Chapter 3 Assurance
Of Salvation
Catholic Answer
How can you believe that heaven is yours in exchange for a remarkably simple act? Christ has unlocked the gates of Heaven. He did his part and now we have to cooperate by doing ours.
Biblical Response
The Bible teaches that God does give Heaven as a free gift (Rom 6:23), but that salvation was not procured by a remarkably simple act. That salvation was purchased by the shedding of the life blood of our Saviour upon the cross.
If it is true that Christ merely unlocked the gates of Heaven, it would be necessary for us to do our part to get through those open gates. However, the Bible clearly teaches us that "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins that he might bring us to God." Jesus did unlock the gate of Heaven, but then He came back to where I was as a poor lost sinner and brought me through that open gate.
If our co-operation is necessary, then our work must be added to Christ's work. If His work was infinite, we cannot add to it. If it was finite, then any number of finite values added together can never equal infinity.
Catholic Answer
We have to be spiritually alive at the moment of bodily death.
Biblical Response
True, but the life God gives us is eternal life, a life that lasts forever. If it is eternal, it will last to the moment of our bodily death.
Catholic Answer
You preach that even someone as good as Mother Teresa will go to hell if she does not accept Christ in the fundamentalist sense.
Biblical Response
It is true that you can appear to be the greatest saint alive, whether Catholic, Protestant or Hindu, and yet if you have not trusted Christ in the Bible sense you are doomed for eternity. That is simply because Jesus Himself said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh to the Father but by me" (John 14:6).
Catholic Answer
"Accepting Jesus" has nothing to do with turning a spiritually dead soul into a soul alive with sanctifying grace.
Biblical Response
God says John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Therefore accepting God's free gift is essential.
Catholic Answer
It is foolishness to think that you are so good that you could never lose heaven.
Biblical Rsponse
Since we can do nothing good to merit Heaven (Titus 3:5), our entrance into Heaven is based upon a different foundation than our goodness. Since I can't do anything to gain it, I cannot do anything to lose it.
Catholic Answer
How can any fundamentalist know his salvation experience was real?
Biblical Response
We take God's Word for it. I John 5:11 says, "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."
Catholic Answer
There are Bible verses that call the whole notion of assurance of salvation into question. "I buffet my body or I, who have preached to others, may myself be rejected as worthless" (I Cor 9:27). This follows the well-known verses that speak of running a race, and the race, of course, is the race of life, the finish line being entrance into heaven.
Biblical Response
We may interpret that particular passage differently. I would say that Paul did not want to lose the reward for service through failing to satisfy his Lord; he was not afraid of losing his salvation. The reason for this is that in so many other places Paul speaks of the completed work of Christ (Hebrews 10:14, Romans 10:4, Ephesians 2:8,9 to name a few).
Note Rom 9:16, "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." If the finish line is Heaven, then the Holy Spirit would have contradicted Himself in Romans 9 and I Cor 9. We know that in other places He has written of the necessity of wise Christian living in order to be God's best. Another passage that clearly shows this not to be gaining salvation is I Cor 3:15 where, after talking about the loss that may be suffered by unwise Christian living, even if a man's work is burned up, "he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."
Catholic Answer
But doesn't Php 2:12 say "work for your own salvation."
Biblical Response
My Bible says "work out your own salvation." It is my salvation, and I work it out. If someone gives me a membership in a health spa and I work out, my working out does not pay for the membership. We can see which text is correct by comparing it with other scripture. Titus 3:5 says "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us."
Catholic Answer
You fundamentalists have a self-confident assurance.
Biblical Response
If my assurance of salvation were determined by MY achieving, it would be SELF-confidence. Because my trust is in Christ, my assurance is because I am confident that He will never break His Word.
Catholic Answer
How can you go to Heaven without Holy Baptism? John 3:5 says
that a man must be reborn by water and the Holy Spirit.
Biblical Response
Look carefully at what the Bible really says. Verse 3: Except a man be born again; verse 5: except a man be born (not re-born) of water and the Holy Spirit; verse 7: ye must be born again. By a natural (water) birth, man becomes a human being; by the supernatural becomes a Christian. No where is water said to be necessary in the new birth.
Catholic Answer
You say you are saved. I say I am redeemed and like the Apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling, with hopeful confidence - but not with a false assurance, and I do all this as the Church has taught, unchanged, from the time of Christ.
Biblical Response
As a Christian I can say with assurance, "Jesus loves me; this I know; for the Bible tells me so" and I am perfectly willing to entrust my future with the One Who loved me enough to suffer on Calvary that I might be saved.
"I need no other argument; I need no other plea; it is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me."