I. Good works are only such as God has commanded in His holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretence of good intention.
II. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the Gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.
III. Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will, and to do, of His good pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.
IV. They who, in their obedience, attain to the greatest height which is possibly in this life, are so far from being able to supererogate, and to do more than God requires, as that they fall short of much which in duty they are bound to do.
V. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins, but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants: and because, as they are good, they proceed from His Spirit, and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment.
VI. Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreproveable in God’s sight; but that He, looking upon them in His Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.
VII. Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands; and of good use both to themselves and others: yet, because they proceed not from an heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God: and yet, their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.
Why do you dislike fellow Christians?
No genuine Lutheran would ever want to be pope.
So that shoots that down right there.
Thanks.
I will say this is rabbit with pancake on the head type of stuff.
Interesting insight into Bergoglianism. Amoris is built on the same notion that the moral law is impossible to obey.
1 John 1:8
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
It is this "sin", our original sin, our instantly reflexive iniquity, lust and uncleaness, our love of darkness, our pervasive total depravity that enslaves our will. We sin because we desperately want to sin, it's our nature.
Our will needs a new master: The Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:12
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
This is not what is meant by total depravity. First off, what the author originally describes and says is the "very definition" of total depravity is actually just original sin. Total depravity merely says that the sinful nature of man infects every aspect of his being. It does not say that man is as depraved as he can possibly be, certainly man is capable of and often does much good. It merely says that the sinful nature of man extends to his entire ("total") being.
That's your mam-made philosophy, and Romans 9 destroys it. Read Romans 8:28-9:24 to get the context; this is the short version:
Verse 18 is the summary of his case for election:
18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
In verse 19, he anticipates your free-will argument:
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”
In verse 20, rather than debate the philosophy, he just dismisses that line of inquiry:
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”
For once I have to agree with the Pope. If one really think they're incapable of resisting sin then simply try to live a perfect life.
The day I met Christ was the day I realized that I was a sinful creature.
A non-Catholic would even want to be Pope? ... Needs to be born from above and have eyes opened ...
Do you know what the Latin translates to in English?Non Veni Pacem
The Splendor of Truth
I believe that in the RF foreign language words/phrases have to be translated.
From what I copied and pasted it looks like it means "the splendor of peace"-is that the translation?
Also, in the test, when ever the word HERE appears their is supposed to be a hotlink associated with the word.
There is no “HERE” there.