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To: MarkBsnr
Sometimes the only useful reply to a post is "Seek help immediately."

But it's the internet, actual intervention is not possible and engaging someone in this condition just feeds the problem. I pray that posts of this nature are not made by someone in complete isolation, at least not yet, and they will listen to someone nearby when they, too, advise: "Seek help."

Until then, not engaging, ignoring, definitely not commending these kinds of posts, is IMHO, the best that can be done here.

2,625 posted on 12/04/2011 5:14:51 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: D-fendr

Dr. William Marshner has an excellent commentary on the Protestant “reformers” approach to justification.

This second contrast reappears in Romans 10:3, “(The Jews) not knowing the justice of God and seeking to establish their own justice, did not submit to God’s justice.”

We learn the result of this Jewish conduct in Romans 9:30-32, “What shall we say then? The gentiles, who were not pursuing justice, laid hold of justice, but the justice which is from faith. Israel, however, pursuing the law of justice, did not attain the law” (i.e. did not accomplish or fulfill it). The exact interpretation of this text has been debated,(7) but for our purposes it suffices to see that Paul was speaking of a justice pursued by way of works and that such justice was the great ambition of the Jews in connection with the Law of Moses.

The point that Mosaic legal justice was a matter of works reappears in Romans 10:5 (”Moses wrote of the justice which is from the law that the man who keeps it shall live by it,” quoting from Leviticus 18:5) in contrast with the justice from faith. The same is said in Galatians 3:12 (”But the law is not from faith; rather the one who does those things will live in them”) and in Romans 2:13 (”It is not the hearers of the Law who have been justified before God but the doers of the Law will be justified,” i.e. will be declared just at the last judgment), and this is expounded at length in Romans 2: 23-27: “You who glory in the Law, you dishonor God by transgression of the Law....To be sure, circumcision is profitable if you observe the Law; but if you transgress the Law, you are returned to a state of uncircumcision. So, if the uncircumcised man keeps the just precepts of the Law, shouldn’t he be regarded as circumcised? In fact, the man who remains in his natural state of uncircumcision and who has accomplished the Law will judge you, who with letter and circumcision have broken the Law.”

So, over against the justice of God, which is the justice of faith, there is a self-justice which is of the Law and which is a justice of works. This latter would give men a basis for boasting (Romans 4:2, Ephesians 2:8-9), since works give one a strict right to be considered just: “To the man who has works, his salary is not counted as a favor but as something due,” (Romans 4:4).

Now, as a matter of practical fact, does anyone really have this self-justice of Law and works? Over and over again Paul answers in the negative: “for from the works of the Law no flesh is justified before Him” (Romans 3:20); “Israel, pursuing a law of justice, did not attain to the Law; why? because Israel did not seek to attain it through faith but through works” (Romans 9:31-32); “For all who proceed by the works of the Law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be anyone who does not persevere in practicing all that is written in the Book of the Law’”(Galatians 3:10, quoting Deuteronomy 27: 26 and the context indicates that the curse has indeed gone into effect).
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSBYFAI.htm


2,673 posted on 12/04/2011 6:30:23 PM PST by rzman21
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To: D-fendr
Sometimes the only useful reply to a post is "Seek help immediately."

You know, I get the feeling that that is exactly what their posts are crying out for.

2,678 posted on 12/04/2011 6:36:48 PM PST by MarkBsnr (I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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