Posted on 06/27/2010 3:10:25 AM PDT by GonzoII
Scenario:
You're discussing religion with an Evangelical friend. For 20 minutes you've responded as best you can to her pointed arguments against Catholic doctrines like Mary's perpetual virginity, praying to saints, venerating statues, and purgatory. She's unconvinced. You're frustrated. It doesn't look like there's much of a chance you'll agree on anything.
Then comes the jackpot question. "Look," she says earnestly, "we can disagree about many things, but what's most important is that we know we can be saved by Jesus Christ. Tell me, if you were to die tonight, do you know for sure if you'd go to heaven?"
This is the "all-important" question for Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants. Although your friend is completely sincere in asking this question (as she's been coached to do by her pastor and the anti-Catholic radio preacher she listens to in the afternoon), you realize that if you don't answer correctly, you'll walk into a sort of theological ambush.
If you respond that Christians can't, apart from a special revelation from God, have metaphysical or absolute certainty concerning their salvation, a completely biblical and theologically precise answer, your Evangelical friend will gleefully spring a "trap" on you, based on 1 John 5:13: "These things I write to you, that you may know you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God."
"See?" she smiles confidently. "The Bible disagrees with you!" She then proceeds to inform you that if you "confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:9-10).
(Excerpt) Read more at envoymagazine.com ...
A dead faith is one that is not producing fruit.
Salvation comes before fruit bearing and you can't lose it.
As for Lot, while he is manifest as a weak Christian who made worldly decisions, he is never shown being willfully rebellious toward the known will of toward God, and he did not knowingly commit incest, nor can one say he was greedy in choosing the best land, and as for once getting drunk, Noah himself did so.
Lot never manifested any fruit.
He was willfully rebellious against God and didn't want to leave Sodom.
Not 'knowingly' committing a sin doesn't mean it still isn't a sin.
And he didn't get drunk once, he got drunk at least twice-he committed incest TWICE.
But individual instances of failures do not manifest what manner of faith one overall has, nor do some worldly choices (where you choose to live, etc.) necessarily deny that one truly believes, and Lot clearly showed fruits of faith, especially that of sacrificial love for the brethren (which a primary fruit, and is typically unique among believers), over that of his own family, and put himself in danger as well in his desperate commitment to save the angels from the Sodomites. Rahab likewise was no virgin Mary, but she manifested love for the Lord’s people by faith at the risk of her life.
Lot never showed any fruits of anything and committed sins that anyone would clearly say only an unsaved man could commit.
He was willing to give up his daughters (not himself).
In contrast are those who not repentant, and who have a dead faith, which you make Christians out of.
No, he had a dead faith, which produced no fruit and resulted in him being in a cave, committing incest with his two daughters.
That is about the best example of a dead of faith as you can find.
To show faith to man, works in some form or other are needed: we are justified judicially by God ( Romans 8:33 ); meritoriously, by Christ ( Isaiah 53:11 ); mediately, by faith ( Romans 5:1 ); evidentially, by works. The question here is not as to the ground on which believers are justified, but about the demonstration of their faith: so in the case of Abraham. In Genesis 22:1 it is written, God did tempt Abraham, that is, put to the test of demonstration the reality of his faith, not for the satisfaction of God, who already knew it well, but to demonstrate it before men. The offering of Isaac at that time, quoted here, James 2:21 , formed no part of the ground of his justification, for he was justified previously on his simply believing in the promise of spiritual heirs, that is, believers, numerous as the stars. He was then justified: that justification was showed or manifested by his offering Isaac forty years after. That work of faith demonstrated, but did not contribute to his justification. The tree shows its life by its fruits, but it was alive before either fruits or even leaves appeared.
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/jamieson-fausset-brown/james/james-2.html
This issue is not whether man is justified by works or faith, as I have already established that salvation is by faith, not works, though it is a faith that will produce works, as JFB affirms, but your statement that Ja. 2:20 “isn’t saying that the person is unsaved” is still absurd, as that is he argument indeed against those who claim salvation by a faith that will not evidence itself. The good commentator you invoked, states, 20. "vain [man]- who deceivest thyself with a delusive hope," resting on an unreal faith. Your insistence that Lot - who did put his life in danger to save spiritual brethren, (Gn. 19:6-10) and was not cognizant of his incest, being drunk thru his bartending daughters, after losing wife, home and belongings - showed no signs of saving faith but will-full rebellion, also manifests blindness, and not righteous judgment.
If the understanding of classic commentators will make any difference, And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) (2 Peter 2:7-8)
Here observe,
1. The character given of Lot; he is called a just man; this he was as to the generally prevailing bent of his heart and through the main of his conversation. God does not account men just or unjust from one single act, but from their general course of life. And here is a just man in the midst of a most corrupt and profligate generation universally gone off from all good. He does not follow the multitude to do evil, but in a city of injustice he walks uprightly.
2. The impression the sins of others made upon this righteous man. Though the sinner takes pleasure in his wickedness, it is a grief and vexation to the soul of the righteous. In bad company we cannot escape either guilt or grief. Let the sins of others be a trouble to us, otherwise it will not be possible for us to keep ourselves pure.
3. Here is a particular mention of the duration and continuance of this good man's grief and vexation: it was from day to day. Being accustomed to hear and see their wickedness did not reconcile him to it, nor abate of the horror that was occasioned by it. - Matthew Henry (1662 - 1714)
1Pt. 2:8:
That righteous man dwelling among them - Lot, after his departure from Abraham, A. M. 2086, lived at Sodom till A. M. 2107, a space of about twenty years; and, as he had a righteous soul, he must have been tormented with the abominations of that people from day to day. The word εβασανιζεν, tormented, is not less emphatic than the word καταπονουμενον, grievously pained, in the preceding verse, and shows what this man must have felt in dwelling so long among a people so abandoned. - Adam Clarke, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832)
As long as he lived in Sodom he [distinctly] maintained the character of an upright and holy man. - Albert Barnes (1798-1870)
It was actually Jewish commentators, who hold to justification by works, which read things into the text to unduly malign the character of this man as no good. "The Jews are very injurious to this good man's character, and give a very different one of him from this of the apostle's; they call him a wicked man, a perfect wicked man, as wicked as the inhabitants of Sodom." (Tzeror Hammot, fol. 14. 4. & 16. 4. & 20. 2. Jarchi in Gen. xiii. 10. Zohar in Gen. fol. 57. 2. Jarchi in Gen. xiii. 13. Zohar in Gen. fol. 56. 1, 2. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 7. 3. & 14. 3. & 20. 2. Bereshit Rabba, sect. 44. fol. 39. 1) - Dr. John Gill (1690-1771)
As for recanting one's faith while yet claiming justification, i responded to that in post 102 and my responses, but this is not a subject for more of your superficial examinations.
The passage doesn't say it is an 'unreal' faith, it says it is a DEAD faith.
Which means it once was alive, but it died.
Regarding Lot, where was the EVIDENCE that was SEEN of that faith?
That is what James is talking about, not what Lot 'felt'.
Lot didn't change anything in his life to show that faith.
He couldn't even convince his own family to flee the city.
So Lot's faith was a DEAD faith, it produced no fruits that could be seen.
Lot was saved because Abraham prayed for him, or else he would have died in the city with the rest of the sinners.
He did?
Proof?
His daughters certainly picked up some bad habits.
I have no idea what you are talking about here.
And frankly, don't care.
Fruits SHOW faith.
If you don't have fruit you either may be 1. unsaved or 2. saved but apostate.
“The passage doesn’t say it is an ‘unreal’ faith, it says it is a DEAD faith.”
Semantics. A dead faith is not a real saving faith. Can such a faith him? The answer of James is clearly NO. (V. 14
“If you don’t have fruit you either may be 1. unsaved or 2. saved but apostate.”
A faith that will not bear fruit is not salvific, nor is one that denies the faith.
Jas 2:24
justified and, not by faith only — that is, by “faith without (separated from: severed from) works,” its proper fruits (see on Jam_2:20). Faith to justify must, from the first, include obedience in germ (to be developed subsequently), though the former alone is the ground of justification. The scion must be grafted on the stock that it may live; it must bring forth fruit to prove that it does live. - JFB
Rather than admit that you were wrong in asserting that James “isn’t saying that the person is unsaved” you have only made matters worse by trying to defend it.
As for Lot, you must read more into the text than what it says to magnify his faults, while ignoring any virtue. The man was weak, and thus did things such as praying for the permissive will of God, (Gn. 19:17-22) and his skeptical family was partly his fault, though he was married and had married off daughters, and preserved the remaining one as virgins - no small accomplishment among a people “giving themselves over to fornication.” (Jude 1:7)
But “charity shall cover the multitude of sins, “(1Pt. 4:8) and “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”, (John 15:13) and Lot constrained the visitors to receive his hospitality, and then did in-deed put his life in danger to save the brethren, while valuing their lives over that of his two of his daughters as well, in his desperation to protect them. (Gn. 19:1-10). (Gn. 19:1-10) And i dare say that even his offer of hospitality and insistence that they accept it is more than most American Christians will do, while what measure ye mete [including judging Lot], it shall be measured to you again”. (Mt. 7:2)
“I have no idea what you are talking about here. And frankly, don’t care.”
This has been a problem continually, despite my patiently instructing you, which must have an end.
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