Theology of Andrew: A Great Gulf Fixed

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A Great Gulf Fixed

"Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved." - Second Vatican Council "Lumen Gentium" (14)

If Roman Catholicism is true, I'm an apostate who has rejected God's love and fellowship. I've refused the means of grace to eradicate my mortal sins, and I've torn the Church asunder by schism and heresy.

***

"But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned... when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel...I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing."- Galatians 2 (various)

The witness of the Reformation is to do once more what St. Paul did before St. Peter, to force the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Church to listen to the message of the Gospel (sola gratia ; sola fide ; solo Christo).

As the Protestant observers should have replied to the council fathers of Vatican II: 'whosoever hears and rejects the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, could not be saved'

1 comment:

Devin RoseNovember 17, 2011 at 6:42 AM
But Andrew, you are not rejecting the Catholic Church in thinking she is true but rather have come to think that she is not true and that she has twisted the gospel. So I don't think that makes you a formal heretic, presuming you do leave full communion with the Catholic Church.
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Quotes For Thought

"If baptism is the beginning of my life, and the day of regeneration is the first of days, it is obvious that the words spoken when I received the grace of adoption are more honorable than any spoken since....Through this confession I was made a child of God, I, who was His enemy for so long because of my sins. May I pass from this life to the Lord with this confession on my lips." - St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 26.

"To know Jesus and Jesus crucified is the sum total of my philosophy." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Oh the extraordinary goodness of God toward man? The just of the Old Testament thank God in the weariness of long years; but that which they obtained, by means of a long and heroic service pleasing to God, Jesus gives to you in the brief time span of an hour. Indeed, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that God had raised him from the dead, you will be saved and you will be introduced into heaven by the same one who introduced the good thief." - St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith" - St. Augustine

"Nor must we trust in holiness of origin, in forefathers, or in
the gifts of God which we enjoy. We must look to the Word alone and judge thereby. Those alone who truly embrace the Word will be as immovable forever as Mount Zion. They may be few in number and thoroughly despised by the world, as were Noah and his children. But God, through these few, preserved to man the truth of that promised mastery when he had not even room to set his foot upon the earth." - Bl. Martin Luther "Commentary on Genesis"