{"id":4948,"date":"2020-05-04T08:40:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldsandals.net\/?p=4948"},"modified":"2020-05-04T08:40:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:40:37","slug":"the-biblical-plan-of-salvation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=4948","title":{"rendered":"The biblical plan of salvation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We are all sinners in need of a Savior (Romans 5:12-21). We are inheritors of original sin and all its consequences, and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God. We can\u2019t save ourselves, but we don\u2019t need to: Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation comes through Jesus alone (Acts 4:12), since he is the \u201cone mediator between God and man\u201d (1 Timothy 2:5-6).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The saving grace won by Jesus is offered as a free gift to us, accessible through repentance, faith, and baptism. We turn away from our sins, we are sorry for them, and we believe in Jesus Christ and the gospel. Repentance shows our willingness to turn from things that keep us from God, and baptism renews us, filling us with the grace necessary to have faith and to live it. This belief is more than just \u201chead knowledge.\u201d Even the demons have that (James 2:19). It\u2019s more than just believing you\u2019re saved. Even the Pharisees had that (John 5:39). True, saving faith is one lived and exhibited daily: It is \u201cfaith working through love\u201d (Galatians 5:6, James 2:1-26).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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You might be thinking, “faith working through love” — isn’t that\u00a0 the verse Roman Catholics often cite? But isn’t it true that “…if <\/span>it is of <\/span>works, it is <\/span>no longer grace” (Romans 11:6)? <\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to remember that good works are required by God because he requires obedience to his commands (Matthew 6:1-21, 1 Corinthians 3:8, 13-15) and promises to reward us with eternal life if we obey (Matthew 25:34-40, Romans 2:6-7, Galatians 6:6-10, James 1:12). But even our obedience is impossible without God\u2019s grace; even our good works are God\u2019s gift<\/em> (Romans 5:5, Philippians 2:13). This is the biblical plan of salvation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are all sinners in need of a Savior (Romans 5:12-21). We are inheritors of original sin and all its consequences, and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God. We can\u2019t save ourselves, but we don\u2019t need to: Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation comes … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The biblical plan of salvation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4950,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions\/4950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}