New Life Fellowship Youth DramaI myself am a protestant, though I’d rather call myself simply a follower of the Triune God of the Holy Bible who goes to whatever church is of sound doctrine.. or in shorter terms, non-denominational.
I myself believe that whoever believes and follows the Bible, is saved by the grace of Jesus Christ’s shedding of blood, and repents of sins is a saved Christian on their way to sanctification and having eternal life in fellowship with God. I’m curious if Roman Catholics view protestants as unsaved or simply as another church who has diverse interpretation of doctrine but nonetheless still a church that God approves?
Lives7: Of course we must seek God outside of the scriptures also, but clearly the Bible is the only physical evidence we have of the True God’s law. Jesus states that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If Jesus is God, and God wrote the law, and God inspired the scriptures that were written (Paul claimed his words by the power of God – would a Christian claim Paul is a blasphemer?) therefore all scripture is technically from God whether written in His hands or not. That said, one does not lose salvation. One loses sanctification, but not justification. Furthermore, if one is not following God’s law and having true change of heart and repentance, is one truly saved then?? It is not possible to lose salvation – it is possible to obtain false salvation; the thought that by being a good little boy by reading the bible and worshiping God one can be saved.. this simply is incorrect, it is more than such.
I don’t think it my place to judge. Only God knows who is going to be saved. However, we do not believe that salvation is a one time event. The Bible says it is not.
Justification is God’s unconditional love for us through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.
Sanctification is the reciprocation of our love toward Jesus.
Glorification is the ultimate reward we’ll receive when Jesus returns. We’ll be like Christ.
We are justified by Christ alone.
After justification is sanctification. It’s the reciprocation of our love toward God. We are sanctified with the help of the Holy Spirit (Comforter) that Jesus gives us. Sanctification means to set a part or to make holy. The Holy Spirit helps us in this process to become like Christ. This is not a one time event; it’s a life long process. Our actions or work sanctify and purify us. We are separated from the world. We are in the world but not of the world. Our actions would be holy and righteous. We should think about heavenly things instead of worldly things. If you sanctify yourself to God, you may find that the world will hate you and persecute you.
Don’t get confused with justification. It’s the your motive that counts. Our actions or work is to do what Jesus commands us to do, and not adding to our justification. Many churches are stuck in justification and believing that any work is adding to justification.
Suppose our state before justification is like wearing a dirty robe, which does not entitle us to enter heaven. We cannot clean our robe using our own efforts. In Protestant’s Justification, Christ will give us His spotless robe to cover up ours at the time we accept Him as our Lord and Saviour [6]. Christ needs to do it only once. We still wear our dirty robe, but it is now covered with Christ’s. When God look at us He will see us wearing the spotless robe of Christ and declares us clean. Note that with the robe from Christ we are renewed outwardly but inside we still have our dirty robe. In Catholic justification, on the other hand, God through Christ will help us to wash our dirty robe. At our conversion, Christ makes it clean for the first time through Baptism (if we have the chance to have it). After this whenever we dirty our robe through sinning, Christ will again help us to wash it (through sacrament of penance). The process is continued through out our life. When we die with our robe still stained with venial sins, it will be cleansed in purgatory because nothing unclean can enter heaven (Revelation 21:27). At the end of Justification, we enter heaven wearing our clean robe. Obviously what is made clean is also declared clean.
they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Revelation 7:14
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
Revelation 22:14
"work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"
Paul’s argument that salvation is not a point in time event. Salvation is described as a continuing process. Paul is writing to the saved in Philippi (1:1) yet tells them to work out their own salvation. Belief, repentance, and baptism are only the starting points of salvation, not the end point. Paul seems to be saying to the Philippians that they have been saved, but now it is time to go to work. Salvation is described as a continuing process that must be brought to its completion. We must carry our salvation to the goal. Salvation is not passive. Salvation is not something that we can sit in the pews and think that this is good enough. How often we act so passive toward God! Jesus was not passive toward saving us. How can we be passive about the salvation extended to us? Paul commands us to work out this salvation.
Paul also instructs us how to work out our salvation. There is an attitude that is required as we put in our work for salvation. When Paul argues that we need to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, I do not believe that Paul means we are to fearful of God. Rather, the fear and trembling comes in understanding the awesome responsibility that we have before us. We must see the gravity and seriousness of salvation because our souls are at stake. How can we be passive in our salvation when we know that it is our salvation that hangs in the balances. It is our salvation that must be brought to its completion. We have to finish the race that we began when we stood up out of the waters of baptism. In this sense, we approach our task in fear and trembling, because of the gravity of what we are doing.
I believe this also means that we approach with the attitude of humility.
Here is Christian singing one Sunday in church. One Saturday afternoon as we were driving, Christian (3), heard a song playing, he listened to it twice in the car and a couple of times once we got home. By the third time, he was singing it and wanted to sing it during our church service. So here he is sharing it with the world! Enjoy and be blessed! God’s Precious Peach – www.ongoodground.org
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