Back when I was posting articles on a daily basis, I was having a lot of interaction with Bruce Charlton in our articles and in their comment sections. We had been discussing the nature of repentance, faith, forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. Through various twist and turns I was reminded of a divisive discussion in 2024 that led to two things: a loss in readership and the 40-part series on the eucharist.
No Derek, it is you who do not understand the eucharist.
Our Orthodox brothers have celebrated it in basically the same way as Catholics since the beginning, with only procedural differences. If you are right, like I said before, then all of Christendom, 2000 years of Orthodoxy and 1500 years of Catholicism before the Protestants “corrected” the Church, are wrong about the most basic and fundamental part of the faith. Again, you cherry-pick scripture but cannot refute Christ’s EXACT words of “this is my body”. You cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit and get into Heaven. It’s the one sin that cannot be forgiven.
If you’re right then basically nobody has gotten to heaven since Christ left the earth, and we have effectively had no Church. That does not square up with Christ saying he will have a church on earth and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. You’re simply wrong here, and I will not argue with you further. Good luck to you, I hope your false interpretations bring you comfort on judgement day, because you’re going to need it.
Let’s discuss the idea that doctrinal purity is required for salvation. More to the point, what relevance will BtM’s false interpretations have on Judgement Day? Will they even matter?
Lying is a sin, but being wrong—”false interpretations”—is not. On the Day of Judgment, no interpretation that I have ever held—whether true or false—will bring me any comfort because such things will be irrelevant. If it turns out I was wrong, then there isn’t anything I can do to change that: I know that I tried to do right, but ultimately failed in the attempt. I sincerely doubt that Jesus is going to be concerned with whether or not I made doctrinal mistakes. I most certainly have made many, as have you. Given how often I write, I’ve probably made many more mistakes than most, despite how careful I try to be. Moreover, I could spend the rest of my life trying to cleanse myself of false doctrine and I’d never achieve the goal.
But it’s not just mistakes. I’ve lied. I’ve supported the cause of evil. We all have at various points, and we all will again in the future. It is an inevitable fact of human existence. We all will do what we do not want to to: even the saints in Christ.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
If we say that we have fellowship with him but continue to walk in the darkness, we are lying and are not obeying the truth. But if we continue to walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
It’s not possible for a man to cease sinning.
The Bible speaks rather little of repentance. In particular, it rarely specifies repentance from sin. Repentance in the NT is turning towards God after having been turned away from Him. It is a fundamental reorientation. It is faith.
The key is not wanting to sin. Or, alternatively, knowing that what you do is wrong and acknowledging this fact without lying about it. It is about intentions, not results. Better, after all, the man who sins and understands that what is doing is wrong, than the man who sins and also lies to himself about it.
Insisting on doctrinal purity (i.e.”my church only”) is foreign to the mission of Jesus on this earth. Even Paul, the great Apostle, understood the limitations of this life:
Love never ends, but where there are prophecies, they will be done away; where there are tongues, they will cease; where there is a message of knowledge, it will be done away.
For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the Completeness comes, that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I will know fully just as also I was fully known.
But now these three remain: trust, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.
So while I spend a lot of time trying to know what there is to know—to always seek to refine my faith—all of that will be set aside on the Day of Judgement. When it comes to faith—which includes correct and incorrect beliefs—hope and love, what matters most is love.