Subject: "Once Saved Always Saved" |
Bible Note: Brian: You wrote: "Did you get that part in the middle: Those 'who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church.'" I got it, and I want you to know that I personally reject any communion, perfect or imperfect, with the human organization known as the Church of Rome. Nor would the church of Rome allow me to receive the Sacrament. Therefore, where is there communion? Complete nonsense! "I should be working side-by-side with other Christians in showing non-Christians, God's plan of salvation." If you are adhering to official Catholic teaching, you do not have God's plan of salvation. The very fact that your catechism changes with such regularity shows that your church does indeed reverse itself. Trent held that Protestants are not part of the Church. The current catechism does ("imperfectly," even though the Protestant rejects communion for the same reason they did in the 1500's). So which is it? Did God change his mind? Am I part of his church or not? Both are official church pronouncements, and they contradict each other regarding the status of Protestants (even though the same problems of the Reformation still exist,a nd Protestants have not changed their positions on the things which caused the proclamations of anathema in the first place). And what problem is that? That the clear biblical gospel of salvation by God's grace ALONE through faith ALONE in Christ's sinless life, death and resurrection ALONE is not proclaimed. That is a different gospel than the one we have spelled out in Scripture. The Catholic church says that it is baptism which forgives us of original sin and "turns a man back toward God" (Catholic Catchism Par. 405). The Bible and Protestantism disagree. It is repentance and faith, not baptism, which justifies a sinner before God. The Catholic Church that one's sins are not completely forgiven by the substitutionary death of Christ, but requires the sacrament of Reconciliation in order for the sins of the believer to be forgiven. Again, the Bible and Protestantism disagree by insisting that Christ's death accomplished the forgiveness of all sins (past, present, future) of all those who exercise saving faith in Christ: "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;" --1 Peter 3:18 "By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." --Hebrews 10:10 (See also Romans 6:10.) The Catholic Church continues to insist that the "Eucharist makes the church" (CCC Par. 1396). The Bible and Protestantism again disagree. Therefore, while many Christian groups, non-Christian groups, and even a large number of cults would affirm their understanding of the Apostle's Creed, the contents of the creed are not sufficient enough to define who is a Christian and who is not. --Joe! |