Category Archives: Salvation

7th Day Adventist, Anti-Catholicism, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Grace, Jehovah's Witness, Justification, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation, Theology, United Methodism

Justification/Sanctification


-by Karlo Broussard

“Protestants within the Reformed tradition are known for making a rigorous distinction between justification and sanctification. They argue that when a believer is “saved,” or justified, what makes him stand righteous before God is merely God declaring him to be so, not an interior state of righteousness (holiness). Interior righteousness, they argue, accompanies justification but is not the grounds for being at peace with God. This distinction leads Protestants of this persuasion to claim that a believer’s right standing before God is once and for all, regardless of what’s in his heart or how much he wavers in his pursuit of holiness (sanctification).

The Catholic view, on the other hand, doesn’t draw a hard line. For example, the Council of Trent taught in its Decree on Justification, “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man” (ch. 7). For a Catholic, God reckons a believer to be at peace with him (justified) because he, by a sheer gratuitous gift, has brought about in the believer through faith and charity an interior state of righteousness (sanctification).

So which view is correct? 2 Corinthians 3:1-9 is one passage that shows that the Catholic view is. Let’s take a look at it here.

St. Paul begins with a prominent theme found in the Jewish prophetical tradition: the writing of God’s law on the heart. He writes:

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (vv. 2-3).

Paul then begins to identify this written letter (law) on the heart as characteristic of the New Covenant in contrast to the Old. He writes:

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God . . . who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit, for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life (vv. 4-6).

This theme of God’s law being written on the human heart in the New Covenant is an allusion to both Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jeremiah 31:31-34 reads:

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. . . . This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people

Ezekiel, in reference to the time when God establishes his “covenant of peace” (Ezek. 34:25), also called an “everlasting covenant” (Ezek. 37:26), foretells what God will do in those days:

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances (36:26-27).

The revelation that God will give a new heart to his people in the New Covenant with his law written on it indicates there was a problem with Israel’s heart in the Old Covenant: they couldn’t keep the law written on stone. This is why Paul says, “The written code [the Old Law] kills” (2 Cor. 3:6) and goes on to call the Old Law a “dispensation of death” in verse 7 and a “dispensation of condemnation” in verse 9. The ground for condemnation was disobedience. The Old Law gave knowledge of what must be obeyed but didn’t give the power to obey.

For Paul, who’s thinking in the same vein as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the solution that he identifies as the New Law is proportionate to the problem. The problem for the people of Israel was an interior matter, a matter of the heart; therefore, the solution must be interior and a matter of the heart as well.

So far, everything we’ve said maps on to what a Protestant persuaded by the Reformed tradition would say happens with sanctification. The trick now is to connect the interior transformation that Paul speaks of with justification.

The key is found in verses 7-9. Paul writes:

Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness, fading as this was, will not the dispensation of the Spirit be attended with greater splendor? For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. Indeed, in this case, what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it.

Notice that Paul calls the New Law the “dispensation of righteousness” and contrasts it with the Old Law, which he calls the “dispensation of death” (v.7) and the “dispensation of condemnation” (v.9). The Greek word for “righteousness,” dikaiosunē, is related to the verb dikaioō, which means to justify or declare righteous. These are the words Paul uses when he explicates his doctrine of justification in his letter to the Romans:

  • Romans 3:28: “For we hold that a man is justified [Greek, dikaiousthai] by faith apart from works of law.”
  • Romans 4:5: “To one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness [Greek, dikaiosunēn].”

This contrast shows that Paul views the result of the Old Law as the opposite of righteousness: unrighteousness. And given what we said above that the result of the Old Law was a heart problem (the problem of Israel that the New Law is meant to rectify), it follows that the people’s unrighteousness under the Old Law was something interior—a matter of the heart. The ground for the legal act of condemnation, therefore, was the Israelites’ interior state of unrighteousness brought about through disobedience.

Now, for Paul, the interior transformation that the new dispensation brings with God’s law written on man’s heart is the proportionate solution to the problem of unrighteousness characteristic of Israel under the Old Law. This is why Paul calls the New Law “a dispensation of righteousness [Greek, dikaiosunēs].”

Since the unrighteousness of Israel under the Old Law was something interior—a matter of the heart, and the righteousness that the New Law written on the heart brings is intended by God to rectify that unrighteousness and make God’s people no longer subject to condemnation, it follows that the righteousness that the New Law brings is an interior righteousness, a matter of the heart—or, as Bible scholar John Kincaid puts it, “cardiac righteousness.”

For Paul, therefore, the ground for no longer being condemned—or, to put it differently, the ground for being justified—is the believer’s “cardiac righteousness,” an interior state of righteousness that God brings about in his soul. And since justification is a transformation of the heart resulting in an interior state of righteousness, we don’t have to draw a hard line between justification and sanctification.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

7th Day Adventist, Anti-Catholicism, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Jehovah's Witness, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation, Theology, United Methodism

Ignorance – Vincible & Invincible

Ignorance is NOT a synonym for stupid.  Ignorance is a lack of knowledge, NOT mental capacity.


-by Jimmy Akin

“In moral theology, ignorance is defined as a lack of knowledge that a person ought to have. Ignorance is distinguished from mere nescience, which is a lack of knowledge that a person has no need of. For example, a person who did not know the square root of 1429 would be ignorant of it if he were taking a test that required him to know the answer, but he would be nescient of it if performing a task that didn’t require the number.

Moral theology divides ignorance into a number of categories. The two I will consider here are invincible and vincible. Ignorance is invincible if it a person could not remove it by applying reasonable diligence in determining the answer. Ignorance is vincible if a person could remove it by applying reasonable diligence. Reasonable diligence, in turn, is that diligence that a conscientious person would display in seeking the correct answer to a question given (a) the gravity of the question and (b) his particular resources.

The gravity of a question is determined by how great a need the person has to know the answer. The answers to fundamental questions (how to save one’s soul, how to preserve one’s life) have grave weight. The answers to minor questions (the solution to a crossword puzzle) typically have lightweight.

The particular resources a person has include (a) the ease with which he can obtain the information necessary to determine the answer (e.g., a man with a good textbook on the subject may be able to find the information with greater ease than a man who lacks such a textbook) and (b) the ease with which he can make an accurate evaluation of the evidence once it is in his possession (e.g., a smart man may be able to evaluate the evidence with greater ease than an ordinary man). The graver the question and the greater the resources available, the more diligence is needed to qualify as reasonable. The lighter the question and the fewer the resources available, the less diligence is needed to qualify as reasonable.

Just as it is possible to show less than reasonable diligence, it is also possible to show more than reasonable diligence. Diligence can be supererogatory (and praiseworthy) if one shows more diligence than would be expected from an ordinary, conscientious person. Diligence can be excessive or scrupulous (and blameworthy) if someone spends so much time seeking the answer to a particular question that he fails to attend to other matters he should attend to, or if he refuses to come to a conclusion and continues seeking even when he has enough evidence.

Depending on its type and degree, ignorance may remove, diminish, leave unaffected, or even increase one’s culpability for a materially sinful act (cf. CCC 1735, 1746, 1859). Conversely, it may have the same effects on one’s imputability for a materially righteous act. Here we will deal only with the effects of ignorance on one’s culpability for sin.

Invincible ignorance removes one’s culpability for a materially sinful act, whether one of omission or commission (CCC 1793). Vincible ignorance may affect one’s culpability for a sinful act, depending on the kind of vincibility. If some insufficient diligence was shown toward finding the answer, then the ignorance is termed merely vincible. If little or no diligence was shown, the ignorance is termed crass or supine. If one deliberately fostered the ignorance then it is termed affected or studied.

If vincible ignorance is merely vincible, crass, or supine, it diminishes culpability for the sinful act relative to the degree of diligence that was shown. If a vincibly ignorant person showed almost reasonable diligence, most of his imputability for the sin could be removed. If he was crassly ignorant, having shown little or no diligence compared to what was reasonable, little or none of his imputability would be removed.

Affected or studied ignorance can increase culpability for a sin, especially if it displays hardness of heart, whereby one would commit the sin irrespective of any law that might exist concerning it. Such an attitude shows contempt for moral law and so increases culpability (cf. CCC 1859).

Potentially, ignorance can diminish or remove imputability for any kind of sin. However, no one is presumed to be ignorant of the principles of moral law since these are written on the heart of every man (CCC 1860). It is possible for a person to be invincibly ignorant that an act is required by natural law. This may be true if the act involves a point that is not obvious, if the person is not mentally quick enough to discern the application of natural law to the case, or if he has been raised to strongly believe in a system that denies the point of natural law. However, such ignorance must be proven, not presumed.

In practical use, the terms vincible and invincible may pose problems for those unfamiliar with Catholic moral terminology. For many, vincible is a wholly unfamiliar term and invincible can suggest that which can never be overcome, no matter how much diligence is shown. Because of these difficulties, it may be advisable in practice to speak of innocent (invincible) and culpable (vincible) ignorance when addressing such people.

However, other individuals (notably radical traditionalists and Feeneyites) may view one as suspect if one substitutes the innocent/culpable ignorance terminology. When addressing such individuals, the standard terminology should be used.

A special case is the application of vincible and invincible ignorance to salvation. Failure to embrace the Christian faith (infidelity), total repudiation of the Christian faith (apostasy), and the post-baptismal obstinate denial or willful doubt of particular teachings of the Catholic faith (heresy) are objectively grave sins against the virtue of faith. Like any other grave sins, if they are committed with adequate knowledge and deliberate consent, they become mortal sins and will deprive one of salvation.

Also like any other grave sins, their imputability can be removed, diminished, unaffected, or increased by the varying types of ignorance. Invincible ignorance removes culpability for the sins against faith, merely vincible ignorance diminishes culpability (sometimes to the point of being venial), crass or supine ignorance will affect culpability for them little or not at all, and hard-hearted, affected ignorance will increase culpability for them.

For those who have had their culpability for sins against faith removed or diminished to the point of veniality, they are not mortal sins and thus will not of themselves deprive one of heaven. A person who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ and his Church through no fault of his own (or, by extension, through his merely venial fault) can be saved-if he otherwise does what is required for salvation, according to the level of opportunity, enlightenment, and grace God gives him (CCC 847, 1260).

In such cases, people are not saved apart from the true Church. Though they are not “fully incorporated” into the mystical Body of Christ, they are “joined” or “related” to the Church (to use Vatican II’s language) by the elements of saving grace God has given them. One might thus speak of them as having been “partially incorporated,” though not obtaining membership in the proper sense (Pius XII, Mysitici Corporis 22).

Unfortunately, there are a number of erroneous views regarding salvation and invincible ignorance that need to be pointed out. First, the fact that someone is invincibly ignorant of the true faith is not a ticket to heaven. A person who is not culpable for sins against faith may still be culpable for other mortal sins-the same ones people of faith can commit-and may be damned on that account.

Second, the fact that someone is invincibly ignorant does not mean that they should not be evangelized. The farther from the center of God’s truth a person is the more spiritual jeopardy they are in. Even if they are not culpable for sins against faith, the fact they are ignorant of the true religion and do not have access to the sacraments means that they are more likely to commit mortal sin and thus more likely to be damned. Christ did not leave us the option of only evangelizing some peoples (Mark 16:15) or of only teaching them some doctrines (Matt. 28:20). Consequently, it is a false understanding of evangelism or a false spirit of ecumenism that would suggest that classes of people can be left in total or partial ignorance of the true faith on the pretext that they are invincibly ignorant and should not be disturbed.

Third, those who have accepted the Catholic faith are in a special position concerning innocent ignorance. Vatican I taught that God gives special grace to those who have embraced the true faith so that they may persevere in it, “not deserting if he [God] be not deserted.” As a result of this special grace, “those who have received the faith under the teaching authority of the Church can never have a just reason to change this same faith or to reject it” (Dei Filius 3; ND 124, D 1794, DS 3014). It then infallibly condemned the proposition that “the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet attained to the only true faith is the same, so that Catholics could have a just reason for suspending their judgment and calling into question the faith that they have already received under the teaching authority of the Church, until they have completed a scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of their faith” (ibid., canon 3:6; ND 130, cf. D 1815, DS 3036). This applies, of course, to those who have genuinely accepted the Catholic faith under the influence of the Magisterium, not those who-though baptized or received into the Church-never actually accepted the Catholic faith due to absent or grossly defective catechesis.

Fourth, some radical traditionalists, those known as Feeneyites, assert that while invincible ignorance might excuse sins against faith, one would not thereby be excused from the necessity of baptism for salvation. This is false, since invincible ignorance excuses from acts of omission (such as failure to be baptized) as well as acts of commission. If one is invincibly ignorant of the requirement of baptism but would seek baptism if one knew it was required then the lack of baptism will not be held against one. This is expressly taught by the Church (CCC 1260). One would thus be recognized as having baptism of desire, at least implicitly.

Fifth, Feeneyites sometimes assert that there are no individuals who are invincibly ignorant of the necessities of baptism and embracing the Catholic faith. This position reflects a misunderstanding concerning what constitutes reasonable deliberation for many in the non-Catholic world. If someone has never heard of the Christian faith, or if he has been taught all his life that the Catholic Church is evil, then it could well be that he would not discover the truth of the Christian faith or the Catholic Church merely by exercising reasonable diligence in weighing the various religious options presented to him.

In many parts of the world it is easy for people to display reasonable but not supererogatory diligence and be invincibly ignorant concerning the Christian faith in general or the Catholic Church in particular. The assertion that there are no invincibly ignorant people also is manifestly contrary to the teaching of the Church, which acknowledges that there are “righteous people in all religions” (CCC 2569; cf. 847, 1260).”

Love,
Matthew

New Testament, Salvation, Scripture

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” -Phil 2:12


-by Karlo Broussard

“Discussions between Catholics and Protestants about the topic of salvation sometimes involve a reference to Philippians 2:12, a passage often quoted by Catholics in support of their view that good works play a role in achieving our final salvation and that it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation. Paul writes, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

“What else could Paul mean?” the Catholic asks.

Well, Protestant apologist Ron Rhodes has an answer. Rather than speaking of an individual’s salvation in the eternal sense, Rhodes asserts Paul is speaking of a corporate salvation that’s temporal and experiential. He writes,

This church as a unit was in need of “salvation” (that is, salvation in the temporal, experiential sense, not in the eternal sense). It is critical to recognize that salvation in this context is referring to the community of believers in Philippi and not to individual believers. Salvation is spoken of in a corporate sense in this verse. The Philippians were called by the apostle Paul to “keep on working out” (continuously) the “deliverance of the church into a state of Christian maturity” (emphasis in original).

Since Paul intends salvation to be taken in a temporal sense (a “deliverance of the church into a state of Christian maturity”), Rhodes believes, he can’t possibly mean salvation for believers in an eternal sense.

How can we respond?

The first thing to point out is that Rhodes is going against the grain in the New Testament by reading salvation in a temporal sense. Throughout the New Testament, including Paul’s writings, the Greek word translated here as “salvation,” sōtēria, is normally used in reference to eternal salvation. So, a natural reading of Philippians 2:12 would be to read it as such.

For Rhodes to interpret sōtēria in a temporal sense—an unusual interpretation, to say the least—he needs to shoulder the burden of proof. But he does not succeed in this attempt.

Rhodes argues that the exhortation to “work out your salvation” is a response to what he describes as “the particular situation of the church in Phillipi.” Rhodes describes the church’s situation as being

plagued by 1) rivalries and personal ambitions (Phil. 2:3,4; 4:2), 2) the teaching of Judaizers (who said that circumcision was necessary for salvation—3:1-3), 3) perfectionism (attain sinless perfection in this life—3:12-14), and 4) influence of “antinomian libertines” (people who took excessive liberty in how they lived their lives, ignoring or going against God’s law—3:18, 19).

The problem here is that each item listed above doesn’t prove what Rhodes wants it to prove.

Take rivalries and personal ambitions, for example. Here’s what Philippians 2:3-4 says: “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

That Paul exhorts the Philippians to refrain from sinful behavior doesn’t mean they’re actually guilty of it. It’s simply a part of Paul’s general moral exhortation that begins in Philippians 1:27—“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that . . . I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” Any type of moral exhortation is going to involve an exhortation to avoid sin, regardless if a person is guilty of that sin or not.

Philippians 4:2 reads, “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.” This is as close as Rhodes gets to identifying problems in the Philippian church. But notice it’s only directed to two people. It’s not the whole church “as a unit,” to use the words of Rhodes.

Next, Rhodes appeals to the teaching of the Judaizers, whom Paul identifies as those “who mutilate the flesh” (Phil. 3:2). But he warns the Philippians in verse 2, “Look out . . . for those who mutilate the flesh,” implying they’re not numbered among the Judaizers. Then, in verse 3, he writes, “For we are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put not confidence in the flesh” (emphasis added). The Philippians are numbered with Paul among those of the true circumcision, not the Judaizers.

Rhodes then turns to Philippians 3:12-14, in which Paul acknowledges that he has not yet attained the resurrection of the dead and that he is not yet perfect, although he still presses on to make the resurrection of the dead and perfection his own, looking forward “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” That Rhodes sees perfectionism as an active problem in the Philippian community from Paul’s acknowledgement that he’s not perfect yet is a stretch, to say the least.

The purpose of Paul’s statements is to remind the Philippians that they too haven’t yet attained the resurrection of the dead or perfection, and that they too should be pressing forward to make it their own. This is an exhortation to be holy and a sober reminder that they could fail to acheive salvation, not an identification of church problems that they need to be saved from.

The last passage Rhodes cites is Philippians 3:18-19, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.”

Rhodes thinks this refers to Christians in the Philippian community, but the next verse shows this is not so. Paul writes, “But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (v.20; emphasis added). Christians in the Philippian community are not the ones identified as the “enemies of the cross of Christ,” they are clearly distinguished from them.

So, the evidence that Rhodes appeals to fails to support his temporal view of salvation for the Philippian church. But is there any positive evidence that Paul intended to speak of salvation in Philippians 2:12 in the eternal sense?

In both the preceding and subsequent context of Philippians 2:12 Paul speaks of eternal salvation.

Consider, for example, the preceding context in Philippians 1:27-28, where Paul contrasts the “salvation” that the Philippians receive from God and the “destruction” of their enemies:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ . . . not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear omen [Greek, endeixis—demonstration, proof, or sign] to them of their destruction, but of your salvation [Greek, sōtērias], and that from God.

The destruction that Paul speaks of can’t refer to a temporal destruction that the Philippians might bring upon their enemies, since Paul is exhorting the Philippians to have no fear and remain faithful when their enemies persecute them. Therefore, the destruction of their enemies must refer to an eternal destruction—their damnation.

Also, Paul speaks of the Philippians’ salvation as coming “from God.” That would seem to indicate Paul is speaking of eternal salvation here.

Now, if Paul contrasts the Philippians’ salvation with their enemies’ destruction, and that destruction refers to eternal damnation, then it follows that Paul intends salvation to be understood in the eternal sense. And it’s that salvation that Paul speaks of in Philippians 2:12 when he says, “work out your salvation.”

We can also look to Philippians 2:14-16, where Paul identifies what “working out your own salvation” involves: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation . . . holding fast the word of life.”

Paul then gives the reason why he exhorts the Philippians to do such things in verse 16: “So that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” The implication is that if on the day of Christ, the Philippians are found to be blameworthy, not innocent, and with blemish, then he would have run in vain. In other words, his preaching would have been for nothing.

Paul is not exhorting the Philippians to be “blameless and innocent” and “without blemish” merely in the sight of men. Rather, he’s calling them to a state of holiness that is a condition to receive their salvation at the Final Judgment. If that’s not a reference to eternal salvation for believers, then nothing is.

So, not only does Rhodes’s evidence fail to support his temporal view of salvation in Philippians 2:12, we have contextual evidence that Paul did not intend salvation to be taken in a temporal sense. Paul was speaking of our final salvation to be received at the Final Judgment. And since Paul says we need to put effort into bringing about that salvation, and that we should do so with fear and trembling, Catholics are justified in appealing to this passage for support of their belief that good works do play a role in our final salvation and that it’s possible to lose it in the end.”

Love, pray for me,
Matthew

New Testament, Salvation, Scripture

Esurientes implevit bonis – Hunger for souls


-“St John eating the book(scroll)”, 1498, Albrecht Dürer, 398 x 289 mm, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruheone of fifteen woodcuts done on pear wood blocks depicting scenes of the Apocalypse.  British Museum, London, UK.  Please click on the image for greater detail.  

“Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.”

Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. And he swore by Him Who lives forever and ever, Who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, “There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as He announced to his servants the prophets.”

Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel Who is standing on the sea and on the land.”

So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’” I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”
-Revelation 10:1-9


-by Br Pachomius Walker, OP

“We who are children of the Father, we hunger for the glory of God and souls to share in that glory. This imagery is captured strikingly by both Saint Catherine of Siena and Our Lord.

First, St. Catherine has a few striking phrases in her Dialogue. While the Father is speaking to St. Catherine, He tells her: “When she [the soul] has attained the third stage of tears, she prepares the table of the most Holy Cross in her heart and spirit. When it is set, she finds there the food of the gentle loving Word—the sign of my honor and your salvation for which my only-begotten Son’s body was opened up to give you Himself as food. The soul then begins to feed on My honor and the salvation of souls….” Or again, “Find your delight with [Christ] on the cross by feeding on souls for the glory and praise of My name.” And even further, “Hungry as they were for My honor and the salvation of souls, [the Saints] fed on these at the table of the most Holy Cross.”

Reading these excerpts, it sounds almost as if God is recommending that Christians eat souls. This sounds quite strange. Is St. Catherine recommending that, perhaps, priests, while in the confessional, start eating souls from imaginary bowls?

In order to illuminate this idea, it is helpful to reference Christ’s hunger for souls and God’s glory. There are at least two instances in the Gospels in which we can see this idea of eating souls and feasting on God’s glory.

In the temptation in the desert, Satan attempts to seduce Christ into making bread out of stones. Christ’s response? “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). We can see here that Our Lord, while fasting and hungry, claims that we are nourished by God’s word. This nourishment is hearty enough to sustain us, even while in the desert fasting.

The second instance in which we see Christ “eating souls and the glory of God” is in the Gospel of Saint John. While the translation is slightly dated, the Douay-Rheims is evocative in this instance. Christ has just won the soul of a Samaritan woman, who has gone to tell the townspeople about her interaction with Christ. Meanwhile, sitting beside the well, Christ’s apostles come to him offering food. His response shows us just how nourishing winning souls for the Kingdom can be: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work” (John 4:34). The use of the word “meat” in this passage communicates the heartiness of the nourishment.

Returning to St. Catherine, the hunger for souls and the glory of God does not mean that we are consuming other people in spiritual cannibalism. Rather, similar to Saint Paul, our love for God manifests itself in a compulsion to spread His name and to feast on His glory that can be thought of as a spiritual hunger (cf. 1 Cor 9:16). We are driven to seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls in the way a starving man seeks food—the desire consumes us.”

“When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.”
— Revelation 6:5–6 NASB

The third Horseman rides a black horse and is popularly understood to be Famine as the Horseman carries a pair of balances or weighing scales (Greek ζυγὸν, zygon), indicating the way that bread would have been weighed during a famine. In the passage, it is read that the indicated price of grain is about ten times normal (thus the famine interpretation popularity), with an entire day’s wages (a denarius) buying enough wheat for only one person (one choenix, about 1.1 litres), or enough of the less nutritious barley for three, so that workers would struggle to feed their families.

Love, and hungry for my own salvation and that of others. Pray for me.
Matthew

7th Day Adventist, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Heaven, Jehovah's Witness, Justification, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation, United Methodism

Justification/Sanctification 3


-please click on the image for greater detail

We must have sanctifying grace in our souls if we’re to be equipped for heaven. Another way of saying this is that we need to be justified. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

The Protestant misunderstanding of justification lies in its claim that justification is merely a legal declaration by God that the sinner is now “justified.” If you “accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior,” he declares you justified, though He doesn’t really make you justified or sanctified; your soul is in the same state as it was before, but you’re eligible for heaven.

A person is expected thereafter to undergo sanctification (don’t make the mistake of thinking Protestants say sanctification is unimportant), but the degree of sanctification achieved is, ultimately, immaterial to the question of whether you’ll get to heaven. You will, since you’re justified; and justification as a purely legal declaration is what counts.

Unfortunately, this amounts to God telling an untruth by saying the sinner has been justified, while all along He knows that the sinner is only covered under the “cloak” of Christ’s righteousness. But, what God declares, He does. That’s a primary and distinguishing difference between mortals and the divine. When God speaks, it is, it happens, it is so. “[S]o shall my word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Is. 55:11). So, when God declares YOU justified, He makes YOU justified. YOU, not by some disguise, even the disguise of His only begotten Son, but ACTUALLY, ACTUALLY YOU!!!! Any justification that is not woven together with sanctification is no justification at all.

The Bible’s teaching on justification is much more nuanced. Paul indicates that there is a real transformation that occurs in justification. This is seen, for example, in Romans 6:7, which every standard translation—Protestant ones included—renders as “For he who has died is freed from sin” (or a close variant).

Paul is obviously speaking about being freed from sin in an experiential sense, for this is the passage where he is at pains to stress the fact that we have made a decisive break with sin that must be reflected in our behavior: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1-2). “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:12-13).

The context here is what Protestants call sanctification, the process of being made holy. Sanctification is the sense in which we are said to be “freed from sin” in this passage. Yet in the Greek text, what is actually said is “he who has died has been justified from sin.” The term in Greek (dikaioo) is the word for being justified, yet the context indicates sanctification, which is why every standard translation renders the word “freed” rather than “justified.” This shows that, in Paul’s mind, justification involves a real, experiential freeing from sin, not just a change of legal status, a legal disguise. And it shows that, the way he uses terms, there is not the rigid wall between justification and sanctification that Protestants imagine.

According to Scripture, sanctification and justification aren’t just one-time events, but are ongoing processes in the life of the believer. As the author of Hebrews notes: “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). In regard to justification also being an ongoing process, compare Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6 with both Hebrews 11:8; Genesis 12:1-4 and James 2:21-23; Genesis 22:1-18. In these passages, Abraham’s justification is advanced on three separate occasions.

Can Justification Be Lost?

Many Protestants go on to say that losing ground in the sanctification battle won’t jeopardize your justification. You might sin worse than you did before “getting saved,” but you’ll enter heaven anyway, because you can’t undo your justification.

Calvin taught the absolute impossibility of losing justification. Luther said it could be lost only through the sin of unbelief; that is, by undoing the act of faith and rejecting Christ, but not by what Catholics call mortal sins.

The truth is if you sin grievously, the supernatural life, the sanctifying grace, in your soul flees back to God. Sin is mortal in that it kills the life of God’s supernatural grace in us. It’s not so much God’s grace is vanquished, but moreso, it flees sin since it belongs to and is only in accord with the divine life, and nothing else. God’s eternal life giving grace cannot/will not co-exist with serious sin. It is impossible. Nature abhors a vacuum, it fills it.  Grace also abhors the vacuum of sin, it abandons the soul so stained.

Sin is the absence of God’s grace. Evil is the absence of good, of God. Both sin and evil are vacuums. They are not ontological beings unto themselves, but absences of grace and of good and of God. God’s grace, His Life in YOU cannot tolerate the vacuum of sin in YOU or in Heaven. God’s grace in you must be full, Lk 1:28. Otherwise, just like the Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculately conceived, without the vacuum of original sin, God could not dwell, literally, within her or us.

We MUST have His life giving grace, His sanctifying grace within us, to be saved, to be united with the Godhead in eternity, Heaven. We then are truly justified, not covered in some disguise, but truly mirroring God in His own grace, personally; His eternal gift to us in Jesus Christ.

Love & truth,
Matthew

Salvation, Suffering, Theodicy, Theology

Eternal and temporal divine punishment – the Cross & efficacy of the suffering of the baptized


-“Christ on the Cross with Saints Vincent Ferrer, John the Baptist, Mark and Antoninus”, by Master of the Fiesole Epiphany (Italy, Florence, active circa 1450-1500), painting, tempera and oil (?) on panel, 72 3/4 x 79 3/4 in. (184.79 x 202.57 cm); framed: 120.0787 x 114.17 x 18.90 in. (305 x 290 x 48 cm); sight: 79 1/4 in. (201.295 cm), Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Please click on the image for greater clarity.

There is evidence in Scripture for the doctrine of temporal punishment to repair damage even after the sin is forgiven. Thus even though his sin of doubting God’s word had been forgiven, Moses was still not allowed to enter the Promised Land. (Deuteronomy 32:51–52) David was forgiven his adultery with Bathsheba, but still he had to endure the pain of seeing the child die. (2 Samuel 12:1-23)

The punishments of sin

“CCC 1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life [Ed. mortal sin kills the life of grace within us], the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of (unthinking) vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. [Ed. the fulfillment of justice due to transgressions against God.  The state does not seek vengeance, but rather to fulfill justice, to the extent possible, and how one society understands, justice.] A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.84

CCC 1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin [Ed. through the superabundant sacrifice of Christ on the Cross], but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.” cf Eph 4:22, 24.”

Sin has TWO consequences since it offends God. As a bad analogy, if you throw something like a brick at a head of state, rather than someone on the lowest social rung, apologies to the inherent dignity of man, the offense is considered greater. If you offend God, since God is infinite, your offense is infinite, and cannot be redeemed…except by God.

Even when Christ had died and risen and redeemed us from our eternal punishment due to offending God, there is still the temporal justice. The car/money must be restituted to its rightful owner, the damage must be repaired/paid for, the prosecution/sentence of imprisonment must be served. This should make complete sense to us, this temporal punishment in this life. It is nothing other than what we try to achieve for victims each and every day. And, yet, we know justice is not allows perfect in this life nor proportionate it would seem. Where is the righteousness in that reality? As in all things, it lies with God. “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” -Lk 12:7. “Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” -Mt 5:26. God, by His promises, will bring ultimate justice to pass. Justice is a real mercy to the offended. Thomas Aquinas tells us one of the joys of the saved will be watching the punishment of the damned: ST., SUPPL., Q. 94.


-by Karlo Broussard

“….But simply waiting to arrive at the threshold of that door (of salvation) while I’m going through tremendous suffering here and now doesn’t seem to be much of a hopeful message.”

I agree. But God reveals that the path to the threshold is not one of waiting but an active participation in God’s providence of leading our own souls, and the souls of others, to salvation.

Consider how suffering can contribute to our obtaining eternal life. St. Paul teaches us that we can make our sufferings a sacrificial offering to God: “I urge you, brothers and sisters . . . to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Rom. 12:1).

Christianity makes it possible for suffering to be used for good rather than wasted. When done through Jesus it can actually be transformed into an act of worship, and thus an act of love for God, which in turn will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven.

So we can love God through our suffering.

Moreover, when animated by love for God, suffering has the potential to conform us to Christ and make us more like him. As St. Peter says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.” (1 Pet. 2:21).

By uniting our suffering to Christ and offering it to God in self-sacrificial love we become like Christ, Who offered His suffering in self-sacrificial love so that we might receive the reward of eternal life.

In this ultimate gift, we see that suffering not only can play a role in our own salvation but also in helping others obtain salvation.

Consider, for example, what St. Paul says in Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church.”

The Church has never understood this to mean Christ’s death was insufficient on an objective level. As the Catechism says, Christ “makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience of Adam” (CCC 411; emphasis added; cf. Summa Theologiae III:48:2). Rather, Christ intends for us to actively participate in that part of his redemptive work in which we are able to share, namely making satisfaction for the debt of temporal punishment due to the sin.

Satisfaction is an act whereby a sinner, out of love, willfully embraces some form of suffering, whether imposed by God (e.g., illness, natural disaster) or self-imposed (e.g., fasting, abstinence from physical pleasures), in order to remit the debt of punishment due for sin.

But because we’re finite, and thus unable to make satisfaction for the eternal debt of sin, we can only make satisfaction for the temporal debt of sin. And it’s that aspect of satisfaction that Christ wills for us to actively participate in, not only for ourselves but also for others.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that given the bond of charity among members of Christ’s Mystical Body, making us “all one in Christ” (Gal. 3:28), “the work that is done for another becomes his for whom it is done: and in like manner the work done by a man who is one with me is somewhat mine” (ST Suppl. 71:1). St. Paul hints at this principle in 1 Corinthians 12:26: “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

The rewards for such works can’t pertain to the state of another person’s soul, such as putting him in a right relationship with God here on earth and beatitude in eternal life. But the rewards for these works done for another can pertain to remission of the debt of temporal punishment.

By virtue of the bond of charity, the satisfactory value of one Christian’s penitential works can be applied to another Christian for the remission of his or her debt of temporal punishment. Again, Aquinas explains,

“Since those who differ as to the debt of punishment, may be one in will by the union of love, it happens that one who has not sinned, bears willingly the punishment for another: thus even in human affairs we see [people] take the debts of another upon themselves” (ST I-II:87:7; emphasis added).”  [Ed. the Treasury of Merit]

Like Christ, we can suffer in the place of fellow members of Christ’s Mystical Body, enduring the pain merited by our brothers’ sins, and thus become “secondary and subordinate redeemers.”

This is what St. Paul meant in Colossians 1:24. For Paul, Christ wills to associate us with his redeeming work on the cross in applying the merits of his passion and death to others, at least with regard to the remission of temporal debt. And inasmuch as the debt of temporal punishment serves as an obstacle to one’s relationship with God, our efforts to help remove such debt for others contributes to their salvation.

So, the suffering wrought by Covid-19 might be a discordant note in God’s original score. But he’s revealed that with that discordant note he wills to write a whole new symphony. And we’re all called to be active participants in it.

We can trust that in the end the symphony will be a beauty to behold. And we’ll be able to say with Paul, “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55).

Love, & Holy Thursday,
Matthew

7th Day Adventist, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Jehovah's Witness, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation, United Methodism

Assurance of salvation?


from: https://www.catholic.com/tract/assurance-of-salvation

“There are few more confusing topics than salvation. It goes beyond the standard question posed by Fundamentalists: “Have you been saved?” What the question also means is: “Don’t you wish you had the assurance of salvation?” Evangelicals and Fundamentalists think they do have such an absolute assurance.

All they have to do is “accept Christ as their personal Savior,” and it’s done. They might well live exemplary lives thereafter, but living well is not crucial and does not affect their salvation. But is this true? Does the Bible support this concept?

Scripture teaches that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus Himself tells us, “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). One who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace) will go to heaven. The one who dies in a state of enmity and rebellion against God (the state of mortal sin) will go to hell.

For many Fundamentalists and Evangelicals it makes no difference—as far as salvation is concerned—how you live or end your life. You can announce that you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, and, so long as you really believe it, you’re set. From that point on there is nothing you can do, no sin you can commit, no matter how heinous, that will forfeit your salvation. You can’t undo your salvation, even if you wanted to.

Take a look at what Wilson Ewin, the author of a booklet called There is Therefore Now No Condemnation, says. He writes that “the person who places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood shed at Calvary is eternally secure. He can never lose his salvation. No personal breaking of God’s or man’s laws or commandments can nullify that status.”

“To deny the assurance of salvation would be to deny Christ’s perfect redemption,” argues Ewin, and this is something he can say only because he confuses the redemption that Christ accomplished for us objectively with our individual appropriation of that redemption. The truth is that in one sense we are all redeemed by Christ’s death on the cross—Christians, Jews, Muslims, even animists in the darkest forests (1 Tim. 2:6, 4:10; 1 John 2:2)—but our individual appropriation of what Christ provided is contingent on our response.

Certainly, Christ did die on the cross once for all and has abundantly provided for our salvation, but that does not mean that there is no process by which this is applied to us as individuals. Obviously, there is, or we would have been saved and justified from all eternity, with no need to repent or have faith or anything else. We would have been born “saved,” with no need to be born again. Since we were not, since it is necessary for those who hear the gospel to repent and embrace it, there is a time at which we come to be reconciled to God. And if so, then we, like Adam and Eve, can become unreconciled with God and, like the prodigal son, need to come back and be reconciled again with God.

You Can’t Lose Heaven?

Ewin says that “no wrong act or sinful deed can ever affect the believer’s salvation. The sinner did nothing to merit God’s grace and likewise he can do nothing to demerit grace.” But when one turns to Scripture, one finds that Adam and Eve, who received God’s grace in a manner just as unmerited as anyone today, most definitely did demerit it—and lost grace not only for themselves but for us as well (cf. also Rom. 11:17-24).

Regarding the issue of whether Christians have an “absolute” assurance of salvation, regardless of their actions, consider this warning Paul gave: “See then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in His kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.” (Rom. 11:22; see also Heb. 10:26–29, 2 Pet. 2:20–21).

Can You Know?

Related to the issue of whether one can lose one’s salvation is the question of whether one can know with complete certainty that one is in a state of salvation. The “knowability” of salvation is a different question than the “loseability” of salvation.

From the Radio Bible Class, listeners can obtain a booklet called Can Anyone Really Know for Sure? The anonymous author says the “Lord Jesus wanted his followers to be so sure of their salvation that they would rejoice more in the expectation of heaven than in victories on earth. ‘These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God (1 John 5:13).’”

Places where Scripture speaks of our ability to know that we are abiding in grace are important and must be taken seriously. But they do not promise that we will be protected from self-deception on this matter. Even the author of Can Anyone Really Know for Sure? admits that there is a false assurance: “The New Testament teaches us that genuine assurance is possible and desirable, but it also warns us that we can be deceived through a false assurance. Jesus declared: ‘Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord” shall enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21).”

Sometimes Fundamentalists portray Catholics as if they must every moment be in terror of losing their salvation since Catholics recognize that it is possible to lose salvation through mortal sin. But this portrayal is in error. Catholics do not live lives of mortal terror concerning salvation. True, salvation can be lost through mortal sin, but such sins are by nature grave ones, and not the kind that a person living the Christian life is going to slip into committing on the spur of the moment, without deliberate thought and consent. Neither does the Catholic Church teach that one cannot have an assurance of salvation. This is true both of present and future salvation.

One can be confident of one’s present salvation. This is one of the chief reasons why God gave us the sacraments—to provide visible assurances that he is invisibly providing us with His grace. And one can be confident that one has not thrown away that grace by simply examining one’s life and seeing whether one has committed mortal sin. Indeed, the tests that John sets forth in his first epistle to help us know whether we are abiding in grace are, in essence, tests of whether we are dwelling in grave sin. For example, “By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10), “If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20), “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3).

Likewise, by looking at the course of one’s life in grace and the resolution of one’s heart to keep following God, one can also have an assurance of future salvation. It is this Paul speaks of when he writes to the Philippians and says, “And I am sure that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). This is not a promise for all Christians, or even necessarily all in the church at Philippi, but it is a confidence that the Philippian Christians in general would make it. The basis of this is their spiritual performance to date, and Paul feels a need to explain to them that there is a basis for his confidence in them. Thus he says, immediately, “It is right for me to feel thus about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” (1:7).

There are many saintly men and women who have long lived the Christian life and whose characters are marked with profound spiritual joy and peace. Such individuals can look forward with confidence to their reception in heaven.

Such an individual was Paul, writing at the end of his life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day” (2 Tim. 4:7-8). But earlier in life, even Paul did not claim an infallible assurance, either of his present justification or of his remaining in grace in the future. Concerning his present state, he wrote, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified [Greek,, dedikaiomai]. It is the Lord Who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:4). Concerning his remaining life, Paul was frank in admitting that even he could fall away: “I pummel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). Of course, for a spiritual giant such as Paul, it would be quite unexpected and out of character for him to fall from God’s grace. Nevertheless, he points out that, however much confidence in his own salvation he may be warranted in feeling, even he cannot be infallibly sure either of his own present state or of his future course.

The same is true of us. We can, if our lives display a pattern of perseverance and spiritual fruit, have not only a confidence in our present state of grace but also of our future perseverance with God. Yet we cannot have an infallible certitude of our own salvation. There is the possibility of self-deception (cf. Matt. 7:22-23). There is also the possibility of falling from grace through mortal sin, and even of falling away from the faith entirely, for as Jesus told us, there are those who “believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away” (Luke 8:13). It is in the light of these warnings and admonitions that we must understand Scripture’s positive statements concerning our ability to know and have confidence in our salvation. Assurance we may have; infallible certitude we may not.

For example, Philippians 2:12 says, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” This is not the language of self-confident assurance. Our salvation is something that remains to be worked out.

What to Say

“Are you saved?” asks the Fundamentalist. The Catholic should reply: “As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:18, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13).”

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

Love, trusting in His mercy & promises, I would say, “Praised be Jesus Christ!!!!  True God & true man.”,
Matthew

7th Day Adventist, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Jehovah's Witness, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation

Are you saved?


-by Tim Staples, Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps.

“Do you know you’re saved so that if you were to die right now, heaven would be absolutely certain for you?” This “all-important” question is designed to bait Catholics into an ambush. When I speak at conferences around the country, I often ask the attendees how many have been asked that question by a Fundamentalist or Evangelical: Usually, over half of my Catholic audience raises a hand.

If the Catholic responds as any good Catholic would by declaring he cannot—apart from a special revelation from God—have metaphysical (or absolute) certainty concerning his salvation, the Protestant then springs his biblical trap, 1 John 5:13: “I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” Next he tells the Catholic that if he will but “confess with [his] lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in [his] heart that God raised him from the dead, [he] will be saved” (Rom 10:9-10). All we need do is confess Jesus as Lord, and salvation is assured. We can know it with certainty. Salvation is guaranteed regardless of anything we may do or not do in the future. What a deal!

The Catholic Response

Step One: The Greek word for knowledge (eideitei) in 1 John 5:13 does not necessarily equate to absolute certainty. We use the verb know the same way in English. For example, I may say I know I am going to get an A on my Greek exam tomorrow. Does that mean I have metaphysical certainty of this? Not at all. What I mean and what the verb know can be used to indicate is that I have confidence that I will get an A on my test tomorrow because I have studied the material thoroughly and I know it well.

The context of 1 John makes it abundantly clear that this is how “knowledge” is being used in 1 John 5:13. In the next two verses, John draws a parallel between the certainty we have concerning our salvation and the certainty we have when we petition God in prayer: “And this is the confidence which we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of Him.”

Does this mean we have absolute certainty we will receive what we ask for when we make requests of God in prayer? Obviously not! John says we can have “confidence,” but not absolute certainty. We cannot always know with strict certainty that our request is truly “according to His will.” Moreover, Psalm 66:18 informs us: “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” And 1 John 3:22 says, “. . . we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him.” Can we always be certain we have not “cherished iniquity” in our hearts, or that we have not done anything that may have displeased the Lord?

Step Two: Our salvation is contingent upon many things according to the Bible. This indicates the certainty of our salvation is not absolute. Just a few examples include 1 John 1:8-9: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The text says we will be forgiven if. Thus, the sobering truth is: Unconfessed sin will not be forgiven. And the Bible is very clear that no sin can enter into heaven (see Hb 1:13; Rv 21:8-9, 27).

I have heard it said that if is “the biggest little word” in the English dictionary. Well, Scripture has lots of ifs. John, for example, also says: “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is what He has promised us, eternal life” (1 Jn 2:24-25).

This passage is plain. Our eternal life is contingent upon our choosing to abide in God. Can we choose the opposite? Absolutely! John goes on to explain: “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as He is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil . . . No one born of God commits sin . . .” (1 Jn 3:6-9).

On the surface, this text seems odd. We have already heard John say that everyone who is born of God does sin. Indeed, “all” sin. Yet, here he says those who are born of God do not sin. Is John contradicting himself? No: John makes a distinction between mortal and venial sins in this same epistle. In 1 John 5:16-17, John gives us remarkably plain definitions of both mortal and venial sins. “If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal . . . All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.”

In this context, we can reasonably conclude the one who is born of God does not commit mortal sin. If he were to do so, he would be “cut off” from the body of Christ and would need to be restored via confession to a state of grace (Cf. Gal 5:4, Eph 3:3-6, Jn 20:21-23). Three more texts about the contingency of salvation bolster the argument:

  • 1 Corinthians 15:1-2: “Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.” (See also Matthew 24:44-51; Luke 12:41-46; Romans 11:22; Hebrews 3:6;14; Revelation 2:10; 25-26; 3:1-5; 22:18-19, for many more “ifs” and contingency clauses.)
  • Colossians 1:21-23: “And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard . . .”
  • 2 Peter 2:20-22: “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first . . . It has happened to them according to the true proverb, the dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.”

The Evangelical Counter

In response, the Protestant apologist will sometimes say these texts do not indicate one who was truly saved could actually lose his salvation. The one who, in the end, did not continue with the Lord, never really knew the Lord in the first place. He only knew about the Lord. But this line of reasoning does not hold up under scrutiny. In 2 Peter 2, the Greek word used for knowledge is epignosei. This word means “knowledge,” but it denotes an experiential knowledge. This text is very clear that the persons referred to have “escaped the pollutions of the world” through this “experiential knowledge” of Jesus. Only a personal relationship with Jesus can have this effect. Merely knowing about Jesus cannot do that. Moreover, the image Peter uses in verse 22 is of the sow having been washed in water. Water is the symbol Peter uses for baptism in 1 Peter 3:20-21. The connection seems obvious. The sow—female pig—which had been cleansed represents a person cleansed from sin; the sow returning to the mud represents the Christian returning to sin.

When seen in the fuller context of 2 Peter, this point becomes unmistakable. In 2 Peter 1:2-4, Peter begins with a description of Christians:

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge [epignosei, experiential knowledge once again] of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge [epignosei] of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”

One cannot help but see the parallels between these two texts. The same Greek words, epignosei, apophugentes, “having escaped from,” and a form of kosmos or “world,” are used to describe what Christians have been freed from, as well as to describe the one who then goes back to his old ways and ends up worse than he was before he ever knew Jesus.

These are just a few texts among the scores we could examine, but the bottom line is Scripture is crystal-clear on this point: Once saved does not mean always saved. In Matthew 6:15, Jesus tells us that “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” It does not matter how “born again” one may be or how many experiences one has had, if he does not forgive others, he will not be forgiven, according to the text. And remember—as we have seen—no sin can enter into heaven (cf. Hb 1:13, Rv 21:27). Further, the Bible says we can “fall from grace” (Gal 5:1-5, Heb 12:14-16), be “cut off” from the vine from which we receive divine life (Jn 15:1-6, Rom 11:18-22), have our names removed from the Lamb’s book of life (Rv 22:19), and it assures us over and over again that if we commit certain sins and we do not repent of them, we will not go to heaven (cf. 1 Cor 6:9-11, Gal 5:19, Eph 5:3-5, Rv 21:6-8).

Not Once, But Many Times

But what about Romans 10:9-10? Doesn’t the Bible say if you believe in your heart and confess Jesus with your mouth you shall be saved? Yes it does, but that doesn’t mean we need only confess faith in Christ one time. The Bible uses the same Greek word for confess, homologeitai, in multiple places and emphasizes we must continue to confess Christ if we are going to be finally saved. For example, in Matthew 10:22, 32 Jesus says, “You will be hated by all because of my name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.. . . Therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my father who is in heaven. . . .” (NAB). The context here is one of holding fast to our confession until death (see also 2 Tm 2:12 and Heb 4:14; 10:23-26).

Finally, confessing Christ is done not only in word, but also in deed: “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tm 5:8).

Notice, the man who neglects his family for selfish pursuits denies Christ in his actions. And as we have seen, the Bible records in many places extensive lists of sins whereby we can deny Christ, such as 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Scripture never says the saved can do these things and still go to heaven.”

Love, and His mercy, trusting in the promises of the Lord,
Matthew

Heresy, Salvation, Universalism

The Heresy of Universalism, opiate of theologians…


-The Awesome Judgement — icon of the Second Coming. From Christ a river flows forth: it is radiant like a golden light at the upper end of it, where the saints are. At its lower end, the same river is fiery, and it is in that part of the river that the demons and the unrepentant are depicted.


-by Trent Horn

“The prolific author and Eastern orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has just released a new book that covers a very old topic: Universalism, or the belief that all creatures will definitely be saved. In his new book That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation, Hart argues that eventually all people (which may include fallen angels, though Hart doesn’t explicitly come out and say it) will spend eternity with God in heaven. That’s because an eternal hell is supposedly so unjust that if it were an essential part of Christian doctrine it would be (in Hart’s words) “proof that Christianity should be dismissed as a self-evidently morally obtuse and logically incoherent faith.” (As an aside, my colleague Karlo Broussard has done some great work showing hell is not unjust.)

The possibility that hell is empty is not a twenty-first century novelty. In the third century, the ecclesial writer Origen argued for apokatastasis, or a “restoration” that would unite all things, including unrepentant sinners, to God. This would seem to rule out the possibility that anyone would spend an eternity in hell, though modern commenters are divided over the implications of Origen’s theology on this question. According to Bible scholar Richard Bauckham:

“Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell. Here and there, outside the theological mainstream, were some who believed that the wicked would be finally annihilated. . . . Even fewer were the advocates of universal salvation . . . though these few included some major theologians of the early church.”

The Catholic Church condemned universalism at the regional council of Orange in 543 AD, though a few theologians still held out hope for all creatures to be saved. This uniformity of thought began to change, however, with the rise of denominations like the Universalist Church of America (which exists today under the name Unitarian Universalism).

Most Christian universalists like Hart agree that hell is real and even believe that some or many people will go there. But from their perspective hell is a temporary “purgatory-like” condition and the Bible’s references to it being “eternal” only mean hell is a temporary punishment that the damned face in “the age to come” because the Greek word for eternity (aionion) can also mean “age” (Hart even refers to hell as “the purifying flames of the Age to come”).

As I’ve shown in my engagements with others who dispute the eternal aspect of hell, the endless nature of hell is quite obvious from the biblical texts. Given the strength of the Catholic Church’s case, universalists can’t just claim that the punishments of hell might not be permanent. To be convincing, they need to show positive evidence that all people will eventually be saved. When it comes to providing positive evidence, universalists usually cite biblical passages that, from their perspective, describe God effecting the salvation of every single person.

Hart seems puzzled, though, that these passages were not given more attention by theologians throughout the Church’s history, noting “how odd it is that for at least fifteen centuries such passages have been all but lost behind a veil as thin as the one that can be woven from those three or four deeply ambiguous verses that seem (and only seem) to threaten eternal torments for the wicked.”

But perhaps that’s because these passages don’t teach that everyone will be saved. Instead, they express the hope that anyone can be saved.

In 1 Timothy 2:4, for example, St. Paul says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” But God also desires that we not sin, and yet we still do. God desires the good for all of his creatures, but because he has also given human beings and angels the gift of free will, it follows that God will allow us to enjoy or suffer the consequence of this good gift, even if it means eternal separation from him.

Although Hart admits he doesn’t like “reducing biblical theology to concentrated distillates (prooftexts)” he proceeds to do just that by listing nearly a dozen verses, including their original Greek and Hart’s own rendering of them from his own strange, overly-literal translation of the Bible. Unfortunately, his translation doesn’t offer much in terms of exegesis or understanding of these crucial texts.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:22 Paul says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” but this doesn’t mean that through Christ all people shall be brought to eternal life. What it means is that all who are “in Christ” (a phrase Paul often uses for the saved or elect) shall be brought to eternal life. This logic also explains Romans 5:18, wherein Paul says, “As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”

This refers to life for all believers, or those who are in Christ. We know this because in the previous verse Paul says, “If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” This is talking about the salvation of all believers, not the salvation of all people. Jesus himself says that he will “draw all men to himself” (John 12:32), but that doesn’t mean that people can’t reject him even after being so drawn. In this passage Jesus also foreshadows his own crucifixion, which may mean that all people will have their sins atoned for on the cross but the grace that Christ accrues for them may not be applied to their souls if they choose to reject it.

In other words, Christ draws all men to Himself and He died for every single person, offering them the gift of eternal life. But each person still has a choice, and some people will tragically refuse to accept Christ’s mercy and salvation. That is why the Church prays for the soul of anyone who has perished: because God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

If Hart’s universalism is true, then those who reject the gospel would cease to be “the lost” Jesus came to save (Luke 19:10) and become instead “the delayed,” who just have to wait a little longer for the heavenly rewards they rejected in life.

The evangelist who foolishly thinks universalism will make it easier to preach the gospel will see that without the “bad news” the “good news” isn’t taken seriously. On this view, Christianity becomes a faith that seeks to merely make “heaven on earth,” and by that point it’s nothing more than secular humanism playing dress-up on Sundays.

Contrary to Hart’s assertion, it is not the presence of hell that makes Christianity a “morally obtuse and logically incoherent faith”— it is its absence.”

Love, His will be done!!
Matthew

Doctrine, Eschatology, Salvation

How do Catholics know they’re “saved”?

A very dear friend recently posed the following question to me:

“Matt, what do I have to do in order to be saved? What must I do to know that I will go to heaven when I die?”

Here is my response:

“Dear (friend), Catholics, in this life, never know if they will be found worthy. This is a decision only Jesus as God can make in our particular judgment immediately after death, and we cannot. It is presumptuous to think otherwise. We trust in the promises of our Lord.

Neither can we be sure of the damnation of any. Again, this is a judgment of the Lord, and not ours. For Catholics, sanctifying grace, the life of grace, must be present within the Catholic for the hope of salvation. The idea of universal salvation because the Lord is so merciful is a heresy, although not the worst. Mt 25:10.

The saints (both specific and general, the communion of saints, as mentioned in the Nicene and Apostle’s creeds) are believed to be in Heaven. We hold with strongest belief this is true, but this is also why two miracles are required for canonization. Phil 2:12.

Those outside the church have the possibility, not necessarily the likelihood, of salvation (CCC 846). Within the Church exists the fullness of the life of grace and the sacraments which impart grace.

These might help, too:

https://soul-candy.info/2018/06/protestant-catholic-different-definitions-of-grace/
https://soul-candy.info/2015/08/explicit-implicit-faith-who-can-be-saved/”

Love,
Matthew