***“When I am posting to the literalists and mention the verses about cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes if they cause people to sin, the backpedalling resembles that in the old Merrie Melodies Warner Brothers cartoons.”
FWIW - I believe what Jesus said. However, the point He was making was that the Law is spiritual, and no one keeps it fully. ***
That’s quite a stretch.
***To achieve salvation by obedience, you WOULD need to cut off your hands, pluck out your eyes (better do that while you still have a hand!), etc. Therefor, to be saved by the Law is impossible - you would have to cut our your human nature.***
There are various sorts of Bible believers. Some are literalists (and they like to wave it around like a flag until faced with verses such as this) and we both know that Scripture is largely metaphoric.
Some are part literal and part metaphorical. That requires an authority to determine which is which and then to determine what the metaphorical verses mean. Scripture says that Christ left His Church to be that authority. Throughout Church history, there have been individual men who have taken that authority upon themselves. Most of them up until the Reformation were Church officials, almost all of them ordained. The result of the Reformation was that heretical interpretations became not only the purview of lost hierarchs, but also the laity. In the course of personal interpretation, many of the interpreters became not only heretical, but apostate - that is not Christian.
I will not address those who consider Scripture to be entirely metaphoric.
***But that is what Christ does - why we must be born again - we must die with Christ, and be raised to a new life with Him.***
We must accept His Grace in the hope of eternal salvation, but not for the reasons that you state. Salvation by obedience is not and never has been taught by the Church. It is a heresy condemned for 1500 years.
“That requires an authority to determine which is which and then to determine what the metaphorical verses mean. Scripture says that Christ left His Church to be that authority.”
Jesus: “13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
And based on the examples of Scripture, He’ll do it BY teaching us Scripture. I don’t deny the role of teachers in the Church, but we should listen to the Author first. There is no indication in Scripture that anyone besides the Holy Spirit is infallible...