Catholics Visiting The Baptist Forum Part 2

Not at all.

No, Jesus does not add supplements to grace. Believers have access by faith into grace (not faith plus sacraments) in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2) Believers are saved by grace through faith, not works. (Ephesians 2:8,9)

Jesus is the Bread of Life. Just as bread nourishes our physical bodies, Jesus gives and sustains eternal life to those who believe in Him. John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." As He was accustomed, Jesus used figurative language to emphasize these spiritual truths. Jesus explains the sense of the passage when He says in John 6:63 - "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."

The literal interpretation is absurd, resulting in cannibalism. By faith we partake of Christ, and the benefits of His bodily sacrifice on the cross and shed blood, receiving eternal life. Eating and drinking is not literally with the mouth here, but the reception of God’s grace by believing in Jesus, as He makes it clear.

John 6:40 - Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:54 - Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:47 - Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.

John 6:58 - He who eats this bread will live forever.

"He who believes" in Christ is equivalent to "he who eats this bread and drinks My blood" because the result in both cases is the same, eternal life.

John 6 does not afford any support to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. On the contrary, it's on the primacy of faith as the means by which we receive the grace of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life; we eat and drink of Him when we believe in Him unto eternal life.

Bread represents the "staff of life" - sustenance. That which essential to sustain life. Just as bread or sustenance is necessary to maintain physical life, Jesus is all the sustenance necessary for spiritual life.

The source of physical life is blood -- "life is in the blood." As with the bread, just as blood is the empowering or source of life physically, Jesus is all the source of spiritual life necessary.

Not discerning the Lord's body had nothing to do with transubstantiation. In context, we see that Paul is talking about them coming together in one place, but not to properly eat the Lord’s Supper and each one was taking his own supper ahead of others and one is hungry and another is drunk. Paul certainly did not praise them for this! (vs. 20-22) When believers do not properly partake of the Lord's Supper with the right motives, they are showing disrespect to the Lord Himself in remembrances of His sacrificial death.

In verse 29, Paul goes on to say - For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. Paul knows that the judgment of God can take on the form of physical illness and even physical death. The word "sleep" when referring to death, refers to the physical death of believers, not spiritual death (John 11:11-12; Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6,18,20,51; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15; 2 Peter 3:4).

 

Notice that Paul said to "work out" your salvation and not "work for" your salvation. When we "work out" at the gym, we exercise to develop our body that we already have and not to obtain a body. Farmers "work out" the land, not in order to obtain the land, but to develop the land they already have. The Greek verb rendered "work out" is in regards to actively pursuing the process of ongoing sanctification. In verse 13, Paul goes on to say - for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Ongoing sanctification has no bearing on justification. That is, even if we don't live a sinless, perfect life (which we won't) or whether we are babes in Christ or mature in Christ, we are still justified by faith in Christ (Romans 5:1). Where justification is a legal declaration that is instantaneous, ongoing sanctification is a process.

There are 3 tenses to salvation. 1. We have been saved from the PENALTY of sin (justification) 2. We are being saved from the POWER of sin (ongoing sanctification) 3. We will be saved from the PRESENCE of sin (glorification)

What fear and bondage to insecurity you must live under. Fear and trembling is the attitude Christians are to have in this process, which is a healthy fear of reverence for His majesty and holiness.

It is the Lord who ultimately judges because only He truly knows the motives of everyone's heart.

In James 2:14, we read of one who says/claims he has faith but has no works (to validate his claim). That is not genuine faith, but a bare profession of faith. So when James asks, "Can that faith save him?" he is saying nothing against genuine faith, but only against an empty profession of faith/dead faith. *So James does not teach that we are saved "by" works. His concern is to show the reality of the faith professed by the individual (James 2:18) and demonstrate that the faith claimed (James 2:14) by the individual is genuine. Simple!

You need to remember that James is discussing the evidence of faith (says-claims to have faith but has no works/I will show you my faith by my works - James 2:14-18) and not the initial act of being accounted as righteous with God (Romans 4:2-3).

 

This is where works-salvationists try to sneak works into the back door of salvation through faith. I refer to this as trying to "shoe horn" works "into" salvation through faith. Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Although faith results in multiple acts of obedience/works, faith is not defined as multiple acts of obedience/works. So faithfulness in regards to accomplishing multiple acts of obedience/works (as you imply) is not built into the essence of faith, but rather, ongoing and persistent faith. Bottom line: works are not the essence of faith. 4102. pistis pis'-tis from 3982; persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:--assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

So you admit that there are no verses in the Bible that specifically say "lose salvation." I've heard three different interpretations for Hebrews 6:4-6 (hypothetical view, lost salvation view, never truly saved view) but am not convinced that it teaches a really "saved" person truly "lost their salvation." NOWHERE does the Bible use the words "lose or lost salvation." According to the hypothetical interpretation, the key word in the passage is IF (verse 6). According to this view, the writer of Hebrews is setting up a hypothetical statement: "IF a Christian were to fall away." The point being made is that it would be impossible IF a Christian fell away to renew them again. That’s because Christ died once for sin and if His sacrifice is insufficient, then there’s no hope at all. The passage then presents an argument based on a false premise (that a true Christian can fall away) and follows it to its senseless conclusion that they would crucify again for themselves the Son of God.

In regards to the never truly saved view, the words, once enlightened - which means to bring to light, to shed light upon or to cause light to shine upon some object, in the sense of illuminating it. John 1:9 describes Jesus, the "true Light," giving light "to every man," but this cannot mean the light of salvation, because not every man is saved. The light either leads to the complete acceptance of Jesus Christ or produces condemnation in those who reject the light.

In regards to partakers of the Holy Spirit, which describes one who shares with someone else as an associate in an undertaking. It speaks of those who are participators in sharing in, a partner in a work, office, dignity. Metochos is used elsewhere in Hebrews 3:14 in the context of believers, "For we have become partakers of Christ," so at first glance, partakers of the Holy Spirit "on the surface" would seem to support that true believers are being addressed, yet there are other ministries of the Holy Spirit that precede the indwelling of believers. An individual may become a sharer in or partaker of the Spirit (His pre-salvation ministry, convicting of sin, righteousness and judgment to come etc..) by temporarily responding to His drawing power intended to lead sinners to Christ. *Note that the writer of Hebrews does not state that these individuals were "indwelled by the Holy Spirit" or "sealed by the Holy Spirit" or have "received the Spirit's pledge which is the guarantee of future inheritance." Genuine believers who have believed the gospel are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession/unto the day of redemption. (Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30)

In regards to tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, they may have tasted in such a way as to give them a distinct impression of the quality and character of what was tasted, yet they still fell away. Inherent in the idea of tasting is the fact that one might or might not decide to accept what is tasted. For example, the same Greek word (geuomai) is used in Matthew 27:34 to say that those crucifying Jesus "offered him wine to drink, mingled with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it." Do we taste into one Spirit or drink into one Spirit? (1 Corinthians 12:13).

In regards to fall away, in Proverbs 24:16, we read - For a righteous man may fall seven times AND rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity. Those who permanently fall away demonstrate they were not truly born again. (1 John 2:19)

In Hebrews 6:7-8, we read - For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. In this agricultural metaphor, those who receive final judgment are compared to land that bears no vegetation or useful fruit, but rather bears thorns and thistles. When we recall other metaphors in Scripture where good fruit is a sign of true spiritual life and a lack of good fruit is a sign of false believers (Matthew 3:8-10; 7:15-20; 12:33-35), we already have an indication that the most trustworthy evidence of one's spiritual condition is the fruit they bear (whether good or bad), suggesting that the writer of Hebrews is talking about people who are not genuine believers.

*Verse 9 sums it up for me. The writer is speaking to those truly saved (refers to them as BELOVED). He says that even though he speaks like this concerning THOSE types of people, He is convinced of better things concerning YOU. Things that ACCOMPANY SALVATION. Thorns and briars and falling away permanently do not accompany salvation.

It's generally stated by those who believe salvation can be lost that you can get it back again, yet that would not be the case here if the writer of Hebrews was teaching a loss of salvation. Now why is it that we never find the words "lose or lost your salvation" in the Bible? That would certainly settle the issue for me. I have heard certain individuals state they know someone who was truly saved, but later lost their salvation, yet only God truly knows the heart of individuals. Certain people "on the surface" may do a good job of looking like the real deal for a while (like Judas Iscariot, who was an unbelieving, unclean devil who betrayed Jesus - John 6:64-71; 13:10-11) yet to the other 11 disciples, he looked like the real deal, but Jesus knew his heart. There are genuine Christians and there are "nominal" Christians. There are genuine believers and there are make believers.

 

In context, Paul is talking about being disqualified for the prize (NIV). What is the prize before Paul? Is it that reward of which he spoke in verse 1 Corinthians 9:18? Salvation is a gift, not a prize. A prize is something that you work for and earn where a gift is something that you freely accept without merit. Prize (brabeion) - the prize awarded to a victor, the reward (recognition) that follows triumph. That doesn't sound like a free gift to me (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8). 1 Corinthians 3:14-15 mentions - If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, (of reward) though he himself will be saved.

Notice that verse 24 says, "Do you not know that those who run in a race ALL run, but ONLY ONE receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." In an Olympic race, all runners run but only one receives the gold medal. So what happens to the runners that receive the silver medal or bronze medal or finish the race with no medal? Are they disqualified from the Olympics or from the prize, receiving the gold medal?

The present tense of the word "justified" implies that these Galatians were contemplating justification by the law. They were getting side tracked by legalistic teachers. "You who are trying to be justified by the law have fallen away from grace," but had they fully come to that place yet? Galatians 3:3 reads: Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? The middle voice implies "making yourselves perfect" by means of self effort. The present tense indicates that the action is in progress and that there is still time to correct the error.

If these Galatians lost their salvation and it was a done deal, then why didn't Paul simply say you "lost your salvation" and I'm done with you? Instead, in verse 10, he said - I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. Why would Paul have confidence in these Galatians if they lost their salvation and it's all over for them? In verse 12, Paul uses hyperbole, As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

I already thoroughly explained this in post #63 from the link below:

To the Catholics visiting the Baptist forum.

 

So, I shouldn't take them at their word? I should rely on some ignorant cult member to tell me what they "really meant"?'

The issue was your fellow cultmember's claim that God's Word is not the highest authority on faith and doctrine.

I provided numerous examples of the ECFs stating that it is.

You can ignore that, just as you ignore the Word of God, if you like, but the fact remains that they still declared it the highest authority.

Irrelevant. The issue is your fellow cultmember's claim that God's Word is not the highest authority on faith and doctrine, not apostolic succession.

Try to focus.

In other words, your cult's claims were shown to be untrue, so you decided to move the goalposts.

 

Fourth century.

Fourth century.

 

When the topic is the supremacy of scripture and you try to make it about the interpretation of scripture, that's exactly what you're doing.

Only inasfar as you believe it to support Catholic teaching.

 

Which Christ does one believe in? Yes, there is only God's Christ in whom we should believe.

". . . Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . ." -- 1 John 5:1.

". . . For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. . . ." -- 1 John 5:4.

". . . He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, . . ." -- 1 John 5:12-13.

". . . He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, . . ." -- Revelation 3:5.

". . . He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . ." -- Revelation 2:11.

". . . He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. . . ."

". . . whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. . . ." -- Revelation 20:15.

". . . But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, . . ." -- 2 Corinthians 11:3-4.

". . . For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. . . ." -- 2 Corinthians 11:13.

". . . [Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. . . ." -- John 6:47. Jesus the Christ being the true manna from Heaven.

 

Baptism [immersion] has nothing to do with causing one to be born from God. And there are no sacrements as such.

 

Jesus Christ said, "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." [John 3:5]. Six times in John's gospel do we hear the double amen twenty-six times. It is His own strengthening of God's affirmation. Hence it is to you the only way to be "regenerated," amen amen - with water and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore He becomes the doorway through which we enter the Church, His Kingdom, amen amen.

JoeT

 

And yet, you can't name one thing I've said about the historical record of the Christian experience that's incorrect.