B
BrandenRush
Guest
I do not agree
- Status
L
lgarcia777
Guest
So far you look like the only one who’s written anything that coincides with the bible!
B
BrandenRush
Guest
Thank you for that! You have to take into account, all of what scripture speaks to about salvation (which is quite a bit!) and then you come to the realization that your own salvation has little to do with what you do or can do set aside from your faith in Christ.
G
Gamera
Guest
“You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone,” James 2:24.
A
Ahimsa
Guest
No fair. Martin Luther didn’t like that verse.
B
BrandenRush
Guest
Jesus said to the prostitute who was washing his feet with her hair, “It is your faith that has saved you”. Jesus said to his disciples, “you must accept heaven as a child accepts a gift.” Paul said, we are saved by faith as not to boast of our good works. There are some scriptures as well.
James spoke to a much more out of balance group that needed much to lead them back to the faith. This is surely why he spoke of the works more to clarify what happens when your faith is correct.
L
LittleDeb
Guest
Your whole post is great!!
This particular part was the clincher for me that “Faith Alone” was a terrible interpretation of Scripture. Love is greater than faith. That is very clear in Scripture. It is not just implied, but spelled out! They are not either/or. “Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.” That is also why Catholics don’t subscribe to OSAS. We live in hope too!I keep seeing Sola Fide people joining here. They have one consensus, that the Catholic Church is wrong! However, upon further examination we see that they don’t really agree with each other either. They don’t agree with each other on what “being saved” means. Knowing that I too, started down the path of personal interpretation and/or whatever personal interpretation Pastor Bob or Paster Joe down the street was teaching, makes me sad. I am so thankful that I got back where Jesus wanted me.
I guess this is a plea to all the “Bible Christians” reading here. Please learn Scripture in context! Please learn how ALL of Scripture works together. This verse cherry-picking is just causing division after division in Christianity. Please learn about ALL of Scripture. Go back and read the cherry-picked verses in context. You will see that Faith alone is NOT Biblical.
A
Ahimsa
Guest
And, yet, Jesus didn’t say, “It is your faith alone that has saved you.”
B
BrandenRush
Guest
I have no clue as to who you are talking about here. It looks to me as if you are the one’s who do the cherry picking in scripture. You ignore what Paul teaches about being saved apart from the works of the law and what is really scary but unfortunately not surprising is how you ignore Christ’s own words when he said that one must ACCEPT Heaven as a child accepts a gift. Does that imply earning it?? If what you say is true, Jesus died for nothing then which I can personally attest to is not true.Your whole post is great!!
I keep seeing Sola Fide people joining here. They have one consensus, that the Catholic Church is wrong! However, upon further examination we see that they don’t really agree with each other either. They don’t agree with each other on what “being saved” means. Knowing that I too, started down the path of personal interpretation and/or whatever personal interpretation Pastor Bob or Paster Joe down the street was teaching, makes me sad. I am so thankful that I got back where Jesus wanted me.
I guess this is a plea to all the “Bible Christians” reading here. Please learn Scripture in context! Please learn how ALL of Scripture works together. This verse cherry-picking is just causing division after division in Christianity. Please learn about ALL of Scripture. Go back and read the cherry-picked verses in context. You will see that Faith alone is NOT Biblical.
L
LittleDeb
Guest
You have just proven that you do not understand Scripture. “Works of the Law” are NOT Works. That you don’t know that shows that you have not read Scripture in context. Please, please learn it. You put the term “good works” into what Paul was saying, but now you say, “works of the law.” The terms are NOT interchangeable. Until you learn that you are just digging a deeper hole.
I have to take my son to class so I cannot stay on here for now. I really hope that you decide to understand Scripture. If you don’t you are you are going to end up church hopping until you feel completely lost. Please stop contributing theses divisions in Christianity.
A
ALLFORHIM
Guest
Hi,
First I would like to thank you for caring for us. Im sure you say this out of concern for our souls and I appreciate that. Just know that we do this for the same reason. We care about people souls as well.
I wanted to let you also know that I do not cherry pick verses at all. I have been studying the salvation message in the bible extensively and IN CONTEXT
and the HS has led me to the biblical fact that I am indeed saved by grace through faith and thenI am to do good works soley to glorify God. The fact is the only way we can do good works that glorify God is if we believe and have faith in Him in the first place.
Of course God has to give us the grcae first
(Thank you Lord for saving me
) I dont know it just all makes sense to me.Honestly, I am not allowed to cherry pick verses.:nope: My minister has drilled into my head that the three things you must always know when studying the bible is
- CONTEXT
- CONTEXT
- CONTEXT
B
BrandenRush
Guest
Oh please do give yourself a break maam. Maybe you need to explain what YOU mean by the term “works”. I know what scripture says, for goodness sake, I have quoted from it several times in just a few posts. No offense here, but I do not need you to be my savior ok? I have one already and I know what it took to get it.
A
ALLFORHIM
Guest
Hi again,
I would also like to add that I have looked into the catholic way of thinking regarding salvation(mainly because of this thread ). Then I study the way the bible speaks of salvation and what I keep going back to is if I think I have anything to do with my salvation(such as having to cooperate with it)I am just not trusting Jesus Christ enough.
I have to put my FULL TRUST in Christ and I cant do that if I think I have to cooperate in my salvation to get to heaven.:nope:
I have weighed both sides of thinking and Im sorry but the catholic way ( to me) seems to lack total trust and faith that Christ’s work on the cross was enough.
OK BACK TO TOPIC
I would also like to add that I have looked into the catholic way of thinking regarding salvation(mainly because of this thread
). Then I study the way the bible speaks of salvation and what I keep going back to is if I think I have anything to do with my salvation(such as having to cooperate with it)I am just not trusting Jesus Christ enough.I have to put my FULL TRUST in Christ and I cant do that if I think I have to cooperate in my salvation to get to heaven.:nope:
I have weighed both sides of thinking and Im sorry but the catholic way ( to me) seems to lack total trust and faith that Christ’s work on the cross was enough.
OK BACK TO TOPIC
B
BrandenRush
Guest
I agree with this absolutely 100%. You have put what Jesus was trying to teach us in a very good light here. It really isn’t hard to see it either unless you let things like a very profitable church (business), or others who like to add to what scripture says get in your way and then it really fogs the truth which is so very evident here so many times. Thanks for what you said here. AmenHi again,
I would also like to add that I have looked into the catholic way of thinking regarding salvation(mainly because of this thread
I have to put my FULL TRUST in Christ and I cant do that if I think I have to cooperate in my salvation to get to heaven.:nope:
I have weighed both sides of thinking and Im sorry but the catholic way ( to me) seems to lack total trust and faith that Christ’s work on the cross was enough.
OK BACK TO TOPIC
J
Jaypeeto4
Guest
Actually, LittleDeb is on the side of accuracy.
True, no person can earn the gift of God’s grace,
but “good works” and “works of the Law” are not the same thing.
Paul, Peter, Jude, James all insisted on Christians doing good works, yet all would agree that Christians were NOT to do
the “works of the Law” with a view to attaining salvation thereby.
The “Law” was a COVENANT which you had to obey PERFECTLY in order to be saved by the Law (covenant).
If you broke just ONE itsy bitsy commandment of the Law,
you were guilty of breaking the ENTIRE Law Covenant, and therefore could not be saved. That is why Paul so vehemently opposed the Judaizers in the early Church who wanted Christian Jews to ALSO submit to the Law Covenant, first by being circumsized, and Paul said he wished that those people who were insisting on Christians being circumsized and following the Mosaic Law (covenant) would go all the way and castrate themselves.
But you do have to do good works, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
A regenerate Christian has more than ample power to resist the deadly desires of the flesh and is all the more responsible when he or she deliberately chooses to commit serious sins. Why? Because the Holy Spirit indwelling us impels us to GOOD behavior (works) and gives us ***strength against ***bad works that those under the Law simply do not have. Therefore we are all the more responsible before God if we choose to rob, fornicate, commit murder, etc. We MUST live according to good works done in the power of the Holy Ghost. That’s WHY we are given regeneration (the new birth) in the first place. To save us FROM sin and unto good works.
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
True, no person can earn the gift of God’s grace,
but “good works” and “works of the Law” are not the same thing.
Paul, Peter, Jude, James all insisted on Christians doing good works, yet all would agree that Christians were NOT to do
the “works of the Law” with a view to attaining salvation thereby.
The “Law” was a COVENANT which you had to obey PERFECTLY in order to be saved by the Law (covenant).
If you broke just ONE itsy bitsy commandment of the Law,
you were guilty of breaking the ENTIRE Law Covenant, and therefore could not be saved. That is why Paul so vehemently opposed the Judaizers in the early Church who wanted Christian Jews to ALSO submit to the Law Covenant, first by being circumsized, and Paul said he wished that those people who were insisting on Christians being circumsized and following the Mosaic Law (covenant) would go all the way and castrate themselves.
But you do have to do good works, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
A regenerate Christian has more than ample power to resist the deadly desires of the flesh and is all the more responsible when he or she deliberately chooses to commit serious sins. Why? Because the Holy Spirit indwelling us impels us to GOOD behavior (works) and gives us ***strength against ***bad works that those under the Law simply do not have. Therefore we are all the more responsible before God if we choose to rob, fornicate, commit murder, etc. We MUST live according to good works done in the power of the Holy Ghost. That’s WHY we are given regeneration (the new birth) in the first place. To save us FROM sin and unto good works.
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
B
BrandenRush
Guest
It is so laughable how folks here will try and put words in your mouth or attempt to make you look stupid. I never said or even hinted that works and works of the law were the same thing. The emphasis was on trying to advertly do things to make your chances of salvation more favorable, whether that be works of the old law or works of today such as going to mass and such… That is what I was speaking of. And on those terms, she is wrong. If you truly believe as Catholic doctrine teaches that you must do things to merit yourself in the eyes of Jesus, then you are trying to earn your salvation. This is not the faith that James spoke of and in fact it isn’t faith in Christ at all and above all, it is not even biblical. Salvation doesn’t come from your own merit. This is why Jesus died on the cross. It was for ALL sin and it was truly sufficient. If it was for the criminal who hung next to Jesus, then it is for me as well.
D
djrakowski
Guest
Fortunately, the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that we can earn our way to heaven by good works. I’m including some paragraphs from the Catechism of the Catholic Church for reference:
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.
1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the *sanctifying *or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:
Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.****
********2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:
If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed “very good” since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.
2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord’s words “Thus you will know them by their fruits” - reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.
A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’”
So you can see that the Catholic Church does not teach what you assert it does, and thus, this part of your argument is not valid.
M
mikeledes
Guest
The Bible is certainly screaming!
John 5:28-29
28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
Romans 2:6-8
who “will render to each one according to his deeds”:7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,
Galatians 6:7-9
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Revelation 2:26
26 And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations
It’s screaming against faith alone. Your post also shows a lack of understanding of Catholic soteriology.
God Bless,
Michael
M
masondoggy
Guest
Branden, I really challenge you to study up on the Early Church Fathers. It’s really fascinating reading! Concentrate especially on the Apostolic Fathers who were the very first witnesses to very beginning of the Church. These men were actually students/disciples of the Apostles themselves and witnessed first hand what the Apostles were actually taught by Jesus. You will be amazed at how CATHOLIC they really were!
Check out:
St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch (my personal favorite ), St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Irenaeus…and check out the Didache also…I could go on and on…
Really, check it out. And then come back here and try and tell us that the early Church was not Catholic.
Peace.
ETa, whoops, forgot the link
staycatholic.com/early_church_fathers.htm
Check out:
St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch (my personal favorite
), St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Irenaeus…and check out the Didache also…I could go on and on…Really, check it out. And then come back here and try and tell us that the early Church was not Catholic.
Peace.
ETa, whoops, forgot the link
staycatholic.com/early_church_fathers.htm
M
mikeledes
Guest
Catholic believe that our works are ultimately the fruits of grace and we cannot do anything pleasing to God apart from grace. That is standard Catholic doctrine. It’s a real shame that there is such a poor understanding of what the Catholic Church actually teaches.
God Bless,
Michael
- Status