Jesus was speaking to the apostles and you might have noticed that Jesus said: “But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say to tou, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.” Matt 10:23
That does not apply to us, but you would seem to say that it does by pulling verses out of context.
Why not go down to verse 32 “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
It does not say that I have to confess the church or pope before men either.
Catholics confess the same Jesus Christ as Savior as you do. However, we do not, as a rule, pull verses from here and there to prove a point. We embrace the fullness of Gods Grace, The fullness of Jesus mission and commands, and the fullness of that most Catholic of Canons which both you and we call the Holy Bible. We also believe as we are taught in the Bible that THE Church is the pillar and foundation of truth.
I confess the Lord Jesus Christ alone as my Redeemer and this I can honestly do, since I know that I have been saved eternally by the gift of God through the Holy Spirit, Who sealed me as an permanently adopted born again child of God. There is no such thing as being unborn physically and the same thing applies to never being unborn spiritually. A child of God is forever a child of God.
A parallel between physical birth and spiritual birth will only take one so far. Yes, once a child is born they cannot be unborn. But once a child begins to grow and change and mature all sorts of things can happen.
A child can love their parent at the age of 10 and declare solomnly that they will stand by the parent all their life, and then later they can deny the parent, disobey the parent and turn their back on the parent. The child can become so opposed to the parent that the father has no choice but to kick the child out of his home and not let him back in. Not because the parent doesn’t love the child, who is his flesh, but because the child has rejected the parent by their actions.
I can thank my Lord and my God for that gift of eternal salvation, but you can not honestly do so, since you are not sure in your faith that God has given you that gift, which makes your faith incomplete and therefore possibly of no value towards saving you. You can’t trust or have complete faith in God because you see your life as a form of roulette, where you need to work at being “lucky in the state of grace” at death.
Actually this shows a complete lack of understanding of the teachings of the Church on salvation. In fact it shows a sad lack of understanding of biblical teachings on salvation.
Of course Catholics believe that God has saved them. Why wouldn’t we? However we are intelligent enough to know that we are weak creatures who can lose our salvation by failing to keep God’s Law, “Love our neighbor as ourselves”.
Where you came up with the “Lucky in the state of grace” line I do not know, but that is completely and utterly false. Luck has nothing to do with it. Faith and work and grace will harvest a just reward. Remember that Jesus not only said we must confess him, but also that we must “do unto the least of these”. “Do” requires an action, not just a profession. It requires an ongoing effort to live up to the grace that God has imparted to us through baptism.
You also have to depend on the church for salvation, which means it is not only Jesus that saves you. You believe that you can earn or merit the “gift of salvation”, which the bible clearly tells you can NEVER be earned or deserved, since it would no longer be a gift.
We “depend” on God for our salvation. We depend on the Church to aid us in living life as God wants us to. To help us with the daily living and deepening of our faith.
And Like it or not, you also depend on the Church for your salvation. Because you depend on the Holy bible as your source of truth. You know which new testament books are free of error because the Bishops, under the guidance of the Holy spirit and in communion with the successor of Peter, prayerfully read through and determined which books could go into the Bible. You depend on a Book that you have as a Gift from God through His Holy Church; the Catholic Church.
As to the “merit” argument. Catholics are wise enough to know that we are imperfect saints and perfect sinners. That the road to salvation begins at Accepting Jesus, but travels past many perils and requires work so that we may “become perfected as our heavenly father is perfect.”
Go ahead and laugh at what I have just said here. I don’t fear you, or believe that you or your church can “destroy both soul and body in hell”. Jesus alone is my Judge and Redeemer, and I will put my trust in Him alone for my salvation. Peter is not biblically described at being at Heaven’s gate either. Jesus is the door or gate, and a person can spiritually enter now as a child of Heaven. A born again child of God is only a pilgrim and he becomes a grateful and willing servant of the Lord on this earth, until the Lord receives him finally in Heaven. OSAS makes sense to me.
I would not laugh at you.
It is obvious that your faith is true and strong. Praise God for that.
It is also obvious that you do not know what the Catholic Church actually is. You have many ideas about what we believe, but many if not most are dead wrong, or twisted out of context.
So long as you continue to believe these errors about your brothers in Christ you will spread these errors and that is a sad thing indeed. You are an intellegent person who can communicate well. I hope you will take some time to learn what the church actually teaches. I believe you will find that we are not that different. So much of the “differences” are just plain mis-information.
Peace
James
Essentially, your post describes part of i****t - & a description is not a difficulty. **
**