Posted on 06/15/2015 2:49:32 AM PDT by Cvengr
DOCTRINE OF SALVATION BY WORKS
Eph 2:8-10
(8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
(9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
You might be surprised when, as you you put it so delicately, these "pissing contests" are about proper, true and Biblical doctrine that ACTUALLY DO bring people to Christ, versus the false doctrines taught by the Roman Catholic Church.
So, thank you for your permission -- I will keep at it.
Hoss
In this New Covenant there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, yet Jesus addressed the Jews with this prophecy, because He had to take ‘the people’ from where they were under the old covenant and bring them along with the Gentiles under the New Covenant, where He writes His Laws in our hearts and chastens us when we fail to follow the family behavior pattern. God in the NEw Covenant is no longer in some building, with Priests the go between and dictating an ‘If you do this, I will do this’. He is now in us, we have become the Temple because He has spread His blood over the mercy seat above the law, covering it, covering the law for us. Unless the Bible is viewed in dispensational segments that truth is almost impossible to glean from the prophecies.
Your comment: “You keep trying to slide back into a relationship under the old covenant, a performance based covenant. That is not the hallmark of the Church Age. It is a hallmark of Catholicism, however.
I disagree with you interpretation.
Again, do you not seem to acknowledge that free will allows one to commit evil works that may not be forgiven on Judgement Day?
How does someone grow and become mature in today’s world? By working and gaining experience in dealing with worldly matters.
As human beings, why wouldn’t we grow in faith through God’s graces by loving God and our neighbor through goods works and charity?
Your comment: “You keep trying to slide back into a relationship under the old covenant, a performance based covenant. That is not the hallmark of the Church Age. It is a hallmark of Catholicism, however. “
Your statement is false.
If your child behaves badly, does that make them no longer your child?
Judas put his hand to the plow but was looking back, thus he was never Justified because he second guessed the Efficacy, the sufficiency.
The passages from Matthew that you tried to hang on me are aimed squarely at the Tribulation period, the wrath of God being poured out upon the lawlessness. If that is the depth of your biblical knowledge, that you believe God's Bride will be under the wrath, you are sorely in need of studying to show yourself approved. We are not appointed unto wrath but to obtain His Salvation. Yopu would do well to study the Olivet Discourse, because it appears you are expecting to be in that period of wrath.
I have studied James and you have rejected the excellent explanation given to you by Hoss. So there is little I can say to you to dispel your Gordian Knot.
If you want to stand before the Throne on Judgment Day, you can insure it by simply refusing to accept Jesus now, before the Grace of God in Christ offered to you is no longer available. I will be before the Bema Seat of My Lord IN HEAVEN, but I will not be standing before the throne for judgment when the Great White Throne of Judgment occurs. I have been judged by faith in Him, belief that He has Died for Me and His Blood has sealed me against that great day of judgment. You have free will to refuse so Great a Salvation ... but I warn you, the hour is late, today is the day to take care of judgment, not when the Greta White Thorne is set.
No, my assertion is true but Catholics are not able to receive it because they are of that regime. They are floundering in a performance based religion that is not Christianity.
Unless the Bible is viewed in dispensational segments that truth is almost impossible to glean from the prophecies.
But I am not familiar with what dispensational segments are as I only read the Bible and no sarcasms intended but that is all I am interested in.
It is the FRUIT of salvation.
It no way contributes to the gain or loss of it.
Yes.
Ephesians 2:1-10And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Romans 4:1-25 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
And the rest of Romans 4 and 5. Good reading for the relation that faith and works have to each other.
GMTA
You do have free will to follow your own path.
It is too bad that you do not understand or accept the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Church and you continue to make false statements about the teachings of the Catholic Church.
May God have Mercy.
You wrote, "I see the urgency. It is as if a man saves himself by leaping through flames that many will be saved." The following is going to make you uncomfy, so be warned. NO MAN saves himself. What you allude to is the Bema Set of Christ IN HEAVEN where the saved will be tried as by fire. You have complete gnarled the New Covenant and want now to justify your watering it down by pretending to know the scriptures and using them to chastise those who are working in the vineyard. And more to the point NO MAN can take me out of His hands, not even me. Get that? Not even me, I am part of the no man declaration Jesus gave.
If you teach error (social gospel anyone?) using scriptures you're not familiar with, there is strong suspicion that you are not one of His. For one hallmark of those who are born from above is the desire to be immersed in water to show to Whom you have pledged yourself for Salvation, and the strong desire to get into the Word, to allow God's indwelling Holy Spirit to raise you up in the Way that you should go as in His family, by the resonance of the heart that His Word causes.
What you haughtily call 'bickering' is cont4edning for the Truth as the Word of God declares. Those who feed on His Word are like that, contentious when false doctrine is floated before them. There is ONLY one way to Heaven, and it is By Jesus. No social gospel or good works will substitute for His Blood on the Mercy Seat which you can have as your deliverance by faith.
Lacking fundamental discernment, you offer the follow characterization of these threads: "So, whenever I see people argue about how many angels fit on the head of a pin".
No. We are either slaves to sin or slaves to God. We are not our own. We are bought with a price.
When we commit to Christ, we cede the right to our own lives to Him. HE owns us now and we no longer have a choice about how to run our lives. That comes with the ownership part of something.
It's a lie of the enemy that we are our own persons and have the right to do what we choose.
Surrendering to Christ means giving HIM control to do as He wills with us.
And it's a lie of the enemy that we ever had *free will* in the first place.
A will? Yes.
Free? No.
But Jesus told us that His yoke was easy and His burden was light.
Claiming that salvation is hard makes Jesus out to be a liar.
It's actually those who teach that salvation is hard who are the liars.
If you don’t work, you can’t accomplish God’s will.
Sure you can. You can believe and trusting Him pleases Him more than trusting ourselves.
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
Um, to accept the teachings of Jesus you first have to discern them. Catholicism thrives on their adherents not discerning the teachings of Jesus, just the teachings of the Catholic Church about their applied meaning of the teachings. The Catholic Church has this little demonic trick which aids in preventing a Catholic from actually discerning the teachings of Jesus. The Catholic Church (and the Mormon Church, to name another) teach their adherents to ignore non-Ism teaching under the rubric of ‘that’s your interpretation, not the approved meaning.’ Show me where I have one false statement about the Scriptures, then you will have my undivided attention. The slippery slip and slide of the Catholic doctrine over the centuries is not ever going to be consistent, so you might be right about my making mistaken characterizations, since any characterization must be tied to the century from which it is pulled in Catholicism. I red Jerome’s translation for the beauty of the translation. I argue with the sometime idiotic assertions of Augustine. I guffaw at the social gospel of the current Pope and Vatican council.
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