Baptism and obedience

Thessalonian,
By Jesus taking our sins upon himself and dying on the cross, that once-for-all act that is ATONEMENT for sin JUSTIFIES us. There is nothing we can do to win justification that is ALL God's work finished by Jesus. By believing in Jesus, that is continuous believing, we are SANCTIFIED, that is set aside, or marked for salvation. The only thing we can do for sanctification is CONTINUE in believing in Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah. It is our belief that marks us and separates us from the unbelievers. Otherwise, we look just like them. Works cannot bring atonement, nor can they bring about sanctification. Yes, works are an outward manifestation of sanctification but they do not cause sanctification. Sanctification comes with Faith and faith alone.

 

I don't know if you will understand this but there is an observable phenomina throughout all of God's creation that deals with this subject. Unfortunately I have forgotten the "name" of the law and maybe someone can help out here. The law says, to wit, that 'changes and unlikes are always met with resistance'. This law applies from the sub-atomic realm all the way to the maximums of God's Created universe, and in both the physical and the spiritual realms. Resistance can be considered to be "testing". So in the religion area when one changes from unbeliever to believer, that law says the change will be met with resistance. or 'testing'.

I don't know if that helps but it certainly is true. By the way, the amount of resistance is relative to the amount of change.

 

You believe that works justify people before God.

You believe the same thing, Brian. You believe that faith saves us. Well, faith is something we "do". It's a "work".

Apparently, the question isn't whether works justify us; the question is: what kind of works justify and what kind don't justify?

"Works" can mean anything, really.. as long as it's a human performing the action.

In Eph 2:9, if Paul meant "works" as in the Mosaic Law, then I agree with him. If Paul mean "works" as in human morality (doing good deeds - the boasting moralist), then I agree with him. If Paul meant Christian love/charity, then I disagree with him, and not only that, but he would be contradicting himself.

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail (this is what Paul means constantly by works throughout his epistles - the ceremonial precepts of the Mosaic Law), but faith working through love." (Gal 5:6).

Did you catch that? Faith working through love. If faith doesn't work through love, it's still faith, brother. You can intellectually believe with all your heart and still not love.

If you want to drop this we can, I firmly believe the Bible teaches justification before God is from faith only because God knows our heart, we do not have to "prove" anything to Him.

I do not believe that salvation comes from "proving" anything before God, Brian. You still aren't understanding the Catholic position on the matter.

Catholics do not believe in a system of works/righteousness salvation. How many times do I have to repeat myself on this matter before what I say is respected and listened to?

God doesn't need us to "prove" ourselves. In fact, we can't prove ourselves at all! Even if we kept the moral law 100%, we still wouldn't merit heaven!

Did you catch that? It isn't that the Holy Spirit gives us the power to keep the Law, and then because we are given this new power to keep the Law, we are justified because we are keeping the Law.

Not at all!

God loves us. He pours his love into our hearts, he recreates us, and he forms us. All we have to do is say "yes", and our initial and continual fiat is what we contribute. This is expressed in what we call faith. We assent, we hope, and we love. These three parts of Faith: faith, hope, and love - are so bound up with one another that you cannot separate one from the other.

If, by faith, you mean merely an intellectual assent, then you aren't talking about the faith I'm talking about. The demons intellectually assent, yet tremble. They really and truly believe, Brian! I'm talking about a faith that believes, hopes, and loves. Now, this is a faith that demons do not have, and it is the only kind of faith that can save.

And get this.. our believing, hope, and loving.. will not save us. We don't have the power to believe hope and love! Only God's life, which is the Holy Spirit, when poured into our souls.. can do this; all we have to do is consent.

Otherwise, if you think that human belief saves us.. well, you're wrong. Check out the end of John Chapter 2 and see what Jesus' response is to those who believe themselves unto him with their human nature.

What's needed is the new nature that can have faith that saves (John 3:16) - and where do we get that? Well, apparently not from just believing - because John 2 tells us where that leaves us.

We need that thing called the rebirth of water and spirit.

We are justified ONLY by being sons in Jesus Christ who alone merited salvation for us on the Cross. And how do we become sons? In baptism. And how do we get justified? By faith. What kind of faith? The kind of faith that is given to us when we receive the Holy Spirit - the kind of faith that believes, hopes, and loves.

And what does believing, hoping, and loving do? It conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ. And what is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ? Growing in sonship. And what is our justification? Becoming children of God. And so if we're increasingly becoming more like Jesus Christ, the only Son of God in whom alone we have our justification, Catholics can say that we can grow in what we already are: sons of God, and thereby grow in justification.

How do we do this? By being sanctified by the Life of the Spirit. Our sanctification is our increase in justification because we become really and trully children of God more and more as we grow in the divine life.

[ May 22, 2003, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

And if one does not continue in believing?

Would one still be saved and yet not santified?

Doesn't Scripture tell us that no unclean thing will enter Heaven?

Ron

 

Carson, could you please list the details involved in faith that makes faith a work? What effort does the human spirit exert to believe, which is what faith is? If you say, "it is something that a human does", you are not giving the details. What are the mechanics a human must do to have faith?

Works indeed CANNOT justify us! Jesus' Atonement for our sins Justifies us.

NO! That is not true! God performs many wonderous WORKS! For example, God said "let there be light!" VIOLA! there was light!

 

And if one does not continue in believing?

Would one still be saved and yet not santified?

Doesn't Scripture tell us that no unclean thing will enter Heaven?

Ron </font>[/QUOTE]Ron,
Refer to the Parable of the sower. The seeds sown are seeds of faith. Some falls on hard ground that the seed cannot break into and take root. Some falls on rocky soil, takes root but not finding enough nourishment, withers and dies. Some seed falls on thorny and weedy soil, takes root only to be choked out by the weeds and thorns. But, some seed falls on good ground, takes root and flourishes, producing an hundred fold.

Many forms of ground receive the seeds of faith, the Sower does not deliberately discriminate, but not all forms of ground are capable of growing the faith, and the faith dies.

Applying that to humanity, the sower again is not discriminatory about the seed he scatters among us. But not everyone is capable of growing faith. Some refuse to let the seed take root, some let the seed take root but do nothing to nourish it, some let the seed take root only to become so busy with the weeds of life that the faith gets choked out, but there are some who let the seed take root, nourishing it with the 'bread of life' and 'living water' by which faith Grows into a beautiful producing tree.

Come harvest time when the crop is taken into the storehouse, there is no faith available from the hard ground, the rocky ground, or the weedy ground. The Good ground however has produced faith unto salvation.

What conclusion do you draw from the parable?

 

That in order to be saved we must persevere to the end.

No one time instantaneous saving act of faith.

No once saved always saved.

Ron

 

Carson,
Please reconcile these two statement that you made.

"You believe the same thing, Brian. You believe that faith saves us. Well, faith is something we "do". It's a "work"."

"Catholics do not believe in a system of works/righteousness salvation. How many times do I have to repeat myself on this matter before what I say is respected and listened to?"

 

This is a good synthesis by my friend Gary Hoge:

Objection: Catholics believe that faith and works are necessary for justification before God.

Answer: That is not true. Catholics believe that justification is a completely gratuitous gift from God. As the Council of Trent declared, “None of those things which precede justification – whether faith or works – merit the grace itself of justification. For, if it be a grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is no more grace.” (1) In fact, the Council went so far as to say, “If any one says that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.” (2) Good works play a role in the Christian life only after a person is justified. As the Bible says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).

1. Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 8, January 13, 1547.

2. Council of Trent, Canon 1 on Justification, January 13, 1547.

Did you guys (Brian), catch that? WE CANNOT MERIT THE GRACE OF JUSTIFICATION because it is a FREE GIFT OF GOD. That's Catholic dogma. If we were to be able to merit the grace of justification, then it would no longer be a grace, would it? This is exactly what the Council of Trent said!

And then Gary answers the objection, "Good works do not contribute in any way to salvation; they are the evidence that salvation has already taken place." here:

http://www.catholicoutlook.com/objfaith4.html

The question is.. do you guys want to understand the Catholic position - or do you want to condemn what you think you already know?

I wouldn't be so quick to condemn, because in condemning, you'll be putting yourself in an ackward position where it will be more difficult to say, "Hey guys, I misunderstood what the Catholic Church was teaching after all."

The admission of misunderstanding is usually more difficult than holding off and learning before you judge to begin with.

[ May 22, 2003, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

That in order to be saved we must persevere to the end.

No one time instantaneous saving act of faith.

No once saved always saved.

Ron </font>[/QUOTE]NO once save always saved?

If you come to faith once and faith is what saves, and you never lose your faith are you not once saved always saved?

Isn't OSAS the same as being saved once and persevering to the end?

Isn't there a single point in time when the light bulb of faith gets lit? Isn't that the instant when faith saves?

[ May 22, 2003, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: Yelsew ]

 

My understanding of OSAS is that you have an assurance that you will never under any circumstances lose your salvation after making the one time saving act of faith.

Under OSAS your light bulb of faith gets lit (you are then saved) and even if the bulb goes out, you are still saved.

Is that what the parable of the seeds tells us? That once a seed starts to grow it must end up in the harvest? Or that some seeds start to grow but do not make it to the harvest because they were planted on shallow ground or get choked out by weeds?

What good is faith at age 15 if by age 40 you no longer live it? If you get yourself saved at age 10 and then go on to a long life of neglecting your relationship with God and focus only on participating in the sins of this world, are you still going to be saved? OSAS says yes.

What do you say?

Ron

 

If you get yourself saved at age 10 and then go on to a long life
of neglecting your relationship with God and focus only on participating
in the sins of this world, are you still going to be saved?

Jesus said "I will never leave you nor forsake you".
Why should we be concerned that a 40 year lapse of actively noticeable
practicing of faith is a factor when a thousand years with God is as one day...?
In that sense, would HE offer salvation and then take it back again..?

To believe in the first place is the act that puts the Holy Spirit in a life.
Would God withdraw his spirit on the basis of our subsequent actions.....
(one day's failure)...? If one day's failure would count against us, then
we're like a yo-yo and saved one day, lost the next, etc. over a 70 year period.

Catholicism covers this dilemma by claiming there is no salvation until death
when God would judge us ''according to our works'' but yet Ephesians says we
cannot be saved by works......and the Beat goes On !!

 

Just a quick response to Ron: Most OSAS people, which I am one, believe that saving faith is saving faith. When a person is changed, made into a new creation, by the very Son of God, he is changed forever. God seals the deal by the indwelling of the person with His Holy Spirit. Once indwelled we are in God's hand forever. Will we have times in our lives where life beats us up a little, yes. Peter certainly did and i don't recall the Bible saying that when he sunk in the water he lost his salvation for a while (until he had sufficent belief again). Paul and Peter argued, were they unsaved until they reconciled? The saved person comes through the problem or tough time and comes out the other side stronger then they went in. The Bible is clear that FIRE refines gold or is it silver, either way you get the point. What else can that mean? God does not enjoy watching us suffer but he does enjoy the results that happen when we get through the fire. For the person "changed" by Jesus they are saved forever and refined by fire and disciplined by God for wrong done. The Bible says that God chastizes His children, it does not say he dis- owns His children. Those who perservere to the end are His children because He already knows who will persevere to the end. We do not prove to God we are His by "hanging on" We "hang on" because we ARE HIS.

In Christ,
Brian

Carson, Good points made as always. I will respond to you later. Thanks for caring enough to share your passion

 

So, to the OSAS folks .....

you get saved (as such) and then you can relax and sit back and do nothing.... and you are still saved (reading Singers post)


I like this story .... I think it explains well the OSAS theory problem.

And no, I'm not saying works will save you! (Getting in first!)

 

Hi Brian,

The problem is then, you don't know if you are saved or not because you don't know if you will persevere to the end in faith or not.

OSAS becomes a bit meaningless then doesn't it?

Ron

 

Gee Thess, I thought that is what I said!

The seed has the DNA of the plant that produced it, but it is not alive (implying that it must die before it can live) until germination takes place. Germination requires water, correct temperature range, and nutrients from the soil. When all of them are adequate, the seed comes to life, first sending out a root to take in what ever nutrients available. Once the root finds the water and nutrients the seed sends forth the "above ground" living shoot to seek the sunlight. So long as there is adequate sunlight, water, and nutrients, the plant grows and flourishes. But if any of those three ingredients is inadequate to sustain life, the plant dies before producing fruit of any kind.

 

Seeds do not die, they are the repository of life. To spring forth in God's way, seeds must be "in the soil". Modern science provides for groundless germination by providing artificial environment in which seeds germinate and grow without the aid of natural soil. Even so, the fruit produced tastes and feels artificial too and contains far fewer nutrients than their "naturally grown" counterparts. Seeds contain the transubstantiation mechanism that changes the seed from dead to living.

Water baptism is useless, it nourisheth not the soul. Living water is what Jesus told us is essential.

So get rid of the idea that water baptism does anything. Water baptism is the metaphor!

Water baptism in any form does nothing for the spirit of man! The spirit of man is impervious to H2o, and cannot be touched by it whatever. So how is it possible that water baptism is necessary to the production of the "fruits of the spirit"?