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PRmerger
Guest
Just curious: do you believe in reincarnation?
Catholics don’t.
We use a single phrase “it is appointed for man to die once” to support our view.
What’s the Lutheran basis for their beliefs regarding reincarnation?
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Catholics don’t.
We use a single phrase “it is appointed for man to die once” to support our view.
What’s the Lutheran basis for their beliefs regarding reincarnation?
S
spedteacherita
Guest
We use the same phrase.
Christ is the way we enter heaven clean and He’s the only way. He was the last sacrifice and His blood covers our sins for which we repent.
Hebrews 10:10 ESV
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
I’ll let the Lutheran Scholars go back to debating with you…my brain can’t keep up with your fast paced debating!
God bless!
Rita
C
czarlazar
Guest
Confession.
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PRmerger
Guest
Why would you think that purgatory doesn’t involve Christ?We use the same phrase.
Christ is the way we enter heaven clean and He’s the only way. He was the last sacrifice and His blood covers our sins for which we repent.
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PRmerger
Guest
What if you die before you can confess?
Let’s say you’re driving, and you think a very mean thought about a little old lady crossing the road.
And then you are tragically killed.
(Simmer down, folks! It’s a rhetorical question).
This thought is surely not bad enough to send you to hell.
But it has sullied your soul.
Then what?
You go to heaven with that stain on your soul?
Is that the Orthodox position?
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USNA91
Guest
Think of it this way…
Christ opened the gates of heaven to us, and admits anyone who asks (i.e. - Obeys Christ).
What Purgatory does is remove from us the temporal punishments brought upon us by our sins.
This doesn’t meant that Christ’s sacrifice is in any way incomplete. It isn’t, but WE still have to pay for what we’ve done. He doesn’t haul the freight for us so we can simply kick back with our feet up and let Him do all the work.
If salvation were as easy as “I believe!” And presto, I’m saved, then the narrow the path would NOT be…
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PRmerger
Guest
Dear Rita, you are perfectly capable!
Always have a reason to give for the hope you have in you.
Or so says our beloved St. Peter.
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czarlazar
Guest
We don’t know what God will do in his love of mankind, that is a mystery; but we should pray for those that have died, especially those with sin. But this is why, just such an emphasis is placed on fasting and confession in the Orthodox Church. It is better to be caught at the toll house with a blank slate, then a full one.
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PRmerger
Guest
Well, I think the logical conclusion is that you believe in purgatory, too.
You believe, just like Catholics, that there is some mysterious process by which we are purged of our dirty souls before we enter heaven.
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
"We use the same phrase.
Christ is the way we enter heaven clean and He’s the only way. He was the last sacrifice and His blood covers our sins for which we repent.
Rita
Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy."
-Pope Benedict XVI
"The transforming ‘moment’ of this encounter cannot be quantified by the measurements of earthly time. It is, indeed, not eternal but a transition, and yet trying to qualify it as of ‘short’ or ‘long’ duration on the basis of temporal measurements derived from physics would be naive and unproductive. The ‘temporal measure’ of this encounter lies in the unsoundable depths of existence, in a passing-over where we are burned ere we are transformed. To measure such Existenzzeit, such an ‘existential time,’ in terms of the time of this world would be to ignore the specificity of the human spirit in its simultaneous relationship with, and differentation from, the world.
. . .
"[Purgatory] is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints.
. . .
“Encounter with the Lord is this transformation.”…
–Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, p. 230-231
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czarlazar
Guest
In all respect your statement seems to contradict itself.
I don’t know how Purgatory would do something that confession is intended for, can you elaborate on this, if you wish.
It seems like it is incomplete, otherwise why would Purgatory be needed?
And again, I don’t mean any disrespect, but that exactly what this sounds like. Live good and holy, but if you don’t then there is purgatory — again seems to contradict itself.
C
czarlazar
Guest
Well no. What I stated is that it is a mystery.
Through our prayers and offering at the services of the Church, it may help a person, but again this is mysterious. We do not believe in purgatory, and we have no doctrine that states just because you die with sin, you have some “cleansing”. I would actually lean more towards, if you die with sin, you are probably screwed; but again because He is the Lover of mankind - you never know what He can do in his infinite wisdom and power.
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spedteacherita
Guest
Still here…I actually don’t care if there is or isn’t a Purgatory.Why would you think that purgatory doesn’t involve Christ?
Once I’m dead I am assured of life eternal with Him because He died for me and you and everyone.John 3:16 ESV
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 14:6 ESV
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 10:9 ESV
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
John 3:36 ESV
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Romans 8:1-39 ESV
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. …
Blessings!
Rita
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PRmerger
Guest
We, too, say that it is a mystery. Just that the mystery has a name: purgatory.
And you believe that our souls need purgation, right?
Nothing unclean can enter heaven.
And if there’s a wee bit of dirt on our souls…it needs to be…
purged.
How this happens is a mystery. We are agreed.
That it needs to happen, we agree also.
See?
P
PRmerger
Guest
Really?Still here…I actually don’t care if there is or isn’t a Purgatory.
He died for everyone, and that means that everyone goes to heaven?
I’m pretty sure that’s not Lutheran teaching…but if it is, it’s contradictory to Scripture.
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PRmerger
Guest
Really?
Let’s say you are an absolute lover of Christ, just went to confession, then come to the CAFs and make a little snarky remark–let’s say you make fun of an atheist who makes a glaring error here–and then you die unexpectedly. You think you would go to hell for that one little snarky comment? Hell? Eternal fire away from the love of God?
(Understood that you say there’s the possibility of God’s mercy…but you say that “you are probably screwed”. Really?)
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PRmerger
Guest
Let’s say that there’s someone who says Amen! to all of the above verses, and has been baptized in the trinitarian formula, accepted Christ as his savior, but participates in this:Still here…I actually don’t care if there is or isn’t a Purgatory.
John 3:16 ESV
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 14:6 ESV
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 10:9 ESV
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
John 3:36 ESV
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Romans 8:1-39 ESV
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. …
Blessings!
Rita
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=20222&d=1403872669
is he still assured of heaven?
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Tomyris
Guest
As your Pope said, who am I to judge?
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Jon_S_1
Guest
So there are no parameters to Christianity…anything goes…no lines drawn?
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Tomyris
Guest
How did you come to that conclusion?
Edit
A few years ago my pastor told the story of when he went to visit two prospective members, whom he discovered were a ‘married’ homosexual couple who were interested in our church. My pastor explained they were welcome but if they were uh, uncelibate or demonstrative, they really should not take Communion.
We are called to be holy. That does not mean we have arrived.
We have been declared holy. That does not mean it is totally worked out.
There are standards.
And ANOTHER Edit
We actually are in easy driving distance of that fun-loving group of people
which means that we are probably more aware of them than most. I am not sure exactly what they believe about assurance. I don’t know if they know, either.Wayne Gudrem, reformed, wrote a systematic theology in which he basically said that if you really wanted to know whether you were saved, take a brutally honest look at your life: are you growing in charity? Interested in the things of God more than those of the world? He had a list. Where were you five years ago, and where are you now?
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