I agree with you on the lack of unity among Christians — unfortunately it is possible to find someone taking virtually every possible position, among the 40,000+ different denominations.
Worse, this extends even to quite important doctrines impacting our basic understanding of salvation.
I realize you think you have no possibility of losing salvation, but that is not what most Christians believe, either currently nor historically.
St James’ epistle was and still is part of the canon of Gods word, and was unquestioned until Luther realized it clearly contradicted his faulty ideas regarding faith and grace.
What began during the so-called reformation were a bunch of false ideas regarding salvation, along with rejection of the teaching authority of ordained bishops united to the pope, with the dismaying result that each person becomes their own pope.
When Jesus founded His Church, he set it up to have power of the keys (binding and loosing), which included the power to authoritatively teach and interpret all teachings without mixture of error.
Rejecting that authority is precisely why we have disunity.
You mentioned the early Church fathers, and again, I agree — a way to make progress in unity is to study what the early Church taught — even before Constantine, there are Linus, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, the didache, and other early writing which shed light on what early Christians believed.
But nowhere among the Church fathers is the idea that faith is just an abstract decision, made once, with nothing on our part required.
Jesus own words all over the Gospels make it clear we are to believe, be baptized, obey the commandments and spend the time he gives us doing good and serving others, lest at judgement he say, depart from me…. You did not give me food, nor clothing, etc. cf the beatitudes, among many other examples.
St Paul mentions making up what is lacking in Christs sufferings (!) and asks for prayers lest, having preached, etc, he might still be lost (!)
Based on the feel of your writing, I am suspecting you are a Catholic? You refer to Paul and James as being saints? Catholics tend to deify men and this is the purpose of the use of Saints in that case...curious.
True or not, the crux of the matter is can an individual know they are saved? Based on what you believe I would say we can NEVER be secure in salvation because if we sin or for whatever reason (a devastating divorce, death of a loved one, etc.) we may go off the rails and either get upset with God or fall into temptation and sin and thus lose our salvation. I suppose if we die in this condition, we are eternally lose regardless if we made a profession of faith before or not...which tells me your Jesus is and Indian Giver, not the guarantee of our faith and salvation, isn't strong enough in His commitment to us to give us a gift and not take it back because we screw up...I could go on and on. In other words...for you my friend it must be a very scary existence not knowing if you are actually going to Heaven one day to the next.
As I said before, if there's something you can do to lose your salvation, that means there's something you must do to maintain it. At this point salvation is conditional and based on our performance and this clearly goes against the teaching and overall position of scripture on this matter. Try hard as we may, we will never be perfect enough to earn our way into Heaven...in fact the harder we try (the less we rely on Jesus) the more we descend away from Him. Please don't misunderstand me...we are commanded to love God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul and love everyone else as much as we love ourselves, but once we have received the eternal GIFT of salvation, our motive for being this kind of person is because we love our Savior and desire to be more and more like Him because He first loved us and went to the cross for us.
Yes, I’m a Catholic. The Church teaches that while we cannot have absolute certitude of salvation in this life, we can have moral certitude, which means we are not aware of any serious unconfessed sin that would preclude our being saved. An example though that comes to mind is someone who dies immediately after being baptized - they have been completely wiped clean, with no opportunity to fall again, which is one reason Catholics are quite insistent on infant baptism.
You surely are aware of Jesus frequently mentioning all of us are to be judged, right? Those who failed to serve Him, in the least of his brothers and sisters (everyone) go with the goats, right? There is no caveat given that faith alone exempts one from judgement.
We are called into a relationship with God, not only in heaven, but already in this life; that is what God wants from us. As every human relationship requires maintaining, why wouldn’t our relationship with God as well?
As St James (saint just means holy), warned that even the devil believes, and that faith without works is dead/worthless. The Church clarified that none of us are saved except by first receiving the gift of faith, which then gives us grace to perform good works — and these can help us and others get to heaven, although not without first having faith.
St. Paul clearly taught that believers could fall away — including potentially himself.
I agree with you on the lack of unity among Christians — unfortunately it is possible to find someone taking virtually every possible position, among the 40,000+ different denominations.
Worse, this extends even to quite important doctrines impacting our basic understanding of salvation.
I realize you think you have no possibility of losing salvation, but that is not what most Christians believe, either currently nor historically.
St James’ epistle was and still is part of the canon of Gods word, and was unquestioned until Luther realized it clearly contradicted his faulty ideas regarding faith and grace.
What began during the so-called reformation were a bunch of false ideas regarding salvation, along with rejection of the teaching authority of ordained bishops united to the pope, with the dismaying result that each person becomes their own pope.
When Jesus founded His Church, he set it up to have power of the keys (binding and loosing), which included the power to authoritatively teach and interpret all teachings without mixture of error.
Rejecting that authority is precisely why we have disunity.
You mentioned the early Church fathers, and again, I agree — a way to make progress in unity is to study what the early Church taught — even before Constantine, there are Linus, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, the didache, and other early writing which shed light on what early Christians believed.
But nowhere among the Church fathers is the idea that faith is just an abstract decision, made once, with nothing on our part required.
Jesus own words all over the Gospels make it clear we are to believe, be baptized, obey the commandments and spend the time he gives us doing good and serving others, lest at judgement he say, depart from me…. You did not give me food, nor clothing, etc. cf the beatitudes, among many other examples.
St Paul mentions making up what is lacking in Christs sufferings (!) and asks for prayers lest, having preached, etc, he might still be lost (!)
Based on the feel of your writing, I am suspecting you are a Catholic? You refer to Paul and James as being saints? Catholics tend to deify men and this is the purpose of the use of Saints in that case...curious.
True or not, the crux of the matter is can an individual know they are saved? Based on what you believe I would say we can NEVER be secure in salvation because if we sin or for whatever reason (a devastating divorce, death of a loved one, etc.) we may go off the rails and either get upset with God or fall into temptation and sin and thus lose our salvation. I suppose if we die in this condition, we are eternally lose regardless if we made a profession of faith before or not...which tells me your Jesus is and Indian Giver, not the guarantee of our faith and salvation, isn't strong enough in His commitment to us to give us a gift and not take it back because we screw up...I could go on and on. In other words...for you my friend it must be a very scary existence not knowing if you are actually going to Heaven one day to the next.
As I said before, if there's something you can do to lose your salvation, that means there's something you must do to maintain it. At this point salvation is conditional and based on our performance and this clearly goes against the teaching and overall position of scripture on this matter. Try hard as we may, we will never be perfect enough to earn our way into Heaven...in fact the harder we try (the less we rely on Jesus) the more we descend away from Him. Please don't misunderstand me...we are commanded to love God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul and love everyone else as much as we love ourselves, but once we have received the eternal GIFT of salvation, our motive for being this kind of person is because we love our Savior and desire to be more and more like Him because He first loved us and went to the cross for us.
Yes, I’m a Catholic. The Church teaches that while we cannot have absolute certitude of salvation in this life, we can have moral certitude, which means we are not aware of any serious unconfessed sin that would preclude our being saved. An example though that comes to mind is someone who dies immediately after being baptized - they have been completely wiped clean, with no opportunity to fall again, which is one reason Catholics are quite insistent on infant baptism.
You surely are aware of Jesus frequently mentioning all of us are to be judged, right? Those who failed to serve Him, in the least of his brothers and sisters (everyone) go with the goats, right? There is no caveat given that faith alone exempts one from judgement.
We are called into a relationship with God, not only in heaven, but already in this life; that is what God wants from us. As every human relationship requires maintaining, why wouldn’t our relationship with God as well?
As St James (saint just means holy), warned that even the devil believes, and that faith without works is dead/worthless. The Church clarified that none of us are saved except by first receiving the gift of faith, which then gives us grace to perform good works — and these can help us and others get to heaven, although not without first having faith.
St. Paul clearly taught that believers could fall away — including potentially himself.