To conclude, St. James is led to speak thus concerning works of mercy in this passage, in order that he may console those whom the statements immediately foregoing might have greatly alarmed, his purpose being to admonish us how those daily sins from which our life is never free here below may also be expiated by daily remedies; lest any man, becoming guilty of all when he offends in even one point, be brought, by offending in many points (since “in many things we all offend”), to appear before the bar of the Supreme Judge under the enormous amount of guilt which has accumulated by degrees, and find at that tribunal no mercy, because he showed no mercy to others, instead of rather meriting the forgiveness of his own sins, and the enjoyment of the gifts promised in Scripture, by his extending forgiveness and bounty to others.
It sounds like Augustine missed the point of Christ being a one time sacrifice for all of our sins. Colossians 2:13-14 "When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."
Christ has removed the guilt and the stain of sin from our lives with His sacrifice on the cross.
ealgeone:
Just a question, is it possible, maybe slightly possible, that perhaps some of the views that you hold are not the orthodox position. I believe you hold them in all sincerity but the men you say got it wrong are the same great theologians that helped the Church, by God’s Grace, to understand more fully the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Person of Christ, and defend these doctrines against all the heretical movements in the early Church, the Gnostics, Montanist, Modalist, Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Pelagians, Donatist, Manicheans, etc, etc. It is also thru these men and the Councils of the 4th century Church that the canon of the NT that we now hold to be the 27 book NT came to be.
As for Christ once sacrifice, the doctrine of mortal and venial sin does not negate it or contradict it. Christ dying on the Cross is the means thru which all and every sin committed for the entire human history will be forgiven.