ARE YOU SAVED?

This is the favorite question that Protestants and non-Catholics loved to ask, Are you saved? The question is really asked to solicit a non-committal answer like - "Well I guess so", or "I don't know". Then they will assure you that they are already saved and because their salvation is already assured by their faith in Jesus Christ no matter how sinful they may be. This is partially true but not totally true. And so a half-truth is not true but still false when taken at their entire context.

The truth that is mixed with a lie is false. So they claim that once saved, always saved, even if you sin big time, is totally false. They will then leave you with the question "How about you do you want to be saved too?", then get out of your Catholic Church and become a true Christian by relying only on in the Bible, not in rituals and worships that have no meaning and are not found in the Bible. Really?

The problem with the Protestants and non-Catholics pseudo-Christians is that they have been deceived and continue to live in the lies perpetrated by Satan who in fact wants us to believe in the heresy of the Reformation and join the Rebellious House of the Protestant churches. Any Protestant church will do so long as its not the Catholic Church. The Rebellious House is the federation of all those who rebel against the Catholic Church their aim is nothing more than to topple the Throne and Altar of the Almighty and scatter the people of God, the Holy Ones out of the Kingdom of God and outside where they will be easily taken into their numbers. The agents of the Rebellious House is everywhere including those who remain in the Catholic Church but are rebels themselves against the unchangeable doctrines passed on by the Apostles to the succeeding generations.

Instead of relying on the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth which is the Catholic Church, they rely more on their own readings of the Bible and because of that, they are deceived. Will reading the Bible Alone without the assistance of the Church be sufficient to understand the mysteries of the living words of God that are not confined within the ink and letters written on the paper of the Bible but in the life of the Church? It is written "You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matthew 22:29). But is reading the Bible alone means we already know the scripture? Notice in the preceding verse of Matthew the Scripture must be understood on the power of God. And so John further clarified this:


You search and investigate and pore over the Scriptures diligently, because you suppose and trust that you have eternal life through them. And these very Scriptures testify about Me! And still you are not willing but refuse to come to Me, so that you might have life. (John 5:39-40) So the Scripture only testify to the truth which is Jesus Christ but there is no life in them unless we come to Jesus that we may have life. And how do we come to Jesus? Not through the Scripture or Bible alone but by following his lead, his commandments, which is given in the Church of the Living God that he founded and built up through the Apostles, that is the Catholic Church. Jesus did not write a book, he founded and built a Church. 

What is the Church if we all can just read the Bible and believe in the Lord and presto we are saved? If this is what Jesus wanted, he could have just asked scribes to write all his teachings and have them distributed. But he did not write at all in his time. Instead, he chose 12 Apostles from his Disciples and Followers, then appointed Peter as their leader, and gave them instruction on the mountain before he ascended to heaven in Matthew 28:16-19 :

"Meanwhile, the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The Lord promised, "I am with you always, to the very end of the age". Yet the Lord knew the Apostles would die ahead of the end of the age. And so does it mean, after they die everything stopped? Of course not! We knew from the very beginning, the Apostles organized the church by appointing deacons, presbyters, elders, and bishop. The Acts written by Luke and the Letters and Epistles of the Apostles attest to them. Their acts made it clear that the promise of the Lord of being with them unto the end of age is not limited to them, the Apostles, but to the entire church.  The Great Commission of the Apostles such as going to the nations, making disciples, baptizing, and teaching "them" to obey his commandments are handed over by the same Apostles to their successors, the Bishops they appointed in every church. The successors of the Apostles ensured the continuity of building the church worldwide. Teaching is not by reading alone but by handing down the traditions of the Apostles whether by oral or written form as told by Apostle Paul. Not just by any preacher who read the bible because here the teaching will not come from reading the bible but by the Apostles and their successors which they appointed in every church and in every place under the Church of the Living God which before the turn of the 1st century already called the Catholic Church. Thus the promise of "I am with you always until the very end of the age, is for the Catholic Church."

There is no life in the scripture alone but only by coming to Jesus but how do we come to Jesus? Is it by accepting him as our personal savior only or by being in his true church and following all his commandments? The answer is obvious since Jesus is no longer visible on earth, he left us a church, his visible body to which the keys of the Kingdom of God is given to its head, the See of Peter. So unless we come to Jesus which is his church, the Catholic Church, there is no life in us. In fact, if anyone persecutes the church, he persecutes the Lord because Jesus said to Saul when he was persecuting the church, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting". We come to Jesus through his Church. Not just any church lest we are deceived but by his true church marked by the rock who is Simon Peter. "ON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH". The Catholic Church today is symbolized on top of the tomb where Peter, the rock is laid. The St. Peter basilica the symbol of where we find the true church, which is the Temple of God, that mark or symbol is where we find the true Church of the Lord. Nowhere can one find a church built on top of the grave of St. Peter but the Catholic Church alone.

Where we have life eternal, there is our salvation. There we will be saved in the truest sense of the word save. Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church according to St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch of the 1st century. We come to Jesus Christ literally through his true church, the Catholic Church nowhere else. You can't come to Jesus by you alone. No, you come to Jesus through the Catholic Church where you will be baptized and live the Sacraments, commanded by the Lord. Our salvation is not by believing in the Bible Alone or by Faith Alone of the pseudo-Christians but by coming to Jesus and staying with him, that is in his true church. There we will be truly saved.

Bro. Manny OTFS Apologist

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