It's sad that your position has more in common with Mormons than the Bible. In fact, I've found two previous posts I did in conversing with Mormons that are applicable. Here's the first -- one I posted a year ago last week...[why is it that as Easter approaches, this seems to be more of a key Q?]:
March 14, 2009: I need to ask you: What is the basis of whether or how God will forgive your personal sins?
I think you "miss the boat" in misunderstanding two dimensions of judgment: One dimension is our sin nature, our individual acts of sin--including our sins of omission. The other dimension is our works.
You can't exchange the two. For our sin, Heavenly Father fully judged Jesus on the cross. When Jesus said "It is finished" on the cross, He used a phrase that in His day was a financial phrase meaning, "paid in full." Our debt -- our sin -- was paid in full. If we try to pay for our sin/atonement, Heavenly Father rejects it as being laced with unrighteousness (Is. 64:6).
But you are correct when you're talking about God judging the stewardship of our works. Note this passage:
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's WORK. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; HE HIMSELF WILL BE SAVED, but only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor. 3:10-15)
Do you see that last sentence? Even if our work is burned up, we can "suffer loss" in heaven -- yet, Paul assures us that "he himself WILL BE saved." (Paul goes on to describe that like somebody pulled out of a burning building at the last second...by Jesus Christ the Deliverer and Rescuer).
So, you're right in at least our works will get quite a "grilling" of judgment from God. But Paul makes it clear in this passage that even when our measured works burn up as nothing -- as God's fiery judgment takes a match to them like fuel, we ourselves "will still be saved." (1 Cor. 3:15)
So the righteousness of Jesus is our free pass into heaven. (1 Cor. 1:30). Entrust your life to Him (that is more than just mouthing a few words). But simultaneously, be prepared that once you get there based solely upon your faith in Christ, that He will take a fine-toothcomb to our works -- and judge them. And that it's possible to still become saved -- and still "suffer loss." (None of us should want to suffer such loss in heaven -- whatever that turns out to be)
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Now, to wrap up my comments above, Annalex, and apply them to what you said: Romans 2:6-10 & Matthew 25 indeed fit the above judgment of our works. But it's a distinct judgment our God will make of us.
What tends to happen, I believe, is that some Catholics & many Mormons think we Evangelicals are downplaying works. The answer is "no, we are not." God will hold us accountable for them -- or for their lack.
We recognize that "faith works." A true faith works; it's not an empty enterprise. What we do stress is that no amount of our works can counterbalance our sin.
So I need to ask you: Have you discarded the Protestant position on works because you think we leave it out? [When in fact, we've only recognized it -- per 1 Cor. 3:15 and Isaiah 64:6 ("all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" -- "rags" being the term for used menstrual cloths) and many other passages -- as coming under a separate judgment of God???]
So the Scripture teaches the Catholic position, that we are justified by faith and works and not by faith alone (James 2:17-26). [Annalex]
The problem for too many James 2 citers is that they skip over v. 10 (you, Annalex, cited vv. 17-26): For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. (James 2:10)
You see, God's standard is perfection for somebody to be able to come into His holy Presence. You could keep every part of the law, minus one, and still per James 2:10 be guilty of breaking all of it.
And if you think works is somehow going to offset or counterbalance sin, the answer to that is "nope." It won't. That's why we needed a perfect Substitute.
We cannot get around (nor should we try) Romans 5:19: For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Jesus Christ Himself is our holiness and our righteousness: It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Cor. 1:30)
Come out of the false works; receive Him who IS your righteousness; your holiness!
Isaiah 64:4-6 pertains to a particular historical situation, not to a general condition. The passage appeals to a time when Israelites once had a right relationship with God, when God helped them against their enemies because they waited on him, gladly did right, and remembered his ways.
When they sinned against him and did not repent and return to their former state, he abandoned them to the will of their enemies, so that even Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed. (Isaiah speaks of this prophetically, before it happened.)
It was during that period of continued sin, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., that they had "become like one who is unclean"--they hadn't always been like that.
Catholics do not perform good works in order to enter a state of justification. The Council of Trent stated that "nothing which precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification" (Decree on Justification 8).
In fact, it is impossible for an unjustified person to do supernaturally good works, since these are based on the virtue of charity (supernatural love), which an unjustified person does not have. Good works therefore flow from our reception of justification; they do not cause us to enter a state of justification. Good works increase the righteousness we are given at justification and please God, who promises to give us supernatural rewards on the last day, including the gift of eternal life (Rom 2:6-7, Gal 6:6-10).
Thank you. Amen!
What we do stress is that no amount of our works can counterbalance our sin.
Well, if that were the totality of Prtoestant teaching on faith and works, that wouldl have been unobjectionable. Generally, any time you wish to embrace the Catholic position you are welcome to do so. So far, however, the counterscriptural idea that we are saved by faith alone is taught by Protestant pastors. That is the heresy in question.
God's standard is perfection for somebody to be able to come into His holy Presence. You could keep every part of the law, minus one, and still per James 2:10 be guilty of breaking all of it.
Very true. What does it have to do with the counterscriptural heresy of faith alone?