Faith and works or faith alone for Salvation, Provide perses please?

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Seamus_Sully said:
Jimmy B

Faith is dead if it does not have “energeo”.

The “energeo” comes from love, as St. Paul said in Galatians 5: 6.
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Hello Seamus Sully, thank you for your post.

Here is my response:

The verse that you used here (below, Galatians 5:6,) specially addresses the Jewish law requiring circumcision.

The context and meaning of Galatians 5:6 , are present in the verse itself. This verses’ meaning, is self-evident.

I think you are reading too much into this verse. You are viewing this verse (Galatians 5:6) in a “Protestant” context and not a biblical context.

You are applying Galatians 5:6 wrongly and outside the context of all of other verses that specifically address the issue of “faith and works”.

How does Galatians 5:6, which specifically addresses the Jewish law requiring circumcision, undue all of the other verses that I provided, in the my previous posts, which specifically explain “faith and works”, as needed for salvation?

Do you believe that there exist conflict and apposing doctrine or different beliefs in the bible?

There is no conflict in the bible, when viewed in context.

There was a Jewish law requiring matrimony, another example of works, does this verse (Galatians 5:6) undue the need for Christian couples who intend on having children, to be first be married?

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](http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/galatians/galatians5.htm)
Galatians 5:6
For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 4http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/galatians/galatians5.htm
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po18guy was commenting on the extremely lengthy posts submitted by a few of us that included quote after quote of scripture. It is a lot to read and absorb. I thought his comment to be humorous.
 
someone explained faith alone by this statement:
We are saved by faith alone. After you are saved then you show your faith by your works. In order to be saved all one must do is believe on the Lord Jesus.

But i thought you must do works in order to be saved…🤷
 
cradlecathlic26 said:
someone explained faith alone by this statement:
We are saved by faith alone. After you are saved then you show your faith by your works. In order to be saved all one must do is believe on the Lord Jesus.

But i thought you must do works in order to be saved…🤷
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It is true, you must do the works God has prepared for you. We must walk the Christian walk. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, it’s also what Christ commands of us. I think where the confusion usually comes along is when people say that it is the works that save us. That isn’t true at all. We are not saved by those works, we are saved by the Cross. There aren’t enough good works out there that can earn your salvation. I’ve always looked at it like this: God gives us the gift of faith as well as the gift of salvation. We can’t earn either one of those. When we receive the gift of faith we must express that faith with love, as the Bible says. We must bring out in ourselves the “obedience of faith” as Paul so wonderfully puts it. If we deny the good works God has for us, if we do not strive to walk the Christian walk, we are simply walking away from the gift he offers us. We can’t earn salvation, but we can certainly turn it down. There are really two ways to turn your back on salvation, in my opinion. Either don’t believe in Christ’s sacrifice or believe in it and do nothing to express that faith with love. Although both faith and works are a must, the works are NOT what saves us. Does that make any sense? If it does, I hope it helps.

It drives me crazy when people use the argument you posted there to explain salvation through faith alone. They always say that the good works will come when you are saved. What they never explain well at all is what happens if the good works don’t come? God doesn’t force faith on us and He doesn’t force obedience. Somehow many Christians have convinced themselves that obedience, though a nice thing to do, isn’t necessary. I’ll never understand it, especially when the Bible completely and utterly demolishes that belief.

Wow, I got long winded there. 😃 The moral of the story:

The works don’t save us, Jesus does. But, like the Bible says, faith without works is dead. As soon as someone can prove that a dead faith is a saving faith, I’ll question the Catholic point of view.
 
when we say works, we are talking about the sacraments correct? Not like, giving food to the poor, or going to church, or charity stuff.
 
Works are all of those things. Even faith is a work as can be seen from the following:

In John’s vision in the book of Revelation, Jesus warns members of the church at Ephesus that they might be destroyed if they do not repent and return to the love they once had. This is very clear in Rev 2:4-5 where Jesus says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 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.” Then again just before addressing the transgressions of the church at Thyatira, Jesus says in Rev 2:19 that, "I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” These verses are significant in two ways. They show the necessity of love in the plan of salvation, and they show that both love and faith are referred to as works.

This linkage is also made by Paul in Galatians 5:6 where we read, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love." Likewise, Paul tells us the importance of love when he says, “So faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”(1 Corinthians 13:13). Paul also says in Corinthians 13:1-13 that “IF I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing….Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. …So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Paul also makes this point in 1 Thessalonians 1-4

PAUL, SILVANUS, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you;
 
cradlecathlic26 said:
when we say works, we are talking about the sacraments correct? Not like, giving food to the poor, or going to church, or charity stuff.
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The short answer is “all of the above” but since I am a Roman Catholic, I am compelled to provide more information.

I think if we simplify this, and view “good works” as; “doing those things which are pleasing to God” (which is actually what “good works” are), then the answer is all of the above, but then as Catholics we must learn what it is “that is pleasing to God” and act on that information.

I think because of its own nature (to protest -the Roman Catholic Church), in “Protestantism” (all non-Catholic Christians) there exists a tendency to simplify there own faith, but when describing Catholicism, they complicate the issues and thereby confuse Catholics.

Protestants have been at this for along time and they have gotten good at it. They have been pulling Catholics away from their faith with disinformation since the beginning of there movement. They also, provide there own members with disinformation, keeping them in the dark, in a system where the focus is on one verse at a time. The bible is not a handful of verses and the totality of Christ’s teachings cannot be summed up as such.

If one were to examine the wording in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, describing issues like “faith”, “grace” salvation" or “good works” they would discover that there is not that much of a difference in the actual wording.

However, there is a huge difference in what the words actually mean, in the context of the bible, Christian history, Christian tradition and Christ’s teachings. For instance, for a “protestant” to say, “All you have to do, is believe in Jesus to be “saved” (no “good works” needed) is about as simple as it gets. However, a Catholics might ask, “what does it mean to “believe” in Jesus” and that would include, among many other things the Sacraments.

I hope this helped.
 
Pax said:
po18guy was commenting on the extremely lengthy posts submitted by a few of us that included quote after quote of scripture. It is a lot to read and absorb. I thought his comment to be humorous.
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:doh2: Ok… I get it now. Excuse me while I look for some more bible verses. :dancing:
 
Jimmy B

I posted many passages.

I think the passages are teaching that the law is good and holy.

Human beings can actually keep the law.

We need Christ’s grace to keep or fulfill the law.

Love fulfills the law.

It is His love poured into our new hearts that makes it possible.

When I fall short, I need to beg Christ for His grace.

This is the Catholic position.

It is possible for us to keep the law.

The martyrs, with Christ’s grace, died for the faith. They did a perfect job at the time of their martyrdom. They were completed/perfected by Christ’s loving grace.

For us that do not keep the law of faith, there is purgatory.

God’s loving fire burns away our fallen human nature and its sinful works.

St. Augustine helped me see this a little more clearly.
 
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