Tom Blackburn - 24 July 2008 12:35 PM

While I would hate to misunderstand anyone’s position, I read a great deal here about “certainty”.  As I said: given it is inevitable that we will go on sinning, the only way we can be “certain” of salvtion is if our faith in salvation alone is sufficient for salvation. Angus, if you subscribe to this “certainty” campaign, you can’t escape this dilemma, and I don’t say this to be needlessly provocative.

Hi again Tom. I think you’re asking if I believe in “full assurance of salvation” which is quite often taught in Protestant churches? I personally don’t believe the Bible teaches “full assurance of salvation”, but instead believe it possible to become “fully confident” in one’s enduring faithfulness (and hence salvation). I see a difference. “Full assurance of salvation” implies that there’s nothing one can do to lose one’s faith which is plainly incorrect. Anyone who’s been a Christian for a little while will know of others who have professed faith but fallen away (seemingly forever) and the Bible also bears witness to this (Luke 8:4-15; 2 Peter 1:10).

So what do we make of passages in Hebrews that discuss assurance ("full assurance of hope” Heb 6:11; “full assurance of faith” Heb 10:22; “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Heb 11:1). I believe from the context of these verses that this assurance is assurance in the promises of God, not in our own salvation, and that these promises aren’t false hopes, but our participation in God’s new creation is guaranteed if we remain faithful.

However, we also gain confidence in God’s faithfulness to his promises through our own Christian experience, and in receiving his Holy Spirit. There can be ever growing joy and peace at knowing that the God of the universe loves us, as incredible as that is, in spite of our many failings; and in experiencing his Spirit at work within us (with our mostly willing cooperation) to live out his purposes through us. However, becoming “fully confident” of enduring faith only comes with time, it’s not something that can be claimed the moment we believe.

I think 2 Timothy 4:7-8 nicely illustrates the “full confidence” that Paul had of the promises to come - “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

So in summary, we can be fully assured that God will keep his promises to those who remain faithful to his son Jesus and continue to submit to his Lordship by “finishing the race set before us”.

Thanks Angus.

There are some around the SA domain who take a more robust view of “certainty” than you. Anyway, information overload after a day on this thread.

Regards

Tom

And Bob (Cameron) - sorry I hit the wrong target before - I will return . . .

Tom

“Full assurance of salvation” implies that there’s nothing one can do to lose one’s faith which is plainly incorrect.

How is it plainly incorrect? I’ve heard this argued before, but not in a way I’d consider plain…

Anyone who’s been a Christian for a little while will know of others who have professed faith but fallen away (seemingly forever) and the Bible also bears witness to this (Luke 8:4-15; 2 Peter 1:10).

Yes of course. But how does that mean they have lost salvation?

To say that you can fall away and lose salvation implies to me that Christ’s death is not sufficient.

Danii...are you honnestly trying to argue the once a christian always a christian line? Does that extend to a single act of faith at some stage in the past, to which I then completely reject God for the rest of my life and still have salvation?

I would go along with Bob in that 2 Tim tells us more about the character of God. To read that verse so plainly as to say it offers salvation no matter what I do is almost to mutilate the text..."if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us”

I dont think that this in any way shows Jesus’ death is insufficient...if anything it guards against universal salvation

Dear Robert ( Denham) the Catholic Church is all those baptized Christians lay or clerical who are in full ecclesial communion with the sucessor of St Peter, namely now Pope Benedict. There is no salvation outside this church, for anyone who knowingly rejects it.However a baptized or unbaptized person outside of her communion , who through no fault of their own ( and that is the rub) and seeks to follow God’s will as best he knows ( and God Knows the heart ) may possibly be saved.

However the ordinary, surest and safest means of salvation is the plan Christ instituted, where He imparts his sacramental grace and other graces to the beliver and prepares them for eterrnity and participation in the Divine life of the Holy Trinity In heaven. The most imprortant sacramental grace comes in the Eucharist..which Christ announces in John Ch six.

Unequivically, he states.."Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you can have no life in you.” This is the one most virulently rejected and I know the repsonse already Needless to say this marks the first apostasy from the teaching authority of Christ in the NT.

Being a Catholic gives you an enormous advantage ( and that is an uderstatement ) but it also brings a greater responsibilty/ To those that much has been gven, much will be required. For judgement will begin with the household of God.

The Church of God is not an amprrphous term to be wheeled in and out., and used conveniently It is a visible entity, in continuity with each generation ...a city set on a hll that cannot be hid and it is a divine teachibg body, which must reflect him , who is without eror in his teaching.

There was much at GAFCON I felt that was tragic, but I liked “ respectful of the church’s historical and consensual reading.”

There at once is the answer betwen those disputing salvation. The Church for the first 15 centuries taught consistently that one who was saved, was not saved forever, only those who endured to the end. The Church studied the Scriptures and gave the definitive answer.

The sincere folk at GAFCON saw they couldn’t agree on say female ordination ..so they side- steped it. Just like in my household, everything we can’t decide whether to throw away or keep , gets deposited in the attic!

Robert (Denham ), Bob , Danni, Tom you all desrve better....the issue is authority and pray to the Lord to reveal to you his Divine plan of imparting that. Then you will see that you have been Saul...as I did.

I will be away for four days with my family ..so please excuse any delayed reply. The computer under thas to stay at home! or I am under sentence of death!

Adrian asked:

Danii...are you honnestly trying to argue the once a christian always a christian line? Does that extend to a single act of faith at some stage in the past, to which I then completely reject God for the rest of my life and still have salvation?

I’m not sure that’s a helpful hypothetical.
The Bible makes it clear that we will have doubts and moments of unfaithfulness, but it also makes it clear that they won’t take our salvation. And as I’m sure we’ve all experienced such times, and even worse, when they continue and build on top of each other. When we’re not reading God’s word and we’re out of contact with faithful Christian’s who’d otherwise rebuke and correct us we keep getting deeper into sin. As Paul says (Romans 7) there’s a war between God’s spirit and our flesh, and I don’t know where the Bible says that the flesh can’t win in our daily lives. If we are fools and neglect to read God’s word I think it’s a very real danger that we could digress to the point of appearing to others and ourselves like we have rejected God. But just as the single moment of unfaithfulness won’t void our salvation, I don’t believe a life of unfaithfulness will either. If you think that by end of life they have lost their salvation, then somewhere between when they first trusted and received salvation and that unfaithfulness they must have been a single moment that voided their salvation. Is that supported by scripture?

I would go along with Bob in that 2 Tim tells us more about the character of God. To read that verse so plainly as to say it offers salvation no matter what I do is almost to mutilate the text..."if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us”

I’m not sure whether 2 Tim does mean what I think.
But isn’t the entire message of the Gospel that if we trust Jesus, his death has paid the complete sacrifice for all our sins past and future? That’s what I’m trusting Jesus for!

I dont think that this in any way shows Jesus’ death is insufficient...if anything it guards against universal salvation

I don’t think that what I’ve been saying leads to universal salvation in any way. For very sadly, the majority of people will never, even once, trust in Jesus’ death.

Robert Williams said:

Dear Robert ( Denham) the Catholic Church is all those baptized Christians lay or clerical who are in full ecclesial communion with the sucessor of St Peter, namely now Pope Benedict. There is no salvation outside this church, for anyone who knowingly rejects it.However a baptized or unbaptized person outside of her communion , who through no fault of their own ( and that is the rub) and seeks to follow God’s will as best he knows ( and God Knows the heart ) may possibly be saved.

Most people on this forum have knowingly rejected the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Are you saying we all are without salvation?

Adrian ......the degree of culpability will be according to the light that they have been given, the xperiences that have occured. Many pesons within Evangelicalsm are poisoned against the Catholic Church from chidhood.. Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen once stated, “ there are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there hare millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe is the Catholic Church. That is a key distinction.

t also works both ways..in his chat on Roman Catholicism (Video)the Dean denies that Roman Catholics are Christians by his expression, “ these people are our fellow creatures under God.”

Can’t help but feel that persons reading this web have had a good introduction on Catholicism from Donna.

Robert ian Williams - 25 July 2008 05:06 AM

Many pesons within Evangelicalsm are poisoned against the Catholic Church from chidhood.

And vice-versa; let there be no doubt about that.

Robert ian Williams - 25 July 2008 05:06 AM

t also works both ways..in his chat on Roman Catholicism (Video)the Dean denies that Roman Catholics are Christians by his expression, “ these people are our fellow creatures under God.”

You’ve made this point a number of times on different threads, but I wonder if that fairly takes PJ in context.  Was he talking about the fact that we’ll all face judgement?  In that case Christian or non-Christian isn’t relevant to the point he was making.

Besides, I’ve recently listened to his big brother’s talk on www.theologian.org.uk, on why he’s a Protestant, and he plainly says he accepts there are Christians in the RCC!  I don’t think little Phil disagrees.

Interesting point Dan..but they would probably say, that they will eventuually come out of the system....but I feel sure they do not regard all baptized Catholics as Christians.

II think Catholics have become far more fair minded than Evangelicals. Whilst that is good in one sense,..it has opened them up to be easy prey to missionaries from various groups.  We used to make Catholic converts ito Evagelicalism n the CU at University, because they had no strong doctinal basis.I find it sad when I encounter children who have had “ formal catholic education” and do not know the basic rudiments of their Faith .That is the other side of the child abuse scandal.

Danii,

I think the easiest scriptural basis for saying that a life of unfaithfulness does not lead to salvation is quite simply the verse before the one you are using to say that if you had it once you have it forever...I would like to know what you think the ‘endure’ is getting at because at the moment I think that my way of reading both verses together fits.

Robert (iW)

I will agree that alot of evangelicals are poisoned against the RCC...more is the pity! I have a fairly close RC friend. We acknowledge our differences and engage each other on them (quite robustly at times) but we both acknowledge our common christian heritage and don’t deny the christian-ness of the other. I think that that is in keeping with the spirit of JPII and i’m sure that i heard the Abp say on a podcast a while back that there are a good many faithful christians in the RCC - who will stay in the RCC.

A

I think the easiest scriptural basis for saying that a life of unfaithfulness does not lead to salvation is quite simply the verse before the one you are using to say that if you had it once you have it forever...I would like to know what you think the ‘endure’ is getting at because at the moment I think that my way of reading both verses together fits.

Can you please explain in more detail your interpretation of both verses?

Robert:

I was just re-reading this topic and noticed that you said this:

Dan, you can’t isolate Romans ch3,v28 from the context of the whole Scriptures.
The Apostle is writing of the Jewish ceremonial law...furthermore it has to be seen in the context of the explicit denial in James that we are not justified by faith alone.

You have asked repeatedly “Where does the Bible teach that justification is by faith alone? No one has challenged me! etc etc.

I posted a response regarding the passage. You did not even engage it, and then you use this passage to justify your position again! So here it is again.

Robert wrote:

You completely fail to answer my challenge about the phrase “faith alone “( used by the Dean)is only found in that form in the Epistle of James ,and to refute it! 

If you take James 2:24 on its own then it does appear that James is refuting salvation by faith alone. I don’t find it surprising that the RCC points to this letter as proof of their position.

Though I think it is important to note that the recipients of Jame’s letter are people who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus; and James is writing them to live out their faith and that to merely say that one is a Christian is meaningless if their lives are not charactersed by good works.

Have a look at James 2:14 Robert:
What good is it my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but no deeds? Will such a faith save him.

James is saying that a real authentic saviing faith in the person and completed once for all work of the Lord Jesus will manifest itself by actions, in this case, by deeds. The deeds declare that a man/woman is righteous, his/her deeds do not make him/her righteous before God, and nor does words, or a profession of faith not lived out, which is James point.

Some Roman Catholics have attempted to Paul against James by using Romans 4:2-3 against James 2:24. This apparent contradiction can be explained by an examination of the Greek work that is translated -’justified’. The context and usage of the word in James is different to that of Paul and thus can be translated as ‘authenitcated’ or ‘proved right’.

Justification is always out of faith (Rom 1:17; 3:26,30; 4:16;5:1; 9:30,32; 10:6,14; Gal 2:16;3:7ff, 11ff, 22, 24; 5:5) or through faith (Rom 3:25, Ga;l 3:14, Eph 3:12,17; Col 2:12; Heb 10:38) but never because of faith.

Joshua

Adrian...I acceot you as a Christian by virtue of your baptism, but whether you hold the Revealed Christian truth or a sixteenth century aberation is the key question....some of my closest friends and relatives are reformed Christians.

I never raised this as an issue concerning the Archbishop but the Dean. However even the Archbishop’s concession speaks for its self.

Joshua...The Catholic Church belives in salvation by grace alone and justification by Faith...but not by FAITH ALONE..that is the key point at issue.

There is not one Christian fugure, including Wyclif or Huss who teach or expound it before Luther. 1500 hundred years of silence. Do you honestly believe that such a key doctrine was lost to the Christianity if it were genuine?

ILuther’s doctrine is as Evangelical scholar Alister Mcgrath states in his monumental Iustatia dei essentially a theological novum.

You comments remind me of the proud Mother at the military passing out parade, who said, “ Look everyone is out of step, bar our Jack. “

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone.  If you think works are also required, it is no longer grace.  Grace is a gift. Works makes it something earned, no longer a gift.  Christ’s death paid the total price required for our salvation.  Our works contribute nothing, but are an appropriate expression of gratitude and love for the grace already totally given and received and possessed for ever as a gift. Not of works, lest any one should have something to boast about.