1 Cor 9:27

Catholic: Okay. Let me see if I got you right.

Cath: 1 Cor 9:27 Okay. I think your reply can be summarized by the following: “Again, if you take this “crowns” and “rewards” as salvation, then it renders salvation or eternal life as a REWARD no longer as a GIFT.”

Cath: I will have my answer tomorrow- I left my Navarre Romans and Galatians bible, I couldn’t check on the passages, but offhand I have a few questions:

1. Your statement is based on two crucial assumptions: First, a “gift” cannot be rejected. Second, salvation follows a strict either-or situation: either it’s a gift, in which case it cannot be a reward; or it’s a reward, in which case it cannot be a gift.

The question is: How valid are these two assumptions?

First, on whether a gift may not be rejected:

Luke 10:16 – “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

John 12:48 “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day”

Mt 10:33; Lk 12:9; Tit 1:16; Acts 7:39; Rom 2:8; Acts 13:46; 1 Tim 1:19; Lk 17:25; 1 Pet 2:4

With regard to rewards, may I post my answer tomorrow? I left my notes at home so I cannot give you the passages. But the point is this: Salvation is a reward. I know this will make you laugh, cause you to see “works” which for you are all one and the same i.e., the works in the whole system of debt (the Romans 4:4 type).

However, there IS another type of works – I didn’t say that, Paul did-- and that is the type that justifies ( Rom 2:4-13 type – also see Rom 14:10-12; 1 Cor 3:12-17; 2 Cor 5:10). And this latter type is the type of works I’m speaking of.

But these are not works in the system of debt, because these are works of which God is the beginning and the end. Maybe a little example would help.

When attacked by a snake, a baby monkey would jump onto its mother’s back, and the mother would jump up the trees – the decisive act is the strength with which the baby monkey clings to its mother. This represents the Pelagian view of salvation. A kitten, on the mother, when threatened, does nothing at all; the mother takes it by the skin of its neck, and does everything. This is the Protestant view. Both are wrong. The error common to both is to think that divine and human action are mutually exclusive: either it’s man who does the good act, in which case it’s not God; or, it’s God ,in which case it cannot be man. But who said it can’t be God AND man? For, in fact that’s how it is, God and man together: God and man, grace and freedom, God through man, grace through freedom. If I find myself in a hole with no way out, and God offers his hand, and I take it, it’s not I who did the decisive act but God, who not only offered his hand, but ENABLED me to take it.

In other words, God rewards the faithful who perseveres till end for persevering, but this persevering is - from start to finish- IS a result of God’s GRACE. God, in other words, is not rewarding man, but his “God’s own works.

Tomorrow, I will have the Scriptural passages to support this view. The other points I will prepare the answers to at home tonight.