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Let us interact with Rome.
What exactly is God’s gift of salvation?
Roman Catholic Claim
When we come to God and
are justified (that is, enter a right relationship
with God), nothing preceding justification,
whether faith or good works, earns grace.
But then God plants his love in our hearts,
and we should live out our faith by doing
acts of love (Gal. 6:2).
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Christian Response
We have much to
quibble with Rome here precisely because nothing is
said about how we come to God. Rome insists elsewhere
that we “come to God” by being brought
to God in the waters of infant baptism. Notice also
that when an adult comes to Christ, according to Rome,
nothing prior to justification earns
grace. This is a deliberate misleading by Rome. Christians
believe that nothing prior or after
one comes to God earns grace. This also brings up
the question. How does one come to God as an adult?
Also, when one does come to God what then? Christians
believe that one comes to God having been born from
above and that eternal life is a free gift given by
God for the sake of Jesus Christ alone at the point
of being born from above. In addition, justification
is not entering into a right relationship with God
only to fall in an out of this right relationship
as Rome teaches. Christian justification is a declaration
that a guilty sinner is acquitted from his sins and
declared to be justified on the basis of Christ’s
righteousness alone. Christians have nothing in common
with Rome right from the start.
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