Catholicism v. Protestantism
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You are not the first person to use humor as a shield to hide inadequacies and you wont be the last.
What you wont do is refute the essence of anything I say with legitimate scripture and honestly, nothing beyond that matters.
That's really funny considering I can't drag any scriptures out of you to support your opinions.
That's because you have yet to define a specific point of error. I commented earlier on the aggregate of some of your postings.
Again, pick a specific point that you believe is in error and post your evidence to back it up and I'll correct it and you accordingly.
That's simple enough isn't it?
You are long on aloof and nondescript and short on direct and specific- why?
GRACE ambassador
Well-Known Member
Precious friend, the Scriptural Reason That God's ETERNAL Salvation Must
"go on and on," Is Because It is THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL! And, it is
Very SIMPLE, According To The Scripture {NOT Confused "religions"}:
God Establishes HIS Eternal Relationship With those who humbly:
believe, 100% trust, place Total faith, In The LORD JESUS CHRIST, HIS
Death {Precious BLOOD}, Burial, And HIS Resurrection, According To The
Scriptures! (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; cp Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 3-5 KJB!)
"GRACE Through faith" In The Merits Of HIS
Precious And ALL-Sufficient BLOOD Results:
All sins Forgiven, HIS Eternal Life, And, Peace With God!
{This Is Eternal DELIVERANCE From the PENALTY of sin!}
Justification
I will pray for you - any More questions, let me know...
This "study" should be next:
God's OPERATION On All HIS New-born babes In CHRIST!
Thank you very much for your comment. I appreciate your prayers and will do the same. I grew up in church and have remained a believer since adulthood, but reading different views on these topics now that I am older has confused me and caused me to question my own beliefs, so I appreciate the guidance and wisdom in discerning truth. I just want to do right by Jesus and those around me.
Thank you for your comment. Apologies if I have rehashed once discussed topics - I am new here. If you have time to answer a few questions, I would appreciate it. No snark here, just genuine curiosity. What exactly differentiates "works" from "works of the law"? I am not sure I have heard those discussed as different ideas before. I have been baptized before but understand that some believe immersion is required, I wasn't immersed because that is not how my denomination does it. I am curious how you differentiate baptism by the Spirit vs. baptism by water - I understand they can occur simultaneously, but are you of the belief they must occur simultaneously, and if so, what scripture supports this view?
I also wonder if you could discuss the difference between salvation and justification? I am attempting to get to the heart of the dispute between you and Apologetic Sheepdog.
Thanks again, and again, I inquire in good faith! Bless you.
Thankfully, I have been baptized! Appreciate your comment. I too have held the understanding that baptism of the Spirit can be separate from baptism by water.
I apologise in advance that this is rather long but I think the topic needs it.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary gives several definitions of work. The first and most general is:
“activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a result.”
From the quotes I gave you we can see that Paul recognises two classes of “works” – works of the law and works that are not works of the law. We’ll come to the latter later. But let us concentrate on what Paul means by works of the law.
In Romans 2 he writes
25 Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
And in Gal 3:10
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them."
Clearly by works of the law Paul is referring to the Jewish law.
Works done under the law are those done under some sort of legal contract that try to put an obligation on God – to make salvation our due. We try to earn our salvation
It is in this sense of earning something that Paul uses the word in Rom 4:4 when he writes:
“Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due.” (Rom 4:4)
If we work, as for an employer, expecting wages as our due then we will be judged under that Law and will always be found wanting and will be condemned.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary helpfully gives a definition of this class of works - “such activity as a means of earning income”.
There is another class of works – works that are not works of the law.
The third definition in Concise Oxford English Dictionary is helpful here – “Theology, good or moral deeds”
Doing “good works” give us merit in the sight of God because they are done out of love and do not attempt to put God under any obligation to reward us.
One definition of merit from the Collins Concise English Dictionary is:
“ a deserving or commendable quality or act.”
Note: in Catholic theology, merit means rewardable. It does not imply earn.
When we do something out of love and not as a contract under Law we do a deserving or commendable act and God will graciously reward us.
“love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High” (Lk 6:35)
“I the Lord search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” (Jer 17:10)
"Whoever does good has his reward, which each receives according to his deeds.”(Sir 16:14)
I could give examples of these three definitions of work as follows:
1. – Digging my garden (general definition).
2. – Digging someone else’s garden for a wage (work as earning income)
3. – Digging an elderly neighbour’s garden out of charity (work as a good deed and meritorious – a commendable act)
Paul writes: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast”. (Eph 2:8-9)
Whereas James writes: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (Jas 2:14)
These two are not contradictory if we understand that Paul is referring to works of the law and James is referring to good deeds, meritorious acts, just as in the examples he gives in the following verses:
“If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?”
These are the type of works Jesus refers to in Mt 25:31-45 and Mt 10:41-42
Further, from my examples of digging a garden we can see that it is not the act itself that is good or bad but the cause of the act, the motive. If the act is motivated by love then it is meritorious and God will reward us. If it is driven by other motives (e.g. to get admiration from others) then we may get no reward, at least from God.
“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven…….” (Mt 6:1 & following verses)
Finally whatever good acts we do are God’s actions in us not just our own. Catholics believe that grace comes in two kinds, sanctifying grace and actual grace. Actual grace is the prompts and help that God gives us to do good deeds. When we do a good deed it is God working in us.
Or, as St. Augustine said "when you crown our merits, you crown your own gifts,"
I'll come back to your other points tomorrow.
Marymog
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Hi Sheepdog,
Who decides what a false doctrine is?
Respectfully....Mary
Marymog
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Hi Jones,
The Apostolic Fathers (Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp) drew me to The Catholic Church. Also the Didache, which is a Church catechism written in the 1st century while some books of the NT were written, drew me to The Church.
Hope that helps...Mary
Marymog
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Lol....Ok...So you read Scripture and I read Scripture and we both come up with a different doctrine.
Martin Luther reads Scripture and Zwingili read Scripture and they both came up with different doctrines.
The Catholic Churuch and the Baptist Church leaders read Scripture and came up with a different doctrine.
So your theory that “Scripture” decides what a false doctrine is non-sensical. Would you care to try again?
Mary
On another thread I wrote extensively on this. Rather than repeat it I'll give you the link back to that:
Baptismal Regeneration
Read posts #35 & #36, and the summary in post #40
One further comment. The noun term baptism by (or in/with/of) the Holy Spirit does not appear in scripture, only the verb form (baptised).
The noun form appears to have been invented by the Pentecostals in the late 19th century.
More to come on your other points
Immersion is not required.
Baptise comes from the Greek word baptizo which means immerse or dip or plunge. However I think it is wrong to treat baptizo as simply a Greek word with various meanings. It is the name of a Jewish, and later Christian, ritual and therefore expresses the meaning of the ritual and not of all the Greek word possibilities.
The origins are the ritual purification of full body washing known in Hebrew as tevilah in a mikvah (ritual bath). Mikvah means a gathering of water and so a river is a mikvah. Since rivers were not commonly available it was any suitable pool of water, but not a free standing bath in the modern sense. It had to be dug into the ground, or built into the structure of a building and should contain rainwater with a minimum of 77 gallons. Bathing should be by total immersion and naked to ensure every part of the body was purified.
According to a Jewish site, when the Jews and Evangelists wrote in Greek they avoided the Greek words for bathe and bath because of the sexual connotations. The Greek communal bathing was a place of gossip (often crude), communal nudity and homosexuality. So they used the word baptizo (and it’s derivatives) instead. The word therefore expresses this ritual purification in water. Baptism is symbolic of inner cleansing, forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), identification with the death and resurrection of Christ (Col 2:11-13).
In The OT it was prophesied by Ezekial:
I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you…. (Ez 36:25-27)
and
“Take the Levites from among the Israelites and cleanse them. Thus you shall do to them, to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification on them, have them shave their whole body with a razor and wash their clothes, and so cleanse themselves……The Levites purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes” (Number 8: 6-8 & 21).
A 1st century document, the Didache (called The Teaching of The Apostles) says:
"After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water, and if you are not able in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, let the one baptizing and the one to be baptized fast, as also any others who are able. Command the one who is to be baptized to fast beforehand for one or two days" (Didache 7:1).
No, it was correct the first time.
Many people use the circular reasoning of this for various reasons but ..
There is a significant difference between "reading" and doing a detailed analytical study complete with vetting and other tests for the data.
Then we have the other influences such as personal belief, organizational agenda, accuracy/availability of the source data, limits of the 'read', prevalent social order of the times and so forth.
What we have ( barring nothing truly "original" I grant) is what we have.
That's even excluding anything alleged to be "supernatural (revelations of the Spirit)
At the end of the day, Scripture is what we have and base everything on- therefore it is the authority. The rest (due diligence) is on us.
So, no, all opinions and conclusions are not "equal" in that regard
Technically Apologetic Sheepdog is correct in that Justification and Salvation are not synonymous. I think salvation is a broader term encompassing not only Justification but a sense of being set apart for God.
In practice the terms seems to be used as synonyms in scripture. For example James says, in discussing faith and works:
What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? (James 2:14).
But them when giving an example in vs 21 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?"
And Paul says in Rom10:9-13
if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.
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