Efficacy of confession and absolution

If my prayer for forgiveness is from the heart, God will know and will not be slow in answering. "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"

No! Daily bread is bread for today, not mouldy old bread from last week.

That entirely depends on the prayer, the need and the faith of the asker. "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God [but not granted until your priest says so on sunday, you seem to suppose]. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. [But only if you go to church and get absolution from the priest, presumably].

I think "Give us this day our daily bread" has a time limit for being granted or not, surely. So "And forgive us our trespasses on the condition that we forgive others" probably has the same likelihood of being granted the self same day. The request for God to Lead us has the same immediacy, it would seem, because it does not take more than a second or two to fall into temptation and require deliverance from evil by God. So The Lord's prayer is a daily prayer with daily results, not requiring the services of a priest to fulfil it's requests for the believer, of forgiveness of sins and the will and strength to forgive other's misdemenours.
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That doesn't mean you automatically receive it if you ask for it. Is it not possible for a Christian to starve?

 

It "only" says that Jesus fulfilled the Law (by His mortal life, death and resurrection)... And that the blessings of Abraham now have come upon the people of faith among the Gentiles.. We now know so much more about our Redeemer, since He has appeared in the flesh and showed us the Father. If those aren't noteworthy changes, I don't know what is!

 

I don’t believe everything is optional or irrelevant…
I don’t believe it’s optional to be forgiven of your sins. If you aren’t forgiven you’re going to hell, at least in my world. I also don’t believe sanctification is optional, you can’t be justified without being sanctified at the same time.
I do not believe my whole Christian life is based on one profession of faith, my Christian life is based on the hope of eternal life and resurrection through the saving work of Christ, and I cannot do anything to attain it. I receive forgiveness of my sins through baptism, and I’m continually made holy by the indwelling grace of the Holy Spirit. To say I trust in my own profession of faith is works based salvation. Faith was given to me by God. My only trust is in him.
Also, I find it peculiar you mentioned the Holy Spirit being tied to confirmation. Where has scripture ever mentioned such a ritual as confirmation, where we receive the Holy Spirit?
Scripture says we receive the Holy Spirit through repentance and baptism. “"Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." Acts 2:38-39

Why did Peter forget to say “repent, be baptized, and be confirmed?”
No where in scripture is there an intiation ritual other than baptism…
In fact, the Holy Spirit “comes upon us” to prepare us for baptism, and then fully dwells within us after baptism.

Baptism is certainly mentioned as essential to a Christian in scripture. Confirmation doesn’t exist in the model of scripture. The apostles were given the power to forgive sins, can this be said to be the same power of priests in the modern day? Can modern day priests heal people with their shadows, speak in tongues, etc.? I’m certain the apostles could know who was truly sorry and not because God revealed it to them. When I see a priest performing miracles, I will believe he has the power to damn me to hell for being unrepentant. But until then, I’m not convinced the apostles and “priests” are the same thing at all. For one, like I’ve said in multiple times, I don’t believe in apostolic succession. I think that’s only something that you almost have to make yourself believe in through blind faith. It is clear as day historically that no single church has perfect apostolic succession. Clear as day. So if I’m asked to believe something like this is possible, where these priests are given the power of the apostles through succession, I can’t deny facts. And the fact is priestly succession just isn’t historically accurate…

 

How is it logical a person who God hasn’t forgiven, aka he has no relationship with them, can go to heaven? Are we going to say people can be forgiven their sins after death ?

 

They can't. I was saying only God knows for certain what a person's fate will be.

Incidentally, the notion that you "go to heaven when you die" is something that comes from the churches of the Westminster Confession. Anglicanism has historically taught an intermediate state, with heaven or hell only following after the Last Judgment.

 

A simple answer:
1Tim 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

 

I just saw people in other threads saying they pray to Saints so they believe people go to heaven. I think it’s clear from scripture that people go to heaven after death. No one in the early church believed in an intermediate state either, that’s why they prayed to Saints. This isn’t an idea of reformed churches but it goes back to the very early church…

 

This is the sort of response I would have expected from a RC, not from someone who recognizes their errors. The RCC is the bunch that ties their laity to their sacraments with unscriptural claims.

 

My rector had an interesting response to my question about confirmation. He said that not everyone has an "Aha!" moment when they know they have believed, so going through confirmation gives them a benchmark day that they can point to in their lives.

I suspect you see what I see.

 

I thought we had established in another thread that the early church did not pray to the saints.

There were some early Fathers (e.g., Gregory of Nazianzus) who taught that the soul goes immediately to God, but this was a minority view. The historic Anglican teaching has been that there is:
1) Individual Judgment at Death
2) Intermediate State until the General Resurrection
3) General Resurrection/Return of Christ
4) Final Judgment
5) Paradise or Hell

 

Frankly I feel like the Holy Spirit isn’t directly tied to baptism. I certainly felt “regenerate” before I was baptized, as I felt guilt for my sins. How can I possibly feel guilty for sinning against God if I don’t have the Holy Spirit in me? It makes no sense.

 

It depends what you mean early church. John chrysostom certainly approves of it, and Augustine seems to as well. I guess you mean before the 4th century. Then yes, you’re right Before the 5th century they didn’t pray to Saints, but they believed the martyrs were in heaven praying for them. There’s inscriptions in the Roman catacombs asking the departed martyrs to pray for them dated to 200 ad. I don’t believe this is a prayer to them, it’s a poetic exhortation. It’s very clear, I think, they believed martyrs prayed for those on earth because they were in heaven.

 

But what is that "intermediate state" like? I hardly think that it would be a pleasant state for those who died in their sins. And I hardly think that it would be an unpleasant state for those who died in Christ.

While this scripture is not conclusive, it does seem to suggest a fair likelihood that those who die in Christ are taken to where Jesus is.
2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

It first states a certain thing: while alive, we are not where the Lord (Jesus) is (enthroned in heaven).
Then it states the converse, which is not completely certain, but about which we have some reason for confidence and desire: when we die, we may be with the Lord.

As for hell, since Revelation specifies that death and hell are thrown into the lake of fire after the Judgment, we can be sure that hell is a pre-Judgment abode for the unsaved sinners.

 

I can assure you it's not something we just made up:

The implication of this passage is clear enough.

 

And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. (Acts 19:6)

Ya left out a part.

 

I don’t see how that applies to modern day Christians under new covenant…
Certainly the Jews could feel contrite for their sins without the Holy Spirit. But can we ?
Upon hearing the Gospel “the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.”

“Then Peter answered, “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.”

I think it’s pretty obvious the Holy Spirit first comes upon you when the father calls you. Notice how it says the gift of the spirit was poured out on them before they even touched water. The father does not call at baptism, but when he gives us faith. Then the Holy Spirit comes upon us to lead us into becoming fully baptized in the spirit by water. Then it dwells in us fully. I do not think it’s possible to have a desire to be baptized without the Holy Spirit leading you. The passage from acts you quoted has nothing to do with us, we weren’t baptized in the old covenant by John the Baptist.
You can show me your quote and I can show you mine. It’s safe to say that God sometimes gives the spirit during the baptism, sometimes before it, sometimes after (If you are baptized and aren’t truly sorry for your sins, or if you are baptized as a child, I don’t believe you have the fullness of the spirit in you until you accept it). If you go through with a half hearted baptism and no faith will you be forgiven? This isn’t RCC ex opere operato. There must be faith. And where there is faith, it’s because the spirit is leading. God has not confined himself to water baptism. Baptism was made for us, not him. He will work as he pleases. The promise of the full indwelling of the Holy Spirit certainly requires both repentance and baptism, I think that’s pretty clear. But being lead by the spirit isn’t impossible pre baptism, as the scriptures tell us.

 

What are you talking about? It's the Book of Acts. That is the new covenant. The Holy Spirit, being God, is omnipresent. It's not like there's one moment when He's not present and then the following moment He is, nor does it mean that the act of baptism causes the Holy Spirit to do something. What happens at baptism is regeneration, effected by the Holy Trinity, but "appropriated" by the Holy Spirit. In the strict sense, if one speaks of metaphors like "indwelling", then it applies to all three persons of the Trinity, not just the third one.

No, I ended the quotation at the most logical point, as I was specifically addressing the issue of the Holy Spirit's connection to baptism. Presumably "speaking in tongues" means the same thing in Acts 19 that it does in Acts 2: speaking one's own language, but being heard in a different language. That is not something that would be of much use today, now that we have programs like Google Translate and such.

 

John the Baptist was a Jew under the old covenant…
Just like Mary was a Jew under the old covenant. Just like the apostles were Jews under the old covenant. Until the death and resurrection of Christ the new covenant wasn’t in full effect. The apostles received the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. The book of acts is the New Testament, and some of it recounts things that happened under the old covenant. Just like Luke talks about the conception of Jesus, and yet Mary is still very much a Jew under the old covenant…
And so is Jesus, who got circumcised….

And what has the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit to do with the gift of the Holy Spirit being poured out on the gentiles? To say that’s merely talking about the spirit being omnipresent is to ignore what the passage says. Not to mention Peter says they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

 

I still don't have a clue what you're talking about. When the Corinthians said they had never heard of the Holy Spirit, Paul immediately asked them about their baptism, the assumption being that the two go together and that this is something he expected them to already be aware of. When they explained they had received John the Baptist's baptism, not Christian baptism, he immediately baptized them and then the text says they then received the Holy Spirit. You had said:

I am simply providing a Scriptural example of where the early Church got the idea. That doesn't mean there aren't counterexamples. In fact, the Reformed tradition connects regeneration by the Holy Spirit with the act of baptism, but not with the time of baptism. Baptism is a momentary, once-in-a-lifetime sign of God's act of regeneration, which is not momentary but goes all the way back to His eternal election, was prepared by His prevenient grace, and is effective continuously all the way to the departure of the Christian from this life. I don't think Anglicanism or the rest of the Reformation was trying to make any statements about a 'timeline of redemption' for individuals, e.g., first baptism, then Holy Spirit, or first Holy Spirit, then baptism, etc. They only denied that there was no connection between the two. Various NT passages illustrate this connection pretty clearly, and Acts 19 is one of them. That's all I'm saying.