I think it can all be summed up in the Great Commandment. I don't believe one has to be a theologian or an all-knowing preacher or priest. In fact, I will argue that one doesn't need to know one iota of the Bible, all they need is to follow the Great Commandment. Do you agree?

Matthew 22:34-40
English Standard Version
The Great Commandment
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

After many years as a Christian, a lifetime of service on the field as an evangelist, I finally submitted myself to His Church in order to love the Lord, my God with ALL of my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

"Whoever believes in Me has everlasting life." ~ Jesus (John 6:47)

One must believe in the Resurrection, for Faith in Ἰησοῦς without Faith in His Resurrection does not save. Plus, depending on the culture, language, context, and mindset...a reader of your post may not have any idea what or who you're talking about, but at least you pointed out where you got those words from.

Yes, I hold that faith in Jesus as the Christ necessitates faith in His (and by extension our) resurrection. I'll admit, and I am deeply saddened by this, that a vocal minority in the free grace community think that acceptance of the resurrection is not necessary. I find that positively absurd based on the Gospel of John itself, including the context of the very passage cited. You well know the importance of John 6. Jesus gives live as the bread from heaven, so that those who eat of Him will never die. But we know that all human beings die, and the Jewish ear thinks it absurd to imagine that we live forever in a disembodied state. No, to claim that we live forever just is a claim of the resurrection. That's culturally evident as well as in the Gospel of John. See, for instance, John 11:23-27,

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

So to believe that Jesus is the Christ, to believe in Him, is to entrust yourself to Him for that promised resurrection.

Moving to modern day, I assume that anyone who has the technology to access the internet lives in a world in which the gospel has been widely preached. The story of Jesus is the best known story in the world, and if you have the internet, chances are, you know it. So unless you come out of a tradition that explicitly makes it a point to explain away and reject the Resurrection, the issue is simply whether or not you place your faith in Christ. I assume you and others know the story, as John did when he wrote that chapter.

So I reiterate, what must one do to obtain eternal life with Christ? We've heard Jesus's own words. Now I'll repeat in Paul's words: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (Acts 16:31).

James 2:17



To obtain eternal life, we must have faith and works.

Matthew 25, 31-46

Here we see two groups who both have faith (they call Jesus lord). One group has works, the other does not. Which group obtains eternal life with Christ?

Yes, James 2:17 says that faith without works is dead. Absolutely no one contests that, and certainly not faith alone guys like me.

And the judgment of sheep and goats doesn't teach that works are necessary to enter eternal life. It says that your works play a part of the quality of your experience in the next life, for good or for ill. The question there is how the Gentiles nations treated Jesus's brethren. So you can't take Jesus's brethren to refer to Christians, because then Christians would be in the same group as how they treated themselves! People will accept and receive the persecuted Jewish believers of the day (which Matthew talks about elsewhere in his Gospel) only because and if they have believed the message of these Jewish believers. Think of Rahab as a good example of this. Those who reject them do so because they do not believe that message.

So the central issue is still faith. That's never challenged. But what you do with that determines your rewards or punishment. The issue isn't just going to heaven. It's why these Gentiles get to inherit this kingdom! And the answer is, not simply by their faith, but because they put their faith to works. And the issue isn't merely that unbelieving Gentiles are excluded from the Kingdom. It's that they are to be cast into eternal punishment. And why do they deserve that? Not for mere unbelief, but because of how that unbelief "worked."

It's a beautiful, if sobering, passage.

Against all that, just imagine that James and Matthew do teach that works are necessary for salvation. In that case, John lied when he wrote that everyone who believes in Jesus has everlasting life. Because then, NOT everyone who believes has everlasting life, but only those who believe AND ALSO do good works. Too bad Jesus is a liar, eh?

Or we could just take Him at His word that all believers have everlasting life. Like you, Vern. You have believed in Jesus. So, guess what? You have everlasting life. I have, too. So, so do I. I'll see you in glory, then, despite your objections.

We are reading this now though, after the Book of Acts, Romans, and the rest of the Final Public Revelation was received and compiled by the Church.

That is a strange reading of the text, and one that is quite dangerous considering how the world views "nations." (I'm in the Chicagoland area, btw.) I suppose this is my Catholic coming through, but the "substance" of Salvation as the Church teaches is Charity itself, not Faith. Faith is the essential portal to Truth, but not the indwelling of Truth itself. Here I'm stretching above my paygrade, but Catholics have a "Communal Anthropology." I don't know exactly how that fits into this business of "intellectual assent," but feel it is important to mention. Anyways, here's another tid-bit from Lapide on the meaning of the "nations" that will be judged. I'm leaving in the bit about infants and those below the "age of reason" (that's a whole other library and debate) but it's important to at least mention when speaking of the Second Coming.



On "The brethern"



Now don't get me started on the "outer darkness"

I'm not in the business of arguing with the magisterium. That'd be a waste of all our time and rather disrespectful, I think. I have the much less interesting but more honest if sharing my own view of what I see in Scripture.

And feel free to mock the outer darkness nonsense GES got stuck on a few years back. It's definitely one of their biggest errors, as far as I can tell.

The Magisterium? I honestly have no idea what they do with scripture now a days. I quote Lapide because I like him quite a bit and according to record, he was a Holy man as well as a good exegete (sure, his language is disrespectful of protestants, but so were St. John and St. Jude, imo ) He expresses what I cannot, not yet with the same skill at least. How one prays effects how one speaks and writes.

The question is still the subject of this post. Vern pulled up Mathew 25 to show that works are necessary for Salvation. My guess is you'd have to pull up a whole school of epistemology, etymology, then systematic theology to fully get your points across about Jesus's brethren, let alone Salvation by Faith Alone. By presenting your view, your claiming to be an "apostolic and religious man" as I quoted from Lapide above, with the teaching of the apostles, in as much as your passing on the Gospel.

I'm not arguing a simple faith alone vs faith + works...I'm contesting your entire view of the means of divinization.

From Lapide's commentary on the 1st Epistle of John, Chapter 4, verse 16.



I realize my thought process might be off or at least quite different than that taken by the current hierarchy, or more respectful Catholics, but what can I say? According to how I've been formed thus far, this is how I am.

Re: the Magisterium, I wasn't referring to any interpretation they have or haven't offered of this passage. I'd be surprised if any exists. I was referring very specifically to your statement, "the 'substance' of Salvation as the Church teaches is Charity itself, not Faith." I note you didn't provide a source for that teaching, but in the spirit of charity (pun intended), I take it you know what you are talking about when you say "the Church teaches." That which the Church teaches is magisterial in nature. And, as I said, I'm not interested in debating the Church.

RE: my reading of the Matthew 25, you would be mistaken in your assumption that I'd have to "pull up a whole school of epistemology, etymology, then systematic theology to fully get [my] points across about Jesus's brethren." I referred to no sources when I wrote my response. It was very much off the top of my head. I didn't have any deep theology I learned back in my seminary days in mind as I wrote it. I'm just looking at the actual words of the text and the assumptions embedded in Vern's claims.

Matthew 25 does not teach faith alone. It doesn't have to. It's not intending to. It also doesn't teach that works are necessary for salvation, contra Vern's opinion. I just offered a few observations in the text itself that suggest his reading is not natural, to put it mildly. You can only get his reading with an assumption or two that are, well . . . rooted in a preexisting systematic theology. That is, those assumptions come out of Vern's theology and are brought to the text, so it's hardly surprising when he gets them out of his reading of the text. That's a polite way of saying it's a circular argument. Get rid of that and just let the text be the text, and you don't land where Vern does, but rather where I did.

As Christians, we do treat ourselves that way though.

Sure, but just because we do treat ourselves that way doesn't mean that's what the text is referring to. In fact, I'd be rather surprised if Jesus did not expect Christians to treat each other this way given what he says here.

Anyway, the basis of the observation is just this: Jesus distinguishes between the sheep (who go to heaven) and His brethren. He distinguishes the goats (who go to Hell) from His brethren. So that's three groups of people. You don't need any systematic theology to see that.

The question isn't how Christians treat other Christians. It's how the sheep treat Jesus' brethren. And the question isn't even how pagan's treat the sheep! It's how pagan's treat Jesus' brethren. Now you can try to collapse the distinctions and say that Jesus' brethren aren't really a distinct group, that He has some brethren among both sheep and goats or that His brethren are just the sheep under another mode of thinking. But my point is just those sorts of collapses, while entirely possible I grant, don't come out of the text itself. You need a theological motivation to make them.

I don't have any such motivation. I just read the text as it is. I know you hate hearing that. It's your main argument -- that I can't POSSIBLY just read the text as it is. But what about all those OTHER people who say they do so, also?!? And, I'm sorry, I'm not impressed by the argument that because John can't get his sums right, then Peter can't either. The text is just the text. It's right there. I don't need my theology to interpret it, and if you're whole objection boils down to, "Yes you do!" then that's perfectly fine for you. You can assume it. I'll just shrug, because you're presuming you know more about my own experience than I do. At a minimum, it's . . . how shall I say . . . unpersuasive.

In fairness, I don't that would be your whole objection or even one of them you'd throw at me. But it's one I got all my years here. It's the only real one people threw at me. No one here has EVER considered the possibility that maybe I'm just reading the text as it is. No one has EVER had a conversation about the text itself . . . just attacked my ability to understand what is plainly written. And I'm sorry, that just doesn't move me.

"Whoever believes in Me has everlasting life."

Explain that away all you want, Nathan. I'm just resting on Jesus' words. I believe in Him. I put my faith in Him. I'm relying on Him. He says I have everlasting life. Your Church says I don't. Or people in your Church SAY your Church says I don't. So, okay then. I figure I'll believe Jesus over them. *shrug*

I meant also how we treat ourselves as individuals, and here I accuse myself, understand? How theJack treats the theJack and how I treat Nathan (which is my actual name, btw:)

Did the Good thief on the Cross know that Jesus would rise in the flesh? We don't know, probably though. Either way, we got the confirmation that whatever was going on between Him and the Lord was enough for him at the time.



That whole discourse (Mathew 25) was given to Jesus's disciples, whom were all Jewish believers (or at least they said they were at the time), privately on the Mount of Olives who came to him regarding what he said earlier about the destruction of the Temple. I read it as a burst of encouragement and warning (Almost like he was saying, "Yea, I got it, but don't get caught slipping) like almost all of the recorded words of the Lord. I too believe in the different degrees of Glory in Heaven, those that are more like God will rule with Him. But still, with that in mind, I still don't see the three groups of brethern, sheep, and goats, at least the way you put it, especially considering how Jesus identified those whom Saul was persecuting after He knocked him from his horse.

As one Palestinian Christian put it, "God is not a Real Estate agent." You can probably figure out my extreme contention with the way Dispensationalist reading plays out, in the real world, from there.

Your reading is certainly possible though, to me. As of now, I do believe the text is referring to Christ the King, and the two groups, one of which All nations (families, including his brethren) are a part of. To me, it makes more sense that Jesus, whose whole earthly life was from going from rich to poor (then back after He rose), would identify with the suffering servant (whether they be vessels of wrath, or mercy).

I am already out of my depth on this one, but I'll say this here rather than a PM, knowing it may not be appropriate. (If I was more socially refined, I probably wouldn't be here ) I'm more inclined to believe that you are closer to the Lord than I, with my understanding of Catholic theology and personal issues. The honest part of me submits to the fact that yea, I want to assist in the salvation your soul by way of what I'm constrained to believe. However, that makes me uncomfortable and involves judgement calls I feel I have no right to make. What I really want, however, is a greater efficacy of your prayers. I want your prayer life and household to be Catholic. I want your continued help, you understand? But again, we are both constrained by how we decide to live, per the decisions we made with the Grace already received (for better or worse).

Ah, I see. Yes, I missed that. But as I said, it's not surprising that Jesus would expect us to treat others, including ourselves, with love. That's a command we see clearly elsewhere and He obviously expects that of the nations in this judgment. Jesus is nothing if not consistent!


I believe that the thief knew Jesus was going to resurrect. I doubt he knew it was going to be in three days, but the broader Jewish expectation was that Messiah would establish an actual kingdom on earth. If the Messiah was dying next to him, then it would follow that, if He was going to enter into His kingdom, then He would have to be resurrected at the end of time to establish that kingdom.

As it happens, that's what I still think will happen! It's just that Jesus surprised everyone by beginning the resurrection with His own in this age so that we, in this age, can begin to experience in advance and in a spiritual manner those blessings we still expect a proper fulfillment of in the future.


I've heard the God is not a racist or real estate agent objection before. I don't think much of it. If God says He has chosen a special piece of real estate, who am I to challenge Him? And if God has chosen a specific family out of the earth to serve as priests in a special way, then who am I to say that's wrong? If someone wants to call God a racist for that, then so much the worse for them. Regardless, that dispensational claims come out of a straightforward reading of Scripture, and especially the Old Testament, is no basis to claim that dispensationalists read their theology into the text. In fact, one of my chief objections to amillennial, supersessionist theology is precisely at this point. You have to develop an eschatology based entirely on the words of Christ, which you divorce from their Old Testament context, and then use that theology you developed in a vacuum to reinterpret the Old Testament, in order to get that very amillennial, supersessionist theology. So I see it as more than a little projection to say that I'm reading my theology into the text. That's the game of you all (not just Catholics) -- it's definitely not mine!


And I legitimately appreciate this. I don't know or believe who is closer to the Lord than anybody else. I don't take any offense at any church of individual Catholic that fears for my soul. You are, as you say, constrained by what you believe. As am I. So all I can do is share what I believe. And what I believe is only this: I have thrown myself fully and entirely on the grace of Jesus as best as I understand Him. I have believed entirely that He is the Christ, the Son of God. He is the propitiation for my sins, and apart from Him I can do nothing. Any salvation I have, I have in and through and by Him. And I believe that He has promised that all who place their faith in Him have, by His Person and promise, eternal life. So because HE tells the truth, I have to say that I believe I have everlasting life. I am, in fact, constrained to believe that, on the penalty of calling Christ a liar otherwise!

I equally hold and believe in the sovereignty of God and of Christ as God. So if, on that day, He chooses to condemn me for any reason whatsoever, up to and including getting a theology question wrong on whether He established the Catholic Church as the true Church, then He is 100% justified in doing so. I have no quarrel now nor will then with Him on that. He is more than within His rights to cast me into Hell even as I trust Him to save me. I'm not being snarky. I'm simply saying honestly that this is precisely the relationship between sovereignty and faith. I've entrusted myself to Him and His promise as best as I understand it. From here, everything is entirely in His court, and who am I to say otherwise what He should or should not do?!?!?

As to what I believe about others, I don't believe you are condemned to Hell. You, like me, have believed that Jesus is the Christ, to Son of God. So as convinced as I am of my own salvation, I'm convinced of yours. I am probably even more convinced of your salvation than you are of your own! So I have no wish whatsoever that you stop being Catholic. My hope and wish for you is that Christ continues to bear fruit in you regardless of what church He has placed you into and regardless of what particular doctrinal disagreements you and I might have. None of that matters. What matters is only that you believe in the same Savior I do, and that we love one another in that shared faith.

If some human wants to come along and say that's not enough, then too bad for them. I don't really care.

Thank you for your taking the time to answer. I like to think were both hustling for degrees of Glory at this point, but it's just a thought and prayer. As a hospital chaplain, you are probably familiar with the difficulty in Loving ourselves, even in encountering those who have the same soteriology as yourself. I'm pretty sure I read here somewhere about an impulse you had to ask a gentlemen about his mother? Something along those lines? Catholics are not anti-satisfactionist.

In a near foolish way perhaps, it brings me to this passage from one of St. Maximillion Maria Kolbe's letters to his brother,



And the source for the points I made earlier, from the CCC, with my added cross reference to 1 John 4. The whole chapter.

Supposing that this is true: that Jesus Christ has redeemed all mankind to Himself. Not just "the elect" or certain sinners who say a "Sinner's Prayer" or pray the Rosary every day until they die. Everybody.

Where would I get such a bizarre idea? From Scripture, of course:

Romans 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

A corollary verse to this is Mark 3: 26 - 27, where Jesus speaks of binding the strong man (Satan) and then plundering his house. Christ did exactly that, taking back everything that belonged to God.

So where does this leave us. As you said, our works determine the quality of our life in the next life. Scripture speaks of us shining like the stars in the heavens. Will we be a bright or dim star? Scripture speaks of crowns. But they are for overcomers. No overcoming, no crown. Scripture speaks of rewards according to our deeds, not salvation according to our deeds. The work of salvation is completely done and finished by Christ on the Cross, but what we do with it and the consequences in the next life, either good or bad, are what we work out here and now.

I have a similar problem with the Fathers of Orthodoxy who speak in a manner which makes it sound like unless you do this, this, that, and that, you will either not obtain salvation, or you can even lose it. Any work of salvation which depends on my faithfulness, my works, my good intentions, my perfect obedience, is bound to fail. I must rest in Christ and my works must be done in love, not in a servile fear of not being saved at the end of time.

So . . . I agree with your statement above.

Here are my thoughts on the question.

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The book of James, which talks so much about good works.
James 2:17

Here we see two groups who both have faith (they call Jesus lord). One group has works, the other does not. Which group obtains eternal life with Christ?

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.


To obtain eternal life, we must have faith and works.

Matthew 25, 31-46
Quote:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Here we see two groups who both have faith (they call Jesus lord). One group has works, the other does not. Which group obtains eternal life with Christ?


-------------------------------

My thoughts on the answer.


Both groups obtain eternal life, but only one group will remain in the Presence, not by Gods will but by the will of their own.

Wow, you’re right!

In all fairness though, I did say “I honestly have no idea what they do with scripture now a days.” So at least I wasn’t lying, I just completely misinterpreted Scripture, along with Lapide, whom when I pulled up, actually proved your point.

Thank you for the correction.

Today we prayed the Solemnity of Immaculate Conception.

The Saints really do sit on the Dais!!!