JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

Dr. William Marshner The Catholic Church holds that faith in Jesus Christ is not saving faith unless it bears fruit in good works. Vice-versa, the Church holds that such works are so intimately joined to faith, that, without them, it is impossible for the believer to grow or persevere in his faith.(1) In this way, good works are necessary for salvation. Most Protestants are uncomfortable with such a statement. Without denying the importance of good works, Protestants tend to see them as symptoms of the one thing necessary rather than as necessities in their own right. For Luther, good works were merely symptoms of confident faith; for Calvin, they were symptoms of irresistible grace. Few Protestants today are familiar with the details of Luther's or Calvin's personal thought; what they have inherited from these great forebearers is rather a general orientation, whose core is the conviction that according to St. Paul, we are justified (by faith alone) or (by grace alone), either formula being understood to exclude any essential role of good works.

Now, in order to see how this general orientation may clash with Catholicism, it is necessary to introduce two further points.

First, Catholic and Protestant views on the respective roles of grace, faith and works cannot be compared meaningfully, unless one specifies what stage of the justificational process one is talking about. In the preparatory stage, for instance, in which prevenient graces first stir a person towards an interest in religious truth, towards repentance, and towards faith, Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists are at one in saying "."(2) A second stage is the very transition from death to life, which is the first stage of justification proper. Here the parties are at one in saying "sola fide," though they seem to mean different things by it. Protestants tend to mean that, at this stage, by the grace of God, man's act of faith is the sole act required of him; Catholics mean that faith is the beginning, foundation and root of all justification, since only faith makes possible the acts of hope and charity (i.e. love-for-God) which are also required.(3) However, since most Protestants have a broad notion of the act of faith, whereby it includes elements of hope and love, it is often hard to tell how far the difference on this point is real and how far it is a matter of words. Finally, however, there comes a third stage, that of actual Christian life, with its problems of growth and perseverance. The man justified by faith is called to "walk" with God, to progress in holiness. It is at this stage that the parties sharply diverge. Catholics affirm, and Protestants strenuously deny, that the born-again Christian's good works merit for him the increase of grace and of the Christian virtues. As a result, Protestant piety has no obvious place for the self-sacrifices, fasts, and states of perfection which are prominent features of Catholic piety.

Now this divergence over works in the third stage is partially due to a Protestant allergy to the word 'merit', but only partially. The real reasons are much deeper, which brings me to my second point.

At each stage, neither the apparent agreements nor the apparent disagreements can be understood without looking at certain metaphysical quarrels, the chief of which is over the very existence of what Catholics call "grace."

In the natural order, a doctor ministers to a moribund patient and restores him to life; he does so by really changing the condition of the patient's body; he restores to it a quality called health. Can something analogous happen in the supernatural order? If so, what Catholics call "grace" exists. It is the quality thanks to which the soul is made alive and enabled to function as God intended it to function, just as health is such a quality to the body.

Of course, as is the case with all analogies, there are points at which this one breaks down. The human doctor is a finite physician; he can heal the sick but not the dead; God, on the other hand, restores spiritual health to those dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:5), so that God's act is not so much a cure of the sick as it is a down-payment on the Resurrection (Ephesians 2:6). So the analogy limps. It fails to reflect the fact that grace is not only like health but also like brand-new life. Still, between life and health there is a deep connection, so that this limp is not fatal to the analogy. However, there is another problem with it.

Thanks to his instruments, chemical and surgical, the doctor is the principal cause of the patient's restored health; but it would seem odd to say that the man's health is wholly the doctor's gift, even if the doctor collected no fee. After all, it is the patient's own natural powers, his own natural capacity for health, which allows the doctor's work to be successful. So there is a cooperation here between the doctor's art and the patient's nature, thanks to which the restored health is not wholly the doctor's gift but partially also the patient's own achievement. Such things cannot be said of the initial, justifying grace. As Catholics understand it, this grace is a quality for which man has no natural capacity, to which he has no natural right, and towards which he has no natural inclination. It is a pure surprise, a pure gift, an elevation of our nature rather than a part of it; and this was true even before the Fall.(4) Now, to be sure, Catholics believe that once we have been elevated to grace, we become capable of cooperating with God's further graces, since He has now given us the capacity and the inclination for such things. But this does not cancel the original picture; it only means that our very capacity to cooperate is a gift to us, something not natively ours; as a result, every God-pleasing act of ours remains so rooted in God's initial gift that it is simply an actuation of that gift. So the analogy between health and grace limps in this second way: it fails to reflect the fact that grace is so totally a gift that it exceeds our natural capacities and hence never becomes simply "our property," even after it has been given.

Thanks to these difficulties, what Catholics call "sanctifying grace" or "habitual grace" turns out to be a deeply mysterious entity: a quality of man which is a property of God. In order to cope with such an entity, one needs a sophisticated metaphysics of participation. The Church Fathers and their successors, the Scholastic Doctors, took the trouble to work out such a metaphysics because the existence of grace as a real entity in man—ontic grace—was and is the foundation, without which the whole Catholic understanding of justification makes no sense.

The Protestant Reformers, however, impatient with metaphysics, preferred not to cope with such an entity and denied its existence.(5) To them it seemed simpler to say that grace is something wholly in God, namely, His favor towards us. But then, if grace is not something real in man, our "justification" can no longer be conceived as a real change in us; it will have to become a sheer declaration on God's part, e.g. a declaration that, thanks to the work of Christ, He will henceforth consider us as just, even though we remain inwardly the sinners we always were. Hence, the Protestant doctrine of "forensic" or "extrinsic" justification. Now watch what happens to our own act of faith: it ceases to be the foundational act of an interior renewal and becomes a mere requirement, devoid of any salvific power in its own right, which God arbitrarily sets as the condition on which He will declare us just. Whereupon, watch what happens to our good works: they cease to be the vital acts wherein an ontologically real "new life" consists and manifests itself; they become mere human responses to divine mercy—nice, but totally irrelevant to our justification—or else they become zombie-like motions produced in us by irresistible divine impulses, whereby God exhibits His glory in His elect.

Now, again, few Protestants have thought these matters through. Most do not realize that the theology they have inherited derives historically from nominalistic assumptions, which led Luther and Calvin to deny the existence of sanctifying grace. Rather, they feel that they are simply reading St. Paul. "By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8f). They feel that an extrinsic, purely declaratory justification is the obvious meaning of such passages. Catholic apologetics, therefore, must show the opposite. It is no use arguing metaphysics until we break down that lively conviction by which the Protestant feels that St. Paul is his home turf. We must show that St. Paul's real position is far closer to that of Trent than to that of Luther.

Here, then is apologetics at work in a different way—the way of exact and objective exegesis.(6)

The place to begin is with the fact that St. Paul expounds and contrasts two economies of justification or two orders of righteousness. Thus, Philippians 3:9 says: "(I counted all things loss) that I might be found in Him, not having my own justice, which is from the Law, but the justice which is from the faith of Jesus Christ, the justice that comes from God through faith." Here the main contrast is between justice from the Law and justice , whereupon a second contrast emerges between justice and justice God.

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).

How does St. Paul back up this startling thesis? How does he explain the failure of anyone to be justified before God by the works of the Law? Here are the steps of his answer.

1. "For through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). The law makes sin better known. What else?

2. "The law works (God's) wrath. For where there is no law, there is no transgression" (Romans 4:15), meaning, of course, no transgression of positive law.

3. Such transgression is deadly. "For while we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were through the law, worked in our members so as to bring forth death" (Romans 7:5). The passions or causes of sins were stirred up by the law. "While we were in the flesh" describes the situation of Christians before their baptism. So the law is clearly being given some part of the responsibility for the existence or activity of the passions which lead to various sins. What is this responsibility?

4. The answer is given in Romans 7:7-25, a text which falls into two parts, verses 7-12 and 13-25. Here is the first part. "What shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it! But I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known covetousness, if the law had not said, 'Thou shalt not covet.' But sin, taking occasion of the commandment, produced in me all covetousness; for without law sin is dead. So long as there is no law, I was alive; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died, and the commandment which was for the sake of life turned out to be for death. For sin, taking occasion of the commandment, seduced me and, through it, killed me. So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just and good."

There is a human story here, but whose story is it? St. Paul's "me" is certainly not meant to refer exclusively to himself. Some interpreters have thought he meant the young Jew in general and then, perhaps, by analogy, any young person. For just as the young Jew gains awareness of sin through learning the revealed Law, so also the young Gentile learns sin through the emergence of his conscience at the age of reason. On this interpretation, the time when I was alive without the law was the time of my non-responsible childhood. Thus Origen and St. Jerome.(8) Other interpreters have thought that Paul's "me" is the subject of human history. Man knew sin before Moses but not with the same killing exactitude. It is one thing to have nature or conscience as one's accuser and quite another to have God Himself. Hence the time when I was alive without the Law was the time before Moses. Thus Chrysostom(9) and Aquinas(10). Still others have thought that Paul was speaking of universal human experience as prototyped in Adam. Our first parent "lived" until God gave him a commandment, of which sin was able to take advantage. Thus Theodore of Mopsuestia.(11)

It may be the case that St. Paul had something of each of these possibilities in mind. Only Adam and Eve were fully innocent before they learned God's positive law. But each of us is somewhat like Adam in this: whenever we become fully aware of a divine commandment, the experience marks a crucial transition both (a) from whatever vague sense of unease we may have felt beforehand to the conscious guilt we must feel afterward, and (b) from the lesser malice of just "doing as we please" to the infinitely greater malice of pleasing ourselves in defiance of God. And this experience of transition which each of us has (perhaps in one way upon reaching the age of reason, and in other ways later in life) in turn parallels the collective experience of our race in history, as the "age of ignorance" yielded to the epoch of Sinai.

In any case, we are now ready for the second part of this text (Romans 7:13-25), which clearly depicts the state of life under the Law of Moses. "Did what is good then become death for me? Far from it! But sin, in order to appear as sin, gave me death by means of a good thing, so that sin might be held the more guilty through the fact of the commandment. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am corporeal [Paul's word here is not his usual which means dominated by the flesh, but which means made of the flesh.], sold into the service of sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I should like to do, I do not do; but what I hate, I do. So if I do what I don't want to, I recognize that the law is good. But then it is no longer I who do it but the sin which dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. In effect, the desire for good is within my power but not the practice of it....For in my inner self I take pleasure in the Law of God, but I perceive another law in my members, which struggles against the law of my reason, and which enslaves me to the law of sin which is in my members....Thus it is one and the same me who serve the Law of God through my reason but the law of sin through my flesh."

Here the "me" is no longer considered in its state of relative innocence. Sin has emerged, and an inner conflict is unfolding under the most unfavorable conditions. Sin is no longer an agent external to man, as in the case of innocent Adam, nor an interior but latent principle, as in the case of a small child. Sin has become a "law" of the flesh.(12) Given this new power of sin, there emerges a new "me," whom Paul says has fallen into the power of sin.

Nearly every ancient commentator, plus a virtual unanimity of modern exegetes, Catholic and Protestant alike, has understood this new "me" to be the Jew existing under the Mosaic Law. What makes this exegesis inevitable is the fact that Paul, in the verses which follow immediately, makes this sorry state of inner defeat, this impotency of one's better self, a foil for the totally different experience now available in Christ. Through Him we are able to behave "not as our corporeal nature dictates but as the spirit dictates" (Romans 8:4).

Such was also St. Augustine's exegesis, until, at the end of his life and in further reaction to Pelagianism, he changed his mind and extended the "me" of Romans 7 to the Christian.(13) (St. Augustine's example on this point was followed by St. Gregory the Great, Peter Lombard, and Thomas Aquinas.) Needless to say, Luther, Melanchthon, and the Calvinists were delighted to adopt such an idea. To this day, the sad doctrine that our justification must be something merely declaratory has one of its most powerful roots in this fateful mistake: what St. Paul considered the paradigm experience of the Jew under the Law is confused with the paradigm experience of the Christian under the power of grave! And it is interesting to note that the revivalist wing of Protestantism tends to escape this mistake. Encountering Christ in deep experiences of conversion, they taste the power of His victory over sin in their own lives; having tasted it, they have not a doubt in the world that they have been changed inwardly, that God has given them new hearts, and that the nightmare experience of Romans 7 is over for them. Of course, the Christian can fall back into that nightmare. This is the grain of truth in St. Augustine's later exegesis. The Christian can cease to live in the power of Christ; he can neglect prayer, grow cold, and find himself thrown back on his own resources; when he does so, inevitably, he will repeat within himself the experience of the Jew under the Law. For St. Paul's essential point is valid under either covenant: the moral information of the commandment, no matter how sublime, is powerless of itself to secure our practice of the good. Being nothing of itself but an external norm and not an active force, the Law boxes the unconverted or half-converted human heart into an unbearable situation, from which there is no escape but a new and totally different kind of law: "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:2). To this latter St. Augustine also gave full weight elsewhere in his theology, and in that regard the Reformers did not follow him.

In summary, then, what was wrong with the Jewish project to achieve righteousness from the Law is this: the project prescinded from God's grace. Taken in abstraction from grace, the Law was powerless; destined to be disobeyed at least inwardly,(14) the Law served to provoke and deepen sin.

Though it may seem odd to summarize our discussion in that way, introducing suddenly the mention of grace, there is a reason for doing so. Romans 7, with its abstract dialectic of Law and sin, better self and concupiscence, has to be understood consistently with what St. Paul has already said in Romans 2. There he seems to treat the keeping of the commandments as a real possibility: "for when the gentiles, who do not have the Law, naturally do the things of the Law..."(Romans 2:14). In fact, he says, "God will render to each man according to his works: eternal life to those who, dedicating themselves with perseverance to good works, seek glory, honor and immortality...glory honor and peace to all who do good, to the Jew first and to the Greek" (Romans 2:7) and this in a context in which the revelation of Christ is not even under discussion yet.

These words certainly show that St. Paul did not regard good works as impossible, misguided, or pernicious, as some Protestant exegetes have tried to hold. Quite the contrary. But if St. Paul seems to admit justifying works in Romans 2 and to exclude them in Romans 7, the most plausible explanation is that he is speaking of the total human condition in chapter 2, where grace is at work among Jew and gentile alike, whereas in chapter 7 he is showing what happens when the Law is isolated from grace. Such isolation is exactly what is sought, when man seeks his own righteousness on the basis of law.

Moreover, what we have been saying squares with St. Paul's remarks on the function of the Law in God's overall plan of salvation. "The Law intervened so that sin might abound" (Romans 5:20), that is, so that men might become more convinced of their sins and learn humility from their moral failures. For such humility would dispose them toward the ultimate end of the Law: "for the end of the Law is Christ" (Romans 10:4). As Paul explains: "Before faith came, we were placed under the guardianship of the Law, sealed up in expectation of the faith which was to be revealed. Thus the Law was our teacher until Christ" (Galatians 3:23f).

St. Paul's conviction that God intended the Law to be provisional has its roots in the earliest preaching of the Church. Stunned by the death and resurrection of Jesus, whom they had thought to be the Messiah, the first disciples were compelled to search the Scriptures for a clue to the meaning of these shattering events. By combining Psalm 18 (alluded to in Acts 2:23) with Psalms 16 and 110, Peter and the others were able to see that death and resurrection had been part of the script, so to speak, for the Messiah. God had all along intended that His Christ should suffer (Acts 2:23; 3:18) and that he should not receive his sovereignty on earth but in Heaven, after a resurrection (compare Acts 2:25-35 with the vision of the Son of Man in heaven in Daniel 7). These points had to be preached, because otherwise the Jews could not be persuaded that the facts about Jesus, however true, "filled the bill" of messianic prophecy. But merely to preach these points of correspondence was not enough. The question remained, why? Why should the Messiah have to go through all that! It made no sense, given Judaism's picture of what was wrong with the world. According to that picture, what was wrong was Israel's failure to enjoy the exaltation among the nations which was her due as God's people. What needed fixing was the geo-political situation. For once the Messiah had made Zion the visible center of divine and human power, the nations would flow up to her, forsaking their idols, and the blessing of the knowledge of the Law would flow out to all people. But if the Messiah was supposed to suffer and die, mankind's religious problem had to be quite different from what the Jewish picture contemplated. What was needed was a clue to a whole new picture. This clue was found in the Servant Songs of Isaiah (especially Isaiah 52:13 -53:12), where the suffering and death of the Servant are presented as a vicarious atonement for sin. "By his suffering shall my servant justify many, taking their faults upon himself" (Isaiah 53:11). If the servant and the Messiah were one and the same figure, that would explain everything, including certain dark sayings of Jesus (Mark 10:45; 14:24). But it would also explode the Jewish world-view. If the Messiah's central mission was to deal with sin, then the problem to which the Messiah was the answer went back beyond the Davidic Monarchy and even beyond Moses; it went clear back to Adam. And if mankind's central religious problem was not ignorance of the Law but bondage to sin, then faith in the Redeemer-from-sin would have to be the guiding thread of God's plan for man, from the beginning. Was it not written: "The just man shall live by faith" (Habakuk 2:4)?

This is the thought that led Paul to Abraham, the man whose faith was reckoned to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:1-11; Galatians 3:15ff). At the very origin of Israel, Paul found in Abraham's faith the thread resumed in Christ; whereupon the entire Mosaic sub-plot could be read as a parenthesis ordained to Christ.

The Jewish project to seek one's own justice from the Law, then, was not only psychologically impossible (Romans 7) but also contrary to the plan of the ages, in which the Law had no function but this: in leading us to Christ, to render itself obsolete. Now we can understand why Paul cried out in frustration at the obtuse Galatians: "If the Law can justify us, there is no point in the death of Christ" (Galatians 2:21).

And the time has come to examine that other kind of justice mentioned by Paul: the justice which comes from God through faith.

"For in it (the Gospel) the justice of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The just shall live from faith"' (Romans 1:17). What is this justice "of God" (dikaiosune theou)? If the genitive is one of attribution, then what has been revealed is God's own attribute rather than something He gives to men. Thus Origen(15) and Pseudo-Ambrose.(16) But if the genitive is one of source, then what is revealed is a justice conferred on men by God. Thus Chrysostom,(17) Augustine,(18) and most modern exegetes.(19) What lends weight to the second interpretation is the fact that God's own justice gets revealed precisely in His conferring justice on men, as Paul himself suggests: "so that He Himself might be just and render just the man who has faith in Jesus Christ" (Romans 3:26). By contrast, Luther's notion that "the justice of God" here refers to His vindictive action against sinners is totally unsupported either by the Fathers or by the modern scholars.

The thought of Romans 1:17 is picked up again in Romans 3:21-22: "Now the justice of God, to which the Law and the prophets bear witness, has been manifested apart from the Law, the very justice which, through faith in Jesus Christ, comes to all those who believe, without distinction." Here there is no doubt that God's justice is something which comes to men, is communicated to men.

In this light, look again at a text we saw before: "(The Jews) not knowing the justice of God and seeking to establish their own justice, did not submit to God's justice" (Romans 10:3) We can now see that the contrast is not between God's attribute and man's achievement, but rather between something God communicates to man and something man tries to achieve on his own. Both pertain to man, and so, they are rivals, Now, we can begin to understand this "non-submission." It was not the attitude of the true heroes of the Old Testament. Besides the example of Abraham, we have a whole catalogue of Jews who lived "by faith" in Hebrews 11, a document which, if not by Paul himself, was certainly written by someone intimately concurrent with his thought. "There is not time for me to give an account of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, or of David, Samuel and the prophets. These men who through faith conquered kingdoms, did what is right and earned the promises." (Hebrews 11:32f) Now the key to these men, by virtue of which they are said to have lived "by faith", is not that they did not do any works of the Law! Obviously. Rather, the key is that they lived in total dependence upon God's promises, in total openness to what God would yet reveal. That is why there is no contradiction between their attitude and the surprising turn which revelation took in Jesus Christ. But the other and later Jews had so reduced faith to the keeping of the Law, that the Law could not be provisional; as a result, their whole attitude toward God was not one of expectant faith but one of satisfied accomplishment. So, when the justice that God had all along intended to confer upon man was revealed in Jesus the Servant-Messiah, they did not submit to it. Not so obtuse as Luther, they could see that this "justice of God" was meant for them and so was a rival to the justice they already thought they had. And not so obtuse as the Galatians, they could see that if the Messiah's death had a point to it, then the Law could not justify them.

Now, if what Paul means by is not something to remain in God but something meant to be conferred on us, then we must reckon with that mysterious possibility: a quality of man which is the property of God! Does St. Paul say anything to indicate a knowledge of this possibility? Indeed he does: "God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we in him might become justice of God" (II Cor. 5:21). This verse is the pattern on which Athanasius would learn to say, "God became man, so that man might become divine." It is not a question of replacement but of participation, and the participation is real in both directions. First in Jesus: just as really as the Word took our humanity, just that really his humanity became God. And then in us: just as really as Christ-God took our sins (so really that even the Father forsook Him—Mark 15:34), just that really we receive God's justice. For if we dare to believe that in the Incarnation our nature, without ceasing to be a human nature, received God's subsistence, then we may easily believe that we, in Christ, receive God's justice as our quality. In fact, St. Paul even has a name for this quality. In the very next verse (II Cor. 6:1) he says: "As God's co-workers, we beg you once again not to have received God's grace in vain." What we should not "receive in vain" is exactly what Paul has just said we have "become" in Christ. God's justice is His grace, a gift to men. That is why the justice of God is identically "the justice which God through faith" (Philippians 3:9).

What emerges from these texts, then, is the existence in man of a justice conferred by God. But this justice is tied into faith, whether before Christ's coming, as in the case of Abraham, or afterwards, as in our case. What we must explore next is the nature of this tie-in between justice and faith.

St. Paul's most important text on faith is Romans 10:13-17: "Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call upon one in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how shall they hear if no one preaches? And how shall anyone preach unless he has been sent...But not everyone has obeyed () the Gospel. As Isaiah said, 'Lord, who has believed our report?' So faith depends upon preaching and preaching upon the word of Christ" We have here an order of necessary conditions, which inverts to yield the following order of precedence: (1) The word or teaching of Christ, i.e. the Gospel; (2) the mission to preach given to the Apostles; (3) their preaching; (4) our hearing, and finally (5) an act which may be described equally well as () and as obedience ().(20)

The point that faith is based on hearing is made also in Galatians 3:2 and 5: "Did you receive the spirit on the basis of the works of the Law or on the basis of the hearing of faith?" And the point that faith is receiving the words of the Apostles in a spirit of obedience to God is found again in I Thessalonians 2:13 "We thank God for the fact that, as soon as you received through us the word of God which you heard from our mouth, you heard it as God's word." This is why Paul twice speaks of "the obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5 and 16:26, the genitive being appositional) and also why II Cor. 10:5 says that every thought (or every intellect) is to be brought into a captivity which is "obedience of Christ."

These texts indicate that what St. Paul called "faith" certainly included the scholastic sense of the term (assent or submission of the intellect to the truths taught by Christ to His Apostles, and by them to us, on the authority of God) but also included more. The reader should remember that the scholastic definition of 'faith' was designed to do a technical job, namely, to designate the common content of 'living faith' () and 'dead faith' (). It does this job very well; the common content is intellectual assent to the revealed message. But St. Paul's term 'faith' was used by him to designate man's rightful response to Christ's message. Now, where this message consists of truths of fact (e.g. "Before Abraham was, I am"; "I and the Father are one," etc.) intellectual assent is all there is to the rightful response; but where the message contains imperatives ("Repent and be baptized"), consolations ("Fear not, I have overcome the world"), promises ("But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice"), examples ("When you pray, pray like this: Our Father...") etc., there the rightful response is to do as one is commanded, take the consolation, trust the promise, heed the example and so forth. Indeed, to believe in a command intellectually and then not do it, to accept a consolation intellectually and then not feel it, to acknowledge a promise and then not trust it—these are even unnatural responses. "Dead faith" is an ugly thing—not just "unformed" but deformed by sin and shot-through with the self-contradiction which lies at the heart of every sin.

So, a rightful response to Christ's total message must not only include faith in the narrow sense but must be what St. Paul calls "obedience of faith," which is just what Catholic theology calls the acts of faith, hope and love.(21)

We are now in a position to see the tie-in between faith and justice. Observe first of all how St. Paul expresses the connection in prepositions. He speaks of God's "justice which is () faith" (Romans 9:30; 10:6); he says we are "justified faith" (Gal. 2:16; 3:24). So justice is distinct from faith; it proceeds from it. Justice has its source and point of departure in faith. However, lest we should get the idea that justice is a direct "output" of faith, or a natural derivative, it is vital to see that a divine action intervenes between faith and justice: "God justifies the Gentiles from faith" (Gal. 3:8,30; cf. Romans 3:24). This divine action is highlighted by Paul's other favorite preposition, the instrumental , through. "God's justice is through faith" (Romans 3:22; Phil. 3:9) "he justifies the gentiles through faith" (Romans 3:30). So man gets justified, but God does the justifying, and He does it by means of faith, using faith as an instrument. Elsewhere we have it (Phil. 3:10) that "the justice from God is on the basis of faith ()" and (Hebrews 11:7) "according to faith ()

These prepositions instruct us on how to take Paul's meaning when he dispenses with prepositions in favor of a simple instrumental dative: "For we think that man is justified by faith" (Romans 3:28); "through Him (Christ) we have access by faith" (Romans 5:1). The meaning is the same as before. Faith remains God's instrument in justifying, and not (as Luther supposed) man's instrument in getting justified.

But how does God use this instrument? We have an indication from Romans 4:3f. "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him () for justice." In the Hebrew of Genesis 15:6, the verb is active: "God counted it as justice." So the mystery is being described as an accounting procedure. God credits to Abraham's account as having the value of Now the question is what kind of accounting this is. Luther supposed that God took a thing of no real value (our faith) and made it stand for something of value. God doctored the Book of Life! Such an idea has no foundation in the text. The key verb here () is used throughout the Septuagint (Psalm 106:31; Isa. 40:17), and even in Koine Greek, and in the New Testament (Acts 19:17), and even in St. Paul's epistle to the Romans (2:26; 9:8), to mean an honest reckoning, based on a real equivalence of value between the two things. Nowhere does the crediting presuppose a disproportion between the thing furnished (e.g. faith) and the value put on it (e.g. justice). No, indeed; what Abraham's faith is said to count for in Gen. 15:6 is the very thing which the keeping of the Law is said to count for in Deuteronomy 6:25 and 24:13. Living faith is worth righteousness. Yes, but not in the way that works are worth it. Hear how Paul continues the passage which he started about Abraham (Romans 4:4f): "To the one who works, his wages are not credited to him according to grace but according to what is owed. But to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him for righteousness. " So, if faith is really worth righteousness, it is not worth it in the way that works are. The latter have their value in the order of strict justice, whereas faith has its value in the order of grace ().

Does it follow, then, that the order of grace is arbitrary, unreal, an order in which the worthless is accorded fictitious worth? Not at all! We have seen what living faith really is. It is that rightful response to the Gospel, whereby man assents to the truths, heeds the commands, feels the consolations, trusts the promises—in short, it is that total attitude toward God which (as from a source) or through which (as by a means) God can draw forth every good work with the further help of His actual graces. Between such faith as a basis and the "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" as an apex, there is a real continuity and proportion. is why God can use faith to justify us, and why He can, without dishonesty, credit that faith to our account as the root and foundation of all justice.

For as St. Paul himself says, in a verse which ought to have stopped the mouth of Luther forever, "We are God's handiwork, having been created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Our new creaturehood in Christ Jesus is our reception, through grace, of the "obedience of faith." Through that faith, as through an instrument, God has refashioned us, making us now prompt to obey. Our new estate is thus ordered to good works as to its intrinsic and God-intended finality. With what joy, therefore, do we walk in them, we who believe! And woe to us if we do not walk in them, for then we betray our faith and frustrate God's handiwork.

So we have, and are intended to have, works. Does it follow that we may boast? Not at all! For our works, unlike the works attempted by the Jew under the Law, are not us but God. Rooted in God's gift, brought forth by living faith, God's instrument in us, these works are grace-works. They are our justice faith, and therefore they are justice in the order of grace (), not in the order of self-achievement where boasting arises.

Living faith: our quality but God's instrument; good works: out deeds but God's handiwork; our deeds as men living in Christ, not the motions of "graced" zombies still dead in sin—these are the possibilities overlooked by Luther and Calvin but preached by Paul and defined by Trent.

1 Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, especially canon 24; Denzinger-Schoenmetzer # 1574. The Church considers herself bound to this position by James 2:14-26.

2 The teaching of the Second Council of Orange is given in Denzinger ## 374ff. and that of Trent in #1553. To say that, prior to a person's conversion (or baptism), his or her "good deeds" may merit God's grace is Pelagianism or worse; even to say that man has the initiative in this preparatory stage, or that his first response of faith is his own free motion, his own step the grace of God and not already an effect of the grace of God, is a heresy (Semi-Pelagianism).

3 Trent, Decree on Justification, chapter 8 (Denz. # 1532), and canon 9 (Denz. 1559).

5 See the magnificent discussion in Louis Bouyer, (Westminster: Newman Press) 1956.

6 In what follows, I borrow substantially from the classic exposition by Lemonnyer in the , vol VIII/2, col. 2050ff.

7 Compare the view of St. John Chrysostom, (hereafter=PG) 60, col. 563, with that of Aquinas, In epistolam ad Romanos>, c. 9, lect 5

12 When discussing this passage with a Protestant, most especially a Protestant male, one must keep in mind that one is talking to a person who went through the travails of adolescence without the help of the Sacraments. To such a person, it seems the most obvious thing in the world (too obvious, indeed, to be mentioned that what St. Paul is talking about is erection, sexual lust, and other aspects of arousal. This idea is abetted by the King James Version, which uses 'lust' and 'concupiscence' throughout this passage, where I have used 'covetousness'—words which had a broader meaning in the 17th Century, of course, than they have today. The fact of the matter is that Paul is not speaking exclusively nor even primarily of sexual matter. By the "law in our members" he means the whole phenomenon of over-inclination towards visible, tangible, worldly goods and values—an overinclination to which man's bodily nature () makes him naturally liable, and to which Adam's fall has made man not only liable but actually subject (). Thus man's sinfulness, for Paul is a broad-based as man's very secularity. In light, it is intelligible why even the very first and most basic commandment of the Law, the commandment to have God alone as one's ultimate concern, should prove to be so difficult, cross-grained, and frustrating to us.

Catholic children, thanks to the early and regular practice of Confession, tend to grow up with a better grasp of this broad character of "sin." But in Protestant countries, few factors have been more ruinous to Christianity than the tendency to almost identify sin with sex and thereby to shift the center of "sin" away from deliberate acts and towards the uncontrollable motions of the "id" or the genitals.

14 I say "at least inwardly" because, as far as public and merely external observations are concerned, Paul concedes that he himself was blameless: Philippians 3:6. See Aquinas's comment, c. 3, lect. 2.

20 For the same indifference between 'faith' and 'obedience', compare Rom. 10:16 with II Thess. 3:2.

21 See how the acts called hope and love are founded on intellectual assent (otherwise I wouldn't even acknowledge the command or the promise, etc.) but add to it in such a way that the assent the loving assent of the whole man. This is why Trent, using 'faith' in the narrow sense, was right to say that faith is the root and foundation of all justification that faith is made living by hope and love.

(Appendix 4 from "Reasons for Hope" published by Christendom Press, 2101 Shenandoah Shores Road, Front Royal, VA 22630, (800) 877-5456.)

John Chapter 6

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Parallel

RSV 29: Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

NRSV 29 Jesus answered them, `This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.'

Douay 29 Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent.

NAB 29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."

KJV 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

WEB 29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

ESV 29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

NASB 29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."

NIV 29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

YOUNG 29 Jesus answered and said to them, `This is the work of God, that ye may believe in him whom He did send.'

Greek 29: apekriqh <611> (5662) o <3588> {ANSWERED} ihsouV <2424> {JESUS} kai <2532> {AND} eipen <2036> (5627) {SAID} autoiV <846> {TO THEM,} touto <5124> {THIS} estin <2076> (5748) {IS} to <3588> {THE} ergon <2041> tou <3588> {WORK} qeou <2316> {OF GOD,} ina <2443> {THAT} pisteushte <4100> (5661) {YE SHOULD BELIEVE} eiV <1519> {ON} on <3739> {HIM WHOM} apesteilen <649> (5656) {SENT} ekeinoV <1565> {HE.}

Vulgate 29 respondit Iesus et dixit eis hoc est opus Dei ut credatis in eum quem misit ille

ASV 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Darby 29Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom *he* has sent.

NKJV 29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."

Other Related Passages

John 3 17: For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

1 Thessalonians 1 3: remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

James 2 22: You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works,

1 John 3 23: And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Revelation 2 26: He who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations,

Library References

Clement of Alexandria [150-215 AD]

The Stromata (Book IV)

The same work, then, presents a difference, according as it is done by fear, or accomplished by love, and is wrought by faith or by knowledge. Rightly, therefore, their rewards are different. To the Gnostic "are prepared what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man;" but to him who has exercised simple faith He testifies a hundredfold in return for what he has left, -- a promise which has turned out to fall within human comprehension. Come to this point, I recollect one who called himself a Gnostic. For, expounding the words, "But i say unto you, he that looketh on a woman to lust after, hath committed adultery," he thought that it was not bare desire that was condemned; but if through the desire the act that results from it proceeding beyond the desire is accomplished in it. For dream employs phantasy and the body. Accordingly, the historians relate the following decision, of Bocchoris the just. A youth, falling in love with a courtezan, persuades the girl, for a stipulated reward, to come to him next day. But his desire being unexpectedly satiated, by laying hold of the girl in a dream, by anticipation, when the object of his love came according to stipulation, he prohibited her from coming in. But she, on learning what had taken place, demanded the reward, saying that in this way she had sated the lover's desire. They came accordingly to the judge. He, ordering the youth to hold out the purse containing the reward in the sun, bade the courtezan take hold of the shadow; facetiously bidding him pay the image of a reward for the image of an embrace. [Read More]

Origen [185-254 AD] Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XIII) But to me it seems that, to the case of him who after being thrice admonished was adjudged to be as the Gentile and the publican, it is fitly subjoined, "Verily, I say unto you,"--namely, to those who have judged any one to be as the Gentile and the publican,--"and what things soever ye shall bind on the earth," etc.; for with justice has he, who has thrice admonished and not been heard, bound him who is judged to be as a Gentile and a publican; wherefore, when such an one is bound and condemned by one of this character, he remains bound, as no one of those in heaven overturns the judgment of the man who bound him. And, in like manner, he who was admonished once for all, and did things worthy of being gained, having been set free by the admonition of the man who gained him, and no longer bound by the cords of his own sins, for which he was admonished, shall be adjudged to have been set free by those in heaven. Only, it seems to be indicated that the things, which above were granted to Peter alone, are here given to all who give the three admonitions to all that have sinned; so that, if they be not heard, they will bind on earth him who is judged to be as a Gentile and a publican, as such an one has been bound in heaven. But since it was necessary, even if something in common had been said in the case of Peter and those who had thrice admonished the brethren, that Peter should have some element superior to those who thrice admonished, in the case of Peter, this saying "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens," has been specially set before the words, "And what things soever ye shall bind on earth," etc. And, indeed, if we were to attend carefully to the evangelical writings, we would also find here, and in relation to those things which seem to be common to Peter and those who have thrice admonished the brethren, a great difference and a pre-eminence in the things said to Peter, compared with the second class. For it is no small difference that Peter received the keys not of one heaven but of more, and in order that whatsoever things he binds on the earth may be bound not in one heaven but in them all, as compared with the many who bind on earth and loose on earth, so that these things are bound and loosed not in the heavens, as in the case of Peter, but in one only; for they do not reach so high a stage, with power as Peter to bind and loose in all the heavens. The better, therefore, is the binder, so much more blessed is he who has been loosed, so that in every part of the heavens his loosing has been accomplished. [Read More]

John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD]

Homily 44 on the Gospel of John 1. The mild and gentle is not always useful, but there are times when the teacher needs sharper language. For if the disciple be dull and gross, then, in order to touch his dullness to the quick, we must rouse him with a goad. And this the Son of God hath done in the present as well as in many other cases. For when the crowds had come and found Jesus, and were flattering Him, and saying," Master, when camest Thou hither?" to show that He desireth not honor from men, but looketh to one thing only, their salvation, He answereth them sharply, wishing to correct them not in this way only, but also by revealing and exposing their thoughts. For what saith He? "Verily, verily, I say unto you," (speaking positively and with a confirmation,) "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." He chideth and reproveth them by these words, yet doth not so abruptly or violently, but very sparingly. For He saith not, "O ye gluttons and belly-slaves, I have wrought so many wonders, and ye never have either followed Me, or marveled at My doings"; but mildly and gently somewhat in this manner; "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled"; speaking not only of the past, but also of the present miracle. "It was not," He saith, "the miracle of the loaves that astonished you, but the being filled." And that He said not this of them by conjecture they straightway showed, for on this account they came the second time, as being about to enjoy the same (food) as before. Wherefore they said, "Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness." Again they draw Him to charge against them. But He stoppeth not at rebukes, but addeth instruction also, saying, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." [Read More]

Homily 69 on the Gospel of John As though He had said, "Why fear ye to believe on Me? Faith passeth to the Father through Me, as doth also unbelief." See how in ever) way He showeth the unvaryingness of His Essence. He said not, He that believeth "Me," lest any should assert that He spake concerning His words; this might have been said in the case of mere men, for he that believeth the Apostles, believeth not them, but God. But that thou mightest learn that He speaketh here of the belief on His Essence, He said not, "He that believeth My words," but, "He that believeth on Me." "And wherefore," saith some one, believeth not on the Father but on Me?" Because they would have replied, "Lo, we believe on the Father, but we believe not on thee." Their disposition was as yet too infirm. Anyhow, conversing with the disciples, He did speak thus: "Ye believe on the Father, believe also on Me" (c. xiv. 1); but seeing that these then were too weak to hear such words, He leadeth them in another way, showing that it is not possible to believe on the Father, without believing on Him. And that thou mayest not deem that the words are spoken as of man, He addeth, Ver. 45. "He that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me." [Read More]

What then! Is God a body? By no means. The "seeing" of which He here speaketh is that of the mind, thence showing the Consubstantiality. And what is, "He that believeth on Me"? It is as though one should say, "He that taketh water from the river, taketh it not from the river but from the fountain"; or rather this image is too weak, when compared with the matter before us. [Read More]

Homily 74 on the Gospel of John Ver. 12. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father." [Read More]

Homily 11 on Hebrews "For men verily swear by the greater, and an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. But God because He could swear by no greater, sware by Himself." Well, who then is He that sware unto Abraham? Is it not the SON? No, one says. Certainly indeed it was He: however, I shall not dispute [thereon]. So when He is it not plain that it was because He could not swear by any greater? For as the Father sware, so also the Son sweareth by Himself, saying, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." He here reminds them also of the oaths of Christ, which He was constantly uttering. never die." (John xi. 26.) [Read More]

Augustine of Hippo, St [354-430 AD] Sermon 93 on the New Testament 1. The medicine for all the wounds of the soul, and the one propitiation for the offences of men, is to believe on Christ; nor can any one be cleansed at all, whether from original sin which he derived from Adam, in whom all men have sinned, and become by nature children of wrath; or from the sins which they have themselves added, by not resisting the concupiscence of the flesh, but by following and serving it in unclean and injurious deeds: unless by faith they are united and compacted into His Body, who was conceived without any enticement of the flesh and deadly pleasure,

I. Matthew through Acts

MATTHEW

Matthew 5:20-22 – One who hates, speaks evil to fellow believers (brother), can get separated from God and sent to hell.

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 21 “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5:29-30 – Talking metaphorically Jesus says if a thing causes you to sin, it is better off to cut off body parts than suffer going to hell.
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell . 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell .
Matthew 6:13-15 – If we are unforgiving we will lose God’s forgiveness.
13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 10:28 – We must have the fear of God, who can send us to hell over disobedience.
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 12:32 – A sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven by God.
32 And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Matthew 13:20-21 – One can believe for a while, but then fall away from God (see Luke 8:13), he is speaking here of believers.
20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
Matthew 18:8-9 – Dire consequences of believers committing sin shown by Jesus again.
8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
Matthew 18:28-35 – Unforgiveness for others leads to unforgiveness from God.
28 But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; 33 and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Matthew 24:44-51 The Lord’s servant, unprepared, acts wickedly, and gets sent to hell. Though a servant, not ready for the Lord’s coming.
44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, 51 and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.
Matthew 25:14-15, 19, 24-30 Lazy servant, unlike faithful ones, gets sent to hell.
14 “For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away…. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them….24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’
MARK

Mark 4:16-18 – Parable of the sower – Parallel of Luke 8:13 shows here He is speaking of believers, who fall away.

16 And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.
Mark 9:42-48 – Metaphorical violence to oneself is better than getting sent to hell by sinful actions.
42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 44 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 46 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
Mark 11:25 - If we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us.
And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Mark 13:20-23 – False teachings can lead anyone away from Christ.
20 And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. 21 And then if any one says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 False Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand.
LUKE

Luke 8:13 – Some will believe in Jesus and fall away.

13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.
Luke 12:42-46 – God’s servants who do evil will get sent to hell with the unbelievers.
42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. 44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful.
JOHN

John 6:60-71 – Disciples, followers of Jesus leave him, even one who Jesus himself chose.

60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. 67 Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
John 12:44-48 – Those who believe but ultimately do not keep Jesus words, will be punished.
44 And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And he who sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.
John 15:5-6 – If a man leaves God and departs from him, he is cast into the fire.
5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
John 17:12 – Judas was chosen by Jesus but is now a son of perdition.
While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
ACTS

Acts 20:28-30 – Paul’s disciples, believers, will fall away from the faith.

28 Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

II. Romans through Hebrews

ROMANS

Romans 6:12-13, 16 – Sin can again reign in our body, it is possible to fall back into slavery to sin.

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness…16 Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Romans 8:12-13 – We will spiritually die if we live according to the flesh.
12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
Romans 11:20-22 – If we do not continue in God’s kindness we will get cut off.
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.
1 CORINTHIANS

1 Corinthians 3:13-17 – Judgment of our works, we will be destroyed by God if we destroy God’s temple.

13 each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.
1 Corinthians 6:8-11 – Corinthian believers are acting sinfully. Such actions, including immorality, lead to our disinheritance. We are deceived if we think otherwise.
8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren. 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:15-18 – Paul warns against sexual sins that he just said would cause us to be disinherited from God’s kingdom if we so practiced.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – Even Paul writes that he can be disqualified from salvation if he runs aimlessly.
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 10:2-9 – The example of Israelites losing salvation is to us a warning to us to avoid idolatry and immorality that likewise separates us from God.
2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same supernatural food 4 and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance.” 8 We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
1 Corinthians 10:11-12 – This warning means we really can fall.
11 Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
1 Corinthians 11:28-30 – Having communion in a bad way can cause damnation.
28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2 – If we do not hold fast we can believe in vain.
1 Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, 2 by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.
2 CORINTHIANS

2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 – Reconciliation with God is ongoing. It is possible to accept the grace of God in vain.

20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 6 1 Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
2 Corinthians 11:2-3 – Even though betrothed to Christ we can be led away from Him by the devil.
2 I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
2 Corinthians 13:5 – If we fail to meet the test, we will no longer have Christ in us.
5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
GALATIANS

Galatians 1:6-9 – Paul notes that some have deserted the gospel, and thus truth. He even posits that if he himself taught a different gospel, he will be accursed.

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 4:8-9 – We can become slaves of sin once again, and apart from Christ.
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods; 9 but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Galatians 5:1-4 – Paul writes that some have fallen away from grace by going back to slavery to the law.
1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
Galatians 5:19-21 – Evil works bring condemnation, separation from God’s kingdom.
But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 6:7-9 – If we sow to the flesh we will not inherit eternal life.
7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.
EPHESIANS

Ephesians 5:2-6 – If we fall back into sin, we will inherit God’s wrath instead of His kingdom. We are deceived if we think otherwise.

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not associate with them,
PHILIPPIANS

Philippians 2:12-16 – If one does not work out one’s salvation, Paul would have labored in vain, the Philippians would lose salvation.

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Philippians 3:10-13 – Paul said he hasn’t made salvation, he still must endure or he won’t achieve it.
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
COLOSSIANS

Colossians 1:21-23 – If we shift from the hope of the gospel, we will lose our reconciliation with God.

21 And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Colossians 3:5-9, 24-25 – We can fall back into old sins, if we do, we will experience God’s wrath, and get paid back for such iniquity.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you once walked, when you lived in them. 8 But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices.
23 Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

1 THESSALONIANS

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 If we don’t abstain from unchastity, we will feel God’s vengeance.

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; 4 that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. 7 For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
2 THESSALONIANS

2 Thessalonias 3:6, 11-14 – Thessalonian believers walk away from God’s traditions and result in actions that separate them from God.

6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us….11 For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living. 13 Brethren, do not be weary in well-doing. 14 If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.
1 TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 1:18-20 – We are told to hold true to the faith, or it can be shipwrecked, as it did with two Christians, Hymenaus and Alexander.

18 This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophetic utterances which pointed to you, that inspired by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith, 20 among them Hymenae’us and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 – Some will depart from the faith giving heed to false teachings.
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared,
1 Timothy 5:8 – By not providing for his household, one has disowned the faith, worse than an unbeliever.
8 If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:14-15 – Widows have fallen away from Christ to follow Satan.
14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, rule their households, and give the enemy no occasion to revile us. 15 For some have already strayed after Satan.
1 Timothy 6:9-10 – Riches have caused some to wander from the faith, and into ruin and destruction.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.
1 Timothy 6:20-21 Godless chatter has led some to wander from the faith.
20 O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 for by professing it some have missed the mark (other translations ‘wandered’) as regards the faith.
2 TIMOTHY

2 Timothy 2:11-12 – If we do not endure, and instead deny Him, He will deny us.

11 The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; 12 if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
2 Timothy 2:16-20 – Godless chatter had led people to ungodliness, away from Christ and two people are named who departed from the faith.
16 Avoid such godless chatter, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will eat its way like gangrene. Among them are Hymenae’us and Phile’tus, 18 who have swerved from the truth by holding that the resurrection is past already. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19 But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let every one who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
TITUS

Titus 3:8-11 - A believer who becomes factious will become self-condemned.

8 The saying is sure. I desire you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to apply themselves to good deeds; these are excellent and profitable to men. 9 But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile. 10 As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.
HEBREWS

Hebrews 2:1-3 – We will get God’s retribution if we do not pay attention, and neglect our salvation.

1 Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For if the message declared by angels was valid and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him.
Hebrews 3:12-14 – If Christians develop an unbelieving heart, they will fall away from God.
12 Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
Hebrews 3:18-4:1 – The Israelites were unable to reach the promised land because of disbelief. We must strive to enter God’s rest or we will not, just as the faithless Israelites did not.
18 And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 4 1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.
Hebrews 4:6, 11 – An example is given in the Old Testament of those who failed to enter because of disobedience, and we must strive to not have such disobedience or we will fall.
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience … 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Hebrews 6:4-6 - There are some who will commit apostasy after truly being in Christ.
4 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.
Hebrews 10:23-29 – If we do not hold fast, we can sin deliberately and spurn Jesus, and get due punishment for such spurning.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; 24 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. 28 A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?
Hebrews 10:35-36 - We must endure and not throw away our confidence, or we can lose our reward.
35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.
Hebrews 12:12-17 - We are warned not to become immoral or irreligious like Esau, and thus we can fail to achieve God’s grace. Many become defiled.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled; 16 that no one be immoral or irreligious like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Hebrews 12:25 – We shall not escape punishment if we refuse Him.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

I. III. James through Revelation

JAMES

James 1:14-16 Desire leads to sin which leads to spiritual death. James writes this to believers.

14 but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.
James 2:12-13 If we do not show mercy we will not get it.
12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 4:4 – Friendship with the world makes us an enemy of God.
4 Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James 5:8-9 – Sinning can lead to having to face God the judge.
8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble, brethren, against one another, that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the doors.
James 5:19-20 – Some can wander from the truth and from God though if they are open they can come back to God. .
19 My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
1 PETER

1 Peter 1:14-17 If we act according to passions we must suffer God’s wrath in judgment.

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
1 Peter 3:9-12 – Don’t do evil because the Lord punishes those who practice it.
9 Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10 For “He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile; 11 let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those that do evil.”
1 Peter 5:8-9 – The devil seeks to devour us.
8 Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world.
2 PETER

2 Peter 1:3-4 – This shows that what Peter speaks about later as someone who turns away from the faith are those who have escaped the corruption of the world, and are truly in his grace. This shows that 2 Peter 2:1-2, 2:14 and 2:20-22 truly apply to those who were once truly in his grace.

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.
2 Peter 2:1-2 – Those who have already escaped ungodliness, can go into false teachings, other believers can be led away by those former believers who bring false teachings.
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled.
2 Peter 2:14-15 – Those who earlier partook of the divine nature, forsake the way, fell back into adultery and are now accursed.
14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Be’or, who loved gain from wrongdoing,
2 Peter 2:20-22 – Having partook of the divine nature and escaping sin, those who go back to sin are worse off, eternally.
20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.
2 Peter 3:17 – We must beware of following error which takes us away from God.
17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability.
1 JOHN

1 John 2:3-4 – If we do not keep the commandments we are not with Him.

3 And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 He who says “I know him” but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
1 John 3:11-12 – We are urged not to be like Cain, whose sin separated him from God.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, 12 and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.
1 John 3:14-18 – If we hate, and show no love towards fellow believers, we are murderers and have not eternal life.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.
1 John 5:17 – There is mortal sin, which cuts us off from eternal life with God.
16 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.
2 JOHN

2 John 8-9 – If one turns away from the true doctrine, one does not have God.

8 Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward. 9 Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son.
3 JOHN

3 John 11 If one practices evil, he does not have God.

11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. He who does good is of God; he who does evil has not seen God.
JUDE

Jude 5-6 – Those who believed, left Egypt and disbelieved, suffer God’s punishment.

5 Now I desire to remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that he who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day.
REVELATION

Revelation 2:4-5 – The Ephesians have fallen from God and will be punished for doing so. They must repent to get back in His grace.

4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Revelation 2:13-16 – In Pergamum, some have gone over into immorality.
13 “’I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of An’tipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality. 15 So you also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicola’itans. 16 Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
Revelation 3:2-3 - Some from Sardis have not kept the works and will have to face Jesus.
2 Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. 3 Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.
Revelation 3:11 – The crown will be lost if one does not hold fast.
I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
Revelation 16:15 – One must stay awake, or one will have bad consequences when Jesus returns.
“Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed!” )
Revelation 21:7-8 – The faithful will inherit the kingdom, those who turn faithless will go to eternal punishment.
7 He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.”
Revelation 22:19 – Just rejecting, taking away the revelation of this book, God will take away his share in the tree of life.
and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

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