Thursday, November 11, 2010
Let's start our review of this topic by defining what is meant by redemption and salvation.
The non-Catholic view of salvation is that once one accepts Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, their salvation is assured. This comes from several scripture quotes including John 3:3, Hebrews 9:12 and Romans 5:15. The belief is generally that no matter how good or bad we are after we've accepted Christ, we can not lose our salvation. They often require what they call the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’, which by the way is not found in the Bible.
Christ redeemed us all through His incarnation, life, passion, death and resurrection in complete obedience to the will of His Father. Because of His redemptive action, heaven is now open to ALL of mankind. Salvation on the other hand, deals with each of us individually and our relationship with God and how we, as an individual, actually get to heaven.
The non-Catholic view of salvation is that once one accepts Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, their salvation is assured. This comes from several scripture quotes including John 3:3, Hebrews 9:12 and Romans 5:15. The belief is generally that no matter how good or bad we are after we've accepted Christ, we can not lose our salvation. They often require what they call the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’, which by the way is not found in the Bible.Although none of these verses refer specifically to FAITH ALONE, Romans 3:28 is generally used to support this belief since it states that a person is justified by faith apart from the law. It is possible that one might be led to this conclusion by looking ONLY at these scriptures AND by approaching scripture with the predetermined idea that all Catholic practices and traditions are unnecessary. But as I previously discussed, the entire Bible is inspired and we can not therefore recognize ONLY those verses which meet our particular need, i.e. no cherry picking.
St. Paul, in Romans 3:28, was referring to works peculiar to the old Jewish Law, i.e. circumcision as in Romans 3:30-31. When Catholics refer to works they mean works of charity and love.
Understanding that the entire Bible is inspired, we only have to look to many other scripture verses where the doctrine of faith alone is specifically singled out as invalid. For example, you can refer to Ephesians 2:10, 1 Timothy 6:18, Titus 2:7, James 2:14-26, Revelation 2:5, 2:23, 2:26, 20:12 where works are identified as key to our salvation.
Finally, we can look to Matthew 25:32-46 where our Lord Himself specifically identifies the necessity of performing good works. Those who perform good works during their lifetime will be saved; those who don't will not. Studying these scriptures with an open heart and an open mind can only lead us to the conclusion that faith AND good works are necessary for salvation; not simply faith alone.
