Featured OSAS Trap

My point is that OSAS is dangerous and unbiblical, like the guy that was cheating on his wife but was saying he was assured of salvation anyway.

I see a lot of things spiritually, this guy was rotten and didn’t know it. Many are walking dead and don’t know it.

Mortal sin is real, it cuts off the life of Grace, people need to snap out of their delusions.

Jesus set up an Apostolic remedy, giving His Apostles and their successors the ministry for the forgiveness of sin. What they bind on Earth is bound in Heaven. They forgive sin in the person of Christ.

Jesus set it up this way.

 

The Apostles were acting in the Person of Christ.

“ He who listens to you, listens to Me “

Think about this. It’s an extraordinary thought.

When you listen to an Apostle you aren’t listening to “ some man “, you are listening to Christ speaking.
They are speaking in the Person of Christ.

This is amazing enough by itself isn’t it.

In the light of this, read this.

“Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Not only do the Apostles speak in the Person of Christ, they forgive and retain sin in the Person of Christ.

So when you want to listen to Christ and be forgiven by Christ, you go to the Apostolic successors.

“For not only at the time of regeneration, but afterwards also, they have authority to forgive sins. ‘Is any sick among you?’ it is said, ‘let him call for the elders of the Church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up: and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him.'” John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, 3:6 (A.D. 386) .

“For if any one will consider how great a thing it is for one, being a man, and compassed with flesh and blood, to be enabled to draw nigh to that blessed and pure nature, he will then clearly see what great honor the grace of the Spirit has vouchsafed to priests; since by their agency these rites are celebrated, and others nowise inferior to these both in respect of our dignity and our salvation. For they who inhabit the earth and make their abode there are entrusted with the administration of things which are in Heaven, and have received an authority which God has not given to angels or archangels. For it has not been said to them, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.’ They who rule on earth have indeed authority to bind, but only the body: whereas this binding lays hold of the soul and penetrates the heavens; and what priests do here below God ratifies above, and the Master confirms the sentence of his servants. For indeed what is it but all manner of heavenly authority which He has given them when He says, ‘Whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose sins ye retain they are retained?’ What authority could be greater than this? ‘The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son?’ But I see it all put into the hands of these men by the Son.” John Chrysostom, The Priesthood, 3:5 (A.D. 387).

Note John Chrysostom’s understanding of scripture here.

Priests as Apostolic successors wield heavenly authority on earth as extensions of Jesus ministry.

When you go to the Apostolic ministers, you are going to Christ.

 

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.“

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.“

Jesus is faithful for His part.

But by mortal sin we can be cut off and wither.

We must remain in His Love, by keeping His commands.

Jesus wouldn’t be telling people to remain in His Love if it was impossible not to remain in His Love.

People can grow on the vine and be cut from the vine, to wither and be burned.

OSAS is wrong and deadly.

 

Catholics call the state of Grace as being saved in a sense, this is remaining in Jesus love.

“ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love. “

Keeping Jesus commands requires works, especially to love others.

Faith must express through works of Love.

It’s not a passive intellectual assent type of faith that will save you.

So we are in the process of being saved so long as we remain in a state of Grace , something we must continue in perseverance.

 

So you don’t sin anymore?

You are without sin.

 

First off. Being Born again was always water Baptism.

Among the early Christians, many would delay Baptism to avoid seriously sinning after Baptism, because restoration by penance was public and onerous.

Many Christians lapsed under the threats of pagan Roman persecution, this would constitute mortal sin, excommunicating a person from the Church.

But we also see that these lapsed Christians were also taken back into the church and were forgiven by public confession to the bishop, and a severe penance imposed on them.

Pagan Romans were extremely inventive is devising succulent and fearful tortures for Christians, and human frailties got the better of many.
Many Christians also jumped at the chance of martyrdom, availing themselves of a God given opportunity to witness by their own blood.
Martyrdom was seen as a regenerative Baptism on its own, The Baptism of Blood.

So there was an Apostolic remedy for the lapsed to forgive mortal sin, Confession.

If you understand the early Christians on this, you understand Catholics on this.

 

So you didn’t read the scripture I quoted.

 

The same reason Justin Martyr thought that.

“For Christ also said, ‘Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers’ wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: ‘Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well…And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow…And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone…And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.” Justin Martyr, First Apology, 61 (A.D. 110-165).

The same reason Irenaeus and Tertullian thought that.

” ‘And dipped himself,’ says [the Scripture], ‘seven times in Jordan.’ It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but it served as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: ‘Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'” Irenaeus, Fragment, 34 (A.D. 190).

“When, however, the prescript is laid down that ‘without baptism, salvation is attainable by none” (chiefly on the ground of that declaration of the Lord, who says, “Unless one be born of water, he hath not life.'” Tertullian, On Baptism, 12:1 (A.D. 203).

The same reason Origen, Cyprian and the entire council of Carthage thought that.

“The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sins, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit.” Origen, Commentary on Romans, 5:9 (A.D. 244).

“[W]hen they come to us and to the Church which is one, ought to be baptized, for the reason that it is a small matter to ‘lay hands on them that they may receive the Holy Ghost,’ unless they receive also the baptism of the Church. For then finally can they be fully sanctified, and be the sons of God, if they be born of each sacrament; since it is written, ‘Except a man be born again of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’…[O]nly baptism of the holy Church, by divine regeneration, for the kingdom of God, may be born of both sacraments, because it is written, ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'” Cyprian, To Stephen, 71:72 (A.D. 253).

“And in the Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ spoke with His divine voice, saying, “Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” This is the Spirit which from the beginning was borne over the waters; for neither can the Spirit operate without the water, nor the water without the Spirit…Unless therefore they receive saving baptism in the Catholic Church, which is one, they cannot be saved, but will be condemned with the carnal in the judgment of the Lord Christ.” Council of Carthage VII (A.D. 258).

How many kindreds of the same thought do I find among the ancient Fathers.

What were they referring to for that thought.