It is this understanding that we do believe that Roman 10:9-10 promises are true. We understand that it is God who actually draws his people to Himself. Paul records in 1 Corinthians 12:3 that, “No can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” People do not come without the aid of the HS so it is just not a mere vocal profession of faith that is needed. It takes intellectual knowledge, conviction that what you believe is true and trust: a moving of the will. A decision must be made as an act of the will. We believe this is the sum of salvation experiecence as it relates to our past. Every person who has truly (and only God knows these people) accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior can be confident that when they died they will meet Jesus as friend and not enemy. Santification relates to the process of the believer becoming more and more like Jesus. Difference from justification because it is not an one-time instanteneous action but resides with the believer from the moment of conversion until his translation. This will not be the same for every believer. Everyone experiecences the same type of justification but not necessarily the same level of santification. Since we have free-will God allows us to choose to surrender and be obedience or not. That is why rewards are promised to those who are found faithful and good stewards. This is why Protestants and Catholics disagree.
 
You Catholics place santification and justification in the same arena. The scripture do not bear you out and that is why I do not really care what the church fathers state or believe regardless of what century you dig up some obscure writing. If it isn’t in the bible it isn’t so.
  1. All mankind has been accused by God of sin and then found guilty (Chapter 1-3) It culminates with all have sin and fallen short of the Glory of God 2)Recounts how our father Abraham was justified. It recounts that was not for him only but for all those who followed his example. No one in the teaching is there the possibility that you need to perserve or continue in any fashion. It is simple Abraham believed God and the righteousness of God was credited to his account. Chapter4 3) Recounts how the NT believer if he followed in the way of Abraham can have that same justification: He can have peace with God. How can I have peace with God and still go through purgatory. Adam messed up my peace with God and Jesus secures my peace. What peace can I have if I have to work for my salvation and then die and then have to have someone pray my way out of purgatory. I am sorry but that teaching is an insult to all the scripture teach. Chapter 4 verse states we now have reconcilation with God through Jesus Christ. If I accept your teaching. Man was born at peace. Man lose that peace. Jesus comes to win back that peace.(But that is not good enough) because I can still lose that peace and there is something I still need to do to recapture that peace. I am sorry but that is too far of a stretch for me. 4) Chapter 8 promises the believer there is therefore now no condemation to those who walk in Jesus and it promises in verse 33, “Who can bring a charge against God’s elect. It is God who justifies”. Chapter four already told us how one becomes justified. It is by simply believing in his revelation. That being that God sent His Son, Jesus, to become the propiation for our sin. If there is no condemantion to those who are justified what right does anyone or any church have to tell me otherwise. We keep round and round on this subject but ultimately you are trusting in the teaching of your church and your works to secure your peace with God. I am trusting in the finished works of Jesus on the cross. You believe in faith plus work yet I believe it is Faith and Faith alone. You are wrenching more out of these scripture than they dictate. These judgment relate to physical punishment not eternal separation from God. You are not looking at the context. It is important to practice sound hermeneuctics. A proper exegesis would reveal salvation is not even in view here. For example in 1 Cor 9:27 Paul makes the analogy of being in a run for a crown. He is not teaching about what one needs to be to inherit eternal life. Bad exegesis here. What is in view are rewards not salvation. Rich, You need to get saved and dump that Cathesis book you talk about, I’ll give you a good real bible. Become a Christian and join me at my Church."
 
My apologetic skills are very weak so I can’t really help you. But what always stands out to me as someone tries to steer me down the “Roman road” is wondering why St. Paul gets quoted and emphasized so much more than our Lord. Jesus many times in many places tells us that it is our actions (ie, wheat from chaff, whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, good Samaritan story etc. and these are just the ones I thought of quickly) that are at least part of the equation.

Kris
 
Hey, I have got lots of material I can email to you. I got into a debate with one of those guys who make the website appear to be Catholic and then boom, conspiracy’s accusations, twisting around catholic beliefs, and when you try to defend they will try to divert, or quote a scripture, to discount the scripture you used to support your evidence…First, do not allow them to make you a nervous wreck.Second, rember the devil knows scripture and will use it to cause confusion,there are now about 30,000 Christian denominations since the reformation.God Bless You
 
Please somebody help this guy as there is one heck of a lot of confusion over this issue.

No catholic should believe we earn our salvation. Salvation is by God’s grace alone. I would not be joining the catholic church if I thought otherwise or if the catholic Church thought otherwise. No one, but no-one, earns their salvation. Whatever anyone else says Rich, PLEASE KNOW this is the position of the Church. The Church knows it is Jesus who’s death and resurrection brought salvation. Our part? Simply, we have to remain on the ‘narrow’ path to retain the salvation given us as a free gift by God. That’s it. Later, if we choose a different path, or a different way - and reject The Way, Jesus, then although He will pursue us to the end, it’s our choice and out of the free will God also gave us.

Please use a reference Bible and meditate on the verses which speak of continuing and persisting in the faith; working out our salvation in fear and trembling; faith and works being inseparable (James) and all those good things to see how simple it really is. You don’t need to get so caught up in the details or weigh one verse more heavily than another, nor be troubled by one particular verse: See them all in context and see the big picture.

Jesus loved and loves us and wants us to actively do the same to Him and others - or else what is it all about? What does being a Christian mean?

Re scripture: No writing of the bona fide early Church fathers should be obscure or conseigned to the dust, for all they do is support scripture and the early Church which, surprise, (it was to me!) decided exactly which early writings were actually inspired by God and therefore worthy to be called scripture. They didn’t just appear out of the ether on the waves of a disembodied voice saying, here it is, signed, sealed and delivered. Nope, human beings, lead by the Holy Spirit, had to painstakingly decide which writings should be included. These humans were the hierarchy of the early Church. So I for one think it very important to listen to what the early church has to say and having heard and read somewhat about who these people were, I am in awe of their devotion and zeal for Jesus Christ and His people, His Church.

Anyway, it’s too late to still be up but please continue to read, and seek the answers, asking God to help. And when you do, remember to listen to what he says in response!

God bless you and guide you,
 
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Elizabeth:
No catholic should believe we earn our salvation. Salvation is by God’s grace alone. I would not be joining the catholic church if I thought otherwise or if the catholic Church thought otherwise. No one, but no-one, earns their salvation. Whatever anyone else says Rich, PLEASE KNOW this is the position of the Church. QUOTE]
Elizabeth, I do fully understand that and I had that debate with him previously but because we Catholics care about works at all he is fixated with the belief that works=salvation rather than the road to salvation=paved with works. Thank you for your kind words and help.
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They don’t understand what saving faith is, so they don’t know when they are in fact saved. The faith that saves is the humble faith required to be baptized for your salvation, the shocking faith to believe that God is in the Eucharist and the humiliating faith that a priest can absolve your sins.

The faith a protestant has is that of the fickle crowd. It is the faith of the most of the disciples of John the Baptist, sincere and reptentant yes, but they still walked away from Jesus when he said they must eat his flesh to have life.(some are quite clearly walking to the the church and not walking away)

The Lord at the sacrifice justifies us; the Lord sanctifies us at our particular judgment if we die in a state of grace.

Protestants believe they become saints when they declare the lord as savior. They claim that they cannot loose heaven from that point on. They think that they are made better than Adam and Eve even though their fallen human nature tells this is not so.

They confuse the **actual graces ** of the Holy Spirit that pulls us to the church with the **sanctifying grace ** obtained in baptism that saves us. St Paul tells them if you had the faith to move mountains but not the love of Christ within you then you have nothing. Not all graces of God save you. The only way the Love of Christ can be in you is to be in a state of grace. St Paul tells us to be in a state of grace is first to die to sin, original and other, through baptism. And then commit no unrepented sins prior to death. Since this is almost impossible for anyone capable of reading this post then the Lord demands that we eat his body for spiritual sustenance and confess our sins to the apostles and their successors to reclaim our baptismal graces.

They reject that some sins can kill the spirit of God and some can wound. They reject that St Paul says we can loose heaven if we don’t preserver to the end, they reject that baptism and the Eucharist are required for a Christian to enter heaven. They reject that presbyter means priest in English. They reject what the bible actually says. The only true bible Christians are the ones who wrote the bible which are the Catholics.

As for proof texts used by Protestants, read two paragraphs before and after and you will see for yourself that they have severely misquoted the context of the passage. There is nothing a protestant can quote from the bible that denies anything that the church teaches as true it only highlights the errors of the protestant heresies. It really doesn’t matter that they misquote Paul a hundred different times Paul provides more then enough evidence to counter every argument they put forward. Remember a protestant has no defense against the bible when it says *faith without works is dead. * Martin Luther knew it and that is why his first version of his bible omitted the epistle of James!! A 100 strawman arguements can be dispelled with only one spark of truth.

They are so blinded by their hate of the catholic church that can not even agree that reading the bible, going to a service and declaring that the lord is savior is a religious work of faith. Protestants absolutely believe that works are involved in their salvation they just aren’t willing to admit it. The bible makes it clear that there are several different actions that save you, baptism, eucharist, faith and works, etc. protestants reject the bible on this matter and put all of their theology into what they think Paul says about faith alone.

Pray for them when they attack the church because they attack Christ and I know of no way to enter heaven by obstinately rejecting Christ. You can not love Jesus and reject his body.

God Bless

PS with 30,000 different protestant denominations in the world this short post cannot speak accurately about all of them but it does capture much of what Calvin and Luther believed and generally what evangelicals believe today.
 
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