City Harvest Church?
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salvation is a gift from God. The bible say that who ever believes in Him will have eternal life. you do not have to do anything to gain this gift, it is freely given to those who believe in Him.
As what you mention, faith without works is no use, similarly, wrks without faith is also no use but this has nothing to do with salvation at all.
frankly spaeking, only God will knoes whether you have truly believe in Him, no one else will knoe wat is in your heart.
If you truly believe in Him, your life and actions will show naturally.
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Originally posted by Chin Eng:
you maintain that good works is part of salvation, and even a "saved" person will need to continue to do good works....
is it conceivable that a person live through his life NOT doing a single good deed? let a alone a person who has accepted Christ??? so if that's the case, there is really no argument after all... since quantity is really not the issue, and neither is the quality.... and that only God knows....
having said that and having realised that we are really going on about catholic and protestant doctrine... so it may not be necessarily to prolong this any further.
Please explain what you mean by "even a "saved" person will need to continue to do good works...." and when is a person "saved"?
It is true that everybody can and will do good work at some point in their life no matter how "bad" they are.....even if they have never accepted Christ. That is why there is hope of salvation outside the Church because people are "prompted" by God to do good works and satan cannot prompt people to do good works, can they?
You seems to suggest that Christians good works have a "higher quality" than non-Christian?
Yes, there are doctrines differences....I am not asking you to prove yours but merely stating why I think the Catholic Churches teaching is correct. And to dispel the misconceptions raised.
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Originally posted by min_min:
salvation is a gift from God. The bible say that who ever believes in Him will have eternal life. you do not have to do anything to gain this gift, it is freely given to those who believe in Him.
As what you mention, faith without works is no use, similarly, wrks without faith is also no use but this has nothing to do with salvation at all.
frankly spaeking, only God will knoes whether you have truly believe in Him, no one else will knoe wat is in your heart.
If you truly believe in Him, your life and actions will show naturally.
Yes, already explained what you have brought up.....difference is in what you understand in " believes in Him" and Yes, it's freely given but not just to those who believed in Him but to everyone....
But it is not true that "you do not have to do anything to gain this gift" if you said you "have to believed in Him" (that's doing something and just part of it).
Faith and works is needed and has all to do with salvation if you read what we quoted.
Yes, only God knows your heart.....and it is by our works that we show our faith....as in the last judgement, Jesus is asking: did you feed me when I am hungry, did you clothe me when I am naked, visit me when I am sick etc.....
and your life and actions (works) will show naturally in you truely believed in Him.
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
Please explain what you mean by "even a "saved" person will need to continue to do good works...." and when is a person "saved"?
It is true that everybody can and will do good work at some point in their life no matter how "bad" they are.....even if they have never accepted Christ. That is why there is hope of salvation outside the Church because people are "prompted" by God to do good works and satan cannot prompt people to do good works, can they?
You seems to suggest that Christians good works have a "higher quality" than non-Christian?
Yes, there are doctrines differences....I am not asking you to prove yours but merely stating why I think the Catholic Churches teaching is correct. And to dispel the misconceptions raised.
i think what min min is saying, that, God view good works as filthy rags, compared to His standards.
good works don't... matter if you're not even part of His family. or rather, it's not that God isn't loving to non believers, it's just the mechanics of it. God is holy, we're not.
He wants us to be in His family, but we're unable to, in our current situation. He wants to reward us for good works, but we don't even meet the criteria to even be in His presence.
Only by paving the way to allow us to be part of His family, then our good works can be rewarded.
it's like this. someone is sentenced to death row for murder, no matter how sweet he is to the guards and other inmates, it doesn't absolve him from his crime.
even if the judge is really compassionate, he can't just set the death row inmate free, because the law is still the law. you murder someone, you pay for your life. you don't get credit for being sweet and kind to everyone in prison.
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
Yes, we need to trust His words and and we do but you and I simply look at it differently.
God provided what is needed for salvation by sending His only Son to die so that we can be saved. We all agreed to that.
But there are conditions in order to be saved and we need to meet them.....
Both your equation brings in good works....why? Because it is needed and if left out, there will be no salvation.
If I may quote Chin Eng's view which you seems to agree, salvation is unconditional yet you must have faith (which is a condition and to you only condition) sound self defeating .....to me at least.
Works should not be in your equation if you say salvation is by faith alone. Yet it is there....why? Because it is needed.
Catholic churches do not teach us to "desire to produce good works" but good works is a commandment of Jesus. If we belief in God, we try to follow Him and do what He asked us to do.....and live out our faith by following God's word. It is not the same as faith = love of God.
my equation says that faith produces good works. it is the result of faith.
your equation says good works is not part of faith, it's a different element which must be added on top of faith, to equate salvation
it's different.
that's why i disagree. because good works is a different element, it has nothing to do with faith in your salvation equation.
you believe that good works will give ppl the chance to be saved (even if that person rejects Jesus's gift of salvation)
but God says that good works is filthy rags to His standards.
so how?
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God does not require us to do anything for Him, because He already have everything. He just wants us to make a choice to believe in Him and to have a relationship with Him.
i tell you. all of us fall short under His law. what is your definition of works then?
you knoe some people's life can be so good and so righteous but then so what? what can it really prove? have you ever heard of the parable of the weeds?
The Parable of the Weeds
24Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
28" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'29" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "
The Parable of the Weeds Explained
36Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
37He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
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If you have faith, the works will come naturally and because your being is in God, your doing will be be unto God as well. but salvation is a gift and the people who make the choice to believe shall have salvation and be saved.
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
Please explain what you mean by "even a "saved" person will need to continue to do good works...." and when is a person "saved"?
I throw a question back at you.... when do you considered a person saved? upon receiving Jesus as his personal saviour? so if he is saved at this point.... does he need to do more to be "more" saved?
You are either saved or you are not....
Originally posted by Smarty Boy:It is true that everybody can and will do good work at some point in their life no matter how "bad" they are.....even if they have never accepted Christ. That is why there is hope of salvation outside the Church because people are "prompted" by God to do good works and satan cannot prompt people to do good works, can they?
You seems to suggest that Christians good works have a "higher quality" than non-Christian?
Now are you saving that one can be a Christian without faith.... because God can prompt an unbeliever to do good works (hope of salvation outside the church)....???
Originally posted by Smarty Boy:Yes, there are doctrines differences....I am not asking you to prove yours but merely stating why I think the Catholic Churches teaching is correct. And to dispel the misconceptions raised.
Dispelling misconceptions and proving that the Catholic churches' doctrines are correct are two different things.
Dispelling is easy.... proving.... is another matter altogether.
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
my equation says that faith produces good works. it is the result of faith.
your equation says good works is not part of faith, it's a different element which must be added on top of faith, to equate salvation
it's different.
that's why i disagree. because good works is a different element, it has nothing to do with faith in your salvation equation.
you believe that good works will give ppl the chance to be saved (even if that person rejects Jesus's gift of salvation)
but God says that good works is filthy rags to His standards.
so how?
we are on the same page.... you and i.... and min min....
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
my equation says that faith produces good works. it is the result of faith.
your equation says good works is not part of faith, it's a different element which must be added on top of faith, to equate salvation
it's different.
that's why i disagree. because good works is a different element, it has nothing to do with faith in your salvation equation.
you believe that good works will give ppl the chance to be saved (even if that person rejects Jesus's gift of salvation)
but God says that good works is filthy rags to His standards.
so how?
That's why I said, it is just differnce of how we look at it....and never did I said good works is not an element of faith. It is but it is not achieved soley by faith....and not that you can only do good works when converted.....
Take good works out of your equation and there is no salvation......
What I said is that faith and good works are needed for salvation.
God's gift of salvation is a gift for all....the world and never only for Christians....
and how to live up to God's standard so that works are not "filthy"? Where do we get the "measurement"??
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Originally posted by Chin Eng:
I throw a question back at you.... when do you considered a person saved? upon receiving Jesus as his personal saviour? so if he is saved at this point.... does he need to do more to be "more" saved?
You are either saved or you are not....
Perhaps, you can answer me first ..... and tell me if you are saved and how you can show or proved to me that you are saved or if you are not.
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Originally posted by Chin Eng:
Now are you saving that one can be a Christian without faith.... because God can prompt an unbeliever to do good works (hope of salvation outside the church)....???
I did not say "one can be a Christian without faith".........
Yes, I said there can be salvation outside the Church for all the reasons we quoted before and you can see earlier postings.
Do you not agree that God prompts people to do good things? In fact, God also prompt people to come to know Him......We cannot be converted with God's intervention and if God is absence from non-believers, there will never be conversion.
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Originally posted by Chin Eng:
Dispelling misconceptions and proving that the Catholic churches' doctrines are correct are two different things.
Dispelling is easy.... proving.... is another matter altogether.
However you want to word it.......at least you know now (I hope) that Catholics are not doing good works because they wanted salvation.... and if salvation is not part of it, they will stop doing good works....
Good works is done because it is a commandment of Jesus and also needed in salvation.
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Originally posted by min_min:
God does not require us to do anything for Him, because He already have everything. He just wants us to make a choice to believe in Him and to have a relationship with Him.
i tell you. all of us fall short under His law. what is your definition of works then?
you knoe some people's life can be so good and so righteous but then so what? what can it really prove? have you ever heard of the parable of the weeds?
See quoted in under-score and highlighted...??
The dispute here is salvation is by faith and works......
What about this parable that you quoted? What is the point you are making?
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
i think what min min is saying, that, God view good works as filthy rags, compared to His standards.
good works don't... matter if you're not even part of His family. or rather, it's not that God isn't loving to non believers, it's just the mechanics of it. God is holy, we're not.
He wants us to be in His family, but we're unable to, in our current situation. He wants to reward us for good works, but we don't even meet the criteria to even be in His presence.
Only by paving the way to allow us to be part of His family, then our good works can be rewarded.
I believed that God's love is unconditional and He loves non-Christians as well as He loved us. Yes, He wants all to be in His family as all are His creations.
But I did not remember that the Bible is teaching us to discriminate against non-believers or that God will treat them differenyly from us.
Jesus came and showed us that God loved all and He reaches out to all regardless of their status.....
Good works will be rewarded which is why we are saying that there is hope of salvation outside the Church.
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
it's like this. someone is sentenced to death row for murder, no matter how sweet he is to the guards and other inmates, it doesn't absolve him from his crime.
even if the judge is really compassionate, he can't just set the death row inmate free, because the law is still the law. you murder someone, you pay for your life. you don't get credit for being sweet and kind to everyone in prison.
But not being a Christian is not committing a crime.......and certainly not a muder and I do not see relavence here.
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
See quoted in under-score and highlighted...??
The dispute here is salvation is by faith and works......
What about this parable that you quoted? What is the point you are making?
the point i'm making is that you will never knoe who is the weed and the wheat until the very end. so even if your life is full of good works, without faith you are not saved.
i think u just mistake the whole situation here.we are not discriminating against non-belivers but then in the bible also states that we all sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God. and that all the amount of works that we do will never get us to God. because no matter what you do, you fall short of His glory. The only way to reach Him is to make a choice to have a relationship with Him.
once you have this relationship, the doing will be unto God, it flows naturally. salvation is a personal choice. it's not abt the works at all.
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Originally posted by min_min:
the point i'm making is that you will never knoe who is the weed and the wheat until the very end. so even if your life is full of good works, without faith you are not saved.
i think u just mistake the whole situation here.we are not discriminating against non-belivers but then in the bible also states that we all sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God. and that all the amount of works that we do will never get us to God. because no matter what you do, you fall short of His glory. The only way to reach Him is to make a choice to have a relationship with Him.
once you have this relationship, the doing will be unto God, it flows naturally. salvation is a personal choice. it's not abt the works at all.
I don't see your point (for the parable) and the relationship with salvation by faith and works or salvation by faith alone. We as Christians are still sinners.....and we do and still sin.
Christ died so that we can be saved. Having a relationship with God by calling Him Father means that we need to obey Him and be a true disciple of Jesus. Jesus commandment to us is to love God and our neighbour. If we have faith in God and beleived in Him, we will live out our faith by listening to Jesus (to love God and love our neighbour) and act on it (by our works). Then, we can call ourselves faithful and
"It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith."
It is not about the number of times but it is from our heart that we are doing because we want to be follower of Christ. Only then we are ready to face the last judgement as Jesus has told us in Mt 25.
I don't remember Jesus saying the He will saved us (first) if we profess our faith and then let us do good works later ...and if not saved, no need to do.
Salvation is not about works but faith and works.
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
if you quote the bible half as much as you quote the writings of the catholic church, you may discover for yourself what i mean.
i understand that there are issues and circumstances which seems ambiguous. like someone who nv heard the gospel before, or he's mentally incapble etc. but i really do find a logic-fail. when you believe that someone who is sound who has heard the gospel, rejected it, died and still has a chance, when the bible did say no chance. (i asked this question before, very clearly, and a catholic said yes, very clearly too.)
but you believe it, because you say that the person's work may reach God's passing mark, which we all know there is no such thing, because all of man's work is like filthy rags, and there is only one way to the Father, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and for all man has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (see what i mean by if you quote the bible half as much as you quote from the writings of man?)
see what i mean by logic fail?
someone rejects Christ's salvation. but you sincerely believe that he has a chance because he may be a good person
isn't that saying the value of works is > than Christ's death on the cross in God's eye?
So do you or do you not agree that a person who has never heard the gospel before through no fault of his own, or is mentally incapable, may still obtain eternal salvation through the mercy of God, if they seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will through the dictates of their conscience, as taught by the Catholic Church ?
But what about a Christian who rejects his faith ? I did not address this previously because it wasn't in your original query. For this group, it is more difficult to say that they are blameless and 'didn't know better' (although there might be extenuating circumstances). For this group, the Catholic Church does teach that there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ and his Church. BUT the Church stops short of pronouncing with certainty that any specific individual will go to hell. Why ? Because she leaves that to God. Only God knows a person's heart, whether the person repents at the moment of his death with perfect contrition, etc. It's not about 'a person's work reaching God's passing mark' (can't remember where I ever said such a thing in my previous posts).
Separately, I find it amusing, having one Protestant tell me I should quote more of the bible and another saying not to throw bible verses around. Sigh, I guess you can't please everyone.
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Originally posted by Chin Eng:
this, in my opinion, is why i cannot factor in "good works" into salvation. solely because you cannot quantify or measure it.... and when is enough, when is not enough... measured by minute, measured by day, or measured by lifetime?and if we factor in "God is the only judge for us all" my natural conclusion is: salvation is NOT guaranteed.
Originally posted by Chin Eng:
I throw a question back at you.... when do you considered a person saved? upon receiving Jesus as his personal saviour? so if he is saved at this point.... does he need to do more to be "more" saved?You are either saved or you are not....
Yes. Both the bible and the Catholic Church teaches that salvation is indeed not guaranteed. We can lose it by our own choice, that is why we hope for salvation. As I mentioned previously, salvation is not a one time event but a process. As Christians, we have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved (if we endure to the very end).
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Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
that's why we say that, good works prove salvation. you're saved, the love of God is in you, thus you love others, and do good works.
i believe like, mother theresa, is like tt, i don't believe that everyday she does good works, thinking that she has to do it to gain salvation.
I still see good works in the picture. But more important than whether good works is part of salvation or not is the point that we can lose our salvation. We are deluding ourselves if we believe that our salvation is guaranteed just because we have 'accepted Jesus Christ as our personal lord and saviour' at an 'altar call' once before, regardless of how we live out the rest of our lives. Both the bible and the Catholic Church are quite clear on that.
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Originally posted by Omnia:
Yes. Both the bible and the Catholic Church teaches that salvation is indeed not guaranteed. We can lose it by our own choice, that is why we hope for salvation. As I mentioned previously, salvation is not a one time event but a process. As Christians, we have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved (if we endure to the very end).
i don't disagree that one can lose his salvation especially when one chose to abandon God.
Originally posted by Omnia:I still see good works in the picture. But more important than whether good works is part of salvation or not is the point that we can lose our salvation. We are deluding ourselves if we believe that our salvation is guaranteed just because we have 'accepted Jesus Christ as our personal lord and saviour' at an 'altar call' once before, regardless of how we live out the rest of our lives. Both the bible and the Catholic Church are quite clear on that.
i think the crux of the argument so far is not whether salvation can be lost, but whether good works is part of salvation.... of course, now you have chosen to move away from this argument and focus on something else.
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Originally posted by Omnia:
Separately, I find it amusing, having one Protestant tell me I should quote more of the bible and another saying not to throw bible verses around. Sigh, I guess you can't please everyone.
this is a personal opinion.... i just happen not to like throwing verses around. i did not say YOU or anyone else should follow my stance..... and did anyone else ask you to please everyone???
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
I don't see your point (for the parable) and the relationship with salvation by faith and works or salvation by faith alone. We as Christians are still sinners.....and we do and still sin.
Christ died so that we can be saved. Having a relationship with God by calling Him Father means that we need to obey Him and be a true disciple of Jesus. Jesus commandment to us is to love God and our neighbour. If we have faith in God and beleived in Him, we will live out our faith by listening to Jesus (to love God and love our neighbour) and act on it (by our works). Then, we can call ourselves faithful and
"It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith."
It is not about the number of times but it is from our heart that we are doing because we want to be follower of Christ. Only then we are ready to face the last judgement as Jesus has told us in Mt 25.
I don't remember Jesus saying the He will saved us (first) if we profess our faith and then let us do good works later ...and if not saved, no need to do.
Salvation is not about works but faith and works.
salvation is not abt faith and works. it's abt faith the choice to believe in Him, the others come naturally.
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Originally posted by Smarty Boy:
Perhaps, you can answer me first ..... and tell me if you are saved and how you can show or proved to me that you are saved or if you are not.
i am saved because i accepted Jesus as my personal savour.... and i am not certain that i need to prove to you whether i am saved or not. please stop being so arrogant that you needed me to prove to you that.so your turn....