E
elvisman
Guest
When did I say that it was a doctrine of the Old Testament? Boy - talk about reaching for something that isn’t there.
However, it IS prophesied in the Old Testament. Read my last post #220.
Game. Set. Match.
- Status
However, it IS prophesied in the Old Testament. Read my last post #220.
Game. Set. Match.
E
elvisman
Guest
1 John 5:16 tells us that there is such a thing as deadly sin (mortal). This has been denied by mainline Protestantism for centuries - especially the last 100 years.
When a person goes to the church to be released from this sin (confession as prescribed by Jesus John 20:23) he regains the gift that he threw away by committing this sin in the first place. Salvation, indeed God’s grace, is a gift that can be forfeited or refused and even lost.
Ummmm . . . does that answer your question?
E
elvisman
Guest
Please answer my querstion in post# 201.
You stated the following:
’The same church that God predestined before time, the “assembly of all of God’s elect/true believers”.’
**You never answered it and I’m not letting you off that easy . . .
**
N
NonCatholic
Guest
What kind of Baptism are you speaking of?
Explanation of John 3:4 "Water and Spirit"
Nicodemus was a well respected Jewish “teacher of the law”. What water would Nicodemus have thought of? If Jesus said to him you must be born of water and the Spirit, what water would have come to Nicodemus’ mind? Very obvious. The Old Testament water used for purification. He would have immediately remembered that whenever an object or a person was defiled and unclean, that person had to go through ceremonial washing of water which symbolized an inward perfection. That’s what the baptism of John the Baptist was all about, it was symbol of cleansing on the inside.
To the Jews, water meant cleansing. And Nicodemus’ brain would have gone right back, cause he knew the Old Testament, to Ezekiel 36:24 to 27. And you know what he would have read there? “I will sprinkle you with clean water,” and then two verses later, “I’ll put My Spirit within you.” In Ezekiel’s prophecy that God would redeem Israel, He says it will take two forms, I’ll sprinkle water upon you and you shall be clean, the water of cleansing and I’ll put My Spirit within you. That’s what it was. It was a symbol of cleansing. H20 water isn’t even there in verse 5, that’s not talking about water water, that’s talking about purification in the inside. So He is saying, “Except a man be cleansed, purified, he can’t enter the Kingdom of God.” That agent of this purification is the Word of God.
That purification is done by the Holy Spirit using this water. And what is the water? Ephesians 5 says that Christ shall wash His church by the water of the…what?..Word. The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and purifies the soul of a man. That’s what’s here in view. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, this is what that is.
E
elvisman
Guest
Talk about doing backflips to arrive a a false conclusion.
The problem with this Protestant explanation is that it is a mass rationalization.
Do you honestly believe that the Catholic position is that by water baptism, we are cleansed on the outside? Is that what you’ve arrived at? This is nonsense - and it’s a ploy to evade the truthful conclusion.
The poroblem with Protestantism is that if you are going to shrug off the Catholic position on salvation, you must come up with your own. If yours sounds too “Catholic”, well then the scriptures are going to have to fit your explanation. This is what is warned against in 2 Peter 3:16:
"In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures."
**The reason the Early Church Fathers - Great Christian leaders such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Iranaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, Augustine and many others believed as we do is because they, too were Catholics. **
**They understood - in a much clearer sense than you because they weren’t polluted by as many misunderstandings and partial truths as people of today. **
They were men of great faith - unlike the “Reformers” (Rebels) who, in St. Paul’s words, took the scriptures and "distorted to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures."
B
brkn1
Guest
Your completely leaving that comment alone does show remarkable maturity on your part also.Well, that’s just immature, so I’ll leave that comment alone.
Apparently, you’re c**olor-phobic.
**
" be Jesus. Jesus was pointing sometyhing out to him that he should have been familiar with. This is annoying to you because, as a typical anti-Catholic, you’re also not familiar with this passage. **
I think Nicodemus was being rebuked by Jesus. You deduction that I am annoyed by this “unfamiliarity” of the passage again demonstrates your remarkable maturity.
How does God, Himself, sprinkling clean water in a future day on Israelites suddenly become the same thing as what you consider water baptism?
It certainly could not be the same sort of baptism that you subscribe to when you go further on in that chapter to verse:
27 “And I will put my spirit within you’ and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them.”
Oh boy…does that sound like OSAS? I don’t see any “free-willism” in that verse. They are going to do it no matter what. That sure doesn’t happen with your doctrine of baptism.
N
nbtb1348
Guest
You’re beating your head against the wall. These guys don’t believe a person is truly born again until they get to heaven. They deny all the past tense references to people being ‘saved’ in the NT. The reason? IT DOESN’T FIT THEIR EXPERIENCE NOR THE EXPERIENCE OF THEIR TEACHERS!Your completely leaving that comment alone does show remarkable maturity on your part also.
I think Nicodemus was being rebuked by Jesus. You deduction that I am annoyed by this “unfamiliarity” of the passage again demonstrates your remarkable maturity.
How does God, Himself, sprinkling clean water in a future day on Israelites suddenly become the same thing as what you consider water baptism?
It certainly could not be the same sort of baptism that you subscribe to when you go further on in that chapter to verse:
27 “And I will put my spirit within you’ and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them.”
Oh boy…does that sound like OSAS? I don’t see any “free-willism” in that verse. They are going to do it no matter what. That sure doesn’t happen with your doctrine of baptism.
They won’t even answer my request to define a New Testament saint. They don’t want to touch that, because again it doesn’t fit their experience or dogma. What do these things tell you about their condition? Just a thought.
B
brkn1
Guest
Ummmmm…I’m sorry, but it does not answer my question well, but you did ask it very maturely. Thank you.
I agree with those who consider all sin to be deadly. Even the smallest sin will effectively make us guilty of all as the Bible points out.
Every single little sin of the elect must have been taken care of by Jesus’ one Sacrifice or we go to eternal hell. There is nothing that man can do to remit the least part of that sin by man’s own merit. It is totally God’s work to remit that sin by the Blood of Jesus. Saying prayers of “penance” after confession makes a mockery of the seriousness of any sin.
Salvation certainly should not have been biblically called “eternal salvation”, if it could be forfeited, refused, or lost after having once been received.
B
brkn1
Guest
But don’t they see that a person has to be born again in the past tense before death to get to heaven? That must be why they believe in the unbiblical “purgatory”.
Paul called all born again church members “saints”.
W
Walden
Guest
What are you talking about? We are born again of water and Spirit through Baptism before we get to Heaven (obviously). We do not deny anything. We have been saved in that Jesus redeemed all mankind. It is up to us to obey him. We do not believe in OSAS (once saved, always saved). I’m sure you know this.
As to your question about Saints, you rightly see that St. Paul is talking to living people. Repeatedly St. Paul speaks of the one body whose head is Christ (Colossians 1:18), whose energizing principle is charity (Ephesians 4:16), whose members are the saints, not only of this world, but also of the world to come (Ephesians 1:20; Hebrews 12:22).
The reason this confuses you is that you do not believe in the Communion of Saints. Therefore, you logically deduce that saint equals “bound for heaven no matter what”. You’re leaving out free will.
So to answer your question, the people St. Paul is talking about are the faithful on Earth.
I find it hard to believe that you actually think no one in the Catholic Church has thought about this in 2,000 years.
W
Walden
Guest
I just realized that this thread has gone WAY off topic
.
.
N
NonCatholic
Guest
You just implied you can lose your salvation…what a dilemma, since this does make grace, no longer grace. How will you ever “work” out your very own salvation? Can you do it?
You cannot obey Him on your own, no one can? It stems from a misunderstanding of “free will”; this is a paradox in the Bible that goes beyond our understanding. Once God calls one to salvation; who can resist God?.. yet we make the decision to accept or reject, yet if we are the elect, can we reject?..mind boggling! Only the infinite mind of God can understand this in its fullness.
We are way off topic-like you said. Mary of the Bible was a sinner…now were back on topic.
E
elvisman
Guest
Just like an anti-Catholic to choose one line in Scripture and deny all the others that say something else.Your completely leaving that comment alone does show remarkable maturity on your part also.
I think Nicodemus was being rebuked by Jesus. You deduction that I am annoyed by this “unfamiliarity” of the passage again demonstrates your remarkable maturity.
How does God, Himself, sprinkling clean water in a future day on Israelites suddenly become the same thing as what you consider water baptism?
It certainly could not be the same sort of baptism that you subscribe to when you go further on in that chapter to verse:
27 “And I will put my spirit within you’ and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them.”
Oh boy…does that sound like OSAS? I don’t see any “free-willism” in that verse. They are going to do it no matter what. That sure doesn’t happen with your doctrine of baptism.
The verse you quoted doesn’t mean that God will force us to walk in his statutes – it means that he will give us cause to do so. When we are born again, it is our wish – our want to serve God.
If you think that we are forced by God to do only his will then what do you do with Romans 11:32?
"God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all."
E
elvisman
Guest
I think this is a clear-cut case of an absence of thought because it is a complete lie.
You have been told and shown several times on this thread that we believe that we are born again at** baptism**** as Jesus told Nicodemus – but you**** refuse**** to acknowledge that this is our belief. Instead, you post curt little hit-and-run retorts.**
Saints are holy ones of God – set apart to be a servant of Christ. That is the literal meaning of what a saint is.
Your** problem is that you ****don’t **believe that it is possible to fall from grace – even though scripture shows that it is.
As for the references about those being saved (Acts 2:47), we not only don’t deny that – it is our fervent hope – just as yours is to mock God’s Church.
E
elvisman
Guest
Boy, I must have really hit a nerve by calling your comments immature - since you can’t seem to let go of it.
This shows that you don’t have a grasp on the meaning of what sin is.
Mortal sin cuts us off from God’s grace because it causes the spiritual death of the soul.
Venial – or less serious sin - are slight sins that injure our friendship with God – although they do not destroy it. If they did then everybody would be lost because most everybody sins daily – but not everybody commits deadly (mortal) sin daily.
Your assertion that salvation can’t be lost is yet another misunderstanding on your part of what salvation is.
**Romans 11:22 says – “See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God’s kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.”
**Hebrews 10:26-27 says – “If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries.”
*2 Peter 2:20-21 - "*For if they, having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of (our) Lord and savior Jesus Christ, again become entangled and overcome by them, their last condition is worse than their first. **
For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment handed down to them."
These verses are clearly about those who were in God’s grace and LOST it. Don’t twist the scriptures to your own destruction.
You are right about one thing though – it is only through the Blood of Jesus that we are saved. The Catholic Church taught the world that.
W
Walden
Guest
I’ll work it out with fear and trembling. You’re wrong about grace. Grace is a free gift from God. Nothing we can do will merit us that grace. You just can’t separate salvation from justification. Justification is not forensic. It does not happen instantly.
If we are not free to reject His call, then why worry about it? We are either elect or “unelect” right?
And if you can’t understand it as you just said above, then why are you trying so hard to prove it?
You know that wasn’t the original topic. Why would you just tack on a statement like that? Poor form.
B
brkn1
Guest
You are not being honest about Roman Catholic doctrine here.
The RCC does not teach the world “only” and you know it.
Your method of asserting half-truths has become habit-forming.
B
brkn1
Guest
What is so difficult about that verse? It is just saying that all men, including the Jews, are on the same equal ground (in need of salvation), when it comes to receiving God’s mercy.
I’m surprised that you would use Romans as a place to defend RCC doctrine. It is full of scripture that contradicts the “grace plus works” doctrine that the RCC holds to.
W
Walden
Guest
Well, he was responding to your friend with Calvinist leanings.
And come on you guys, it’s Grace Alone that saves us. Faith and works justifies us. NOT by Faith alone! One thing I noticed while I was in a nondenominational church (Birth to 23) was that everyone tried to make Jesus’s words fit in to some epistle of St. Paul. You have to remember that the Pauline epistles were written to certain Churches at certain times for certain reasons
B
brkn1
Guest
I mistakenly used “grace plus works”, when I meant “faith plus works”.
I hold to Faith Alone in what Jesus did for us as the basis of Salvation.
There are works in God’s power that we do after that gift of saving Faith, but those works are what increase our Faith and give evidence that our Faith is real to ourselves and others.
We can never do anything to justify ourselves before God by our works. That is what all false religions believe. The Jews were stumbled by that idea presented by Jesus. They were caught in the works trap of what they had to do to save themselves. The Pharisee praying to himself about all that he did for God, as opposed to what the publican prayed to God seeking mercy is the best example of the stumbling stone (Jesus Alone). It is completely what God does that saves us. There is responsibility on our part afterwards, but that is not what saves or justifies us.
- Status