Look. If you accuse me of cherrypicking quotes, kindly show where my quotes are out of context. I did the same with yours. I maintain that Matthew 25, Romans 2 and James 2 describe certain works as salvific and do so in context. I also showed why the quotes you gave so far either do not say what you pretend they say, or do not contradict the Catholic doctrine in their context.
You now repeated several of your previous prooftexts and I will refer to my previous post for their treatment, and I will explain the rest.
Galatians 2:16, Romans 4:2, Romans 3:27, 2 Timothy 1:9, 2 Timothy 3:16f, Titus 1:16, John 15:16, Matthew 7:14f were treated in 8216. They are either referring to works of law, or works of social or any other temporal reward, or simply do not say anything about the issue on hand. You now offer a few additional prooftext on works, to which we turn.
Titus 3:5. The opening passage of Titus 3 is a good prooftext for salvific nature of works of love. Let us read the entire passage:
1 Admonish them to be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work. 2 To speak evil of no man, not to be litigious, but gentle: shewing all mildness towards all men. 3 For we ourselves also were some time unwise, incredulous, erring, slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared: 5 Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost; 6 Whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: 7 That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting. 8 It is a faithful saying: and these things I will have thee affirm constantly: that they, who believe in God, may be careful to excel in good works.
Indeed, Christ did not offer the sacrifice of the Cross because of any particular work of ours that by justice demanded it. We, however, having been baptized should excel in good works.
Romans 4:6. We covered Romans 3:29 - 4.5: "St. Paul says that Abraham had faith and was circumcised, while a Gentile would have faith but not Jewish law, and that would be reputed to justice." I have nothing to add to this previous explanation of mine. Verse 6 simply adds another example of "blessedness in uncircumcision". You did not add anything to your previous prooftext.
Romans 9:11 refers to children of Isaac elected before even their birth. This is an election issue, not a works of love issue, -- we certainly do not think that children are capable of works of love as we understand it, as it requires mature mind. We also have no dispute with the concept of divine election.
Romans 11:6 speaks of the election of the Hebrew remnant so the works there are works of Jewish law, and not salvific works of love. The broader inference can indeed be made from this verse, that works done outside of divine grace are not salvific. We agree.
Galatians 3:9f speaks of Abraham justified by faith and not by his circumcision. The reference is made explicitly not to works in general but to works of law. We agree, works of Jewish, or any other law are not salvific. Whether Abraham is justified by faith alone is answered in the negative by St. James in chapter 2 of his epistle.
Ephesians 2:8-9. I was wondering how you forgot that one the first time. The reference there is plain to works done in order to boast, and we of course agree that these, or any work done for temporal reward, are not salvific.
Romans 8:1 says nothing about works either way on its face. "Walk" of course, is used as a vague synonym for the effort of life, and in such is a prooftext for salvific works.
John 5:24 is a good example of what you might call cherry-picking. Wouild it have killed you to read the entire passage:
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life: so the Son also giveth life to whom he will. 22 For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. 23 That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. He who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, who hath sent him. 24 Amen, amen I say unto you, that he who heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath life everlasting; and cometh not into judgment, but is passed from death to life. 25 Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. 26 For as the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given the Son also to have life in himself: 27 And he hath given him power to do judgment, because he is the Son of man. 28 Wonder not at this; for the hour cometh, wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. 29 And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.
"They that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment". Faith and doing good things are inextricably linked in our salvation, just what the Church has always taught.
John 3:18. Same thing: you pick one verse and pretend the rest of the passage is not there. Read through to verse 21 ad try not to scream this time.
Hebrews 11:7. This is great. Noah built an ark. He did not have faith and got saved. He took an axe and a chisel and got saved. This is an excellent point to make to the Sola Fide superstitionists.
Titus 3:7. You got Titus 3:5 in the beginning of the list. Twenty prooftexts down, you got around to verse 7. Do you ever just read the gospel, or do you go from quotebook to quotebook? Read verse 8, "be careful to excel in good works".
Titus 2:11 does simply say that salvation is from God and available to all men. Bad verse for a Calvinist to read. Put a tape over it or something.
Ephesians 2:5. Once again you have two quotebooks out of sync, as we already had Eph. 2:8, and the works are identified as works for reward in v. 9. Verse 5 merely says that we are saved by the grace of God. Yes.
Galatians 2:21. No, righteousness does not come by law. We are not saved by the works of law. This is the Catholic teaching.
Ephesians 1:7 Yes, redemption is through the blood of Christ and by His grace. This is the Catholic teaching.
Romans 3:24 and Romans 5:15 explain that grace is free and cannot be earned. We agree. It is by His grace that we do our salvific works, when we choose to do them. This is the Catholic teaching.
Acts 2:21, 5:11, and 16:31 al say the same thing, that one who believes in Christ shall be saved. It does not explain what that faith entails. All these are calls to conversion and baptism, -- it is not a detailed explanation of what a Christian life of faith is to be. It is too generic to conclude that works play no part in the walk of faith, and of course from plenty other scripture we know that they do. Besides, Acts 5:11 speaks of the dietetic restrictions being unnecessary, and they are works of the Hebrew law, just like circumcision.
Romans 5:9-10. Christ died for sinners, yes. This is the Catholic teaching. We must be going through your third quotebook, because we treated Romans 5 in the second quotebook. Why don't you sort your prooftexts by their appearance in the scripture? After all, this is the order in which the scripture was intended to be read.
Romans 10:9,13. The context is that not only the Jews are saved, but the road to salvation is open to all believers, Jew or Greek. What united us? The faith. St. Paul is not discoursing the role of works, like he did in Galatians, -- he is confirming that faith in Christ is what unites Christians.
1 Corinthians 1:18 does not say anything about who will be saved or why.
AS TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE SAVED
Nothing here supports your bizarre theory of works only mattering to the reprobates. 1 Corinthians 3 is a prooftext for purgatory, it describes how the works of the saved are purified before they reach final salvation in heaven. All whose works are tried in 1 Cor. 3 are heading to heaven; it does not explain how they got to be saved in the first place. It surely does explain how works matter, for if your house is all stubble, -- bad works -- there will be nothing left of you.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE LOST
That passage describes the judgement of the lost by their works. So, both judgements describe works. But what separates the two categories, the lost and the saved? Matthew 25 gives the answer: works of charity do.
Further, because of Blogger's evident scholarship and sincerity, I am now coming to question the possibility of proving anything from Scripture -- that is, of providing a proof which would persuade a disinterested third party (if we could find such a person). I mean, they trot out their texts, and especially since once I read them pretty much as they read them, they just do not persuade any longer.
We trot out our texts, and if they come close to looking like a coherent and persuasive argument, suddenly we learn we have to study the Bible in its entirety to see the coherence of how it says what they say it says. And since they've been studying it much longer than we, why we might as well take their word. If we knew Scripture as they know Scripture we'd know that Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide are right. So they say.
But I think lining up excerpts like artillery, won't work. I see "works" and "merit" as further mercies and gifts God showers on me. That evidently drives them so much to distraction that they, or some of them, feel driven to rise up against even the mention of such a notion, which they hold so dreadful that any amount of mockery, cruelty, and mischaracterization or just plain stultifying repetition is justified in speaking against it.
And we fall into the same trap and yield to the same temptation.
Too bad.
First of all, Matthew 25 is a continuation of Matthew 24 which is about the end times and the second coming of the Lord. It is a series of parables. And, it is a series of parables distinguishing those who have truly been saved as opposed to those who may make a claim to salvation but do not know the Lord.
The first one shows 10 virgins awaiting a bridegroom. They profess to be followers of the bridegroom. Yet, only 5 of the 10 have oil in their lamps and the other 5 do not. The Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit whom true Christians get when they are saved. So, it is pretty much a parable showing without the Spirit in one's life, it doesn't matter if you hang around proclaiming things, you will not be taken to be with the bridegroom but will be left far from him. As the Bridegroom said "Verily I say unto you, I know you not."
The second parable is about the servants with the talents. God shines His sun upon the just and the unjust and all are given gifts. The key to understanding this parable is in the adjectives describing the servants. You have a good and faithful servant. And you have a wicked and slothful servant. True faith is a faith that will produce works. Salvation is not of works. But when someone is saved they will naturally want to please their Lord. The lost are not so but hoard God's gifts in greed not giving God the glory or honor which is His due. They will be cast into outer darkness and everything that they have ever done or gained will be given away when they die. They were given instructions, but as the lost do, they reject God's ways every time and will punished.
The last is the sheep and the goats. Again, this is a contrast between the saved and the lost.
Now note, these are parables. Jesus does not specifically identify the Prince and the King with Himself - though as an abstract principle that is what is understood. He speaks in the second person. He is trying to illustrate a point, but is not saying that this is literally the way it will be fulfilled. Those who are is WILL work, but they are not saved by works as SCRIPTURE IN ITS CONTEXT (and yes, Annalex cherry picking Matthew 25 outside of the context of the WHOLE OF SCRIPTURE is still cherry picking)abundantly and clearly says.
Romans 2- Do you realize that there are two judgments? There is one for the saved and one for the lost. The saved are not judged according to their works but the works themselves are judged. Those works done for Christ's glory will be rewarded. Those works done for other reasons will be burned up .
The lost are judged according to what they did with the light that they had. The lost have ultimately rejected God but there are levels of punishment for them. A man like Ghandi who sought to eleviate suffering but ultimately rejected Christ is likely to be judged less harshly than a man like Hitler. But all will be separated from Christ forever.
James 2 is NOT IN CONTEXT. Works-salvation folks take James's words in isolation and then pretend that their interpretation of those words is in agreement with the rest of Scripture. James has been explained to the hardheaded proponents of works salvation time and time again. But for those who care to actually understand what is being said by James, here is one more try.
James 2:24 in context is both in the middle of the book of James but also is related to the rest of the New Testament.
Here we have two verses which appear to contradict to people unwilling to dig a little to understand...
# Romans 4:2
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
Romans 4:1-3 (in Context) Romans 4 (Whole Chapter)
# James 2:21
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Paul and James are speaking of justification from two points of view. One is the internal justification (in relationship to God), one is the external & internal justification (how we know that someone is saved from a human perspective.
Lots of people claim to have faith. Bill Clinton claims to be a Christian. The priests that have molested children claim to be Christians. Alexander VI, the Pope, claimed to be a Christian. But very often, works do not follow that faith. James is saying "You say you have faith, but hey the verbal proclamation that you are a Christian does not indicate that you are saved. Rather, true faith is a faith that will produce works. If your faith does not show works it is a dead faith. It is useless. It is meaningless. It is false. But if your faith shows works, then it bears evidence of being true Christian faith." As James says later. "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."
Verse 19 precedes the verses that you quoted.
19Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
In other words, lots of folks will say "hey, I believe in God." As if that is something to boast about, but their lives do nothing for His glory. The devils themselves also believe that God exists and tremble. The chief difference is that one person makes some sort of mental assent that he exists but He is not their Lord. True faith in Christ is a faith in which Christ is the Lord of their lives. As such, it will be a faith that works.
Abraham was justified salvifically by his faith; but if he had never done anything to illustrate that faith how would we know he was any different from the demons? Abraham's claim to faith was justified by the fact he was willing to place his faith in God regarding Isaac. Faith is a faith that works. But works are not the basis of our salvation. They are the affect of our salvation.
As you your other answers, you should REREAD and then REREAD AGAIN the texts. They do not say what you claim.
The Titus passage has a good companion in Ephesians 2:8-10
Paul to Titus and to the Ephesians could not be more clear that SALVATION IS NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT OF WORKS!!!!!!! Do not ignore this Annalex. Paul is about to pick up a scroll and smack you across the face with it. IT IS NOT OF WORKS. You are trying to make him say "it isn't of works except these works...." He would spit at that suggestion (actually he had sharper words to those who would try to hoist a work [circumcision] upon the Galatians and said they should go the whole way and cut their manhood off!) S A L V A T I O N I S N O T O F W O R K S. However, we were saved to do good works. You are confusing the cause and the effect of salvation. The cause of salvation is GRACE, not works. THe effect of salvation is works. Ephesians 2:10 says such and the Titus passage reiterates -salvation is not of works, but you who love God, WORK!
Romans 3 through around Romans 13 is all about SALVATION
Romans 9 SPECIFICALLY IS ABOUT ELECTION. Esau and Isaac are given as examples but that is not what the chapter is about. Rather, it is an opening to chapters 10-11 which are all about our salvation and the salvation of Israel.
On our salvation Chapter 9 says
22What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? 25As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
In other words - ELECTION. I WOULD ENCOURAGE ANYONE TO READ THE WHOLE CHAPTER. IT IS NOT AS ANNALEX SAID.
As to the rest of your points, it has occurred to me that there is a big problem with even discussing this with you. You are trying to make a distinction from the works of the law and some other kind of salvific works. Scripture makes no such distinction. As Scripture says: Isaiah 64:6
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Your entire interpretation is based upon a distinction that one does not see in Scripture. Rather, the "Catholic kind of works" are pretty much found in the "Jewish kind of works, or law". You think repetitive rituals help get you saved? The Jews had them. You think that giving to the poor helps save you? Such was provided for in the law. You think that fasting on certain days will help save you? The Jews had fasts. You think that having a priest offer up prayers for your benefit clears you of sin? the Jews thought similarly.
The law was our schoolteacher. It was to teach us that works don't save and that we are unrighteous wretches apart from God. Roman Catholicism has missed that message and has added to the true Gospel a bunch of man-made superstition and ritual which they call the gospel.
Annalex, you are a frustrating person to talk to because you take rules outside of Scripture (i.e., there are two different kinds of works in the realm of salvation) and look at everything eisegetically from that construct. I can not argue with you from the text if you are not willing to see or acknowledge what the text actually says. If you threw out all of Galations you still have point blank statements that salvation is not of works. You try to distinguish those works. Paul didn't. If you won't believe him, you won't believe me. Our conversation is fruitless.