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FaithT

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Since I’m a former Catholic I read the Catholic sub forum here and I used to be a regular at Catholic Answers Forums. It was said on the Catholic sub forum here that if you’re not Catholic you may not go to a Heaven, and that Catholicism contains the “fullness of truth”.
Is it true that now I’m Lutheran I won’t get to Heaven? Please explain.
 
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Friedrich Rubinstein

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Doesn't every church and every denomination claim to be the "fullness of truth"?

1 John 4:1 says "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."

Since you left Catholicism I assume you realized that the doctrine of the Catholic Church is partially not in agreement with the Bible. Of course most of what the Catholics believe is biblical, but since not everything is biblical they already lose the reliability, they are not the "fullness of truth".

But what is the truth? Which denomination is right?
You won't find the truth by listening to different church fathers. Or comparing doctrines with each other to choose the one you like the most. The truth is to be found in the Bible only, and if you want to know whether you are saved, whether you will go to heaven, then the Bible is the only place to look for an answer.
 
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FaithT

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Doesn't every church and every denomination claim to be the "fullness of truth"?

1 John 4:1 says "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."

Since you left Catholicism I assume you realized that the doctrine of the Catholic Church is partially not in agreement with the Bible. Of course most of what the Catholics believe is biblical, but since not everything is biblical they already lose the reliability, they are not the "fullness of truth".

But what is the truth? Which denomination is right?
You won't find the truth by listening to different church fathers. Or comparing doctrines with each other to choose the one you like the most. The truth is to be found in the Bible only, and if you want to know whether you are saved, whether you will go to heaven, then the Bible is the only place to look for an answer.
I was so into Catholicism for awhile after returning (born into it, left, returned for about 12 or 13 years then left again) and not overly familiar with the Bible so, no, I didn’t really know that much of the doctrine of the CC isn’t in line with the Bible.

Their response to the above is always that we have to go by Tradition as well as Scripture. They’re very much against Sola Scriptura.
 
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Friedrich Rubinstein

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I was so into Catholicism for awhile after returning (born into it, left, returned for about 12 or 13 years) and not overly familiar with the Bible so, no, I didn’t really know that the doctrine of the CC isn’t in line with the Bible.

Their response to the above is always that we have to go by Tradition as well as Scripture.

Ohh, I see. Well, there is nothing wrong with traditions as long as they don't contradict the Scripture. But traditions are not needed for salvation.

Let me summarize the Bible's teachings about how we get to heaven, how we get saved:
The first thing is repentance. Salvation is a gift, and in order to receive this gift we need to repent the things we did against God's will, all the sins we committed. This includes that we turn away from our previous life, the sinful lifestyle we had before. Whenever the Bible talks about repentance it doesn't talk about a feeling, it talks about the willful decision to stop sinning.
The second and last thing is to accept Jesus as Lord, to open your heart to him and to give him full control over every part of your life. That's the unique, unlimited freedom the Bible speaks about: to give Jesus absolute control over your life so that you don't have to worry about a single thing anymore.

Paul puts it this way: "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved" (Romans 10:9-10).
 
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Daniel9v9

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Let me just start off with a word of comfort and firm answer to this, and that is, as you believe in the person and works of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as you are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you are saved. You will go to heaven. Your salvation is secure in the promise of God. Mark 16:16 reads: "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.", and this promise of salvation is absolutely for you.

There is nothing you need to do to sustain or supplement your salvation. The Holy Spirit has made you a new creation in Christ, so that you can freely do good works. We do not do good works to merit or sustain salvation, but upon being saved, we are granted to do good works, which are the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us, sanctifying us.

Furthermore, on a very practical level, if you ever find yourself worrying about your salvation, you can take that as a sign of comfort in and of itself, as Godless people do not worry about their salvation. If they did, they would repent and believe.

Now to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the subject, and the (orthodox) Lutheran response:

According to the Roman Canon of Trent, you and me both, fall outside the Roman Church. But this is no reason to worry or to be alarmed, for Trent is not a good and Biblically sound decree; it is fundamentally anti-Gospel, and so it should be rightly rejected. Trent explicitly denies justification by faith alone, which is very sad, for the article of justification is the most central doctrine to all of Christianity. Because of this, not only Lutherans, but also Anglicans, Calvinistic Reformed, Arminian Reformed, and all the Reformed daughter bodies, rightly reject the Roman confession of Trent. The Roman Catholic Church has many good qualities, but Trent is one of their worst.

In Vatican II, however, the Roman position is somewhat softened, and with the recent Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, they do officially hold that Trent does not apply to those Protestant bodies who subscribe to this document. This is, to put it mildly, very arbitrary, and not a particularly honest union.

So, let me sum up how absurd this position is - According to the Roman Catholic Church, if you're in the ELCA (who do subscribe to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification), then you're "in". If you're in the LCMS, you're "out". And if you belong to a different religion altogether, such as Hinduism or Shintoism, and have never heard of Christ, but live a very pious life, you might also be "in". Needless to say, this whole idea is not true and not good. We can confidently reject this position and cling to our hope in Jesus Christ, who is our Redeemer.

As orthodox Lutherans, which includes the LCMS, we consider Roman Catholics to be our Christian brothers and sisters, and we do believe that the Roman Catholic Church has the Gospel, only obscured. But we firmly and rightly reject the Roman teachings as expressed in Trent.
 
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Basil the Great

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Since I’m a former Catholic I read the Catholic sub forum here and I used to be a regular at Catholic Answers Forums. It was said on the Catholic sub forum here that if you’re not Catholic you may not go to a Heaven, and that Catholicism contains the “fullness of truth”.
Is it true that now I’m Lutheran I won’t get to Heaven? Please explain.

As to the Catholic teaching on this very important subject, the modern RCC has effectively rejected the once considered infallible Cantate Domino Papal Bull of the Middle Ages, which absolutely and without question did teach that all non-Catholics are lost. The current Catholic Church uses the doctrine of "invincible ignorance" as a way around the formerly very strict interpretation of the ancient salvation doctrine knows as EENS or Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus/Outside the Church, there is no salvation. However, for what it is worth, the Catholic Church's understanding of the salvation doctrine is actually stricter on native Catholics than native Protestants. I guess it is felt that those who leave the Catholic Church are like Judas and are betraying Jesus, while native born Protestants and Orthodox are possibly/probably protected by "invincible ignorance". However, I have not read anywhere a specific explanation of what is a former Catholic. Would a stricter version of the salvation doctrine apply to all of the babies baptized as Catholics, but whose parents then raised them as Protestants or Orthodox? Such seems unlikely, but we cannot be certain, since the Church has not ruled on this situation. Would a narrow application of the salvation doctrine apply to Catholic children who receive first Communion, but whose parents then change course and raise them in an Orthodox or Protestant community? Again, we do not know, as to my knowledge, the Church has not addressed this situation either. Finally, we are left with what would appear to be the clear cut case and that is adult Catholics who forsake Mother Church and leave for some other faith be it Orthodox or Protestant or Jewish or Muslim, etc.

I do not know exactly what you read on the Catholic board, which I visit regularly, but not every day. I would hasten to add that the board is usually quite open to discussing that non-Catholic Christians do have a chance at salvation, via the doctrine of "invincible ignorance". If you were led to believe otherwise, it might have been because you told them that left the Catholic Church, as current Catholic Church teaching then strongly implies that you are in a much more serious situation than native born non-Catholic Christians. Now, it is true that the RCC teaches that only it contains the fullness of the truth. However, said belief seems today to have little relevance for native born non-Catholic Christians, due to the promotion of the doctrine of "invincible ignorance", though apparently a very few number of Catholics claim that true "invincible ignorance" is probably quite rare. Whether or not this is true is a matter of debate. However, ever since the excommunication of the late Father Feeney, who exposed a strict interpretation of the EENS salvation doctrine, the Vatican has given no indication of wanting to diminish the doctrine of "invincible ignorance". A statement even came forth from the Vatican a few years ago that "it is a mystery how the Jews are saved", implying that indeed many Jews are saved.

So, since you are a Lutheran and I suppose more importantly an ex-Catholic, must you reconcile with Mother Church prior to death in order to be saved? Only God knows the answer to that question, my friend. I personally doubt very much that this is the case, but then, what does this native born Protestant know, other than my very detailed knowledge of the RCC's understanding of the salvation doctrine?
 
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Lost4words

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Since I’m a former Catholic I read the Catholic sub forum here and I used to be a regular at Catholic Answers Forums. It was said on the Catholic sub forum here that if you’re not Catholic you may not go to a Heaven, and that Catholicism contains the “fullness of truth”.
Is it true that now I’m Lutheran I won’t get to Heaven? Please explain.

Never heard that about going to heaven. Only God can decide that.
 
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dqhall

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Since I’m a former Catholic I read the Catholic sub forum here and I used to be a regular at Catholic Answers Forums. It was said on the Catholic sub forum here that if you’re not Catholic you may not go to a Heaven, and that Catholicism contains the “fullness of truth”.
Is it true that now I’m Lutheran I won’t get to Heaven? Please explain.
If Catholics had a monopoly on holiness they would not have burned John Wycliffe at the stake (1384) for translating the Bible from Latin into English.

If you heed God’s commands, you may not lose your reward.
 
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FaithT

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I just hope that God wouldn’t send me to Hell just because I left the RCC to go where I’m spiritually fed. At Mass, all I did was stand, sit kneel, and my mind was everywhere but following the Mass. At least until Communion. During Communion I was able to pay attention.
 
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ViaCrucis

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If Catholics had a monopoly on holiness they would not have burned John Wycliffe at the stake (1384) for translating the Bible from Latin into English.

If you heed God’s commands, you may not lose your reward.

They didn't, Wycliffe died of natural causes (he died of a stroke) and wasn't even condemned in his own lifetime. It was decades after his death that he was posthumously condemned, his body was dug up and thrown into a river.

You are probably thinking about William Tyndale, but Tyndale wasn't burned by the Catholic Church or by Catholic officials; Tyndale was arrested while in the Netherlands, and brought back to England where he was sentenced to death by the English Crown. This is after the English Church broke away from the Church of Rome under Henry VIII.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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dqhall

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They didn't, Wycliffe died of natural causes (he died of a stroke) and wasn't even condemned in his own lifetime. It was decades after his death that he was posthumously condemned, his body was dug up and thrown into a river.

You are probably thinking about William Tyndale, but Tyndale wasn't burned by the Catholic Church or by Catholic officials; Tyndale was arrested while in the Netherlands, and brought back to England where he was sentenced to death by the English Crown. This is after the English Church broke away from the Church of Rome under Henry VIII.

-CryptoLutheran
At the time Henry the VIII put Tyndale to death he was working for agents of the Roman Catholic Church and was praised by them for being a defender of the faith. The following year Thomas Matthew was put to death
for translating the Bible into English. Later the English Church allowed English Bible translations.

Wycliffe was condemned as a heretic by the Catholic Church before the schism.

The Roman Catholic Church did not allow people other than priests to own Bibles. They declared Bible translators or readers to be heretics and sentenced these people to burning.

Censorship of the Bible - Wikipedia
 
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dqhall

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At the time Henry the VIII put Tyndale to death he was working for agents of the Roman Catholic Church and was praised by them for being a defender of the faith. The following year Thomas Matthew was put to death for translating the Bible into English. Later the English Church allowed English Bible translations.

The Roman Catholic Church did not allow people other than priests to own Bibles. They declared Bible translators or readers to be heretics and sentenced these people to burning.

Censorship of the Bible - Wikipedia
 
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FaithT

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Ohh, I see. Well, there is nothing wrong with traditions as long as they don't contradict the Scripture. But traditions are not needed for salvation.

Let me summarize the Bible's teachings about how we get to heaven, how we get saved:
The first thing is repentance. Salvation is a gift, and in order to receive this gift we need to repent the things we did against God's will, all the sins we committed. This includes that we turn away from our previous life, the sinful lifestyle we had before. Whenever the Bible talks about repentance it doesn't talk about a feeling, it talks about the willful decision to stop sinning.
The second and last thing is to accept Jesus as Lord, to open your heart to him and to give him full control over every part of your life. That's the unique, unlimited freedom the Bible speaks about: to give Jesus absolute control over your life so that you don't have to worry about a single thing anymore.

Paul puts it this way: "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved" (Romans 10:9-10).
I’m talking about Tradition, with a capital T. Catholic’s have beliefs that they believe were passed down from Christ that aren’t in the Bible but still considered important. I think these are Tradition.
 
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Friedrich Rubinstein

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I’m talking about Tradition, with a capital T. Catholic’s have beliefs that they believe were passed down from Christ that aren’t in the Bible but still considered important. I think these are Tradition.

"Sola scriptura" is something the Catholics claim isn't biblical, and it would seem that they just didn't read the Bible because it is written four (4) times in the Bible. Interestingly we find those passages in the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the Bible. That's how important it is in God's eyes:

Deut 4:2 "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you."

Deut 13:1 "See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it."

Proverbs 30:6 "Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar."

Rev 22:18-19 "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll."


Believe what God's word, the Bible, says and don't add traditions or Tradition even.
 
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FaithT

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"Sola scriptura" is something the Catholics claim isn't biblical, and it would seem that they just didn't read the Bible because it is written four (4) times in the Bible. Interestingly we find those passages in the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the Bible. That's how important it is in God's eyes:

Deut 4:2 "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you."

Deut 13:1 "See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it."

Proverbs 30:6 "Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar."

Rev 22:18-19 "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll."


Believe what God's word, the Bible, says and don't add traditions or Tradition even.
That’s interesting. Thanks!
 
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ViaCrucis

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At the time Henry the VIII put Tyndale to death he was working for agents of the Roman Catholic Church and was praised by them for being a defender of the faith. The following year Thomas Matthew was put to death
for translating the Bible into English. Later the English Church allowed English Bible translations.

Wycliffe was condemned as a heretic by the Catholic Church before the schism.

The Roman Catholic Church did not allow people other than priests to own Bibles. They declared Bible translators or readers to be heretics and sentenced these people to burning.

Censorship of the Bible - Wikipedia

Citation please.

Henry broke with Rome 1533. Tyndale was executed by English forces in 1536.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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dqhall

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