If only you were Josiah...
:O_O:
Please bear with me for a little story - A true story... I encountered it online...
There was a little boy who was the son of a fiery 5-Point Preacher who loved to scare his flock fron sinning, and there were the righteous and there were the hopeless sinners - The town drunk and the Mayor, and on and on... And he would preach on and on about how the whoremongers and drunks were all going to be condemned to Hell by God when they died and enter into unbearable and unceasing agony for eternity... And he believed his father... And he also knew for a fact that he was absolutely NOT righteous in any sense, and that when he died, he would suffer unimaginable pain forever... He started drinking at around 14, and stayed as drunk as he could until after his mid-20s... And his dad condemned him just as he had condemned the town drunk...
He had a friend who had watched him slowly disintegrate, who came to him one day and simply asked him: "Why do you just keep drinking like you are?" And the whole story came tumbling out of him, and his only complaint was that he did not drink enough... Because he could see that when he died, he would burn in horrible agony in hell forever, and because he did not want to think about THAT, he just kept drinking to forget... He hated God, and hated his future and believed his dad and would not shame his dad by going to Church... When he was not drinking, all he could see were the eternal flames of agony in Hell awaiting his death... So where is the next drink?
A beautiful and loyal son, this man... His friend told him he was full of horse-feathers, that his dad was wrong, and that he was wrong to think as he did, and that all he had to do was turn from his drinking and and begin with his praying and be instructed in living the Christian Faith and be Baptized into Christ and he would find peace and God would give him Salvation from sin and death... He is now a father with a wife and kids living a blessed life in the challenges of marriage and child rearing and self-denial and love of God...
Had anyone told him he had to be justified first by God and then repent from his drinking and his thoughts, I do not think he would have heard much, and would have poured himself another drink...
Anecdotal, I know...
Arsenios
Friend, I confess, I'm entirely lost as to your point.
But maybe this will help.
Roughly around March 23, 1987 - God GAVE me life (9 months before I was born). AS A RESULT of this gift, in time, my heart began to beat and my lungs began to work and eventually I breathed air. Now, it's true, generally speaking (always rare exceptions), one who is alive has a heart that is beating and lungs that are breathing..... and it can even be argued that if the heart isn't beating at all and the lungs aren't breathing at all, there very likely isn't life. BUT it cannot be said that it was my heart beating and my lungs breathing that gave me life on March 23, 1987. Follow? THIS was the Reformation debate...... is faith/life/justification the result of what Jesus did/does as THE (only and all-suffcient Savior) and what the Holy Spirit does/do as THE Lord and GIVER of life (the ONLY one, and not the Offerer of life but GIVER of life)? Or is faith/life/justification a synergistic/Pelagian matter of self accompishing a long series of works (perhaps in a certain chronological order) perhaps empowered by the RC Denomination (and maybe God)?
Now, changing topics (and hijacking this tread, lol), ONCE WITH THE GIFT OF LIFE - ONCE WITH THE GIFT OF FAITH - ONCE WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT - ONCE THUS JUSTIFIED - there is the complex, changing, evolving, synergistic, progressive process of LIVING (one cannot live before they are alive, a dead person can't do much)....
and that's not a simply, "straight line" progression. And it's NOT that suddenly - within a microsecond - one THEREFORE is in his life as holy as God is, as morally perfect as God is, as loving as God is, as serving as God is, ALWAYS and PERFECTLY doing all that God wills (never missing the target - the definition of sin). It's rarely even a steady progression - people "back slide". Now - we ARE forgiven, we ARE "covered", we ARE alive - but we continue to fall short of the perfect will of God. Protestants call this "Always Saint and Sinner" - always falling short, but always forgiven. Yes, you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT - we SHOULD always be making strong, enormous progress - we are called to such! But the truth is: we have erred more than we know, and it is our fault - our own terrible fault - which is why Protestants teach that we live a LIFE of repentance and humility, while Protestants often think of the Publican in Jesus' parable, knowing we need to fall on our knees, pound our chest, and confess that we are THE sinner and that we HAVE sinned against Him (and others). AND - equally - claim the Spirit's power and look to the Spirit's direction for the Life we are called to LIVE - becoming more Christ-like. But Protestants are apt to say it's unlikely any will achieve the absolute holiness, perfection and love of God on Earth (perfectionist Protestants disagree here). So, the CALL to perfection is absolutely proclaimed (IMO, more than in Catholicism) but with the balance that we ALWAYS need God's mercy and the works of Christ, never reaching a point where we can snub our nose at Christ and say, "I personally don't need you no more."
BTW, Protestants (except for a few Calvinists) would argue that one with the Divine Gift of Life can wreck that faith - and thus eliminate the Gift of life/faith/justification. I can explain more on that if you like, but I raise it only to note that there too, Protestants and Catholics (and I suspect Orthodox) show agreement on Sanctification. It's Justification that the RCC insists we radically disagree, the gaining of life/faith/justification, NOT the living of that.
I hope that helps.
- Josiah
.
