The qualifications for salvation according to mormons sound very similar to what most Christians believe. The big difference between mormons and most christians is that mormons believe in One Lord, one faith, one baptism (see Ephesians 4:5) that means that there is only one true Church of Jesus Christ, and that church alone–being the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–is the only church that has Christ's authority to preform saving ordinances such as baptism,
and that Christ does not recognize baptisms from any other Church.
@curiousdannii I think Jesus's point in The Sermon on the Mount is pretty clear. Whatever we thought the law was and whatever we thought we could do to fulfill it was never the point. The bar was always at perfect righteousness. We lowered it to rationalize how we could accomplish it
But in the end it's the thoughts and intentions of the heart that direct our actions. There is no act or work of righteousness that we can do without first having an intention behind it. Galatians is telling us that the law was to instruct our heart. The only difference between thinking about unrighteousness and doing unrighteousness is opportunity inhibition and simply more thinking.
Even biologically it is impossible to do an Act without first thinking it. In that fraction of a moment that it takes the signal to reach your muscles the action is still just thought. So whether works of the law mean good works of the Ten Commandments or ritual works of purity in both cases it is an that has intention
If your faith your motivation your intent behind the action is to receive salvation, then it is work with dead faith.
@curiousdannii yes sorry I was getting to it. That is why we emphasize alone to make sure people don't think there is any accompanying act that they can do to receive justification. It does not mean works of faith are not a necessary quality or characteristic of saving faith.
Faith always comes first. No matter if your faith is in your works or in Christ's. The Works are always the same. Ritual moral civil whatever kind of work or law you are following. it is only the faith you are acting upon that is different. That is how Rahab can lie and it can be accounted to her as righteousness by her work (James 2) and by her faith(Hebrews 11). Same for Abraham. (Romans 4/James 2)
Christians believe that Jesus did not complete his work and the "holy spirit" took over to complete his work and guide people to all the truth based on the following verses.
"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in...
@Joshua How does that differ from the Catholic position that says (more or less) that we can't possibly be saved without the grace of God (sanctifying grace), but given this grace we are required to cooperate with it by doing works (for which we are given actual graces) by which we can merit eternal life?
@MattGutting Because just made works a cooperative requirement. Or better, prerequisite. Worse yet you've added that we can merit eternal life by it. We have no merit. It is different because I am saying that righteous works of faith result from Faith. They do not cooperate with faith, they are dependent upon it.
That's James point, he already has the presupposition of Faith being there but he is examining which works result. A Faith that does not result in works (a Faith "alone"). Rather a Faith that results in works is alive. Then he gives examples of works that were done, but these acts were done on the basis of Faith.
The works didn't make the faith alive, they exhibit that it already is and make it complete.
@Joshua I'd say we have no merit in ourselves, but the Catholic position is that the grace of God can help us merit salvation.
And were the works James refers to "done on the basis of Faith", or were they done as a response of Faith to the grace of God and a cooperation of Faith with God's will?
@LeeWoofenden Interestingly, the NABRE does indeed use the word "all" in Galatians 3:10, but omits it (as you mention) in Deuteronomy 27:26. In the same place, it also footnotes James 2:10 as a reference - this says "For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it".
@MattGutting You used the phrase Grace of God twice there in two ways that don't seem consistent. Can you clarify? In the first, it's something that is doing or we are using to help us. In the next it is being responded to.
@MattGutting Is salvation a transaction or a union to you? Are you still looking to receive it or do you feel it is already yours?
@Joshua As far as your second question goes, salvation is kind of both. We say that "By his glorious Cross Christ has won salvation for all men" and that "God's salvation [is] accomplished once for all through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit", but also ...
Does a wife work to pay back the bride price her husband paid? Does a husband dote on his wife in an attempt to win her hands on marriage (when they are already united in marriage). No. Christ has already paid the dowry and deposited the seal within us.
We also say that "Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life."
@Joshua Indeed He has. But we can certainly walk away from this if we choose.
And therefore, as we say, "God's free initiative demands man's free response" to His love.
We cannot do any of these works without God's grace, and they cannot of themselves merit eternal life; but...
given that we have been adopted as God's children, we believe that God allows us to merit eternal life by those things which he gives us the grace to do.
Matthew 19 5and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
But who says that our relationship with God (as distinct from the Church's relationship with God) is analogous in any sense to marriage?
I'd say that we are rather the children of God than His spouses; and children can certainly walk away from their (adopted) parents, just as the Prodigal Son did.
Ephesians 5 25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish
31“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32This mystery is profound, and **I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.**
He quotes all of Genesis 2:24 and says it refers to Christ and the church. We as collective individuals are the church. We are the body of Christ because we are united in him
If you are claiming there is a distinction that matters then you are claiming there are requirements for entry into the church that Christ has not placed upon the church.
We are collectively the Church. But no individual one of us is the Church; that's a distinction language makes between the individuals and the collective. I am part of the (body of citizens forming the) United States; I am not the United States.
Or if you like, I am a Stack Exchange user, but I am not "Stack Exchange userS", that is, the set of all of them.
@MattGutting but the rules that apply two individual users reply to all. If you are going to say some do not apply to some users then you are adding or maybe subtracting rules. I never claimed one to be representative of all but one is equal with all
Equal in quality, rights, status. Not quantity.
But God's people are his bride which he desires from Genesis to Sinai and the marriage contract to Solomon and his song of songs to Jesus speaking many times on marriage and comparing the coming of the kingdom of God to a wedding. To miss the joy and passion the loving relationship between God his bride his people is to miss much of the love of the Gospel for each individual.
How can anything apply to the church and not to the individuals?
@Joshua As an analogy: One can say truthfully that what mathematicians call N, the set of all whole numbers (i.e. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,...) contains infinitely many odd numbers, and infinitely many even numbers. But this statement, which is true for N, is not true for any member of N - no number "contains" infinitely many numbers of any kind, in any way. And this is because N is not a number: it's a set.
Conversely, one can truthfully say that any element of N, any number, is either even or odd. But N itself is neither even nor odd - again because N and its elements are different kinds of objects.
Similarly, the Church and its members are different kinds of things. We are the members of the Church, Christ having taken us to himself. But we, the members of the Church, are different things than the Church Herself. The spousehood that applies to the Church as an entity does not apply to us who are Her members; and the sonship/adoption (see Galatians 3:26) that applies to us does not apply to the Church of whom we are members.
@MattGutting And his argument is that what applies to all members of the set also applies to every individual. For example, when I say that "all citizens must pay taxes", you can't say that "I am not all citizens so I don't have to pay taxes". That's just plain word playing
@LeakyNun It's not "word playing". In your example, I can substitute the phrase "each citizen must pay" for the phrase "all citizens must pay", and it would mean the same thing. My argument is that one can't do something analogous in the case of the Church, just as one can't do something analogous in the case of the even/odd numbers. The Church isn't just each one of its members considered individually; it's the whole of its membership collectively.
Could I command the United States to pay taxes? No; yet each resident of the United States must.
@LeakyNun No, you're not intruding :-) You're adding, and bringing up an important point for clarification
The Church is the collective People of God - the set of all Christians that ever have been, are, and ever will be. But it is the set of all such people; it is not "each such person".
Well, I would probably take that as synecdoche for "each member of the Church must" (in the same way that if I said "the US government must", what I'd mean is the technically different phrase "those officials responsible for the appropriate department of the US government must").
The Church is not an abstract entity, but a living being, in Catholic teaching.
In the same way, my cells are living entities, but it is not the case that I, who am composed of my cells, am "an abstract entity" rather than a living being.
@LeakyNun Why did you go? (Other than me perhaps being more abrupt than I should have been, for which I apologize.) You're again bringing up good points, to which I need responses.
There is a tag "Anglican", defined as
Referring to the Church of England or those churches in other countries that are in full Communion with it (e.g. The Episcopal Church in the US)
I would propose the addition of a new tag, "Continuing Anglican", to refer to those churches, and people (bo...
@LeeWoofenden If needing alone "classified" it is God "Alone" that either judges a person innocent or guilty, he is the perfect one, he is the one that has the righteousness, and he is the one that all this was many for.
Therefore lets move onward to works.
Works prove faith.
However works on its own means nothing.
For example, in the past their where two priests that made a sacrifice, not on time. They received a punishment. King Saul not wanting to wait for the priest to make the sacrifice, made the sacrifice on his own, and received the punishment.
The making of the sacrifice "in its own concept" acts as the works.
Therefore works only has advantage when it works within the perspective of God's will.
Lets use a family example:
A man hearing that his wife wanted a clean house, continued to clean the house constantly.
Then one day the wife complained, saying, "All you do is clean the house, and you never have time for me."
The "works" of cleaning the house still brought down condemnation.
Yet if faith was understood, that complaint would never have happened.
There is a tag "Anglican", defined as
Referring to the Church of England or those churches in other countries that are in full Communion with it (e.g. The Episcopal Church in the US)
I would propose the addition of a new tag, "Continuing Anglican", to refer to those churches, and people (bo...
The Upper Room
The Upper Room