Salvation comes from God alone

[MoreCoffee]

It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: "Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you", as we sing in the hymn Te Deum; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: "I believe", "We believe". It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: "What do you ask of God's Church?" and the answer is: "Faith." "What does faith offer you?" "Eternal life."

Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation."Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

 

[psalms 91]

We reicieve faith from God. The church is to strengthen us to go out and bring others to salvation, to hear the good news and let the Holy Spirit do the work within each one. The church does play an important part ina Christians life but I do not get my faith from any manmade institution but rather from the source

 

[Josiah]

You have made it crystal clear that you not only to do NOT beleive that Jesus is the Savior but that you are offended by that teaching. So is Catholicism. It excommunicated Luther for teaching that Jesus is the Savior, calling that the supreme heresy.

What Catholics teach is that SELF is the Savior, although informed, articulate Catholics grab an idea from Islam and some forms of Hinduism, that we can't save ourselves by our own innate, natural abilities and strength, we need HELP.... and so Catholics (trying to subsitute the Muslim, Hindu soteriology for Christianity) substitute Christ the HELPER for Christ the SAVIOR. We can save ourselves - with a little help from our friends (insert tune of popular Beatles song). Jesus is stripped of His role as Savior and instead just made into a helper, an enabler.

Now yes, I know, if you search an search and search, you CAN find snippets where the RC Denomination articulates the Gospel (and I rejoice in those, although very few Catholic teachers seem aware of them). But it's all buried under all the ME, ME, ME, ME of Catholicism, all the emphasis that self saves self in a slow, synergistic, semi-Pelagian process empowered by God... in reality, Christ gets diminished (something to nothing more than a helper), self gets enlarged into everything. It's really an attempt to replace the soteriology of Christianity with that of Islam and some forms of Hinduism.




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[MoreCoffee]

Luther was rightly excommunicated. That was long ago. Long before I was born.

 

[visionary]

It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: "Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you", as we sing in the hymn Te Deum; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: "I believe", "We believe". It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: "What do you ask of God's Church?" and the answer is: "Faith." "What does faith offer you?" "Eternal life."

Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation."Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

Are you helpless without the "Mother"?

 

[MoreCoffee]

Are you helpless without the "Mother"?

Were you born without a mother?

 

[psalms 91]

The first Christians were most certainly were especially the gentiles. When church takes the place of Christ or God it is not good

 

[MoreCoffee]

The first Christians were most certainly were especially the gentiles. When church takes the place of Christ or God it is not good

The church is the body of Christ.

 

[Lamb]

The Church uses God's Word to give us faith.

 

[psalms 91]

The church is the body of Christ.

No, true believers are the body of Christ, the church is a hospital for sinners not a clubhouse for saints

 

[MoreCoffee]

The Church uses God's Word to give us faith.

Yes, and preaching and teaching and many other things including the sacraments.

 

[psalms 91]

Funny I thought Christ gave us the teachings and the sacriments

 

[MoreCoffee]

Funny I thought Christ gave us the teachings and the sacriments

Through the church. Just as he gave the holy scriptures through the church.

 

[psalms 91]

No the church did not exist till after Christ died, seems to me that you are making the church the iomportant thing rather than Christ

 

[MoreCoffee]

No the church did not exist till after Christ died, seems to me that you are making the church the important thing rather than Christ

But you received your bible and the sacraments from the church. You were not alive when Christ walked the earth. The Church exists only by the grace of the Lord and for him.

 

[psalms 91]

Yes and I have also done communion outside the church and for a time didnt go to a church but still believed. I consider church an important part of my faith but it is not the source of it

 

[visionary]

If there was not a vicious dominating, blood thirsty, money grabbing, power hungry, organization in the guise of the faith of God, would the bible still been faithfully handed down among the believers? Yes... Would there still be disciples who traveled the world spreading the message of the gospel,... Yes...

 

[Alithis]

It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: "Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you", as we sing in the hymn Te Deum; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: "I believe", "We believe". It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: "What do you ask of God's Church?" and the answer is: "Faith." "What does faith offer you?" "Eternal life."

Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation."Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

oh good grief -you make the church an entity outside youselves and then give worth to it ..thats worship.. and idolatry and has utterly missed any comprehension of what the church is .,.

 

[psalms 91]

oh good grief -you make the church an entity outside youselves and then give worth to it ..thats worship.. and idolatry and has utterly missed any comprehension of what the church is .,.

Totally agree, church is a lifeboat rather than a cruise ship but to many stay in the four walls and never ever share the good news thus the decline that the church is seeing in the west. I now know why some are so fixated on the church and

 

[visionary]

Totally agree, church is a lifeboat rather than a cruise ship but to many stay in the four walls and never ever share the good news thus the decline that the church is seeing in the west. I now know why some are so fixated on the church and

where did the concept that the church is the lifeboat come from?