Understood. That sounds a lot more like probation than sonship. So much of the NT appeal to obedience is an appeal from identity: you are sons, therefore act like sons. You have been crucified with Christ, therefore die to sin and live to righteousness. It seems your view would completely undercut any motive to obedience from identity. The effect of Rome's teaching (no matter their supposed objection) is that I might be a son, but I have to choose to keep obeying to really find out. This makes sonship much more of an achievement than a gift of God's grace. As you say, you must choose. It's a relationship that can end. Therefore, I conclude, it is a relation based on works rather than grace. I don't see how in your view the NT is in any way essentially different from the OT. "If you obey, then you'll live." Roman Catholicism has no appeal to me. I think I understand it pretty well. I was taught some of its distinctives by teachers who thought they were teaching Protestant theology. It is very easy to slip into the Galatian heresy. It is far easier for the mind of of the flesh to comprehend. The god of Rome is far too fickle and his medicine far too weak to save my soul. I have been far too acquainted with the depths of my sin. I agree with Charles Spurgeon: if I could lose my salvation, I would. My interest in RC is merely speculative and experimental, for the purposes of evangelism and defending the truth. (I do not recognize a genuine Roman Catholic as a brother, because Rome clearly teaches a different gospel; indeed, a different religion when it comes to the substance of it, though there is agreement with Christianity in important areas). It is amazing to me that someone could say that a person who is in limbo between a state of righteousness and sin (grace and flesh) could enjoy the blessing of being seated in the heavenly places in Christ. That is the Holy of Holies. You must be covered in blood and washed to enter there. Some provisional or temporary covering could never suffice in light of God's holiness. On the other hand, I don't see how it could be an encouragement if Paul is talking about something that a person believing now might never reach in the future. We also believe in an ongoing, lifelong process of purification for the Christian and for the church. We call it sanctification, and we distinguish it from justification. Justification leads to sanctification. Faith is not a good work (it is the work of God), but it produces good works. A person already made righteous in Christ begins to live righteously. This process of sanctification is evidence of justification, not the grounds of it. If you love the RC Church because they have a catechism, that is no reason to favor it over Protestantism. The Reformed churches have catechisms and confessions of faith as well. The design of RC seems to be to deny people assurance and keep them debtors to the law and slaves. I don't see any way the gospel according to Rome leaves it open to the charge of antinomianism. You seem to think that is one of the principle virtues of Romanism, and the vice of Protestantism. Curiously, Paul's preaching did leave him open to the charge of antinomianism (Rom. 6:1). If your gospel could not possibly be misunderstood in such a way, do you think it may be possible you're not teaching the same gospel? Think about it.