I have also often referred to Philippians 2: 12-13 and Colossians 1:24.
It is also important to understand that in our thought faith is not only a gift, but also a work. We do not make things EITHER graces OR works -- an idea which seems rarely even heard. We can see the works being gifts just as we can see the merits to be.
I was not expecting to read that we do not distinguish among salvation, justification, and sanctification. That does not make contact with what I teach or what I hear taught. I would glibly say that justification is done for one, and sanctification is done in one. But the doer is God.
You write:
In the RC analogy, an individual will and can never know when he has done enough to be certain of salvation for the simple reason that he can find no satisfying answer to this question from God’s word.
That does not make contact with what I believe and teach. An individual can always know, for my money, that he can never do enough to make himself certain of salvation. That certainty doesn't come and cannot come from doing. Jesus has done it all.
At the battling text, problem solving level, the verses I quoted seem to me that it isn't as simple as you make it out to be. It's not that you said anything importantly wrong. It's that once that is said, there is still more to say. There are good works for us to walk in, there is salvation we must work out in fear and trembling while and although God is the one working it out in us. There is SOME way that it is right to speak of something lacking in the all sufficient merit of Christ.
Mad Dawg wrote in connection with my contention that RC doctrine does not distinguish between justification and sanctification:
“That does not make contact with what I teach or what I hear taught. I would glibly say that justification is done for one, and sanctification is done in one. But the doer is God.”
This would make you a rather Gospel-oriented Roman Catholic, because you are distinguishing between the completed act of justification (and let us make it very clear that the root meaning of the Greek verb “dikaioo” is “to declare just/righteous”) and the on-going process that is sanctification. Justification, or the verb to justify, is a forensic term, and is commonly used that way even in English: “And he, seeking to justify himself ...”, that is, declare himself just or righteous. Yes, both are God’s doing, but justification is what initiates sanctification. For only faith, which is the gift of God not of works, justifies. And thereafter sanctification, which is also the work of God, but which involves the cooperation of the regenerate/reborn heart and thus faith, is begun. But at any and every stage of the way along the path of sanctification, or I-95 as you want to call it, justification is complete. And thus if the person should at any point die his salvation is assured. Only in this way can a person’s good works, that is, the fruit of his faith and the evidence of his sanctification, be truly good. For he does them not for himself, but rather selflessly for others purely out of gratitude to God for the gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation that justification has brought to him.
Mad Dawg also wrote in connection with my further contention that in RC theology the individual can never know when he has done enough to be saved:
“That does not make contact with what I believe and teach.”
Again, I am very glad to hear you say this, and that for two reasons: First, because you added later: “Jesus has done it all.” This again would make you an exceptionally Gospel-oriented Roman Catholic. Second, because it would seem from your language that you are one who holds some kind of official teaching position in the church. That would mean to me that people are hearing the Gospel from you on at least a fairly frequent basis. This is wonderful!
I would simply respond this way. When have we done enough? Never. But enough has been done in Christ that our salvation is certain. And I will spend my life serving my neighbor as my Lord would have me do. But at the end or at any point in between I will say, “I am an unprofitable servant,” Christ alone has secured my salvation. I simply believe what is true, and that only because God Himself gave me the faith to believe it.
Finally Mad Dawg concluded by saying:
“There is SOME way that it is right to speak of something lacking in the all sufficient merit of Christ.”
Here is where you lose me and lose Scriptural support. How can anything be lacking in the all sufficient merit of Christ? And why must anyone seek SOME way that is right to speak of something lacking? Why would you even want to do that? Better to say this, even if you do not understand how it can be: SOLI DEO GLORIA. God has said in His word that He has done all. So let it be. Amen and amen.