Catholic Teaching on Salvation is Scriptural
This comes from today's readings, taken from The Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews (The Douay-Rheims Bible):
How very Catholic the Apostle's words! And how different from the evangelical or fundamentalist notion of assurance of salvation coming through being "born again." The Apostle suggests that "accepting Christ as one's personal Lord and Savior" is not enough to guarantee salvation, as he is writing to Christians who have already done so. Baptism, by which we are made children of God, is a necessary start, but it's not the end of the story. The difficult and exciting part, perseverance in the Faith, follows.
[From more, read Assurance of Salvation?.]
This comes from today's readings, taken from The Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews (The Douay-Rheims Bible):
- 3:12. Take heed, brethren, lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God.
3:13. But exhort one another every day, whilst it is called to day, that none of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
3:14. For we are made partakers of Christ: yet so, if we hold the beginning of his substance firm unto the end.
How very Catholic the Apostle's words! And how different from the evangelical or fundamentalist notion of assurance of salvation coming through being "born again." The Apostle suggests that "accepting Christ as one's personal Lord and Savior" is not enough to guarantee salvation, as he is writing to Christians who have already done so. Baptism, by which we are made children of God, is a necessary start, but it's not the end of the story. The difficult and exciting part, perseverance in the Faith, follows.
[From more, read Assurance of Salvation?.]
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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