Michael Patrick Barber - Salvation : what every Catholic should know

WHAT EVERY CATHOLIC SHOULD KNOW

WHAT EVERY CATHOLIC SHOULD KNOW

Michael Patrick Barber

Foreword by Brant Pitre

IGNATIUS PRESS AUGUSTINE INSTITUTE

San Francisco Greenwood Village, CO

Ignatius Press Augustine Institute

San Francisco, CA Greenwood Village, CO

Cover Design: Ben Dybas

2019 Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
and the Augustine Institute, Greenwood Village, CO
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-7335221-8-2 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-64229-082-0 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2019935228

Printed in Canada

To Kim

Grace as Gods Merciful Gift

Saving Faith as a Gift

Returning to the Father

The Law and the Love of God

Fulfilling the Law

Salvation as Knowing the Lord

Redemption and the Debt of Sin

Redemption and Atonement

The Cross as the Revelation of Divine Love

The Church in the New Testament

One Bread, One Body

Is There Salvation outside the Church?

Grace as Divine Indwelling

Justification and the Protestant Reformation

Transformative Righteousness

Judgment by Works

Salvation as Compensation and the Concept of Merit

The Power of Grace

Salvation as Becoming Children of God

Maturity through Redemptive Suffering

Purgatory and Salvation

For Many Will Seek to Enter and Will Not Be Able

Mortal Sin and Severing Oneself from Christ

Taking Oneself to Hell

You Are Spiritually Blind... Yes, You!

Harden Not Your Hearts

The Need for Supernatural Vision

The Resurrection and a New Creation

Resurrection and New Life

Sharing in the New Adams Victory over Satan

by Brant Pitre

Why did God become man ? In other words, what was the reason for the Incarnation? If you had to answer this question with one word, what would you say?

Thankfully, if youre Catholic, you dont have to look far for the answer. You can simply turn to the words of the Nicene Creed, which sum up the essential points of the Christian faith. Every Sunday at Mass, Catholics throughout the world confess that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven for us men and for our salvation

Obviously, if the Church requires Catholics to recite these Sunday after Sunday, they must be important. But what do they mean? What exactly is salvation?

Although Ive been a Catholic all of my life, I must confess that I can count on one hand the number of homilies I remember that were focused on salvation or being saved. For whatever reason, Catholics nowadays often just dont talk that wayeven though Jesus himself declared that he came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). By contrast, when I was a teenager, my future wife, Elizabeth, was Southern Baptist, and I used to go to services with her on occasion. In her church, it seemed as if almost every sermon was about being saved. Virtually every Sunday, the gospel of the forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed, and those who were not yet believers would be invited to come and receive the gift of salvation.

Now, theres an old saying of Aristotle: Nature abhors a vacuum. As a Bible professor, I sometimes like to alter it slightly: Theology abhors a vacuum. What I mean by this is that whenever any aspect of the Catholic faith starts to be neglected, what remains in the minds and the hearts of ordinary Catholics is not just a blank space. Instead, errors that get picked up here and there along the way inevitably rush in to fill the void. The end result is people who have wrong ideas about what salvation is and how it works. Oftentimes, many Catholics (and I include myself in this) dont even know that what they believe salvation is contradicts the Churchs teachings.

In his fantastic book, Salvation: What Every Catholic Should Know , Dr. Michael Barber takes the reader on a guided tour into the world of what theologians refer to as soteriology : the doctrine of salvation (Greek soteria ). The end result is a truly brilliant corrective to the many misunderstandings regarding salvation that have found their way into the minds and hearts of many Christians, including many Catholics. With writing that is both readable and charitable, Dr. Barber shows over and over again what salvation is not: it is not self-help (as in ancient Pelagianism and modern Therapeutic Deism); not mere fire insurance (as in Fundamentalism); not without cost (as in the Health and Wealth Gospel preached by certain televangelists); not just personal (as in Individualism); not just a legal transaction, a spectator sport, or simply a moment (as in some forms of Protestantism); it is not inevitable (as in Universalism); nor is it just about the future (as in some forms of Dispensationalism). Most important of alland as we all need to be reminded on a regular basissalvation is not just for other people. But thats not all. Even more importantly, Barber shows us what the Bible says salvation is . According to Scripture, salvation is returning to the Father; knowing the Lord; a revelation of divine love; an unmerited gift of righteousness that actually transforms us; a participation in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and, above all, entering into the very life of the blessed Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At every step, Barber makes a compelling case that this Catholic view of salvation is thoroughly and incontrovertibly biblical . While some discussions of salvationespecially the centuries-old debate between Protestants and Catholics over justification, faith, and workscan quickly veer off into technical philosophical and theological debates, this book makes an incredibly complex topic incredibly clear by keeping our eyes focused on what the Bible itself has to say about the subject.

In short, Dr. Barber has given us all a very precious gift: a book that shows both what Jesus Christ came into this world to save us from and, equally important, what he came to save us for .

What Is Salvation?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith...

Romans 1:16

Everything comes from love. All is ordained for the salvation of man. God does nothing without this goal in mind.

St. Catherine of Siena, cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church 313

Are you saved ?

The first time someone asked me this question I was a teenager. The context of the conversation was a memorable one. My parents had taken me and my five siblings on a trip to Northern California as part of a family vacation. We piled into a van, left our home in Southern California, and spent hours on the road. The journey took us on along a scenic route. We saw rugged mountains, shimmering lakes, and forested regions.

You might expect me to say that the remarkable vistas were the highlight of the trip. To be honest, I barely remember any of them. Instead, my clearest memory from that vacation was a brief exchange I had in the hotel lobby. I somehow ended up getting involved in a conversation about music with a group of kids my age. That is when things took an interesting turn.

Salvation: Past or Future ?

We were all naming our favorite musical artists when someone mentioned a singer who is well known in the Christian music industry. No one in our group recognized the nameexcept for me. My father had always enjoyed contemporary Christian music, and so I was familiar with the genre. When I seconded the kids endorsement, he was pleasantly surprised. He did not expect anyone to recognize the singer. It seemed like we had just connected on a new level. I suppose I should have seen what was coming next, but I did not.

The boy turned to me and asked, Are you saved?