Sunday, April 26, 2009

Grace, salvation, and election

I thought this was splendid, correct, clear, and biblical:

1. Fallen Humanity is affected, even fatally wounded, in every part of its nature due to the original sin of our primal Parents.
2. Without God taking the initiative with prevenient grace, we cannot freely choose salvation.
3. Forgiveness of sins cannot ever be earned by us at all.
4. Forgiveness is solely earned by Christ and Him crucified.
5. We receive forgiveness of sins by penitent, living faith (which faith includes, at least implicitly, obedient acceptance of the requirement for Baptism precisely because Christ has ordained it), and are thus declared and considered innocent of sin by God, and thus not liable to condemnation and thus eternal punishment.
6. This saving faith is a pure gift of God and cannot be earned by us any more than forgiveness can (see 3). It includes trust in God’s mercy through Christ toward us.
7. This faith does, however, involve an act of will by us, our will being enabled and “freed” by prevenient grace (see 2 and 6).
8. At the same time we are forgiven, we receive an inner transformation by grace, which is connected to a renewed identity. (NB: Inasmuch as the gracious forgiveness subsists in the Divine will, within the eternal and foreknowing love of God, it precedes causally and temporally the inner transformation. Inasmuch as the forgiveness is an experienced reality subsisting in the human subject, it depends on faith in those capable of it, which depends on the inner transformation of the human will spoken of here and in 6 and 7.)
9. This renewal and the continual aid of God's Spirit enables further acts of obedience and growth in grace.
10. The aforementioned acts of obedience, also known as “good works”, receive heavenly (or even, according to God's will, earthly) reward, based on the gracious divine promise. They please God, and demonstrate the reality of our living faith.
11. But they do not transfer us from darkness to light (see 3), or in themselves strictly earn any reward as if they were intrinsically morally perfect insofar as the acts proceed from us, or as if they availed with God other than in the context of His mercy (which includes simultaneously not imputing sins).
12. The salvific process described above (see 5 onwards) can be initiated, (a) before baptism if living faith (which faith is by nature also penitent and informed by love of God) is present, or (b) after baptism if baptism was originally received “in bad faith” or impenitently or insincerely.


From HERE.

2 comments:

Danno2281 said...

My works have value because they are performed through, with, and in Christ in Whom I was made truly innocent by the regenerating waters of Baptism, by His blood. They earn a reward because Christ promised a reward for them ("Come, blesed of My Father, BECAUSE when I was hungry...." "Your heavenly Father Who sees in secret will REWARD you in secret." and many more.)
No one who remains united to Christ lacks freedom to do good, but the illusion of freedom that permits us to choose what we do not really wish, the inclination to "not Christ" or evil, beckons to us all, such that even those sanctified in Christ can refuse the grace needed to resist evil.
But if I persevere through grace, "I live. no longer I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal: 2,20) and i can "rejoice in my sufferings for you, for I fill up un my own flesh whatever is lacking in the sacrifice of Chrst for His Body which is the Church." (Col: 1,24)
As Augustine put it. "Rejoice! We are not only Chritians, we are Christ!"

abu 'n um tulip said...

All praise and glory, honor and thanks to the Father, Son and Spirit, now and forever.

-Abu Tulip