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, United Methodism

Once saved, always saved? 2


– detail from the “Last Judgment”, by Giotti, Cappella Scrovegni, 1306, Fresco, 1000 x 840 cm, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, please click on the image for greater detail.

The chapel is entered from the west, the side on which the sun goes down. In accordance with an old tradition, the entrance wall of the chapel is filled by the depiction of the Last Judgment. This scene is as complex and crowded as the frescoes on the side walls are concentrated and reduced to essentials. This large painting occupies the entire west wall across several registers. The three-light windows of the façade also had to be incorporated into the composition.

This extensive depiction of the Last Judgment is dominated by the large Christ in Majesty at its centre. The twelve apostles sit to His left and to His right. Here the two levels divide: the heavenly host appears above, people plunge into the maw of hell below, or are led by angels towards heaven.

The way this large fresco is divided into registers is traditional. But if we look at Giotto’s invention in detail, then his novel attempts at visualizing different spheres, as well as abstract beliefs, become particularly apparent. In the center of the representation, Christ is enthroned as supreme Judge in a rainbow-colored mandorla. The deep, radiant gold background, the style of painting, and the delicate substance give the impression that the heavens have opened in order to reveal the powerful, extremely solidly modeled figure of Christ. Different levels are likewise alluded to when the choirs of angels disappear behind the real window, or when the celestial watch in the upper area of the picture rolls back the firmament, behind which the golden-red doors of the heavenly Jerusalem shine forth. The black and red maw of hell, which seems to anticipate Dante’s “Inferno”, is different again in its impact.


-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.

“The reformed “Westminster Confession,” ratified in 1647, gives us a pithy statement that sums up well what is meant by “the perseverance of the saints,” or “once saved, always saved,” the fifth and final of the five points of Calvinism’s TULIP (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints):

God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure; and in that condition they have not usually the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance (Westminster Confession, ch. XI, “Of Justification,” para. V).

So true believers can never fall from the state of justification. Yet their sins need to be forgiven or else they can “fall under God’s fatherly displeasure.” But they would still go to heaven, even if they die in this state of “God’s fatherly displeasure.” So, are the sins already forgiven—before they are forgiven again when they are confessed? Or are they really “forgiven” when they are confessed?

The answer for Calvinists is “Yes—and, no.” James White, a Calvinist apologist writes:

This remission of all sins is not limited to past sins only, but to all sins, past, present, and future. . . . The problem with accepting this fact is easy to see: how can we speak of sins being forgiven when they haven’t even been committed as yet? And why do we read that we as believers are to confess our sins? Yet, on the other hand, it seems far more difficult to understand how Christ’s death is insufficient to bring about full pardon of all sins, but has to be “re-applied” repeatedly (The God Who Justifies: A Comprehensive Study of the Doctrine of Justification, 98-99).

I don’t find it hard in the least to understand how Christ’s sacrifice has to be “re-applied” to our lives “repeatedly.” And this doesn’t mean it is “insufficient to bring about full pardon of all sins,” either.

First of all, I John 2:2 plainly reveals the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice: “[Jesus Christ] is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also the sins of the whole world.”

But what White and Calvinists in general do not understand is, yes, the blood of Christ must be applied to our lives repeatedly through faith and obedience to the word of God:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 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 (I John 1:7-9).

According to St. John, the fact that the blood of Christ must be “re-applied” to our lives “again and again” does not mean it is “insufficient.” It simply means that the objectively all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ must be applied subjectively to each of the faithful through his willing cooperation.

Among the errors we could consider at this point, perhaps the central misstep is found in Mr. White’s assertion that all sins are forgiven, “past, present, and future.” Not only does the Bible not teach this but on the very next page of Mr. White’s book he quotes the famous Calvinist theologian, Charles Hodge:

So that it would perhaps be a more correct statement to say that in justification the believer receives the promise that God will not deal with him according to his transgressions, rather than to say that sins are forgiven before they are committed (The God Who Justifies, 100).

So which is it? Are all sins forgiven, or are they just “not dealt with?” And this is not to mention that no proponent of either of these two scenarios has ever given a coherent accounting for I 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.” Why do our sins have to be forgiven if they have already been forgiven?

For the Catholic it’s simple. We believe that we must confess our sins in order to be forgiven of them, as the Bible says. And if we refuse to confess our sins, then we will not be forgiven.

The more difficult texts

There are two crucial texts that we must deal with in order to understand and be able to respond to this notion of “once saved, always saved” from a Reformed perspective: Romans 4:8 and I John 5:13. These are not the only two, but they are perhaps the most important.

Romans 4:7-8: “Blessed are those who iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

In Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. 3, ch. 11, John Calvin begins his section on “Justification by Faith,” and this is one of the first texts he uses. Charles Hodge, quoted above, was referring to this text when he claimed that God “will not deal with [the justified] according to his [future] transgressions.” So, then, according to Hodge, the “forgiveness” of I John 1:9, is not really forgiveness. St. John really means God just doesn’t deal with the Christian’s sins?

I think the text of St. John speaks for itself. But is this what St. Paul is saying in Romans 4? If, for example, a man who is justified commits adultery, he is as just after committing this sin as he was before?

Actually, Romans chapter 4 says nothing of the sort. In 4:7-8, St. Paul quotes Psalm 32:1-2—a psalm of David written in the context of his having confessed his infamous sins of murder and adultery. The reason God “would not reckon” David’s sins against him was because David had confessed his sin and been forgiven! Psalm 32:5 says:

I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.

This text does not even come close to saying David’s sins were forgiven (or they are not reckoned as sin) before they were confessed! According to the inspired author, David “acknowledged [his] sin,” and “then [God forgave] the guilt of [his] sin.”

St. Paul makes clear to Christians that God doesn’t simply “not deal with” their sins:

But immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience (Eph. 5:3-7).

St. Paul here eliminates any possibility of getting around the fact that if believers commit these sins and do not repent, they will not go to heaven. Yet, according to John Calvin and the Westminster Confession, these sins that St. Paul says will exclude someone from the kingdom of heaven will not do so if that someone is a Christian. That is why, again, according to the Westminster Confession, these sins will only bring about God’s “fatherly displeasure” in a temporal sense.

I John 5:13: “These things I write to you, that you may know you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (emphasis added).

Rooted in this text and others, the Westminster Confession claims that believers can have

. . . an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God (Westminster Confession, ch. XVIII, ”Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation,” para. 2).

The fact is: one cannot have infallible certainty without an infallible teacher. None of the authors of the Calvinist creeds—or Calvin himself—ever claimed the charism of infallibility. A thinking person would then have a real problem with the Calvinist use of the term infallible in the first place. The truth of this supposed “certainty” would be closer to the “burning in the bosom” of a Mormon, then true “infallible” certainty.

But what about I John 5:13 and the claim that we may know that we have eternal life?

The Greek word for knowledge (from the verb oida) in I John 5:13 does not necessarily mean an absolute certainty is being expressed.[1] We use the verb to know similarly 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? No! I may in fact get a B or worse. Ever freeze up during an exam? What I mean and what the verb to know can be used to mean is that I have confident assurance of an A, because I have studied and know the material thoroughly.

The next two verses after I John 5:13 demonstrate this to be the usage of oida in I John 5:13:

And we have this confidence in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us, and if he hears us we know [again, a derivative of oida] that what we have asked him for is ours.

Do we have absolute certainty that we will receive everything we ask of the Lord? No. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” I John 3:22 says, “And whatsoever we ask, we shall receive of him: because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” We cannot be absolutely certain that we have not “cherished iniquity” in our hearts or done a thing or two that has displeased the Lord.

But most importantly, we must acknowledge that God is sovereign. In the end, we must trust God as his children that he will grant what is best for us. Sometimes what we just know is best for us isn’t. Or, as the unrighteous discover at the last judgment, according to Matthew 25:41-46, what they just knew was just for them actually was not. “Lord, when . . . ?”

[1] Another example of this usage of “knowledge” is found in Acts 20:25. Here St. Paul says to the elders of Miletus, Ephesus, and other areas of Greece and Asia Minor: “I know that all you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom will see my face no more.” And yet, we know he was both later, during his imprisonment in Rome, hopeful that he would return there (see Philo. 1:10,22; Phil. 2:24, 1:1-2, 13-14), and that he actually did return because in his last inspired letter he writes of a later visit to Miletus where he left Trophimus there ill (II Tim. 4:20). Trophimus continued with him after the earlier trip where St. Paul made his statement that he “knew” he would never return or see them again (see Acts 20:4, 21:9).”

Love & truth,
Matthew

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

Is justification ongoing?


– detail from the “Last Judgment”, by Giotti, Cappella Scrovegni, 1306, Fresco, 1000 x 840 cm, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, please click on the image for greater detail.

The chapel is entered from the west, the side on which the sun goes down. In accordance with an old tradition, the entrance wall of the chapel is filled by the depiction of the Last Judgment. This scene is as complex and crowded as the frescoes on the side walls are concentrated and reduced to essentials. This large painting occupies the entire west wall across several registers. The three-light windows of the façade also had to be incorporated into the composition.

This extensive depiction of the Last Judgment is dominated by the large Christ in Majesty at its centre. The twelve apostles sit to His left and to His right. Here the two levels divide: the heavenly host appears above, people plunge into the maw of hell below, or are led by angels towards heaven.

The way this large fresco is divided into registers is traditional. But if we look at Giotto’s invention in detail, then his novel attempts at visualizing different spheres, as well as abstract beliefs, become particularly apparent. In the center of the representation, Christ is enthroned as supreme Judge in a rainbow-colored mandorla. The deep, radiant gold background, the style of painting, and the delicate substance give the impression that the heavens have opened in order to reveal the powerful, extremely solidly modeled figure of Christ. Different levels are likewise alluded to when the choirs of angels disappear behind the real window, or when the celestial watch in the upper area of the picture rolls back the firmament, behind which the golden-red doors of the heavenly Jerusalem shine forth. The black and red maw of hell, which seems to anticipate Dante’s “Inferno”, is different again in its impact.


-by Mark Brumley

“Romans 5:1 (“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ”) is often cited in defense of the Reformed view that justification is a once for all declaration by God; justification can neither be increased nor lost. Paul’s use of the aorist tense in Greek (“we have been justified”) supposedly demonstrates that justification is exclusively a “past, completed act” which confers a state of justification unalterable by a subsequent act of the believer.

Why won’t this argument work? Because the aorist doesn’t function the way the Reformed argument presupposes.

Although the Bible speaks in Romans 5:1 of justification as a “past, completed act,” this doesn’t mean it can’t be altered, for better or worse, by what we do. To say an act has been completed needn’t imply that no further development or change is possible.

Consider the biblical teaching about sanctification. (Most proponents of the Reformed position see justification and sanctification as two distinct things; Catholics see them as complementary ways of talking about the same thing—being “in Christ”).

Paul speaks of sanctification as a “past, completed act”—in the aorist tense—in 1 Corinthians 6:11. He tells his readers, “You have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of God.” At the same time, Scripture teaches sanctification or holiness is something into which we can grow.

In 2 Corinthians 7:1 Paul says we should “purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit and strive for perfect holiness out of fear of God.” The writer to the Hebrews exhorts us to consider our trials as discipline from our heavenly Father, “in order that we share his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). We’re advised to “strive for that sanctity without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb.12:14).

If sanctification means to make holy, then Christians are progressively sanctified or made holy as they strive, by the grace of God, to attain “that sanctity without which no one will see the Lord.” Christians can also fall into sin and impurity—into “unsanctity.” This is the point of Paul’s repeated warnings to believers not to return to the sinful lifestyles they left behind (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:16-21; Eph. 5:3-5):

“It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you” (1 Thess. 4:3-7).

Sanctification, then, is both a “past, completed action” and something which believers can increase or from which they can fall away through sin. This leads us to ask, “If Paul’s use of the aorist with respect to sanctification doesn’t preclude progress or regress, why should it do so with respect to justification?”

To this advocates of the Reformed view reply, “Because the gratuitousness of justification would be undone. If we could increase our justification or righteousness through our obedience, even through grace-empowered obedience, this would contradict Paul’s teaching that we’re ‘justified by faith apart from works of the Law’” (Rom. 3:28).

This answer neglects three key points: (1) In Romans 3:28 Paul is speaking of initial justification rather than righteousness in the ongoing life of the believer; (2) when he speaks of the works of the Law, Paul is concerned with Mosaic observances such as circumcision, not acts of Christian obedience; (3) human cooperation doesn’t undermine the gratuitousness of God’s work in us, but can be an expression of it. Consider each point in turn.

Our works of obedience as Christians don’t earn our initial justification. How could they, since such deeds follow and flow from it? The Council of Trent says as much when it observes that “we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification” (Session Six, Chapter VIII).

At the same time, works of Christian obedience contribute something if the term justification is used to refer not merely to our initial justification, but to our growth in righteousness as regenerated children of God. This is the justification to which James refers when he writes that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).

When Paul contrasts faith with works, it’s clear from the context (Romans 3:1; 4:9-12) he means works of the Mosaic Law—ritual prescriptions such as circumcision given to identify one as a Jew, to convict of sin, and to point to the Redeemer who would remit sin. This is different from works of Christian obedience which lead to righteousness (Rom. 6:16). With respect to the latter, even faith itself can be spoken of as obedience (Rom. 1:5; 16:26).

If the gratuitousness of sanctification isn’t undermined by its capacity for increase through obedience or loss through disobedience, why should justification be? Only by assuming that justification is unalterable—an assumption grammatical arguments about the aorist tense will not uphold—could we conclude that increasing or decreasing in justification is, per se, incompatible with justification by grace.

Works of obedience which contribute to our sanctification are as much the result of grace as is our faith. This is why Paul can say, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work” (Phil. 2:12). As Augustine puts it, “When God rewards our merits, he rewards his own gifts to us.”

Although sanctification is a more dramatic refutation of the Reformed position regarding justification and the aorist tense, there are other biblical examples which could be cited, each equally deadly to the thesis. Space doesn’t permit us to examine each of these; let’s consider just two poignant cases.

In John 11:14 Jesus tells his disciples Lazarus has died. The word used in this passage is apethanen—the third person, singular, second aorist active, indicative form of apothnesko (“I die”). Lazarus’s death was certainly a “past, completed act,” yet his condition wasn’t unalterable. After all, Jesus raised him from the dead (John 11:43-44).

In 2 Peter 2:20 the first pope mentions lapsed Christians who, “having escaped the defilement of the world through a full knowledge of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” return to their old sinful ways. The word for “having escaped” is apophugontes. This is the second aorist, active, participial, nominative, plural, masculine form of apopheugo (“I flee from” or “I escape”).

If use of the aorist automatically means an unchangeable “past, completed act,” then those having lapsed would have been incapable of falling away at all. A “past, completed act”—in this case, having “escaped the defilement of the world”—is changed by subsequent apostasy.

Of course staunch advocates of the Reformed position, holding as they do the doctrine “once saved, always saved,” contend these lapsi were never truly Christians in the first place. Yet the text indicates otherwise, for it describes these people as having “escaped the defilement of the world through a full knowledge of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ.” Surely only true believers could be described as possessing “a full knowledge of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

Even granting (but not conceding) that Peter isn’t talking about authentic believers who have lapsed, the grammatical point regarding the use of the aorist in the passage still stands. People who once escaped the defilement of the world, regardless of whether this means they were true Christians or not, are said to have returned to it. There’s nothing in the aorist tense which prevents them from having done so.

Back to Romans 5:1. Even though Paul refers to believers as those who “have been justified through faith,” his use of the aorist doesn’t rule out a change in the state of justification by subsequent behavior, any more than other biblical uses of the aorist preclude a “past, completed” state of affairs from being altered by subsequent events.

Nothing we do as believers after our initial justification can change the fact that “we have been justified through faith” at some time in the past, but this doesn’t mean we can’t our alter justification in the present, whether by increasing it through “working out” our salvation (Phil. 2:12) or by forfeiting it through sin (1 Cor. 6:7-10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:1-5).”

Love & truth,
Matthew

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

Once saved, always saved?


– detail from the “Last Judgment”, by Giotti, Cappella Scrovegni, 1306, Fresco, 1000 x 840 cm, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, please click on the image for greater detail.

The chapel is entered from the west, the side on which the sun goes down. In accordance with an old tradition, the entrance wall of the chapel is filled by the depiction of the Last Judgment. This scene is as complex and crowded as the frescoes on the side walls are concentrated and reduced to essentials. This large painting occupies the entire west wall across several registers. The three-light windows of the façade also had to be incorporated into the composition.

This extensive depiction of the Last Judgment is dominated by the large Christ in Majesty at its centre. The twelve apostles sit to His left and to His right. Here the two levels divide: the heavenly host appears above, people plunge into the maw of hell below, or are led by angels towards heaven.

The way this large fresco is divided into registers is traditional. But if we look at Giotto’s invention in detail, then his novel attempts at visualizing different spheres, as well as abstract beliefs, become particularly apparent. In the center of the representation, Christ is enthroned as supreme Judge in a rainbow-colored mandorla. The deep, radiant gold background, the style of painting, and the delicate substance give the impression that the heavens have opened in order to reveal the powerful, extremely solidly modeled figure of Christ. Different levels are likewise alluded to when the choirs of angels disappear behind the real window, or when the celestial watch in the upper area of the picture rolls back the firmament, behind which the golden-red doors of the heavenly Jerusalem shine forth. The black and red maw of hell, which seems to anticipate Dante’s “Inferno”, is different again in its impact.


-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.

“Romans 5:1 is a favorite verse for those who hold to the doctrine commonly known as “once saved, always saved”: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This text is believed to indicate that the justification of the believer in Christ at the point of faith is a one-time completed action. For the once saved–always saved believer, all sins are forgiven immediately—past, present, and future. The believer then has, or at least, can have, absolute assurance of his justification regardless of what may happen in the future. Nothing can separate the true believer from Christ—not even the gravest of sins. Similarly, with regard to salvation, Ephesians 2:8-9 says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast.”

For the Protestant, these texts seem plain. Ephesians 2 says the salvation of the believer is past—perfect tense, passive voice in Greek, to be more precise—which means a past completed action with present, ongoing results. In other words, it’s over. And if we examine again Romans 5:1, the verb justify is in a simple past tense (Greek Aorist tense). And this use is in a context where St. Paul had just told these Romans: “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’” (Rom. 4:3).

Righteousness is a synonym for justice or justification. How does it get any plainer than that? Abraham was justified once and for all when he believed. Not only is this proof of sola fide, says the Calvinist, but it is proof that justification is a completed transaction at the point the believer comes to Christ. The paradigm of the life of Abraham is believed to hold indisputable proof of the Reformed position.

Continue in the Grace of God

The Catholic Church actually agrees with this interpretation, at least on a couple of points. First, as baptized Catholics, we can agree that we have been justified and we have been saved. Thus, in one sense, our justification and salvation is in the past as a completed action. The initial grace of justification and salvation we receive in baptism is a done deal. And Catholics do not believe we were partially justified or partially saved at baptism. Catholics believe, as Peter says in 1 Peter 3:21, “Baptism… now saves you…” Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, “Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). That means the new Christian has been “washed… sanctified… [and] justified” as 1 Corinthians 6:11 remarks. That much is a done deal; thus, it is entirely proper to say we “have been justified” and we “have been saved.” However, this is not the end of the story. Scripture reveals that through this justification and salvation the new Christian experiences in baptism, he enters into a process of justification and salvation requiring his free cooperation with God’s grace. If we read the very next verses of our above-cited texts, we find the writer telling us there is more to the story.

Romans 5:1-2 states, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”

This text indicates that after having received the grace of justification, we now have access to God’s grace by which we stand in Christ, and we can then rejoice in the hope of sharing God’s glory. That word hope indicates that what we are hoping for we do not yet possess.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Without a doubt, we must continue to work in Christ as Christians; it is also true that it is only by the grace of God we can continue to do so. But even more importantly, Scripture tells us this grace can be resisted. Second Corinthians 6:1 tells us that “Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain.”

St. Paul urged believers in Antioch—and all of us by implication—”to continue in the grace of God.” Indeed, Paul warns Christians that they can “fall from grace” in Galatians 5:4. This leads us to our next and most crucial point.

Future and Contingent

The major part of the puzzle that our Protestant friends are missing is that there are many biblical texts revealing justification to have a future and contingent sense as well as those that show a past sense. In other words, justification and salvation also have a sense in which they are not complete in the lives of believers. Perhaps this is most plainly seen in Galatians 5:1-5:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.

The Greek word used in verse 5 and here translated as righteousness is dikaiosunes, which can be translated either as “righteousness” or as “justification.” In fact, Romans 4:3, which we quoted above, uses a verb form of this same word for justification. Now the fact that St. Paul tells us we “wait for the hope of [justification]” is very significant. As we said before, what is hoped for not yet possessed. It is still in the future. Romans 8:24 tells us “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” The context of Galatians is clear: Paul warns Galatian Christians that if they attempt to be justified—even though they are already justified in one sense, through baptism, according to Galatians 3:27—by the works of the law, they will fall from the grace of Christ. Why? Because they would be attempting to be justified apart from Christ and the gospel of Christ. That they could not do! For “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8, cf. Gal. 5:19-21). “The flesh” is a reference to the human person apart from grace.

This example of justification being obtained in the future is not an isolated case. Numerous biblical texts indicate both justification and salvation to be future and contingent realities:

  • Romans 2:13-16: For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified … on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.
  • Romans 6:16: Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness? (Greek dikaiosunen, “justification”)
  • Matthew 10:22: And you will be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
  • Romans 13:11: For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
  • 1 Corinthians 5:5: You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

 Are Future Sins Forgiven?

The Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5:1 not only takes the verse out of context, but it leads to still other unbiblical teaching. As we mentioned above, at least from a Calvinist perspective, this understanding of Romans 5:1 leads to the untenable position that all future sins are forgiven at the point of saving faith. Where is that in the Bible? It’s not. First John 1:8-9 could not make any clearer the fact that our future sins will only be forgiven when we confess them: “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.”

I should note here that many Calvinists—and many of those who may not be full-fledged Calvinists, but hold to the “once saved always saved” part of classic Calvinist doctrine—respond to this text by claiming that the forgiveness of sins John is talking about has nothing to do with one’s justification before God. This text only considers whether or not one is in fellowship with God. And this “fellowship with God” is interpreted to mean only whether or not one will receive God’s blessings in this life.

This position presents a problem. The context of the passage does not allow for this interpretation. In fact, if you look at verses 5-7, John says:

God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

This text makes clear that the “fellowship” spoken of is essential for us to 1) walk in the light as God is in the light, and 2) have our sins forgiven. If we are not in “fellowship,” according to verse 6, then we are in darkness. And if we are in darkness, we are not in God, “who is light and in him is no darkness” (5). Nothing in this text even hints at the possibility that you can be out of “fellowship” with God, but still go to heaven. That is, of course, unless you have that fellowship restored by the confession of your sins. This is precisely what verses 8 and 9 are all about.

The Example of Abraham

We can agree with our Calvinist friends that Romans 4:3 demonstrates Abraham to have been justified through the gift of faith he received from God. The Catholic Church acknowledges what the text clearly says: “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” referencing Genesis 15:6.

There is more to this text, however, than many of our Protestant friends know. While the Catholic Church agrees that Abraham was justified by faith in Genesis 15:6 as Paul said, we also note that Abraham was justified at other times in his life as well, indicating justification to have another.aspect to it. Again, there is a sense in which justification is a past action in the life of believers, but there is another sense in which justification is revealed to be a process as well.

Abraham was depicted as having saving faith in God long before Genesis 15:6. Abraham had already responded to God’s call in Genesis 12 with what is revealed to be saving faith, years before his encounter with the Lord in Genesis 15. In addition, Abraham is revealed to have been justified again in Genesis 22, years after Genesis 15, when he offered his son Isaac in sacrifice in obedience to the Lord.

  • Genesis 12:14: Now the Lord said to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Compare Hebrews 11:6,8: And without faith it is impossible to please God… By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called… and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.
  • Genesis 15:4,6: “This man [a slave] shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.” And [Abram] believed the Lord: and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Compare Romans 4:3: For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
  • Genesis 22:15-17: And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendents as the stars of heaven… because you have obeyed my voice.” Compare James 2:21-22,24: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?… faith was completed by works… You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

The Bible tells us Abraham had faith way back in Genesis 12. And according to Hebrews 11:6-8, this was not a natural faith analogous to the faith the demons have (see James 2:19), but rather a supernatural and saving faith given as a gift from God. If Abraham was not justified until Genesis 15:6, how could he already have saving faith in Genesis 12? In addition, if Abraham was justified once and for all in Genesis 15:6, why did he need to be justified again in Genesis 22 according to James 2:21? The reason is simple: According to these texts, justification is revealed in Scripture to be a process rather than a mere one-time event.”

Love,
Matthew

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: being made right with God

– detail from the “Last Judgment”, by Giotti, Cappella Scrovegni, 1306, Fresco, 1000 x 840 cm, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, please click on the image for greater detail.

The chapel is entered from the west, the side on which the sun goes down. In accordance with an old tradition, the entrance wall of the chapel is filled by the depiction of the Last Judgment. This scene is as complex and crowded as the frescoes on the side walls are concentrated and reduced to essentials. This large painting occupies the entire west wall across several registers. The three-light windows of the façade also had to be incorporated into the composition.

This extensive depiction of the Last Judgment is dominated by the large Christ in Majesty at its centre. The twelve apostles sit to His left and to His right. Here the two levels divide: the heavenly host appears above, people plunge into the maw of hell below, or are led by angels towards heaven.

The way this large fresco is divided into registers is traditional. But if we look at Giotto’s invention in detail, then his novel attempts at visualizing different spheres, as well as abstract beliefs, become particularly apparent. In the center of the representation, Christ is enthroned as supreme Judge in a rainbow-colored mandorla. The deep, radiant gold background, the style of painting, and the delicate substance give the impression that the heavens have opened in order to reveal the powerful, extremely solidly modeled figure of Christ. Different levels are likewise alluded to when the choirs of angels disappear behind the real window, or when the celestial watch in the upper area of the picture rolls back the firmament, behind which the golden-red doors of the heavenly Jerusalem shine forth. The black and red maw of hell, which seems to anticipate Dante’s “Inferno”, is different again in its impact.

-by www.catholicfaithandreason.org

1) What is Justification? To be justified means being made righteous, just, holy, and acceptable before God.  Because we are born in original sin, we need to be made right with God and only He can effect this change, which was merited by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, but which we must accept (or in the case of an infant, their parents) by sincere repentance (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; Romans 2:4; 1 Corinthians 7:9-10, etc.) and by baptism, by which sacrament we become children of God and heirs with Christ (John 1: 12; Romans 8:14-17).

It is the gift of divine sonship.  Our soul is regenerated (made clean) from the effects of original sin (or mortal sin if any has been committed) and wiped clean.  Thus, there is cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom that is expressed by the assent of faith (Catechism of the Catholic Church or CCC 1993).  “With justification faith, hope and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted” (CCC 1991).  “In baptism you were not only buried with him, but also raised to life with him because you believed in the power of God who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12; Romans 6:3-5,8).

2) Salvation is a gift of God.  Man cannot obligate God.  But man is called upon to freely choose God through an exercise of his free will.  The steps for an adult:

(1) God grants the grace to believe (prevenient grace)
(2) Man with his free will accepts it, repenting of sins committed and affirming in faith God’s truth
(3) Man cooperating with divine grace receives baptism
(4) Baptism re-generates the soul so that the man is “born from above” or “born again”
(5) We can co-operate with the sanctifying grace in our souls or not.

3) What is grace?  Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us.  But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ in the Church.” (CCC 2003).  The Apostle Peter gives us an example of how people are saved after Pentecost when the sermon he preaches leads them to want salvation.  He says:

“‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit….’ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2: 38, 41)

St. Augustine, an Early Church Father, put it this way:

“Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us.  It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing” (De natura et gratia, 31).

4) A Catholic monk in the 16th century made the novel claim that we are saved by “faith alone.”  The lense of Fr. Martin Luther was doubtless his own spiritual turmoil.  He viewed God as a very harsh judge but he was not tracking with Scripture in this conclusion.  His own sensitive conscience led him to live in fear that this harsh God would judge him and find him wanting.  He felt he might never enter heaven, until he read the words of St. Paul one day in light of his own fearful struggle, and came to a new interpretation, in fundamental discontinuity with the previous 1500 years of Apostolic Tradition.  A detailed sympathetic study by Protestant scholar Alister McGrath admits that Luther’s thesis of sole fide, by faith alone, was a brand new theology. It was a new approach to salvation that removed much of man’s moral responsibility for his salvation.  No Christian theologian before Luther ever held it.

Luther thought man should sin “boldly” telling Melanchthon in a letter in 1521, “No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day.”  Some argue this hyperbole to make the point that we must trust in God, however, this directly contradicts Holy Scripture wherein St. Paul wrote, “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?” (Romans 6:1-2).

Ironically, among Protestant groups today, the Lutheran view is closest to the Catholic. For example, Luther taught the necessity of Baptism (including infant Baptism) and the possibility of losing one’s salvation and the real presence in the Eucharist (though he spoke of consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation). Both agree that justification takes place solely by [by faith through] God’s grace (Joint Declaration with the World Lutheran Federation, 1999). “The working of God’s grace does not exclude human action: God effects everything, the willing and the achievement, therefore we are called to strive” (cf. Phil. 2:12ff). The Holy Spirit effects in the one justified an active love (an inward renewal). Thus, what we do in God’s grace can merit for Christ abides in us.

Still, what Luther produced was a heresy. It comforted Luther and comforts many today, but is a misreading of Scripture, nonetheless.  Why is it comforting compared to Catholic doctrine?  It amounts to an abnegation of moral responsibility and what Protestant Dietrich Bonhoeffer once termed “cheap grace.”  He wrote: It means the forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God.  An intellectual sassent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure the remission of sins . . . . In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God. . . . Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)

Luther so believed that he was correct that he even changed Scripture to reflect his interpretation, changing Romans 3:28 from: “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” to “For we hold that a man is justified by faith alone apart from works of law.” Luther thought the intent of the words urgently demanded this assertion, but he nonetheless tampered with the Word of God. He did not like what he saw in the letter of James either (who wrote, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead”) calling it an “epistle of straw.”

5) James says that we are justified by works also:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?  You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’; and he was called the friend of God.  You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.  (James 2:21-26)

Were St. Paul and St. James at odds with one another? They are not.  Paul is addressing the fact that grace is needed to believe and James is talking about the Christian who already believes, but nonetheless has a necessity to have a faith animated by good works.  Understanding the works that Paul refers to as “works of the law” is critical.  Here he refers to the Old Law, especially circumcision, which has no power to save anyone.  He is teaching that salvation is by God’s grace, not by any works that merit God’s favor.  [We know this from the Dead Sea scrolls, written in Christ’s time or before, which clearly show the usage and meaning of “works of law” as works of the Mosaic law, like circumcision and animal sacrifice.]  Faith is a gift from God, but James, is showing that faith without works is dead.  Scripture says that even the devil believes but that does not merit him anything (James 2: 19).

In the words of St. Augustine, God created us without our cooperation, but He will not save us without it. So we are saved by faith, hope and charity. The supernatural love of God is what unites the soul to God! “Salvation in Christ is conditional; it requires repentance and faith.”  Good works are the fruit of salvation. (Jimmy Akins, “Justification: Setting the Record Straight,” click here)

6) We must read all that Scripture says about salvation. St. Paul, for example, writes:  “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love (Galatians 5: 6)

And again:

“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13: 2).  Note: Open your Bible and read all of 1 Corinthians 13 and see what kind of love St. Paul is talking about.

7) Love requires obedience according to Jesus: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  Or again in Matthew 19: 16-17:

“And behold, one came up to him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?’ 17 And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.'”

8) The Catholic teaching is that justification is a process by which we become righteous by God’s grace, but is not finished until we persevere to the end of our lives.  Thus, we are justified by faith and obedience persevered in to the end.  We must as St. Paul says, finish the race (2 Timothy 4:7). We do not work our own way to heaven because we are totally dependent upon the gift of faith and the grace of Christ, but our obedience is required. St. Paul begins and ends his epistle to the Romans by noting the importance of the “obedience of faith.”

9) The pattern in Scripture is troubling to the notion of faith alone.  The pattern in Scripture is always faith and obedience leading to blessing.  Would Noah and his family have been delivered from the flood by faith alone?  Were they called upon to believe God or to believe and obey?  Both.  Noah had to build an ark.  Did Abraham receive the promises that God made to him by faith alone?  In Genesis 12, the Lord asked Abram to leave his home in Haran and go to distant land he did not know.  He believed what God said to him and he obeyed and received the blessing in the form of a covenant promise by God.  He was justified.  Abraham’s obedience is most often spoken of as the reason God will bless him.  In Genesis 22: 15-18:

“By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son,  I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”

God elevates this to a covenant oath in Genesis 26: 4-5:

“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give to your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves: because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

So in Abraham we see that justification is a process, not a one-time event.

How about the Israelites being freed by God from Egyptian slavery and given the land of milk and honey, that today we call Israel by faith alone?  Was that the case?  No, they had to slaughter the lamb, smear the blood on the door posts, cross the Red Sea, and after they worshiped the golden calf, they had to follow Moses in the desert for 40 years, rely upon God to guide them and feed upon the manna provided by God, etc.

How about the leper Naman?  Was he cleansed by faith alone?  No, he had to dip in the water; he had to obey.  Faith and obedience go together.  Israel was God’s chosen nation and if God wanted to teach the world that they are to be saved by faith alone, than why did he fill the Bible with stories of those who are saved by faith and obedience?

10) Does our obedience mean that God does not deserve all the glory?  No.  Noah had to be build an ark to be saved but his deliverance was due to God and thus God gets the glory.  We honor Abraham because of his faith and his obedience, but God gets the glory. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says,

1999 “The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself …  (2 Corinthians 5: 18)

11) Summary.  There are a large number diverse Scriptural verses relating to the topic of our salvation in Holy Scripture.  If Jesus meant to teach faith alone he said so many things to confuse us. For example, in the Bread of Life discourse, John 6: 53-56:

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”

It is the same with St. Paul who wrote, “For he will render to every man according to his works . . . For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2: 6-10, 13).

The same is true in James, St. John or Peter, etc.  St. Peter boldly says that Baptism saves you (see 1 Peter 3:21).  The pattern is always the same.  God is always saying I love you, I want to bless you, therefore, humble yourself before me, like a child trust me and obey me and I will deliver the blessing for you. As St. Paul said, “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; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).  One could give a whole sermon on that verse!

If asked, “Are you saved?”  Respond according to the Bible I have been saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5B,8), but I am also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I hope to be saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12).

Quotations from the Early Church Fathers:

“We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments and chastisements, and good rewards, are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions.  Since if it be not so, but all things happen by fate, neither is anything at all in our own power.  For if it be fated that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil, neither is the former meritorious nor the latter to be blamed.”  Justin Martyr (Died 165 A.D.)  First Apology of Justin

“Again, we affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man.”  Tertullian On Repentance, Chapter II

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
“Be pleasing to him whose soldiers you are, and whose pay you receive. May none of you be found to be a deserter. Let your baptism be your armament, your faith your helmet, your love your spear, your endurance your full suit of armor. Let your works be as your deposited withholdings, so that you may receive the back-pay which has accrued to you” (Letter to Polycarp 6:2 [A.D. 110]).

JUSTIN MARTYR
“We have learned from the prophets and we hold it as true that punishments and chastisements and good rewards are distributed according to the merit of each man’s actions. Were this not the case, and were all things to happen according to the decree of fate, there would be nothing at all in our power. If fate decrees that this man is to be good and that one wicked, then neither is the former to be praised nor the latter to be blamed” (First Apology 43 [A.D. 151]).

TATIAN THE SYRIAN
“[T]he wicked man is justly punished, having become depraved of himself; and the just man is worthy of praise for his honest deeds, since it was in his free choice that he did not transgress the will of God” (Address to the Greeks 7 [A.D. 170]).

ATHENAGORAS
“And we shall make no mistake in saying, that the [goal] of an intelligent life and rational judgment, is to be occupied uninterruptedly with those objects to which the natural reason is chiefly and primarily adapted, and to delight unceasingly in the contemplation of Him Who Is, and of his decrees, notwithstanding that the majority of men, because they are affected too passionately and too violently by things below, pass through life without attaining this object. For . . . the examination relates to individuals, and the reward or punishment of lives ill or well spent is proportioned to the merit of each” (The Resurrection of the Dead 25 [A.D. 178]).

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH
“He who gave the mouth for speech and formed the ears for hearing and made eyes for seeing will examine everything and will judge justly, granting recompense to each according to merit. To those who seek immortality by the patient exercise of good works [Rom. 2:7], he will give everlasting life, joy, peace, rest, and all good things, which neither eye has seen nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man [1 Cor. 2:9]. For the unbelievers and the contemptuous and for those who do not submit to the truth but assent to iniquity . . . there will be wrath and indignation [Rom. 2:8]” (To Autolycus 1:14 [A.D. 181]).

IRENAEUS
“[Paul], an able wrestler, urges us on in the struggle for immortality, so that we may receive a crown and so that we may regard as a precious crown that which we acquire by our own struggle and which does not grow upon us spontaneously. . . . Those things which come to us spontaneously are not loved as much as those which are obtained by anxious care” (Against Heresies 4:37:7 [A.D. 189]).

TERTULLIAN
“Again, we [Christians] affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man” (To the Nations 19 [A.D. 195]).

“In former times the Jews enjoyed much of God’s favor, when the fathers of their race were noted for their righteousness and faith. So it was that as a people they flourished greatly, and their kingdom attained to a lofty eminence; and so highly blessed were they, that for their instruction God spoke to them in special revelations, pointing out to them beforehand how they should merit his favor and avoid his displeasure” (Apology 21 [A.D. 197]).

“A good deed has God for its debtor [cf. Prov. 19:17], just as also an evil one; for a judge is the rewarder in every case [cf. Rom. 13:3–4]” (Repentance 2:11 [A.D. 203]).

HIPPOLYTUS
“Standing before [Christ’s] judgment, all of them, men, angels, and demons, crying out in one voice, shall say: ‘Just is your judgment,’ and the justice of that cry will be apparent in the recompense made to each. To those who have done well, everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to lovers of evil shall be given eternal punishment” (Against the Greeks 3 [A.D. 212]).

CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
“The Lord denounces [Christian evildoers], and says, ‘Many shall say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and in your name have cast out devils, and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you who work iniquity’ [Matt. 7:21–23]. There is need of righteousness, that one may deserve well of God the Judge; we must obey his precepts and warnings, that our merits may receive their reward” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 15, 1st ed. [A.D. 251]).

“[Y]ou who are a matron rich and wealthy, anoint not your eyes with the antimony of the devil, but with the collyrium of Christ, so that you may at last come to see God, when you have merited before God both by your works and by your manner of living” (Works and Almsgivings 14 [A.D. 253]).

LACTANTIUS
“Let every one train himself to righteousness, mold himself to self-restraint, prepare himself for the contest, equip himself for virtue . . . [and] in his uprightness acknowledge the true and only God, may cast away pleasures, by the attractions of which the lofty soul is depressed to the earth, may hold fast innocence, may be of service to as many as possible, may gain for himself incorruptible treasures by good works, that he may be able, with God for his judge, to gain for the merits of his virtue either the crown of faith, or the reward of immortality” (Epitome of the Divine Institutes 73 [A.D. 317]).

CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
“The root of every good work is the hope of the resurrection, for the expectation of a reward nerves the soul to good work. Every laborer is prepared to endure the toils if he looks forward to the reward of these toils” (Catechetical Lectures 18:1 [A.D. 350]).

JEROME
“It is our task, according to our different virtues, to prepare for ourselves different rewards. . . . If we were all going to be equal in heaven it would be useless for us to humble ourselves here in order to have a greater place there. . . . Why should virgins persevere? Why should widows toil? Why should married women be content? Let us all sin, and after we repent we shall be the same as the apostles are!” (Against Jovinian 2:32 [A.D. 393]).

AUGUSTINE
“We are commanded to live righteously, and the reward is set before us of our meriting to live happily in eternity. But who is able to live righteously and do good works unless he has been justified by faith?” (Various Questions to Simplician 1:2:21 [A.D. 396]).

“He bestowed forgiveness; the crown he will pay out. Of forgiveness he is the donor; of the crown, he is the debtor. Why debtor? Did he receive something? . . . The Lord made himself a debtor not by receiving something but by promising something. One does not say to him, ‘Pay for what you received,’ but ‘Pay what you promised’” (Explanations of the Psalms 83:16 [A.D. 405]).

“What merits of his own has the saved to boast of when, if he were dealt with according to his merits, he would be nothing if not damned? Have the just then no merits at all? Of course they do, for they are the just. But they had no merits by which they were made just” (Letters 194:3:6 [A.D. 412]).

“What merit, then, does a man have before grace, by which he might receive grace, when our every good merit is produced in us only by grace and when God, crowning our merits, crowns nothing else but his own gifts to us?” (ibid., 194:5:19).

PROSPER OF AQUITAINE
“Indeed, a man who has been justified, that is, who from impious has been made pious, since he had no antecedent good merit, receives a gift, by which gift he may also acquire merit. Thus, what was begun in him by Christ’s grace can also be augmented by the industry of his free choice, but never in the absence of God’s help, without which no one is able either to progress or to continue in doing good” (Responses on Behalf of Augustine 6 [A.D. 431]).

SECHNALL OF IRELAND
“Hear, all you who love God, the holy merits of Patrick the bishop, a man blessed in Christ; how, for his good deeds, he is likened unto the angels, and, for his perfect life, he is comparable to the apostles” (Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 1 [A.D. 444]).

COUNCIL OF ORANGE II
“[G]race is preceded by no merits. A reward is due to good works, if they are performed, but grace, which is not due, precedes [good works], that they may be done” (Canons on grace 19 [A.D. 529]).

Love & truth,
Matthew

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

Justification: once & forever? or, a lifetime?


-“Last Judgment”, by Giotti, Cappella Scrovegni, 1306, Fresco, 1000 x 840 cm, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, please click on the image for greater detail.

The chapel is entered from the west, the side on which the sun goes down. In accordance with an old tradition, the entrance wall of the chapel is filled by the depiction of the Last Judgment. This scene is as complex and crowded as the frescoes on the side walls are concentrated and reduced to essentials. This large painting occupies the entire west wall across several registers. The three-light windows of the façade also had to be incorporated into the composition.

This extensive depiction of the Last Judgment is dominated by the large Christ in Majesty at its centre. The twelve apostles sit to His left and to His right. Here the two levels divide: the heavenly host appears above, people plunge into the maw of hell below, or are led by angels towards heaven.

The way this large fresco is divided into registers is traditional. But if we look at Giotto’s invention in detail, then his novel attempts at visualizing different spheres, as well as abstract beliefs, become particularly apparent. In the center of the representation, Christ is enthroned as supreme Judge in a rainbow-colored mandorla. The deep, radiant gold background, the style of painting, and the delicate substance give the impression that the heavens have opened in order to reveal the powerful, extremely solidly modeled figure of Christ. Different levels are likewise alluded to when the choirs of angels disappear behind the real window, or when the celestial watch in the upper area of the picture rolls back the firmament, behind which the golden-red doors of the heavenly Jerusalem shine forth. The black and red maw of hell, which seems to anticipate Dante’s “Inferno”, is different again in its impact.


-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.

“Romans 5:1 is a favorite verse for Calvinists and those who hold to the doctrine commonly known as “once saved, always saved:”

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This text is believed to indicate that the justification of the believer in Christ at the point of faith is a one-time completed action. All sins are forgiven immediately—past, present and future. The believer then has, or at least, can have, absolute assurance of his justification regardless of what may happen in the future. There is nothing that can separate the true believer from Christ—not even the gravest of sins. Similarly, with regard to salvation, Eph. 2:8-9 says:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast.

For the Protestant, these texts seem plain. Ephesians 2 says the salvation of the believer is past—perfect tense, passive voice in Greek, to be more precise—which means a past completed action with present on-going results. It’s over! And if we examine again Romans 5:1, the verb to justify is in a simple past tense (Gr. Aorist tense). And this is in a context where St. Paul had just told these same Romans:

“For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.””

Righteousness is a synonym for justice or justification. How does it get any clearer than that? Abraham was justified once and for all, the claim is made, when he believed. Not only is this proof of sola fide, says the Calvinist, but it is proof that justification is a completed transaction at the point the believer comes to Christ. The paradigm of the life of Abraham is believed to hold indisputable proof of the Reformed position.

THE CATHOLIC ANSWER:

The Catholic Church actually agrees with the above, at least on a couple points. First, as baptized Catholics, we can agree that we have been justified and we have been saved. Thus, in one sense, our justification and salvation is in the past as a completed action. The initial grace of justification and salvation we receive in baptism is a done deal. And Catholics do not believe we were partially justified or partially saved at baptism. Catholics believe, as St. Peter said in I Peter 3:21, “Baptism… now saves you…” Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, “Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” That means the new Christian has been “washed… sanctified… [and] justified” as I Cor. 6:11 clearly teaches. That much is a done deal; thus, it is entirely proper to say we “have been justified” and we “have been saved.”

However, this is not the end of the story. Scripture reveals that it is precisely through this justification and salvation the new Christian experiences in baptism that he enters into a process of justification and salvation requiring his free cooperation with God’s grace. If we read the very next verses of our above-cited texts, we find the inspired writer himself telling us there is more to the story here.

Romans 5:1-2 reads:

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”

This text indicates that after having received the grace of justification we now have access to God’s grace by which we stand in Christ and we can then rejoice in the hope of sharing God’s glory. That word “hope” indicates that what we are hoping for we do not yet possess (see Romans 8:24).

Ephesians 2:10 reads:

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

There is no doubt that we must continue to work in Christ as Christians and it is also true that it is only by the grace of God we can continue to do so. But even more importantly, Scripture tells us this grace can be resisted. II Cor. 6:1 tells us:

“Working together with Him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain.”

St. Paul urged believers in Antioch—and all of us by allusion—“to continue in the grace of God” (Acts 13:43). Indeed, in a text we will look at more closely in a moment, St. Paul warns Christians that they can “fall from Grace” in Galatians 5:4. This leads us to our next and most crucial point.

JUSTIFICATION AND SALVATION AS FUTURE AND CONTINGENT

The major part of the puzzle here that our Protestant friends are missing is that there are many biblical texts revealing both justification and salvation to have a future and contingent sense as well as these we have mentioned that show a past sense. In other words, justification and salvation also have a sense in which they are not complete in the lives of believers. Perhaps this is most plainly seen in Galatians 5:1-5. I mentioned verse four above.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.

The Greek word used in verse 6 and here translated as “righteousness” is dikaiosunes, which can be translated either as “righteouness” or as “justification.” In fact, Romans 4:3, which we quoted above, uses a verb form of this same term for justification. Now the fact that St. Paul tells us we “wait for the hope of [justification]” is very significant. As we said before, that which one “hopes” for is something one does not yet possess. It is still in the future. Romans 8:24 tells us:

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

The context of Galatians is clear: St. Paul warns Galatian Christians that if they attempt to be justified—even though they are already justified in one sense, through baptism, according to Gal. 3:27—by the works of the law, they will fall from the grace of Christ. Why? Because they would be attempting to be justified apart from Christ and the gospel of Christ! St. Paul makes very clear in Romans and elsewhere that “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8, cf. Gal. 5:19-21). “The flesh” is a reference to the human person apart from grace.

The truth is: this example of justification being in the future is not an isolated case. There are numerous biblical texts that indicate both justification and salvation to be future and contingent realities, in one sense, as well as past completed realities in another sense:

Romans 2:13-16: For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified… on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:16: Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness? (Gr.dikaiosunen- “justification”)

Matt. 10:22: And you will be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

Romans 13:11: For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

I Cor. 5:5: You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

FUTURE SINS FORGIVEN?

The Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5:1 not only takes Romans 5:1 out of context, but it leads to still other unbiblical teaching. As we mentioned above, at least from a Calvinist perspective, this understanding of Romans 5:1 leads to the untenable position that all future sins are forgiven at the point of saving faith. Where is that in the Bible? Answer? It’s not. I John 1:8-9 could not make any clearer the fact that our future sins will only be forgiven when we confess them.

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.

I should note here that many Calvinists—and many of those who may not be full-fledged Calvinists, but hold to the “once saved always saved” part of classic Calvinist doctrine—respond to this text by claiming that the forgiveness of sins St. John is talking about here has nothing to do with one’s justification before God. This text only considers whether or not one is in fellowship with God. And this “fellowship with God” is interpreted to mean only whether or not one will receive God’s blessings in this life.

There is a large problem here. The context of the passage does not allow for this interpretation. In fact, if you look at verse five, St. John had just said:

God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

This text makes clear that the “fellowship” being spoken of is essential in order for us to 1) walk in the light as God is in the light and 2) have our sins forgiven. If we are not in “fellowship,” according to verse 6, then we are in darkness. And if we are in darkness, we are not in God, “who is light and in him is no darkness” (vs. 5). There is nothing in this text that even hints at the possibility that you can be out of “fellowship” with God, but still go to heaven. That is, of course, unless you have that fellowship restored by the confession of your sins. This is precisely what verses eight and nine are all about!

THE EXAMPLE OF ABRAHAM

Another point we can agree with our Calvinist friends on is that Romans 4:3 demonstrates Abraham to have been justified through the gift of faith he received from God. The Catholic Church acknowledges what the text clearly says: “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” referencing Genesis 15:6.

However, there is more to this text as well. While the Catholic Church agrees that Abraham was justified by faith in Genesis 15:6 as St. Paul said, we also note that Abraham was justified at other times in his life as well indicating justification to have an on-going aspect to it. Again, there is a sense in which justification is a past action in the life of believers, but there is another sense in which justification is revealed to be a process.

Let’s take a look at the life of Abraham.

Virtually all Christians agree that Romans 4:3 depicts Abraham as being justified through faith in the promise God made to him concerning his offspring:

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (citing Gen. 15:6).

What many fail to see, however, is Abraham is also revealed to have already been justified many years prior to this when he was initially called by God to leave his home in Haran to create a new nation in a then-unknown land promised to him by God. Heb. 11:8 provides:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

What kind of “faith” is the inspired author speaking about? Hebrews 11:6 tells us it is a faith “without [which] it is impossible to please God.” This is a saving faith. So how could Abraham have saving faith if he wasn’t yet saved, or justified?

He couldn’t.

He had a saving faith because he was already justified through his faith and obedience to the call of God in his life long before his encounter with the Lord in Genesis 15. In addition, Abraham is revealed to have been justified again in Genesis 22 years after Genesis 15, when he offered his son Isaac in sacrifice and in obedience to the Lord.

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God (James 2:21-23).

The Most Important Thing

When Catholics read of Abraham “justified by faith” in Romans 5, we believe it. But we don’t end there. For when Catholics read of Abraham “justified by works” in James 2 we believe that as well. For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has taken all of Sacred Scripture into the core of her theology harmonizing all of the biblical texts. Thus, we can agree with our Protestant friends and say as Christians we have been (past tense) justified and saved through our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

But we also agree with our Lord that there is another sense in which we are being saved and justified by cooperation with God’s grace in our lives, and we hope to finally be saved and justified by our Lord on the last day:

I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned (Matt. 12:36-37).”

Love & truth,
Matthew

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

Justification/Sanctification 2


-by Tom Nash

“Question:
Could you please tell me what is Justification and Sanctification and does the Catholic understanding on these topics differ from Protestants?

Answer:
Whole books have written on this subject, so I will provide a basic overview, distinguishing between the basic Catholic view and the fundamental Protestant view first advanced by Martin Luther.

Catholics and Protestants agree that God’s grace is fundamental and indispensable to our eternal salvation as Christians. And that initial justification—i.e., when we first come into relationship with Jesus Christ—is a completely unwarranted divine gift (John 15:16; CCC 1989-92).

In short, the Church teaches that God inwardly heals and transforms us by his grace, making us children of God (CCC 1262ff.). This is initial justification, which takes place in baptism. So baptism gives us a share in divine love or “righteousness,” an infused “theological virtue” which enables us to become like Jesus and do his will in a lovingly obedient way (CCC 1991). Baptism restores our communion with God and is the beginning of our salvation, the first step on a lifelong journey.

Through initial justification, from the Catholic perspective, God obligates us to abide in him (John 14:15) and grow progressively in holiness (see Matt. 5:43-48). This progressive growth after initial justification is known as ongoing justification or sanctification. In ongoing justification or sanctification, we continue to grow in the theological and human virtues, with Jesus as our model. This is not “works righteousness” or “salvation by works” as the Church’s teaching is sometimes caricatured. Works alone, as the heretic Pelagius was reminded by the Church in the 400s, can never save. And works apart from grace cannot even contribute to our salvation. Indeed, our good works only have “merit”—including graces for ourselves and others to grow in holiness and help attain eternal life—because they are rooted in and aided by Christ’s love (CCC 2006–16), so that we might persevere in God’s grace instead of rejecting his gift of salvation. And if we are baptized after the age of reason, even the choice to receive baptism is a good work, again aided by God’s grace.

Luther believed that justification took place by baptism, including infant baptism, something with which most modern Protestant don’t agree, favoring instead a nonsacramental “believer’s baptism.” In addition, in harmony with many modern Protestants, Luther saw God as a judge who makes a legal declaration about our righteousness, our being free from sin in some sense, but who doesn’t inwardly heal and transform us by his grace, let alone call us to a life of deepening holiness. For Luther, the original sin of our first parents injured human nature so badly that we are “totally depraved,” i.e., incapable of doing any good at all, or at least not able to do good works that impact our eternal salvation. Indeed, a fundamental plank of Luther’s soteriology is that man’s will is enslaved. From this conviction comes Luther’s doctrine of “justification by faith alone,” meaning our “good works” cannot possibly impact our eternal destiny, and that only by a total repudiation of God (loss of faith) can we lose our salvation.

For Luther, the baptismal “regeneration” St. Paul taught (Titus 3:5) means the removal of the eternal punishment of sin through the justifying faith associated with baptism, and thus it opens heaven to the justified (Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, “Holy Baptism,” nos. 41–46, 83). However, a justified person’s human nature remains totally depraved for Luther, and original sin and an individual’s personal sins are not blotted out; so communion with God is restored but in a lesser way than our first parents originally enjoyed. One needs to keep these distinctions in mind when Luther teaches that Baptism brings about the “forgiveness of sin.” (Ibid., nos. 41, 86).

Because Luther believed man’s will was enslaved, when God is “in the saddle” vs. the devil, man can perform works of sanctification, whereby the Holy Spirit makes us more like Christ in all we think, desire and choose. But if the devil prevails, man inevitably chooses wrongly.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

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

Abortion, Consistent Ethic of Life

USCCB, St Louis, New Orleans archdioceses: Catholics should seek ethical alternatives to Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine

Johnson & Johnson’s stem cell line comes from an abortion performed in 1985, according to Science.

-by Christine Rousselle, Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Mar 1, 2021 / 05:00 pm MT (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New Orleans says that the recently-approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is “morally compromised,” and advises Catholics to use ethical alternatives if available.

The Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with an emergency use authorization issued on Feb. 27.

The pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute had determined that the vaccine used abortion-derived cell lines in design and development, production, and lab testing. The New Orleans archdiocese on Feb. 26 stated that the vaccine was “morally compromised” because of its connection with abortion.

However, the two other available COVID-19 vaccines are “morally acceptable,” the archdiocese said, while also not prohibiting Catholics from receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if no other ethical alternative is available.

The decision to receive a vaccination for COVID-19 “remains one of individual conscience in consultation with one’s healthcare provider,” the archdiocese said.

“The Archdiocese of New Orleans, in light of guidance from the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and The National Catholic Bioethics Center affirm that though there was some lab testing that utilized the abortion-derived cell line, the two vaccines currently available from Pfizer and Moderna do not rely on cell lines from abortions in the manufacturing process and therefore can be morally acceptable for Catholics as the connection to abortion is extremely remote,” the archdiocese’s statement read.

Ethicists have said that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were “ethically uncontroversial” as their connection to abortions in the design phase were extremely remote. However, some lab tests for the vaccines were conducted using aborted fetal cell lines. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meanwhile, used aborted fetal cell lines in all phases.

“It is under the same guidance that the archdiocese must instruct Catholics that the latest vaccine from Janssen/Johnson & Johnson is morally compromised as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as the testing,” the archdiocese said. This ethical problem is similar to that of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which also used an abortion-derived cell line in the development and testing of their product.

The archdiocese emphasized that “in no way does the Church’s position diminish the wrongdoing of those who decided to use cell lines from abortions to make vaccines.”

“In doing so, we advise that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive either of those vaccines rather than to receive the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines.”

A cell line derived from an abortion decades prior (HEK-293) is commonly used in the testing and development of pharmaceuticals.

The Archdiocese’s statement echoes that made in December by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Back then, they stated that it was “morally acceptable” to receive vaccines produced using cell lines from aborted fetuses when no alternative is available.

In a note issued Dec. 21, the CDF said that in countries where ethically uncontroversial vaccines are not available or where their distribution is limited, it is “morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”

This does not in any way imply a legitimation of the grave evil of the practice of abortion or that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses, the Vatican congregation said.

One of the touted advantages of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is that it does not require specialized refrigeration and can be delivered in a single dose, making it more attractive to some healthcare professionals than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Those vaccines require deep freeze storage and are administered in two doses.”

Author Headshot By David Leonhard, New York Times, 3/4/2021

“Many Americans are worried that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is an inferior product that may not be worth getting. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota recently told The Washington Post that he was now seeing not only “vaccine hesitancy” but also “the potential for brand hesitancy.”

The perception stems from the headline rates of effectiveness of the three vaccines: 72 percent for Johnson & Johnson, compared with 94 percent for Moderna and 95 percent for Pfizer. But those headline rates can be misleading in a few ways.

The most important measure — whether the vaccine prevents serious illness — shows the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be equally effective as the other two. All work for nearly 100 percent of people. The picture is murkier for mild cases, but they are not particularly worrisome.

Today, I want to unpack the statistics about the three vaccines and explain why the current perception is a problem.

I’ll start with an anecdote that this newsletter has included once before: Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University, was recently talking with some colleagues about what they would tell a family member who could choose between getting the Johnson & Johnson tomorrow and one of the other vaccines in three weeks.

“All of us said, ‘Get the one tomorrow,’” as Schaffner recounted to my colleague Denise Grady. “The virus is bad.”

The headline effectiveness numbers — like 72 percent — describe a vaccine’s ability to prevent all infections from this coronavirus, known as SARS-Cov-2. But preventing all infections is less important than it may sound. The world is not going to eliminate SARS-Cov-2 anytime soon. Coronaviruses circulate all the time, causing the common cold and other manageable illnesses.

The trouble with this virus is its lethality. It has killed 15 times as many Americans as an average flu season. Turning Covid into something more like a mild flu or common cold means victory over the pandemic.

All three vaccines being used in the U.S. are accomplishing that goal. In the research trials, none of the people who received a vaccine died of Covid. And after the vaccines had taken full effect, none were hospitalized, either.

In the real world, the vaccines won’t achieve quite as stellar outcomes. Still, the results are excellent — and equally excellent across the three, as Dr. Cody Meissner of the Tufts School of Medicine said during a recent F.D.A. meeting.
Like running into the wind

But why doesn’t Johnson & Johnson appear to be as good at preventing mild illness?

There are a few possible answers. For one, Johnson & Johnson’s research trials seem to have had a greater degree of difficulty. They occurred later than Moderna’s or Pfizer’s — after one of the virus variants had spread more widely. The variant appears to cause a greater number of mild Covid cases among vaccinated people than the original virus.

Second, Johnson & Johnson is currently only one shot, while Moderna and Pfizer are two shots. That happened mostly because of how strong the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is. Initial testing showed it to deliver impressive levels of immunity after only one shot, while the others required a booster, as Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, explained to me.

The truth is that all of the vaccines seem to provide significant protection after a single shot. (Look at Britain, which is not rushing to give second shots and where cases and deaths continue to plummet.) Similarly, all three vaccines may benefit from a second shot.

I recognize that may make some people anxious about getting the single Johnson & Johnson shot, but it shouldn’t. If further data suggest that a second Johnson & Johnson shot would help, regulators can change their recommendation. Regardless, follow-up Covid shots may be normal in the future.

What’s the bottom line? A single Johnson & Johnson shot may indeed allow a somewhat larger number of mild Covid cases than two shots of Moderna or Pfizer. It’s hard to be sure.”

Love,
Matthew

Apologetics, LDS

Distinctive beliefs of the Mormon Church


-Joseph Smith (1805-1844), founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints

-by Catholic Answers

“Are Mormons Protestants? No, but their founder, Joseph Smith, came from a Protestant background, and Protestant presuppositions form part of the basis of Mormonism.

Still, it isn’t correct to call Mormons Protestants, because doing so implies they hold to the essentials of Christianity—what C. S. Lewis termed “mere Christianity.” The fact is, they don’t. Gordon B. Hinckley, a former president and “prophet” of the Mormon church, says (in a booklet called What of the Mormons?) that he and his co-religionists “are no closer to Protestantism than they are to Catholicism.”

That isn’t quite right—it would be better to say Mormons are even further from Catholicism than from Protestantism. But Hinckley is right in saying that Mormons are very different from Catholics and Protestants. Let’s examine some of these differences. We can start by considering the young men who come to your door.

They always come in pairs and are dressed conservatively, usually in white shirts and ties. As often as not, they get from place to place by bicycle. They introduce themselves to you as Elder This and Elder That. The title “Elder” does not refer to their age (many are not even shaving regularly yet), but means they hold the higher of the two Mormon priesthoods: the “Melchizedek” order. This priesthood is something every practicing Mormon male is supposed to receive at about age eighteen, provided he conforms to the standards of the church.

The other priesthood—the “Aaronic”—is the lesser of the two and is concerned with the temporal affairs of the church; and its ranks are known as deacon, teacher, then priest.

The Melchizedek priesthood is concerned mainly with spiritual affairs, and it “embrac[es] all of the authority of the Aaronic,” explains Hinckley. The Melchizedek ranks are elder, seventy, and high priest. At age twelve boys become deacons and thus enter the “Aaronic priesthood.”

If the terms for the various levels of the Mormon priesthood are confusing, still more confusing is Mormonism’s ecclesiastical structure. The basic unit, equivalent to a very small parish, is the “ward.” Several wards within a single geographical area form a “stake,” which corresponds to a large Catholic parish. The head of each ward isn’t called a priest, as you might expect, but a bishop. A Mormon bishop can officiate at a civil marriage, but not at a “temple marriage,” which can be performed only by a “sealer” in one of Mormonism’s temples.

Polygamy

Mormons try to attract new members by projecting an image of wholesome family life in their circles. This is an illusion—Mormon Utah has higher-than-average rates for suicide, divorce, and other domestic problems than the rest of the country. And if Mormonism’s public image of large, happy families and marriage bring to mind anything, it is polygamy.

Hinckley explains that “Mormonism claims to be a restoration of God’s work in all previous dispensations. The Old Testament teaches that the patriarchs . . . had more than one wife under divine sanction. In the course of the development of the church in the nineteenth century, it was revealed to the leader of the church that such a practice should be entered into again.” Although polygamy was permitted to Mormons, few practiced it. But enough did so to make polygamy the characteristic that most caught the attention of other Americans.

Mormonism: Made in America

If some of today’s Protestants are known for their belief that America is destined to play a key role in the events of the Last Days, Mormons are identified even more closely with America. The Mormons’ theory is that Christ also established his Church here, among the Indians, where it eventually flopped, as did his original effort in Palestine.

The situation is somewhat similar to that of the Anglican church. In England, the Anglican church is not just the church of Englishmen; it is the Established Church. In theory, and even at times in practice, Parliament can decide what Anglicans are to believe officially and can make and unmake clerics of all grades, from the lowliest curate to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Just as Anglicanism is tied to England, so Mormonism is tied to the United States. Although it is not the established religion of this country, Mormonism has allowed itself to be modified by Congress.

“In the late 1880s,” says Hinckley, “Congress passed various measures prohibiting [polygamy]. When the Supreme Court declared these laws constitutional, the church indicated its willingness to comply. It could do nothing else in view of its basic teachings on the necessity for obedience to the law of the land. That was in 1890. Since then officers of the church have not performed plural marriages, and members who have entered into such relationships have been excommunicated.”

Before Congress acted, Mormons were convinced polygamy was not merely permissible, but positively good, for those “of the highest character who had proved themselves capable of maintaining more than one family.” Yet this position was dropped when Congress threatened to deny statehood to Utah. Similarly, and more recently, a “revelation” saying blacks would no longer be denied the Mormon priesthood was given to Mormon leaders when the federal government became involved.

Continuing Revelation

These continuing revelations are not exceptions to Mormon practice. “We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things”—this is the ninth article of faith for Mormons and is an official statement of doctrine.

Hinckley notes that “Christians and Jews generally maintain that God revealed himself and directed chosen men in ancient times. Mormons maintain that the need for divine guidance is as great or greater in our modern, complex world as it was in the comparatively simple times of the Hebrews.” Thus, revelation continues.

It might be added: public revelation continues. Catholics hold that public or “general” revelation ended at the death of the last apostle (Catechism of the Catholic Church 66, 73), but private revelations can be given still—and have been, as Marian apparitions at such places as Fatima and Lourdes testify (CCC 67). But such revelations can never correct, supplement, or complete the Christian faith, which is precisely what Mormon “revelations” claim to do.

Mormonism’s Debt to Puritanism

“Mormon theology,” says Hinckley, “deals with such widely diversified subjects as the nature of heaven and the evils of alcohol. Actually, in this philosophy the two are closely related. Since man is created in the image of God, his body is sacred. . . . As such, it ill becomes any man or women to injure or dissipate his or her health.” So alcohol (as well as tobacco, tea, and caffeine) is out for the believing Mormon.

Here we have an example of Mormonism borrowing from Puritanism. The emphasis on “temperance”—which, to the old-line Protestants, meant not the moderate use of alcohol, but outright abstinence—is one such borrowing. The curious thing is that this attitude is contrary to the Bible.

Jesus Wasn’t a Teetotaler

The ancient Jews were a temperate people—temperate used in the right sense. They used light wine as part of the regular diet (1 Tim. 3:8). Jesus, you will recall, was called a wine-drinker (Matt. 11:19), the charge being not that he drank, but that he drank too much (that, of course, was false, but the charge itself reflects the fact that he did drink alcoholic beverages, such as the wine that was required for use in the Jewish Passover seder).

The New Testament nowhere says the Jews claimed Jesus should have been a teetotaler. Wine was used also at weddings, and our Lord clearly approved of the practice of wine drinking, since he made wine from water when the wine was depleted at Cana (John 2:1–11).

Something Mormons seldom refer to is wine’s medicinal uses (Luke 10:34). You will recall that Paul advised Timothy to take wine to ease stomach pains (1 Tim. 5:23). Such apostolic admonitions coexist uneasily with Mormonism’s strictures against wine.

Mormons practice tithing, yet would be shocked to learn that in a key Old Testament passage where tithing (the practice of donating 10 percent of one’s income for religious use) is discussed, God says: “you shall turn [your tithe] into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household” (Deut. 14:25-26). We’re also told, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more” (Prov. 31:6–7).

Often when founders of new religions get an idea, they take it to an extreme. So Joseph Smith confused the misuse of wine with its legitimate use. The Bible does condemn excessive drinking (1 Cor. 5:11; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:18; 1 Pet. 4:3), but the key here is the adjective “excessive.”

Plural Heavens

Mormonism teaches that practically no one is forever damned to hell. Aside from Satan, his spirit followers, and perhaps a half-dozen notorious sinners, all people who have ever existed will share in heavenly “glory.” Not, mind you, all in the same heaven. There are, in fact, three heavens.

The lowest heaven is populated by adulterers, murderers, thieves, liars, and other evildoers. These share in a glory and delight impossible to imagine. Their sins have been forgiven, and they now enjoy the eternal presence of the Holy Ghost.

The middle heaven contains the souls and bodies of good non-Mormons and those Mormons who were in some way deficient in their obedience to church commandments. They will glory in the presence of Jesus Christ forever.

The top heaven is reserved for devout Mormons, who go on to become gods and rulers of their own universes. By having their wives and children “sealed” to them during an earthly, temple ceremony, these men-gods will procreate billions of spirits and place them into future, physical bodies. These future children will then worship their father-gods, obeying Mormon commandments, and eventually take their place in the eternal progression to their own godhood.

Mormons think this doctrine is a strong selling point. They point out (erroneously) that only their church offers families the chance to be together forever in eternity. But read the fine print. The only way you can have your family with you is if each one of them has lived a sterling Mormon life. Otherwise, a spouse, parent, or child may be locked forever in a lower heaven. Indeed, the faithful Mormon wife of a lukewarm Mormon man will leave him behind in an inferior place while she goes on and is sealed to a more devout Mormon gentleman. These two will then beget and raise their own, new family.

The LDS slogan, “Families are forever,” means fractured families.

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 & truth,
Matthew

Apologetics, LDS

Gods of the Mormon Church


-Mormon temple

-by Catholic Answers

George Orwell, in his novel 1984, did Catholic apologists a great favor by coining the term “doublethink,” which he defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” For an illustration of doublethink one need look no further than the Mormon church’s doctrines about God.

Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, taught the doctrine of a “plurality of gods”—polytheism—as the bedrock belief of his church. He developed this doctrine over a period of years to reflect his belief that not only are there many gods, but they once were mortal men who had developed in righteousness until they had learned enough and merited godhood.

The Mormon church uses the term “eternal progression” for this process, and it refers to godhood as “exaltation.” Such euphemisms are used because the idea of men becoming gods is blasphemous to orthodox Christians.

Although he softened his terms, Smith minced no words in explaining his beliefs. “I will preach on the plurality of gods. I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see” (King Follett Discourse).

True to his word, Smith took away the veil of misunderstanding, only to replace it with a monolithic wall of doublethink. After all, to teach that the all-sovereign God, the infinite and supreme being, the creator and master of the universe, is merely an exalted man is a fine example of what Orwell had in mind.

Progressive Revelation to Smith

In 1844, shortly before his death in a gun battle at a jail in Carthage, Illinois, Joseph Smith delivered a sermon at the funeral of a Mormon named King Follett. The King Follett Discourse has become a key source for the Mormon church’s beliefs on polytheism and eternal progression. It’s short and can be purchased at any LDS bookstore for about a dollar.

To appreciate the extent of Smith’s departure from traditional Christian thought, it’s important to realize that his doctrines weren’t “revealed” to his church all at once or in their present state. From his first vision in 1820 until his death in 1844, Smith crafted and modified his doctrines, often altering them so drastically that they became something else entirely.

Early in his career as “prophet, seer, and revelator” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, which he claimed to be the “fullness of the everlasting gospel.” In it are passages that proclaim there is only one God and that God can’t change.

The next time you speak with Mormon missionaries, cite these verses:

“I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity” (Moroni 8:18).

“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles” (Mormon 9:9-10).

It’s hard to be more explicit than that. In his early years Smith did not believe in the “law of eternal progression.” He had an orthodox understanding of God’s immutable nature. But at some point in his theological odyssey, he veered into the land of doublethink.

Contradictory Views

Remember, Smith maintained the inspiration and truth of the Book of Mormon at the same time he believed the following: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another” (King Follett Discourse).

Fourteen years after penning the Book of Mormon, he contradicts his earlier writings with this sermon—but he doesn’t throw aside his earlier teaching. Both are to be accepted.

The Missionary’s “Testimony”

If you question a Mormon missionary, he’ll be familiar with the King Follett Discourse, and he’ll have a “testimony” about the truth of the doctrine of eternal progression. If you have both the Discourse and the Book of Mormon on hand, read these passages to the missionary. Ask him how it’s possible to hold both positions. Mormons revere Joseph Smith as the highest authority in their church. What he said is scripture, and they’re stuck when it comes to this topic. These two teachings from the prophet obviously don’t agree with each other. This is where doublethink kicks in.

They can’t believe that God is at once immutable and changing, that from all eternity he was as he now is, yet he evolved from a mere man. To Mormons this theological contradiction poses no problem because they don’t think through its ramifications. Your job as an apologist is to show them there is a problem and then to offer a solution to it.

It’s not enough to say God is eternal and to leave it at that. We need to take his infinite perfection into account. This is where the Mormons falter. They believe that although God is perfect now, he wasn’t always so. Once he was imperfect, as a mortal, and he had to arrive at perfection through his own labor.

Jesus Christ

According to Mormon teaching, at one point in the eternities past, this man-become-God, or “Heavenly Father,” begat the spirit body of his first son. Together with his heavenly wife, the Father raised his son in the council of the gods.

Before the creation of this world, Jesus Christ presented to his father a plan of salvation which would enable the billions of future human beings the opportunity of passing through mortality and returning to heaven, there to become gods of their own worlds. At the same time, another son of the Heavenly Father and brother of Christ offered a competing plan. When Christ’s was chosen, the rejected Lucifer led a rebellion of one-third of the population of the heavens and was cast out.

In time, Mormons believe, the Heavenly Father came to earth and had physical, sexual intercourse with the Virgin Mary. Rejecting both the testimony of Scripture (Luke 1:34-35) and the constant teaching of the Christian Church, Mormons believe Christ was conceived by the Father, and not by the Holy Spirit (Journal of Discourses 2:268).

Moreover, Mormons teach that Christ is a secondary, inferior god. He does not exist from all eternity. (Nor, for that matter, does his Father.) He was first made by a union of his heavenly parents. After having been reared and taught in the heavens, he achieved a certain divine stature.

Mormons now believe that Christ’s divinity is virtually equal to that of his Father’s. As we have seen, this is a compromised godhood: Jesus Christ merely joins the end of a long line of gods who have preceded him, an infinite “regression” of divine beings whose origin Mormons cannot explain.

The Holy Ghost

The LDS church teaches that all men must pass through mortality in human bodies before they can reach godhood. Yet their third, separate god, called the Holy Ghost, has not yet received a mortal body, even though he is considered to be another god. Mormon theology typically does not address this contradiction.

However, that’s not to say that the Holy Ghost is without any body. In fact, he has a “spiritual body,” in the actual shape of a man, with head, torso, and limbs. He can be in only one place at once (in this he’s no different from his two superiors in the Mormon “Godhead”).

Though to the Holy Ghost is now ascribed the power of each Mormon’s individual “testimony” or feeling concerning the truth of Mormon doctrines, he was not always so honored. In fact, Joseph Smith originally acknowledged only two divine personages, referring to the Holy Ghost merely as the “mind” of the two (Lectures on Faith, 48-49).

Latter-Day Saints do not believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the only three gods there are. Rather, they believe in a “plurality” of gods, gods without number, each one ruling his own creation. Thus, the three separate gods who rule our universe are finite in power—they sustain and govern only a tiny portion of all that exists.

The other gods have either preceded or followed the Heavenly Father who organized our world. In fact, men living today on this planet will one day become gods of their own universes. As such, they will mate with heavenly wives, beget spirit children, populate new worlds, and receive the worship and obedience we are now expected to give to our particular, current God.

Smith—and All Men—to Be Gods

The Mormon founder taught that faithful Mormon men can ascend to divinity. In the King Follett Discourse, Joseph Smith said, “My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same. And when I get to my kingdom [godhood], I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.”

In any discussion with a Mormon about Mormonism’s conflicting teachings on the nature of God, you have to get to the central facts. Just show them how the Book of Mormon conflicts with Smith’s later teachings. If he was right about God, when was he right? Take your pick, but you can’t pick both, and neither can a Mormon, except if he uses doublethink. If a Mormon chooses either teaching as correct and admits the other must be wrong, Smith’s credibility as a prophet collapses.

Don’t Aim to Win an Argument

Be forewarned that your first discussion about the nature of God won’t produce any visible change in your Mormon acquaintance. Be patient as you help him see these theological “black holes.”

Keep in mind your ultimate goal isn’t to win an argument, but to win a soul for Christ. You need sound logic, but also patience that’s sustained by charity. Above all, you need to pray that God will use your efforts to prepare your acquaintance’s soul for the gift of faith. Doublethink isn’t invincible.

You need to do some homework first, of course. You need a solid understanding of God’s nature. We recommend reading the appropriate passages in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Catechism, and Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity.

You should also have on hand a copy of the Book of Mormon and of the King Follett Discourse. If you have your references already marked in these books, you’ll be ready the next time a Mormon missionary comes to your door.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom