These eye-opening verses cannot be ignored
Okay, Catholic friend, I have another question for you. If, as the Roman Catholic Church teaches, the Reformers’ cry of sola fide is dead wrong, how do you understand all the verses in Scripture that seem to teach it? If salvation is not by faith alone but instead our good works in “cooperation” with God’s grace are meritorious, what did Jesus mean in John 3:16 when he told Nicodemus that “whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”?
When I as a Catholic seeking after God read this verse for the first time I was stunned. Why had I never been told this? I thought. If I simply believe in Jesus I will be saved? Thirty years a Catholic, regular Sunday Mass attendance for most of that time, Catholic elementary and high school, yet this verse and others that taught the same thing were brand new to me. The magnitude of this revelation was akin to the one I got from my mother when I was about 11 years old, after a Disney video about menstruation left me a bit confused. Only not as traumatic.
No, not traumatic (I did get over that), but no less eye-opening. My Catholic upbringing had me believing I had to earn my own salvation. But there it was…there they were…all the verses that said if I believe I will be saved.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. – John 3:36
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. – John 5:24
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” – John 6:40
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. – John 6:47
I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” – John 8:24
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, – John 11:25
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” – Acts 16:31
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. – Romans 3:28
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. – Romans 10:9
A careful reading of the New Testament reveals many more passages that seem to teach that salvation is by faith alone. Sola fide. The Catholic Answers Live podcast I listen to regularly invites non-Catholics to call and tell them why they’re Protestant but I’ve never heard any caller cite any of these, or similar, verses and often wonder how the Catholic apologists would explain them. They like to talk about the ones that refer to works, but how do they reconcile those with these?
So, Catholic friend, how do you?
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Hi. I’m now working on a response to these verses. Initially, I’d like to say that I love Catholic Answers Live, especially the “Open Forum for Non-Catholics Episodes.” I think you should call in with these verses. I would very much love to listen to that! Especially if you talk to Jimmy Akin, whose politeness and congeniality even to the most hostile questioner makes him a hero in my eyes.
I am fairly certain, though, for what it’s worth, that these verses have been addressed, again and again, by various speakers on the Catholic Answers radio show, as well as many written articles and books. If you are interested I will browse the archive and find some shows for you. One apologist that I’m fairly certain addresses these verses regularly is John Martignoni (a fellow Alabamian), of whose approach I’m not especially a fan but he nonetheless does address these points. You should also pay attention when David Anders is on, one of the most educated and erudite former Protestants I’ve ever read or listened to.
One thing I would point out: I would not say that the Protestant Reformers were “dead wrong” about sola fide. Protestants like to shake their first angrily at Canon IX of the Council of Trent’s Decree concerning Justification, but to read the thing fully, that only rejects a particular formulation of a thesis of “justification by faith alone.” As I will point out when I exposit the verses, very much depends on how we define and understand the concept of faith and belief.
Peace be with you! I hope to have a further response for you later today.
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So now I will address these verses for you.
As I indicated, one of the keys in interpreting these verses is our understanding of the terms believe and faith in this context. It might appear on the surface, in English, that these are two separate concepts, but they are not: the Geek root is the same, the verb, πιστεύω [pisteuō] being the verbal form of the noun πίστις [pistis]. I am not a Greek expert and only an amateur scholar. Whole books and numerous articles have been written trying to get to the bottom of what exactly these words mean and what import they have for our salvation. But I think one statement I can make that even most Protestants would agree with, is to say that faith is not mere intellectual assent, not merely intellectually “accepting” the truth of Jesus or His Resurrection, but involves concepts of trust, commitment, and fidelity — I would say, in Protestant parlance, “to give one’s life” to Jesus.
Looking at the verses in John: there is nothing at all about these that is contradictory to Catholic teachings. The Catholic Church certainly teaches that believing, having faith, is the way to salvation. John is unique in describing “eternal life” as something to be possessed in the present. Catholics believe that eternal life refers both the quality of the life of which Jesus speaks — life with an eternal quality, participating in the life of God — and also the duration. That life begins, John teaches, when we believe! This is a wonderful and powerful teaching!
But is that the end of it? Is that all Jesus teaches in John? No, it’s not. Jesus does have some other, very important expectations in John, even in the same context as these verses about “believing” leading to “eternal life”:
1. We must be “born anew,” that is, “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:3,5): Until some modern, Evangelical interpreters, exegetes nearly universally understood this as a reference to Baptism (both the Church Fathers and the Protestant Reformers did). “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
2. We must “eat His flesh and drink His blood” (John 6): “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats My flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed” (John 6:53–55). This, almost universally and from the earliest times, has been understood as an explicit reference to the Eucharist. Not only does “one have no [eternal] life in him” if he does not “eat” and “drink”; but being “raised up at the last day” seems to imply another dimension to “eternal life” than the present one.
3. We must “abide in Him” — which has the necessity of “bearing fruit” (John 15): Among the important statements here about “bearing fruit” is that “every branch of mine that bears no fruit, [the Father] takes away”, that “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” — that is, that we can only bear fruit by abiding in Him — and that “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” — All of which strongly implies that unless we “abide in Him” and “bear fruit,” the “eternal life” of believing in Him may not be so “eternal” of duration. “Abiding in Him” in implied by “keeping His commandments” (15:10) — which above all means “love one another as I have loved you” (v. 12).
One cannot read the many verses you cite about “believing” apart from this essential context. Reading from a Catholic standpoint, the Jesus of John is completely consistent in his teaching and implies no notion of “sola fide” at all. I believe this accounts for all the references you gave from John, but if there’s any you’d like me to reply to specifically, I will.
To the other verses you named:
In Acts 2 the crowd asks Peter how to be saved, and he replies, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). This is the context of your citation in Acts 16. And sure enough, Baptism is what immediately (at once) follows: “And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, with all his family” (Acts 16:33). There is no indication here that Baptism is not an essential part of the process.
Now to Paul’s epistles: There are several important things going on here. In especially Galatians and Romans, but to some extent in the rest of the letters too, Paul’s primary context is rejecting the arguments of the Judaizers, the “circumcision party,” who insisted that one must be a circumcised Jew in order to be justified as a Christian (see Acts 15:1ff.). When Paul refers to “works of the law,” the main thing he is talking about is circumcision and other ceremonial Jewish rites and requirements that the Judaizers were seeking to impose on Gentile believers — as is clear from the context, e.g. Galatians 2:14-16, Romans 2:25-3:3, 4:9-12, etc. In a more general sense, he may be referring to “works” in general, to seeking to be justified by our human striving — and it’s certainly true, as the Catholic Church affirms, that it is not our works that save us, but only the grace of God through faith. But none of Paul’s arguments can be taken to imply justification “sola fide,” for Paul never at all declares that justification is by “faith alone” or that “works” are unnecessary, but instead repeatedly refers to being “judged according to works” at the final judgment.
Even more important than that: all of Paul’s arguments presuppose that all members of his audience have been initiated into the Christian community through Baptism (e.g. Galatians 3:27, Romans 6:3, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Colossians 2:12, Ephesians 4:5, etc.). Already “something else” in addition to “faith alone” is a prerequisite for salvation in his letters. Baptism was then, and is today, called “the sacrament of faith,” and so closely bound together are believing and being baptized, that in Scripture one seems to imply the other: in every narrative of someone coming to faith in Christ in Scripture, Baptism followed immediately as part of the same movement of faith and grace (the single exception, certainly exceptional, is the confessing thief on the cross). (For a deeper exposition of these issues, you might see Jimmy Akin’s excellent book, The Drama of Salvation, and other books and articles he has written on the subject.)
The “works of the law,” again, seem to refer primarily to circumcision and other ceremonial precepts of Judaism. Even if we suppose he is speaking of “works” in general — Catholics doctrine agrees, and has no problem with such a declaration.
Yes, certainly faith — especially the sort of active faith of Abraham, which pulled up stakes and journeyed to another land in faith — the sort of commitment and trust implied by the word πίστις — is creditable as righteousness. But this does not imply at all that “faith alone” is all that is needed.
It is easy to pull this verse out of its context and apply it as a simple, causative dictum: “Confess, believe, and you will be saved” (right then, at that moment) — but that doesn’t work in light of Paul’s context. In Romans 10:6-8, Paul gives an interpretive paraphrase of Deuteronomy 30:12-14. Moses, speaking in Deuteronomy, says that the commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” is “not too hard for you; neither is it far off” — since “the word is very near to you, on your lips and in your heart.” So much the more, then, is the word of the Gospel “on your lips and in your heart,” since we can confess with our lips and believe in our heart! This whole chapter is made up of Old Testament quotations and parallels: “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13) is a quotation of Joel 2:32. It is easy to interpret any reference to “salvation” as a reference to “eternal life,” but Joel’s context is not eternal salvation at all, but temporal deliverance.
So, at the very least, this verse can’t be taken as simple cause and effect, being saved right now simply because we believe, especially not in light of the other things he has written about being saved. On top of that, this passage is a lot more complicated with Old Testament references than would appear on the surface. Finally, believing and confessing are precisely what happens at a believer’s Baptism.
Yes! Certainly we are saved by grace through faith, not by anything we do. This poses no problems for Catholic doctrine.
I am surprised you would submit this one — since it is the single most explicit statement in Scripture of baptismal regeneration. Here Paul says plainly that we are not saved because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy — but the operative way this is accomplished is by the washing [laver, bath] of regeneration. This indicates, even more forcefully than I could articulate, that Baptism is not a “work done by us in righteousness,” nor are any of the other Sacraments — they are works done to us by the Lord in grace.
The peace of the Lord be with you.
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Interesting that you have that opinion of Jimmy Akin. I personally find him condescending, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not saying he is because obviously I don’t know the man, only that he gives me that impression.
But to your other comments:
“Looking at the verses in John: there is nothing at all about these that is contradictory to Catholic teachings.”
I beg to differ. Yes, the Catholic Church teaches that faith is necessary but also that it’s not enough. That is definitely contrary to Jesus’ repeated statements that “whoever believes has eternal life” and does not come into judgment. Period. Yes, we have eternal life now because we are given his Spirit when we believe and become new creations (2 Cor.5:17). And it is he who is our guarantee of the inheritance that awaits us in heaven (2 Cor.1:22, 5:5, Eph.1:14).
John 3:5 – I don’t believe Jesus is talking about baptism here. I think he’s using “water” as it’s used elsewhere to signify God’s cleansing.
Ezekiel 36:25 – “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”
Ephesians 5:26 – “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”
Peter and James teach that we are born again/brought forth by the word of God.
1Peter 1:23 – “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;”
James 1:18 – “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
So we are washed with “water”which is identified with the word (or the Word, Jesus) by which/whom we are saved.
A few more that help us understand John 3:5 –
Titus 3:5 – “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”
Hebrews 10:22 – “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Then in John 7 we have this: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.”
Furthermore the Greek word translated “and” in John 3:5 can also be translated “even.” I believe Jesus is saying, “Unless one is born of water, even (as in namely, or specifically) the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
I wrote a whole post on the Bread of Life discourse here, in which I argue that Jesus very clearly was talking about believing in him, but because of the hard-heartedness of his hearers he got intentionally graphic as a judgment against them.
About abiding…I believe there are two possible ways of understanding John 15:6 that don’t compromise our security that we are guaranteed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. The first is that to “abide” in Christ is to “be in” him as Paul references throughout his epistles. The other is that not abiding will leave us fruitless and of little service to him, and Jesus was exaggerating for effect, as with plucking out our eye or cutting off our hand.
I don’t believe the evidence shows that baptism is necessary for salvation, much less that it infuses us with grace. The conjoining of baptism with repentance in Acts 2:38 and elsewhere is meant, I believe, to teach it as an ordinance that demonstrates one’s commitment to repentance and symbolically identify oneself with Christ. It’s not what initiates us into God’s family but a guard against “easy believism” if you will. Don’t just say you believe…show it.
As for Paul’s teaching, I just refer you to my latest post as I’m running out of time and it’s clear we interpret him differently and are unlikely to persuade each other. But if you’re interested, here I reference the argument that he didn’t teach salvation by faith alone because he never described it as by “faith alone.”
Finally, I applaud your efforts to reconcile Catholic doctrine with the verses I cited, but in the end it still comes down to you asserting as true what you have repeatedly denied, that, “Certainly we are saved by grace through faith, not by anything we do.”
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I can’t say that I know Jimmy Akin personally, exactly; but he is my personal friend on Facebook. The opinion I have of him from the radio and books — as always a calm speaker, patient and gentle with even the most hostile challengers — seems to be played out in what I see of his personal life. He is mostly concerned with low-carb dieting, weight loss, and square dancing. 😀 I once worked with him to translate some Latin, and corresponded with him privately during the process. I found him to be very humble and respectful.
Your decision to read a “period” there, to cut off consideration of any other interpretation, is your downfall. There are still many other passages to consider, and you are jumping to a conclusion based on your prior commitments. We have already discussed, I think, John 15:6.
In these verses, the word translated “guarantee” (ἀρραβών [arrabōn]) is more precisely translated as advance, first installment, deposit, down payment, pledge, earnest. It is part of the legal language of banking and contracts. I would point out that if we are parties to a covenant, God is faithful to keep His promises, but we can certainly default on our obligations to Him. God’s promises to keep His covenant to Israel were absolute, and he never left her or forsook her — but the promise is to the covenant people, not to individuals: many individual Israelites did die in their apostasy and exile.
And Baptism does not have the significance of God’s cleansing? Baptism is the efficacious sign by which God accomplishes cleansing in our lives. Christian exegetes from the very beginning have understood even the Ezekiel reference to be an image and type of Baptism (the earliest unambiguous references I find connecting Ezekiel 36:25 to Baptism are from Cyprian; see Epistles 69.1 and 75.11 in the ANF connection; see also Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and Cyril). Ephesians 5:26, “washing with water and the Word,” is almost certainly an unambiguous reference to Baptism, and you risk ignoring the whole liturgical context of the Early Church to dismiss it as such. So is Titus 3:5. The word λουτρόν (“washing”) is only used in Scripture and other early Christian literature in reference to Baptism.
Concerning John 3:5: The fact that John turns immediately from the conversation with Nicodemus to Jesus baptizing (John 3:22) should be a clue. Patristic references are in universal agreement, so far as I can see: Jesus is referring to Baptism. Obviously, I have not read all the Church Fathers: but conducting a search by citations labeled by even the Protestant editors of the ANF and NPNF, it’s clear that Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Augustine, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nysa, Jerome, Cyril, Basil, Hilary, and Ambrose all understand this as an unambiguous reference to Baptism. So did Luther; so did Calvin; so did most Protestant exegetes until fairly recently (and most still do). Zwingli is the first to oppose this interpretation. How modern Evangelicals got so hung up on Zwinglian theology I’ll never know.
Peter also teaches that “Baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 2:5). James, in the immediate context of the verse you cite, warns that “sin brings death” even for the one to whom “the crown of life … has been promised” (1:14-15,12).
Ephesians 5:26 says the washing (λουτρόν) of water and the word — not “the water is the word.” Literally in Greek, this says τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι [toi loutroi tou hudatos en rhemati] — by the bath of water in union with the spoken word. This is not the same “word,” λόγος [logos] that commonly refers to Jesus or the “Word of God”: ῥῆμα has connotations of something spoken or spoken about. To the Church Fathers, this has the sense of baptismal liturgy: the word spoken over the believer at his Baptism.
Apparently Baptism (λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας, the bath of regeneration) is not a “work done by us in righteousness,” and is a gift of His mercy, and goes hand in hand with the “renewal of the Holy Spirit”!
Once again, this is an unambiguous reference to Baptism. “Bodies washed with pure water,” in Greek, is actually λελουσμένοι τὸ σῶμα ὕδατι καθαρῷ [lelousmenoi to sōma hudati katharoi] — that participle, in its stem, being λούω, to bathe for cleansing or purification (“in a cultic manner”, the BDAG adds) — the same root as λουτρόν.
The Church, I’m sure you know, has always spoken of Baptism “in living water” (cf. Didache) and understood scriptural references to such to refer to Baptism (see also John 4:10-11) — at which we receive the Spirit (Acts 2:38).
That’s not what the Greek says and no one interprets it that way. The English connotation of “even” as in addition or also was carried by the Greek καί, yes (likewise the Latin et or etiam). “Namely, or specifically” is an entirely different connotation of the word “even” in English that the Greek καί does not carry.
I wrote a whole post on it that has entirely the opposite interpretation. See “Eat my flesh and drink my blood: A crucial Gospel passage, the Catholic Eucharist, and bad Protestant commentary.” I will read yours if you’d like and give my opinion — but I think this is more than enough for now.
You here acknowledge the problem: you presume “security” a priori and then approach problematic Scripture to try to worm in a way not to “compromise” that understanding. This is called eisegesis — looking to Scripture to confirm the understanding one already has — and it’s a fallacy.
For what it’s worth, yes, Paul talks about being “in Christ” in the very same sense. Paul also says that we “baptized into Christ” (Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27) and that who are “in Christ” can be “severed from Christ” (Galatians 5:4).
Again, this is not what Scripture actually says, but your own a priori interpretation, your attempt not to “compromise” what you already believe, back onto it.
Again, this is your interpretation. I see no contradiction, and I stand on this by Scripture and not against it: Baptism is not “something we do,” but something Christ does to us by His mercy (Titus 3:5).
I think my tone comes across a bit more testily here than it has before. Sorry about that. Yes, I do get frustrated when someone shows me a Scripture and tells me it means something entirely different than what it says. You should, too.
The peace of the Lord be with you.
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“Yes, I do get frustrated when someone shows me a Scripture and tells me it means something entirely different than what it says. You should, too.”
This whole series has been my response to Catholic apologists claiming that verses mean “something entirely different” than what they say. And you have done the same thing, as with your interpretation of Romans 10:9 above. From the very beginning Christians have disagreed on the exact meaning of verses, and that’s one of the reasons we take the time to blog, isn’t it? To promote our interpretation. As you know and have demonstrated, “what [Scripture] says” is best determined by an examination of context…textual and historical…but is still subject to one’s own perspective. We each come at it from a particular point of view and will read different meanings based, at least in part, on that.
And the contextual evidence from which we make our determination is largely determined by our perspective as well. If I’ve learned anything from the election process as well as reading the church fathers, it’s that it all depends on which facts are selected and who you listen to or read. We all have a tendency to select and spin the evidence to favor our own case.
I’ve never learned Greek so cannot engage with you on the particular meanings of words, nor do I have the time to read all the early church fathers to get an accurate and complete picture of what the New Testament church believed and practiced. What it comes down to for me is that in looking at all of what the Catholic Church teaches, condones, practices, her history, and how her doctrines are “fleshed” out by her apologists…I cannot believe she is what she professes to be – the one, true church.
I’m a little curious to know in your opinion what Jesus’ sacrificial death actually accomplished for us, as well as what you think about other peculiarly Catholic doctrines, but I will refrain from asking right now. Only so many hours in a day, you know. 😉
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First, before the rest of this gets me riled up, let me say, I think you very well can, and should learn some Greek, enough to study the meanings of words. I have noticed, and applauded you before, where you’ve started to. It does not take much effort or deep knowledge to delve into the meanings of Greek words. It mostly involves knowing where to look; there are some good resources online. I am going to make a post on my own blog about how to begin with Greek (and Hebrew too, though I’m less experienced with that). English translations of Scripture are “decent,” I would say; “respectable.” But there are nuances and connotations of Greek words, idioms, and grammar that are unavoidably lost in English, a basic knowledge of which can shed a lot of light on understanding the meaning of Scripture. The Protestant idea that Scripture is “perspicuous” is usually footnoted, “but only in its original languages, and only ‘in a due use of ordinary means … [attaining] unto a sufficient understanding'” (Westminster Confession of Faith I.7). Greek word study is one of the “ordinary means” that I believe is at the disposal of nearly every Christian. Calling your faith “a reasonable faith” and presenting yourself as an apologist necessitates making use of these “ordinary means.” … All of this is to say, I’ll help you. 🙂
I wrote a lot more about the process I try to follow for scriptural exegesis, but I will save that for another time. Basically, I will say that I strive to understand the plain sense of Scripture first, to take it for what the words themselves mean, in their immediate context; then I consider the wider context of the book or corpus of the author; then I consider the broader doctrinal, theological, analogical, or prophetic implications. None of the verses you find “eye-opening” are all that “eye-opening” for me. This is not because I have my eyes closed, but because I open them wide enough to consider the whole of Scripture and not these verses in isolation.
To try to move on from this, since I think we are in danger of running in circles (you have other posts I’d like to look at, for one thing!): Yes, the plain sense of Romans 10:9-10 seems to indicate, especially to our English, Evangelical ears (they are the ears I was born with), that “confessing” and “believing” are operative in “being saved.” As I pointed out, the context is a bit more complicated than a simple statement of fact: Paul is drawing a parallel to an Old Testament quotation, in which the context was not eternal salvation at all. There is certainly a sense, Catholics too affirm, in which confessing and believing — not mere intellectual asset, but having a true, saving faith — are operative in the salvation of a believer. Jesus works through the faith we have, the faith He has given us by grace. Usually, He works this in conjuction with the water and the word of Baptism, as Scripture consistently presents, but this isn’t always the case (as in the case of somebody who believes but never has the opportunity to be baptized). Paul’s statement here doesn’t exclude Baptism, which he has already presupposed (Romans 6:3-5). So no, I’m not telling you this verse means “something different than that it says.” I’m telling you that to conclude from this “confessing” and “believing” are all that are involved in being saved is unwarranted.
As for the Church Fathers: Most people don’t have time to read them all. There are some that are more approachable and rewarding in terms of understanding the Early Church than others. I would recommend the Apostolic Fathers, especially the Didache, Ignatius, Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas; Irenaeus (he can get pretty esoteric in addressing the Gnostics but the important thing to realize is that there was orthodoxy); Justin Martyr (especially the First Apology); Cyprian’s letters. A little bit later, Protestants generally love Augustine and find him approachable (especially the Confessions). The nice thing about the most important patristic texts being online is that they’re searchable, and you can also search for apologists’ gleanings from them, and then go and read the full context. The bad thing is that it encourages our tendency toward cherry-picking. It is easy for apologists, both Catholic and Protestant, to pick out passages that seem to support their particular viewpoints. The words of the Fathers are open to interpretation too, but there are enough of them and a large enough corpus that reading the wider context usually reveals what they mean.
You say that the history of the Catholic Church is a problem for you. For me, it was the history of the Church that was the main thing in leading me to her. It is possible to read the Church Fathers and take issue with how a doctrine developed in later centuries, how they do not resemble exactly the modern Catholic Church. But this ignores the fact that the Church Fathers do not resemble modern Protestants or Evangelicals even remotely. There are facts that are not open to interpretation that contradict many a Protestant thesis: the Fathers believed in an ordained priesthood; in bishops and an episcopal hierarchy and apostolic succession; in the efficacy and necessity of Baptism and baptismal regeneration; in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Reading Church history as a Protestant (see my series, especially the post “The Early Church, Apostolic or Apostate?”) is inevitably an exercise in denial. It requires concluding either that the Early Church was apostolic, admitting that Protestant churches bear little resemblance to the Apostolic Church, or apostate, meaning that the Church fell away from the truth almost immediately, that all of the Church Fathers were heretics, and that the only true Christians evidenced by history did not appear until 1,500 years after Christ.
I’m prepared to answer that whenever you are ready.
Peace be with you.
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Okay. In your view, what did Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection accomplish for us?
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Well, Scripture says that Jesus bore our sins and our sorrows, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53). He died for our sins (1 Cor 15:3) in order to purchase our redemption from sin, the forgiveness of our trespasses (Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 9:12, Romans 6:17-18,22); to set us free from our slavery to sin (John 8:34-36). In the Cross, He was “made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21, Rom 8:3). He set us free from the legal requirements of the Torah (Col 2:11). In His Cross, we die to sin; in His Resurrection, we are raised to new life in His Spirit (Rom 6:3-11, 8:2). It is through His Resurrection that we too are resurrected to eternal life (Rom 6:5, Phil 3:10-11, 1 Pet 1:3).
I think you know all of these verses. You are asking how Catholics, and myself in particular, view the Cross of Christ and especially the Atonement accomplished through his blood, and presuming that I see it somehow differently than you. As with other things, yes, Catholics and Protestants have some differences in nuance, but no, I don’t believe we have any sort of fundamental disagreement.
To put the answer to your question, “What did Jesus’s death and resurrection accomplish for us?”, in my own words, I would say, yes, He purchased redemption from our sins, such that we can be forgiven for our trespasses and set free from slavery to sin. In His Resurrection we too are resurrected to new life, not just to eternity in heaven but to a new life by His Spirit on this earth. He restored the communion between God and Man that was broken by Adam’s sin, and allows us to have the most intimate communion with God through His Spirit and with Himself through His Body and Blood.
The usual disputes about the Atonement, not just between Catholics and Protestants, but I would point out, even more virulently among different sorts of Protestants, have largely to do with its nature, efficacy, and extent. Most Christians generally agree what the Atonement did; but Protestants have some of the nastiest fights about how it does it. To Catholics, the how is generally seen to be a mystery, and a subject of scholarly debate. There have been a large number of theories of the Atonement, both among the Church Fathers and among modern scholars. If you want to get into all that, we can, but that isn’t the question you asked.
Peace be with you.
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I know there are various “how” theories, but my concern is with the “nature, efficacy, and intent.” What does it mean that he “purchased redemption from our sins”?
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Scripture equates “redemption from our sins” with the forgiveness of our sins (Eph 1:7, Col 1:14). Jesus was our perfect sin offering (Hebrews 9:12), giving Himself in the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Covenant’s sin offerings (e.g. Leviticus 4), “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). He was also our Paschal Lamb (1 Cor 5:7), in fulfillment of the Old Covenant’s Passover lamb (e.g. Exodus 12), through which the Israelites were saved from death.
To say He “purchased redemption from our sins” is often understood in terms of a ransom, He giving Himself up so we could be set free. This freedom means both that we are forgiven, free from the guilt of our sins and no longer liable to judgment for them; and that we are no longer bound as slaves to sin, and have the freedom to live by the Spirit (Romans 6:17-19, 22, 8:2-4, Galatians 5:1,16).
As for the nature, efficacy, and extent: You realize you are asking me to write a book, right? In fact, I personally have several dozen classic books on the Atonement on my bookshelf, from a wide array of Christian schools of thought (I have this collection), addressing these very questions — and this is not even the tip of the iceberg of what has been written. Could you make your question more specific?
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No, no book is necessary. So, in Christ’s sacrificial offering in death and God’s raising him to life, our sins are forgiven, taken away, paid for, atoned for, God is propitiated, and we are “no longer liable to judgment for them.” If our sins are what separate us from God, why is the atonement which Jesus secured, the “redemption from our sins,” insufficient for securing our eternal salvation?
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It’s not. The very same redemption extends to us the gift of eternal life. (I think I said that above.)
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They why do we who believe in Christ not have that assurance of eternal life, according to the Catholic doctrine of salvation?
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Why do some believers fall away and reject Christ? Does Scripture present that such people will nonetheless be saved (cf. Matt 24:10-13)? The Catholic Church is not the only one who teaches that they will not, but so has every Evangelical church I have been a part of.
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So is it your view that if a believer does not “fall away and reject Christ” he/she will be saved?
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That is what Scripture says consistently.
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So then a believer (i.e. one who has not fallen away and rejected Christ) is saved by his faith alone.
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If faith is understood in terms of fidelity, faithfulness to Christ — not mere intellectual assent — then yes, you could say that (and Catholic doctrine would agree). But anybody who follows Christ faithfully lives and works in his Spirit and bears His fruit. Claiming at the end of one’s life, after a lifetime of bearing good fruit, that one has been saved “by faith alone,” becomes a very semantic point. But if that makes you happy, then go for it. 😉
Everything is grace. And we receive His grace through faith. The Catholic Church has only ever rejected particular formulations of “justification by faith alone” that imply that we don’t have to do anything. But repentance is something we do. Perseverance is something we do. It is only by His grace that we do it — but then, I would say, there’s nothing “alone” about that kind of faith.
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The Catholic Church teaches that we need to be in a “state of grace” at our death to be saved and that one unconfessed mortal sin (like missing Sunday mass or eating meat on a Friday in Lent) puts us in a state where our soul lacks grace, which would prevent our salvation. Is she saying then that one mortal sin is being unfaithful to Christ and cancels out any prior fidelity to him?
(And I need to get to work so will not be able to respond again for awhile.)
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Reality is much muddier than those legalistic definitions (as the current Catechism teaches). A “state of grace” is, after all, a gift of God’s grace, and our God is abundantly merciful. No, eating meat on a Friday in Lent or missing Sunday Mass doesn’t necessarily drive God’s grace from your soul or put you in danger of hellfire. The definition of a mortal sin is a grave matter done with full knowledge of its sinfulness and gravity, deliberately and with full consent, and one from which one does feel the least contrition or repentance — in other words, I would say, a sin by which you willfully reject Christ. The legal infractions you name can be mortal sins, it’s true, but only if they involve a willful rejection of Christ or the Church. If I eat meat on a Friday in Lent because I forgot it was Friday (as I’ve done probably a dozen times since I’ve been Catholic), or even because it was inconvenient (as it often has been when my Protestant mother forgets and cooks meat) — if I don’t eat meat with the explicit intention of flouting Friday as a day of penance — then no, that’s not a mortal sin. If I miss a Sunday Mass because I’m sick or have to work or have an important family obligation (as sometimes happens navigating across my several families’ schedules), or miss a holy day of obligation because I simply forgot (as I’ve done a number of times), then no, that’s probably not a mortal sin (see my post about this: “The Sunday Obligation: ‘Missing Mass is a Mortal Sin’?”; see also CCC 2180-2183). If I don’t realize that something is a sin, then it’s probably not a mortal sin. If I struggle with a serious addiction like alcoholicism or drugs or pornography and fall into sin on account of that, then my consent to the sin is certainly diminished, and it’s very possible that it’s not a mortal sin at all (CCC 1860). Even if, wrestling with a deep depression, I were to commit suicide, the Church nonetheless trusts in the mercy of God for my salvation (CCC 2282-2283).
So yes, it’s true, we must have the grace of God in our souls — but what this really boils down to is that we do not reject Christ. Our God is an abundantly merciful Savior, not a harsh judge poised to lay the smackdown on us the moment we slip morally. He makes it very hard, in fact, to get away from His grace completely. He provides ample opportunities for His grace at every turn: even if we do commit something that amounts to a mortal sin, if we are sincerely contrite and repentant for it, then were we to die before we could confess it, we should nonetheless have hope in God’s mercy and grace (CCC 1451-1453). Mortal sin — the willful, deliberate choice to reject God’s moral law — is in a very real sense a rejection of Christ. So yes, the Church teaches that sin can endanger the soul, even for the believer — as Scripture itself teaches. We dismiss Scripture’s warnings at our own peril. Yes, even a sincere, faithful believer can have a lapse at the very end. No, I would not say that a mere moral lapse, giving in to some momentary temptation, is likely to be a willful, deliberate, mortal sin. If we persevere to the end, we will be saved.
(Please read, if you haven’t, my series on “Falling from Grace”, which addresses exactly these concerns.)
On the other hand: Is an “assurance” that admits the possibility of falling away really any “assurance” at all?
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A definition of faith that equates it with faithfulness which is understood as obedience is not one I can get behind. What you’re saying is that every time we willfully choose to do what we want instead of what Jesus would do, we are rejecting him and this severs our saving relationship with God as his children and coheirs with Christ. You’re saying that one mortal sin demonstrates that we do not believe. I would agree that a lifestyle marked by habitual serious sin is evidence of a lack of faith, but not that we can move in and out of saving faith as we fluctuate between living according to the flesh and according to the Spirit.
I do believe we can have complete assurance of salvation, by the Spirit whom God has given us when we believe and “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8;16) I believe that when John says “Whoever has the Son has life,” that we can know that we do (1 John 5:12,13), and that that life comes by believing “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), that he meant to give us that confidence. It seems to me that the ramifications of such a doctrine as you describe are that, for one sin (which Jesus paid the penalty for) God rescinds our adoption as his children, removes his Holy Spirit from us, and returns us to “old” creations. And that just seems nonsensical, as well as unsupported in Scripture.
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(Sorry this response took a little while. And sorry it’s kind of long. It’s a meaty subject.)
Really, you should read my series! I address some of these very points! 😀 As a teaser, in response to the idea of “fluctuating”:
I would like it if you would read and reply there, since I think there would be other things you would like to comment on as well.
To reply to your comment:
No, I’m not saying that “every time we sin, we reject Christ.” That’s exactly what I was trying to explain that I didn’t mean. I’m saying that if we don’t reject Christ in some measure, then it’s not a mortal sin. If we sin in ignorance, or on accident, or against out will, then we’re not rejecting Christ and therefore it’s not a mortal sin. We should not become complacent in that: our flesh does rebel against the Spirit and we do deny Christ in smaller or greater ways when we sin, and we are responsible four our actions and our choices. That is not to say that any “mortal sin” drives all love and grace from one’s heart. It might, if it’s really bad — knowing something is really bad and choosing to do it anyway, like willful, premeditated murder could do that — but it might not. The Church is not a judge of the state of our hearts and can’t know that. All she can teach is what she understands from revelation about what’s right and what’s wrong according to God’s moral law. The concepts of “saved” and “unsaved,” “state of grace” and “state of mortal sin” encourage to talk about the soul in binaries — but I tend to think it’s not so clean cut as that, where God’s grace and mercy are concerned.
Regarding “saving faith”: Yes, Scripture refers to faith that “saves” (e.g. Luke 7:50, James 2:14), but also being saved through faith (e.g. Ephesians 2:8). Does our faith save us, as if our faith itself is somehow operative in saving us? Or are we saved through our faith, faith being the medium through which God works, with God Himself being the operator? The former, I’ve often thought, seems to make us, our faith to be the operator, although it’s clear that faith itself is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). This gets down into very fine points of soteriology — but I often think that the way Protestants talk about saving faith makes them appear entitled or even empowered in their own salvation — as if, paradoxically, despite all their claims against the role of “works” in salvation, their salvation depends on them — on their faith and their apprehension of the gospel.
So about “moving in and out of saving faith”: This seems to understand “saving faith” as a moment, as a one-time event: you have saving faith once, in a moment, and you’re therefore “saved,” once and for all — implying that the “saved” person would then have saving faith from that point forward. So how would you define faith, especially saving faith? Is it mere belief, intellectual assent, or a verbal confession of such? Does it require a “sinner’s prayer”? Does “salvation” take place in that moment for all time, or is “saving faith” something that the believer maintains throughout his life from that point forward? Does God maintain him in it? Can he fall away from saving faith?
It seems to me that the phenomenon of an apparently faithful believer falling away from faith is a paradox that both the Catholic and Protestant traditions struggle to account for. The Catholic tradition places the impetus of persevering and abiding on the believer himself — as I would argue Scripture itself does. Scripture gives ample warnings about falling away and persisting in sin, directed apparently at believers, and does not make the distinction between “those with saving faith and those without,” “true believers and false believers” that Protestants seek to interpolate. By placing the salvation moment at the very beginning of the process, Protestants are forced into what I see as doublespeak: to essentially acknowledge the problem of falling away, but at the same time to deny it exists or is a problem: the person who falls away doesn’t really fall away, because he was never “saved” to begin with. He only had the appearance of being saved, the faith which turned out to be false faith; the fruits (by which we were supposed to have known him) which turned out to be false fruits; the assurance which turned out to be false assurance. This all, I would say, very much places the outcome of salvation in our own hands, just as much as you accuse the Catholic conception of it — only at the same time denying human responsibility and ultimately free will. If I fall away, it’s God’s fault for not saving me.
I tend to view “saving faith” not as faith we have in a moment, and then are irrevocably “saved in that moment, but faith through which God can work, through which He can save us: the vessel of the grace He gives us, the mode of His operation in our lives. It is God who saves us through our faith, not we who save ourselves by having faith. And yes, having faith is an ongoing process. It certainly has an immediate context, a beginning, an initial moment not just of belief but of commitment; but continuing in faith through our lives, persevering, abiding in Him and bearing fruit, certainly takes on the meaning of faithfulness or fidelity.
So about assurance: Yes, we can have confidence in all the verses you name. You say you have “complete assurance of salvation” — but once again, how “complete” can any of this “assurance” be if you do admit the possibility that someone who claims to have such “assurance” might in fact have false assurance? Christians do fall away. In that event, proceeding from such a notion of “assurance,” one is either forced to conclude that he was never really saved in the first place, which requires admitting the possibility that your own assurance might also be false — and an assurance that might be false isn’t really any assurance at all. Or it requires concluding that sin and especially falling away has no consequences, in direct contradiction to Scripture: that (as is the commonplace at funerals) even through he fell away, he still had saving faith at some point in his life and was therefore “saved” anyway.
The ramifications of Catholic doctrine that you take to be “nonsensical” are only such if you proceed from Protestant premises in the first place, of “salvation” occurring in a single, initial moment, of the whole gift being given at once and of such scriptural concepts as perseverance and bearing fruit being empty and unnecessary. Is being a “child of God” necessarily the same thing as “being saved” — or is it possible for even God’s children to depart from His grace? This seems to be the implication of Jesus’s parables such as the Prodigal Son, where even the promised heir squandered his inheritance and left his father’s graces: Would he have still been so graced if he had died dissolute in the faraway pig sty, or was his reward dependent on his repentance and return? Even Paul’s statement, which you cite, admits a condition: “it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:16-17). In verse 23, he presents that though we have the first fruits of the Spirit, we endure the present suffering “as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies — the adoption as sons being a future, eschatological event, a promised one but not a realized one. The statement from John that you cite includes, in the very same paragraph, the scriptural authority for the Church’s understanding of mortal sin (1 John 5:16-18), the possibility that even a brother, whom he just declared has eternal life, can commit a sin unto death! If we take John’s words of assurance with absolute literality, then we must conclude that none of us who sin is born of God (1 John 5:18)! Very plainly then, he is speaking in broad, rhetorical strokes and not absolute, technical dicta about what it means to believe and have eternal life and be a child of God.
So no, I would say, God does not rescind our adoption as His children. He does not remove His Holy Spirit. We do not return to being “old” creations. But nonetheless, even new creations in Christ, God’s children, bearing His Holy Spirit, can choose not to live by the Spirit, and so not inherit eternal life (e.g. Galatians 5:13-26), can fail to abide in Him, and so be cast forth as a branch and be thrown into the fire and burned (John 15:5-6).
The peace of the Lord be with you.
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A important correction to the post I just made (now in the modqueue) — which ought to be obvious, but since we’re talking about legalistic definitons I wanted to be clear: The definition of a mortal sin is a grave matter done with full knowledge of its sinfulness and gravity, deliberately and with full consent, and one from which one does not feel the least contrition or repentance.
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I don’t know why WordPress is subjecting a selection of your comments to manual approval. That’s not my doing.
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It’s because that’s the default behavior if there are two or more links in the comment. It’s an anti-spam measure. It’s not a bad idea, but WordPress.com’s spam filtering is pretty good anyway, and I can only think of once or twice a comment got through it when it shouldn’t have. It automatically modqueues first-time commenters anyway. You can change the comment limit under Settings -> Discussion.
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I’m not Catholic or anything, but as long as your theology fits perfectly with the Bible it is good
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