ArchivedIn Defense of Catholic SoteriologyNot at all. When we accept Christ and recieve water baptism we are adopted into God's covenant family. God forgives our past sins and renovates our interior selves. He will then continue this process of sanctification until we attain final perfection in heaven. On our part, we can resist this process or we can cooperate. If we resist a little bit, we frustrate the process and create more suffering for ourselves. If we openly rebel against God by committing a "sin unto death" we disinherit ourselves from God's covenant promises, and can only be reinstated if we confess our sins and plead for God's mercy. Christ merited God's grace for us, offered Himself as a pure sacrifice to appease God's wrath, and established Himself in solidarity with us suffering humans that He might become our High Priest in heaven, and forever intercede with the Father on our behalf. Of course they were saved. They were saved by believing, loving, and obeying God. They spent a few hundred years in sheol, and then while Christ was laying in the tomb he came down to release them and take them to heaven. Good works do follow salvation. But if we are saved, and then later rebel against God by refusing to do the good works which God desires of us, we can lose our salvation. |
🌈Pride🌈 goeth before Destruction
When 🌈Pride🌈 cometh, then cometh Shame