Catholic Verses - 95 Bibles Passages That Confound Protestants?
ST. PAUL ON FALLING AWAY FROM THE FAITH AND SALVATION
Pages 79-80: 1 Corinthians 9:27: "I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." 1 Corinthians 10:12: "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." Galatians 5:1: "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:4: "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace." Philippians 3:8-14: "Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." 1 Timothy 4:1: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." Catholics believe, in accordance with these passages, that salvation can be lost and that one can fall out of faith and the good graces of God. Passages such as these about falling away from faith, or what is called apostasy, present a problem, however, for Calvinist Protestants, because their system requires them to deny the possibility that such a thing can ever take place. For them, sinners are elected by God from eternity and protected from ever falling away. Human participation or vigilance or effort plays no role whatsoever in ultimate salvation.
Note: False Christians who never knew Jesus Christ will be with true Christians until the Son of Man returns.
Matthew 25:1-13 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming."
Note: False Christians who have never been saved will be in and out of various churches until Jesus Christ returns.
Page 80: Therefore, the elect or "saved" person cannot possibly lose his salvation. When a person seems to be on the wrong path (caught up in adultery or some other clearly sinful behavior), the Calvinist community immediately assumes that he was never saved in the first place (or else he would not have sinned so badly). This is circular reasoning, and also contrary to much Scripture, such as the verses above.
Note: Christians are saved unconditionally by believing that Jesus Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:1-5 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
Note: Do you sincerely know Jesus Christ and have placed your faith and belief in Him?
Pages 80-81: Albert Barnes, in his Notes, makes a fallacious analysis of Galatians 5:4. He tries to apply Paul's words about apostasy to those who never possessed grace to begin with, since they were (like the Judaizers) trying to be saved by the law: This passage does not prove that anyone who has ever been a true Christian has fallen away. The fair interpretation of the passage does not demand that. Its simple and obvious meaning is that, if a man who had been a professed Christian should be justified by his own conformity to the law, and adopt that mode of justification, then that would amount to a rejection of the mode of salvation by Christ, and would be a renouncing of the plan of justification by grace.
Note: False Christians who never knew Jesus Christ will be with true Christians until the Son of Man returns.
1 John 2:18-19 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
Note: False Christians who have never been saved will be in and out of various churches until Jesus Christ returns.
Page 81: This makes no sense and, with all due respect to Barnes, cannot be sustained from the text. The fact remains that these people fell away. Whether they fell away from a belief-system of justification by grace or from grace as a state of personal relationship with God, or both, makes no difference. For in both instances, they were either believing as Christians are, or in the state of grace and regeneration that Christians are in, by virtue of baptism and the personal decision to follow Christ.
Note: Judas who was baptized and with Jesus Christ was never saved so that Scripture might be fulfilled.
John 17:9-12 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."
Note: False Christians who have never been saved will be in and out of various churches and baptism does not save anyone.
Page 81: Secondly, the entire tone and tenor of the epistle to the Galatians shows that Paul believes he is writing to Christians. He refers to "the churches of Galatia" (1:2). In 1:6 he speaks of the Galatians "deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel." This does not read as if they never knew or believed in God's grace. One cannot desert something he never had. One cannot turn to something different if one never possessed the thing that is being contrasted with the different thing.
Note: The author refuses to recognize that false Christians who are accursed were troubling true Christians with a false gospel of works.
Galatians 1:6-9 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Note: It is not surprising that the author's former Protestant minister publicly condemned him of heresy.
Page 81: If St. Paul thought they had never possessed the true gospel in the first place, it seems obvious that he would have used different terminology; he would have written that they never did understand or accept the gospel of grace alone. He would not have expressed his judgment in terms of deserting and turning and falling away and being "severed from Christ." Can a branch be severed from a tree to which it was never attached?
Note: False Christians who never knew Jesus Christ will be with true Christians until the Son of Man returns.
Galatians 2:1-5 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain. Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Note: False Christians who have never been saved will be in and out of various churches until Jesus Christ returns.
Page 82: St. Paul assumes throughout that this was a case of apostasy of those who were Christians. He says they "received" the gospel (1:9); he refers to the "grace that was given to me" (2:9) and then says the Galatians had "begun with the Spirit" (3:3); he writes to them that "as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ ... You are all one in Christ Jesus" (3:27-28); he says the Galatians are God's "sons," upon whom He "sent the Spirit of his Son" into "our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (4:6)
Note: False Christians who don't know Jesus Christ will preach works for eternal life.
Galatians 3:10-12 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
Note: Apparently the author has always been under the curse since he is preaching the lost of salvation based on lack of works.
Page 82: Thirdly, logically speaking, the fact that some might be turning to salvation by works and law does not prove that they never accepted salvation by grace alone. The two are not intrinsically related. Believing one thing does not prove that one never adhered to a different system formerly. Barnes simply assumes this (as is so often the case in Protestant exegesis - at least where "Catholic" implications are present), because he is not allowed to hold that anyone can ever fall away from faith, no matter what the Bible might inform us about such possibilities.
Note: Christians will believe Jesus Christ instead of false Christians who are basing salvation on works.
John 10:27-30 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”
Note: Satan and false Christians may trouble and tempt true Christians but God will not allow them to fall or be snatched away.