Is salvation an act or a process?

Question

Hebrews makes it very clear that without holiness "no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). James 2:17 also teaches that faith without works is dead.

On the other hand, Acts 16:31 says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved"? Paul affirms this same decisive act of salvation in Romans 10:9: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

How do you reconcile the contradiction? What does your Church teach about salvation?

Joe
Are you saying I can go on sinning and everything will be okay? I am saved? Shouldn't we cooperate with God's plan of salvation?

HEVN BD
Great point!

Scripture teaches, nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven (Rev. 21:27) and, while we may die with our mortal sins forgiven, there can still be many impurities in us, specifically venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven.
Conclusion: The seeming contradiction actually supports the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, don't you think?

Answer 1

We believe that salvation is a process by which we come closer to God throughout our whole life as we participate in the sacraments and the grace that comes through them. But it is not true that man plays as important a role as God. God the Father planned our salvation, not man. God the Son gained our salvation by his death and resurrection; no one else did these things. And God the Holy Spirit infused the very love of God into our hearts by his presence (cf. Rom. 5:5). This is beyond our human ability. Still, we must cooperate with God’s grace to find eternal happiness with God. If we don’t, we will be cut off from God forever.

The Catholic Church teaches that only God can save us. If that weren’t true, then Christ died for nothing. All that we do is respond with faith and obedience to God’s offer of grace in Christ. We insist that this is a lifelong commitment that should grow over time. God’s grace grows within us as we trust in God more and follow his commandments. The final outcome of a life of faith and obedience is eternal life with God.

"If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
They are calling us to decisive trust in Christ. We affirm that trust in Christ is essential to salvation. But are faith in and confession of Christ a one-time event, or are faith and verbal confession necessary for one’s entire life? We believe the Bible teaches that one cannot just profess faith once and then be eternally secure, as it were. One must live out this faith by a life of obedience and good works.

We do believe that works are evidence of true faith, but that is not the only role they play. Works also play a role in our final justification. If we take Paul’s statements about Abraham being justified by faith in Galatians 3:6 and Romans 4:3–4 and put them together with James’s statement about Abraham being justified by his work of offering up Isaac in James 2:21, we rightly conclude that salvation is a process with many points of justification along the path to heaven.

sanctification is Christ actively saving us! You say that Abraham’s work of offering up Isaac justified his faith as being real. But James 2:21 asks, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?" From this James concludes in verse 22: "You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works." This language of "active along with" and works "completing" faith is the language of cooperation.

We think that many Christians seriously misread the New Testament when it comes to the assurance of salvation. Though we can’t examine many texts on assurance right now, I can say that 1 John 5:13 has been ripped out of its context in John’s letter. If you examine chapters 4 and 5 of this small letter carefully, you will see that "this" refers to acts of love of neighbor, love of God, holding to orthodox teaching, and so on. In other words, John is not giving a blank check for assurance of heaven. He is giving a conclusion of a long list of indicators by which a person can know he is saved. John agrees with James. Good works give a relative assurance that one is in good standing with God.

I don’t see that the pursuit of holiness in any way takes our trust away from Christ and puts it in ourselves. It seems to me that Hebrews makes it very clear that without holiness "no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). Why would the author say this? Because God is holy and, if we’re going to live with God forever, we too must be holy. So our entire life should be a pursuit of the holiness that Christ gained for us by his death on the cross. God desires to put this holiness within us, or as Hebrews 12:10 says, "that we may share his holiness." That is the ultimate rationale behind the Catholic view of salvation: to share in the holiness of God. Nothing less will save us!

Answer 2

The way I see it, there is no contradiction. But salvation is a process, I think. You cannot start the process without accepting Jesus as your Savior. After we accept Him, the bible says the old has gone, the new has come. We no longer want to live the old sinful life that we used to. Of course we will still sin, but the difference is we STRIVE to be holy. We strive to attain righteousness. Faith without works is dead. Right. But, we do not do good works TO get saved, we do good works BECAUSE we are saved. Does this mean that if we accept Jesus and never do any works that we are not going to heaven? No, it doesn't. But, we may not recieve any rewards. The bible says on judgement day we will recieve rewards according to our works on earth. If someone says that they have accepted Jesus as their Savior, but they continue to stay in their old life, then their acceptance may not have been sincere and they need to reevaluate it, because you simply cannot have accepted Jesus and not have been changed. It is impossible. Jesus changes us. I was just reading in Matthew yesterday the parable about the wheat and the weeds. The wheat is the true Christians and the weeds are the false Christians. At the harvest, the harvest being the second coming of Christ, the harvesters will weed out the weeds from the wheat. So there is no contradiction. Not when you fully understand what happens when you accept Jesus.

Answer 3

As a Catholic, I believe that the sacrifice that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, made is the act that saves us. However, we must have faith in Jesus Christ's sacificial act and we must participate in the life of grace by our life. We really are not in disagreement with Protestants on that. At the time of the Reformation there were abuses Luther rebelled against and he emphasized faith alone and in response Catholic have emphasized good works which has left Protestants to believe that Catholics have to work their way to Heaven and Catholic to believe that Protestants think that as long as they believe they can pretty darn well do what they please.

Both views are inaccurate. Both Catholics and Protestants realize that the Devil believes. Also, for Heaven's sake, the New Testament is replete with references to our doing good works.

Our difference is we don't believe in "Once Saved Always Saved." We believe a person can lose the life of grace and have to be reconciled to God and his Church. When the priest gives absolution it is CONDITIONAL upon the penitent being sorry and doing their best to avoid the sin again. Only God therefore knows whether the penitent is truly absolved.

Answer 4

Salvation is an on going process. Salvation must be worked on daily. It is not a one time thing, there is no "once saved always saved" in the bible.

"As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)."

Answer 5

When N.T. Christians confess Jesus as "Lord" this is not just an outward profession but an inward sincere attitude of the heart. Jesus must be Lord of your life, or He's not Lord at all. There is a circle of believers who preach that all you need is Jesus to be your Savior. But if you don't make Him Lord, you will come up short on Judgement day. There are no contradictions in Scripture. Scripture is not suppose to be dissected, but understood as a whole. Salvation is not a one time act, but an on-going process until we meet Jesus face to face. Once saved-always saved is a lie from hell, completely unbiblical!

Answer 6

There is no contradiction if you realize that the verses from Acts and Romans used the verb phrase "will be saved", and not "are saved". Many people think the verses ead ""Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you are saved" and "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you are saved."

Believing that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead is a PART of being saved, but it is not the ONLY thing to do. Most of Jesus' parables were not about people believing, but performing works of love and compassion.

Faith without works is dead and works without faith are meaningless. It takes a combination of faith in Jesus Christ and works that are motivated by faith.

Neither faith nor works saves us. We are saved by God's grace in our life that leads to faith and works.

Answer 7

You have to take all together. Sometimes belief is the focus of a passage (Rom 10:17), sometimes repentance (Acts 2:38, Matt 21:28-29), sometimes confession(Rom 10:9-10), sometimes, baptism, sometimes living faithfully.

Those you have listed are correct. And we are saved at the point of baptism- Mk 16:16, Acts 2:38, 1Pet 3:21. Continuing to live faithfully is a process.

We have to strive to continue to grow-that is where the James 2 (2nd half) passage comes in. 2 Peter 1:5-10 shows this process.

Not growing can lead to falling away as in Gal 5:4.

Answer 8

Salvation is an act of God. If we follow his Rules and Commandments we should expect the salvation but the final decision is still with Almighty God.

We shoud do our best in practicing good-deeds and should be rest assured about salvation because He is most mercifull and generous.

The verses quoted by you are neither from God nor from Jesus hence this type of easy salvation may have attraction for a believer but would not work if we don't follow the Commandments! This type of faith is nothing but a fishing trap. It is quite against the previous teachings of Abraham & Moses.

Answer 9

Its a technique that includes one important act (Christ and His accomplished artwork) and diverse different acts as properly. It starts off in eternity with the information of God in determining it, the first activities rather the going forth of the Gospel, the artwork of the Spirit to open the eyes of the blind and supply ears to the deaf and particular it additionally includes the reaction of religion from the item of Gods grace. the reason some are puzzled right here is via fact justification, it incredibly is the huge-unfold act in salvation is an act or statement of God who proclaims a sinner holy on the muse of Christs artwork. in spite of the incontrovertible fact that the comprehensive technique of salvation includes a lot extra such via fact the artwork of sanctification or the reaction of thankfulness from people who've tasted the grace and love of God.

Answer 10

Salvation is an event. The thought of 'faith without works is dead' is a Pauline concept and indicates, by Paul's lights, that 'works' is a natural outcome of having faith, not the reverse (if you have faith, then you will want to 'do works').

Salvation is a gift, freely given and rarely accepted.

You need nothing else other than to accept that gift and to tell others that Jesus is the Christ.

Abel: You asked, "Joe
Are you saying I can go on sinning and everything will be okay? I am saved? Shouldn't we cooperate with God's plan of salvation?"

NO.. I did not say that. I stated and re-stated Paul's comment that works FOLLOWS faith, not the other way around. If you truly have accepted Christ then your faith will be strengthened and God's gift of the Holy Spirit will chide you when you do sin and you will be encouraged to confess, to GOD, and request forgiveness for your new transgressions.
EVERYONE sins, no matter when saved nor how 'holy' one may be. Everyone needs to ask forgiveness daily and to attempt to follow Jesus' teachings.
If you are truly saved, then you will want to do this.
This is 'works'.

Answer 11

both
"initial justification' the beginning of sanctification through the grace of Baptism( through the Sacrament or by desire and/ or act like martyrdom or profession of faith when not able to receive the "Water Baptism")

"continuing justification" and sanctification which is a process that can be reversed or rejected

The contradiction is only apparent not real
So many things in the Christian faith are "both
...and" and not "either ..or"

My Catholic Church says it well in the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs1987-1994