For our Catholic friends....

Brother Ed, that was an excellent description of the saving relationship between God and man and the covenant. I get that feeling a lot too, that from a Protestant standpoint the salvation plan is simply a buisness transaction. They receive payment for something they said 27 years ago or whatever. The Catholic salvation plan is based on the system of grace which is worked out with love. Salvation is a reward, not in the sense that we have earned it but that God is so just and loving that he will overlook our wrongful deeds and out of his infinite mercy and grace reward us for our love and service that has been done in the name of Jesus Christ. Keeping the faith and avoiding sin will keep the covenant strong.

 

Salvation is a reward, not in the sense that we have earned it but that
God is so just and loving that he will overlook our wrongful deeds and
out of his infinite mercy and grace reward us for our love and service that
has been done in the name of Jesus Christ. Keeping the faith and avoiding
sin will keep the covenant strong.

J.S., you forgot to mention that this covenant must only apply to Catholics
and that God could not possibly reward Protestants for love and service that
"has been done in the name of Jesus Christ". Protestants also "keep the faith
and avoid sin".

Is that what you're trying to say ?

Would that same just God not also overlook someone's "wrongful deed" of
not succumbing to Catholicism..? Or does God just forgive every sin EXCEPT
the failure to join the Catholic Church..?


**St John 3:18 tells us what we are condemned for not believing in and it does not
mention anything about a particular named system of worship.

 

No Singer, that isn't what I said. I am simply contrasting two different viewpoints. Of course God can reward Protestants, but then again many Protestants don't see salvation as a reward. Everything good done by the person is actually just God and it wouldn't make sense for God to reward himself. Rather, we enter sonship, God adopts us as his children. God the father rewards his sons for their service(the one who uses God's strength in the form of grace to do good), not because he has too(that would be a buisness transaction) but because he wants to(he is a loving and just God, like a father). Since God can disown us as a father can disown his child, it is dependent on our actions. Will we continue to openly accept God's grace, or will we block it with continued sin? On the other hand, you can enter the covenant by contractual means, you submit to God the master not the father. Brother Ed was trying to show the diservice that sometimes comes to the covenant of God from some Protestant circles who reduce the covenant to a simple exchange of goods, that is the covenant as a contract as opposed to the covenant as a family.

Ok Singer, now it's your turn. I know you can somehow fit in that you being unchurched is the best way to live the truth so let's hear it.

 

J.S.,

Before joining a church, I'm expecting the influence of the wise and prudent
posters on this board to be my guide.

Somehow I don't think that will ever happen.