Faith and Works

[benhur]

We’re either snow-covered dung-heaps or we’re righteous,

Never heard of regeneration, being born of the spirit, being born again, all things becoming new, as “snow-covered dung-heaps” Is a butterfly still an ugly caterpillar inside ? I do not think the catechism addresses the old man and the new man in Christ. Is that foreign to you ?

Blessings

 

[fhansen]

Never heard of regeneration, being born of the spirit, being born again, all things becoming new, as “snow-covered dung-heaps” Is a butterfly still an ugly caterpillar inside ? I do not think the catechism addresses the old man and the new man in Christ. Is that foreign to you ?

Blessings

Yes, the New Covenant is all about change-that’s what I’ve been saying. But if one’s theology insists on a mere* imputation* of righteousness, as sufficient to gain entrance into the Kingdom, then they’ve missed God’s point in His whole plan of salvation-and why He would allow man to fall to begin with. They’ve also failed to understand the meaning of those verses that tell that sinners simply do not enter heaven.The ultimate restoration of the justice He created us in (He did not create us to be sinners, after all), is His purpose-and onto even greater justice yet!

But this, as it was for Adam, is always a matter of CHOICE for man, even as God draws us and helps us to make that choice. We ultimately* participate* in our justification-we must participate in it-in order to be authentically just.

 

[benhur]

Justification cannot be separated from sanctification.

yet they are two different words for a reason,and not because they are the same.

Salvation is based on our being made just,

False. Salvation is because He was perfectly just and is imputed to us, as we will never be perfect on this side of life otherwise (yet the new man is perfect in Christ, but he does not perfectly win over the old man).

and so salvation is a process which is “worked out” together with He who works in us

.Yes, the Christian walk.

This is why even Paul said in Phil 3 that he was striving, not yet having attained to the resurrection.

I have a totally different view of Paul’s discourse. You see it as Paul not having "earned’’, been just enough or worthy of resurrection yet, that he strives for that. I see it that he has full faith/hope in receiving it by grace thru faith in His promise. but as to the actual experience and intimacy with Christ in the resurrection, no ,he has not obtained it (he is still alive) , just as he has not attained His goals in his ministry, his service to Christ. He does not press on to "get to heaven in resurrection’’ but more specifically to achieve the reason Christ grabbed hold of Him, to be an apostle to the gentiles. That was his race his course to run. I would think it error to see Paul’s remarks about his zealousness for his ministry as zealousness for salvation in barest terms of entry into heaven. Paul entered into the latter rest way before he wrote any of these letters. Such a rest that it catapulted him into one of the greatest ministries ever.

Blessings

 

[zz912]

I have a totally different view of Paul’s discourse. You see it as Paul not having "earned’’, been just enough or worthy of resurrection yet, that he strives for that. I see it that he has full faith/hope in receiving it by grace thru faith in His promise. but as to the actual experience and intimacy with Christ in the resurrection, no ,he has not obtained it (he is still alive) , just as he has not attained His goals in his ministry, his service to Christ. He does not press on to "get to heaven in resurrection’’ but more specifically to achieve the reason Christ grabbed hold of Him, to be an apostle to the gentiles. That was his race his course to run. I would think it error to see Paul’s remarks about his zealousness for his ministry as zealousness for salvation in barest terms of entry into heaven. Paul entered into the latter rest way before he wrote any of these letters. Such a rest that it catapulted him into one of the greatest ministries ever.

Blessings

Paul also wrote that even he had to complete the race, or he would lose his salvation.

 

[zz912]

Quote:
The thief on the cross didn’t even have time for baptism, but he did the right thing to the extent he could.

Right, he had to rest solely on God’s grace and provision thru the gift of faith and regeneration. And as at the beginning, so also in the middle and end. (resting is not "not doing’’, but doing out of the flow of the Holy Ghost and grace, not from the flesh or because we have to do it to be worthy. We are worthy already, and hence the thief spoke, did something out of an abundant new heart).

Don’t ignore the good works the Good Thief did on the cross.

 

[fhansen]

False. Salvation is because He was perfectly just and is imputed to us, as we will never be perfect on this side of life otherwise (yet the new man is perfect in Christ, but he does not perfectly win over the old man).

And now* that* seems to be duplicitous. Are we made just-or are we not? And do we need to be just-*justified-*in order to be saved? Do sinners enter heaven?

I have a totally different view of Paul’s discourse. You see it as Paul not having "earned’’, been just enough or worthy of resurrection yet, that he strives for that. I see it that he has full faith/hope in receiving it by grace thru faith in His promise. but as to the actual experience and intimacy with Christ in the resurrection, no ,he has not obtained it (he is still alive) , just as he has not attained His goals in his ministry, his service to Christ. He does not press on to "get to heaven in resurrection’’ but more specifically to achieve the reason Christ grabbed hold of Him, to be an apostle to the gentiles. That was his race his course to run. I would think it error to see Paul’s remarks about his zealousness for his ministry as zealousness for salvation in barest terms of entry into heaven. Paul entered into the latter rest way before he wrote any of these letters. Such a rest that it catapulted him into one of the greatest ministries ever.

Blessings

I disagree about Paul. He had the proper Catholic humility vis a vis eternal life.

 

[benjohnson]

This seems to deny basic aspects of human nature. God fashioned us in such a way that we are able to place our faith, or fail to place it, where we choose. I do agree that there is a gift of faith, a divine intervention that overflows us with the ability to believe, but Jesus consistently says “be it done for you according to your faith”. Faith is part of our natural faculties. It is up to us to exercise it.

For me, I’ve been given free will for everything under the sun - I can chose what Ice Cream to eat. But that initial blast of Faith never would have come from within my own mind - logically, being a Christian makes no sense to me as I now don’t get to fornicate, steal, lie, and amass power.

I also don’t think I can sustain my own faith for any appreciable time - every hour I have with God is a gift from God and not a treasure I can count as something I made or fashioned.

That said, God’s creatures are diverse - perhaps others can chose faith.

 

[benjohnson]

The Church teaches that all who are validly baptized are members of His One Body, the Church.

Don’t tell Michael Voris! He might explode!

 

[benhur]

Paul also wrote that even he had to complete the race, or he would lose his salvation.

No, lose his reward for ministry. You do believe in being rewarded for our works, right? It is beautifully put so that you can say what you say and I what I say, but one is sheepish and one goatish.

Blessings

 

[guanophore]

and do you not have to have faith in order to be baptized ? Are unbelievers baptized ? Of course not, yet the statement was that faith did not put you into the body of Christ, that you need hope and charity. It did not mention baptism.

Baptism is more than forgiveness of sins. It is for communicating the Holy Spirit ,to regenerate make born again. Much more than just forgiveness of sins. Again,that is counter to say faith (even as expressed in baptism) does not put you into the Body of Christ. To say you are not in the Body until your first good work of charity, or that being "worthy’’ of that grace sounds precariously counter to works coming after faith,and all or both by grace.

Blessings

While I am not sure that is what was meant in the post, I do agree with your point here.

I think we are all in agreement that faith without works is dead. Saving faith is faith that works.

Salvation is a process. You aren’t finally saved until you die in a state of grace. Looking at salvation as a one-time event is dangerous and contrary to the Christian faith and Scripture. Without works, you lose your salvation.

I think it might be more accurate to say that we fail to be united with the imperishable inheritance that is kept for us in heaven. We can’t really “lose” that which we have not yet attained! That being said, I do agree that good works keep us in the grace that saves us.

Again, we all agree in walking out the faith after the initial "saving’’/ justification. We call it sanctification, or living a holy (set apart for God) life.** Has nothing to do with justice, which works on merit or demerit. **We are under the law of grace now, justice being met by our Savior.

Blessings

Can you help me understand how you came to this conclusion? How does remaining in a right relationship with God relate to “merit or demerit”?

Never heard of regeneration, being born of the spirit, being born again, all things becoming new, as “snow-covered dung-heaps” Is a butterfly still an ugly caterpillar inside ? I do not think the catechism addresses the old man and the new man in Christ. Is that foreign to you ?

Blessings

That is an apocryphal phrase that has been attributed to Luther but might be a case of linguistic ledgerdomain. It may have been distilled from some of his writings, including Luther’s Sermon on Our Blessed Hope (St. Louis Ed. IX: 930-957):

“We see grain sowed in the ground. Reason now asks: What happens to the grain in winter that has been sowed in the ground? Is it not a dead, moldy, decayed thing, covered with frost and snow? But in its own time it grows from that dead, moldy, decayed grain into a beautiful green stalk, which flourishes like a forest and produces a full, fat ear on which there are 20, 30, 40 kernels, and thereby finds life where only death existed earlier. Thus God has done with heaven, earth, sun and moon, and does every year with the grain in the field. He calls to that which is nothing that it should become something and does this contrary to all reason. Can He not also do something which serves to glorify the children of God, even though it is contrary to all reason?”

We do get closer to the saying here:
“I said before that our righteousness is dung in the sight of God. Now if God chooses to adorn dung, he can do so” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 34, page 184).

In that same document Luther adds:

“All the justified could glory in their works, if they would attribute glory to God with respect to themselves. In this manner they would not be dung, but ornaments” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 34, page 178).

In answer to your question/observation, the Catechism does reference the “old man” in the context of sanctification:

1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.”

 

[guanophore]

Yes, the New Covenant is all about change-that’s what I’ve been saying. But if one’s theology insists on a mere* imputation* of righteousness, as sufficient to gain entrance into the Kingdom, then they’ve missed God’s point in His whole plan of salvation-and why He would allow man to fall to begin with. They’ve also failed to understand the meaning of those verses that tell that sinners simply do not enter heaven.The ultimate restoration of the justice He created us in (He did not create us to be sinners, after all), is His purpose-and onto even greater justice yet!

But this, as it was for Adam, is always a matter of CHOICE for man, even as God draws us and helps us to make that choice. We ultimately* participate* in our justification-we must participate in it-in order to be authentically just.

I think we need to ensure that the term imputation does not get co-opted. Since it is a Scriptural word, it is important not to allow the meaning of it to be distorted so that it no longer holds the meaning intended by the Apostle.

Rom. 4:22 22Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Different translations use different terms, accounted to him, reckoned, imputed, but the concept is that used in accounting - to add something to the balance column. Both Catholics and Protestants believe in the concept of imputed righteousness, we just understand differently what has happened. The Apsotles taught that Jesus was not just doctoring the books, but that an actual deposit has been made. We generally refer to this as “infused” righteousness to avoid misconceptions.

It is this actual imputation, the participation in his saving grace, that enables us as you have pointed out, to participate in our salvation.

 

[fhansen]

I think we need to ensure that the term imputation does not get co-opted. Since it is a Scriptural word, it is important not to allow the meaning of it to be distorted so that it no longer holds the meaning intended by the Apostle.

Rom. 4:22 22Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Different translations use different terms, accounted to him, reckoned, imputed, but the concept is that used in accounting - to add something to the balance column. Both Catholics and Protestants believe in the concept of imputed righteousness, we just understand differently what has happened. The Apsotles taught that Jesus was not just doctoring the books, but that an actual deposit has been made. We generally refer to this as “infused” righteousness to avoid misconceptions.

It is this actual imputation, the participation in his saving grace, that enables us as you have pointed out, to participate in our salvation.

Well, yes, Abraham didn’t have someone else’s righteousness imputed to him; rather he was credited for his own faith in this case.

 

[guanophore]

False. Salvation is because He was perfectly just and is imputed to us, as we will never be perfect on this side of life otherwise (yet the new man is perfect in Christ, but he does not perfectly win over the old man).

I think this is where your soteriology departs from the Apostolic faith. Indeed God’s purpose for us is to be made just. Nothing unclean can enter heaven, therefore, all of our sins and attachment to sins must be purged from us.

Yes, the Christian walk. I have a totally different view of Paul’s discourse. You see it as Paul not having "earned’’, been just enough or worthy of resurrection yet, that he strives for that.

I don’t think this is consistent with what the CC teaches, or what Paul writes. It is true that Paul strives to live his life in such a way as to be worthy of the high calling to which He has been called, but it is not by his own efforts that he has become the righteousness of God in Christ. It is a work of grace in and through him, as he says, it is no longer he that lives, but Christ that lives in him.

I see it that he has full faith/hope in receiving it by grace thru faith in His promise. but as to the actual experience and intimacy with Christ in the resurrection, no ,he has not obtained it (he is still alive) , just as he has not attained His goals in his ministry, his service to Christ. He does not press on to "get to heaven in resurrection'' but more specifically to achieve the reason Christ grabbed hold of Him, to be an apostle to the gentiles.

For Paul there is no separation between the two. Preaching the gospel is that good work that was forordained for him, and woe to him if he does not! He has hope that he will attain to the imperishable inheritance that is kept in heaven for him. Of course he presses on to obtain eternal life, knowing that every minute he remains on this earth, he can forsake the high calling to which he has been called.

That was his race his course to run. I would think it error to see Paul's remarks about his zealousness for his ministry as zealousness for salvation in barest terms of entry into heaven.

Not bare at all, but he is mindful that he has not yet attained the eternal life that he has pursued, and that he must maintain the works of his ministry until he is poured out.

Paul entered into the latter rest way before he wrote any of these letters. Such a rest that it catapulted him into one of the greatest ministries ever.

Yes, but he did not presume that he would remain in that state of grace. He continually was striving toward that holiness without which none of us will see God.

 

[guanophore]

Paul also wrote that even he had to complete the race, or he would lose his salvation.

Paul did not consider that he had yet attained salvation, so he would not think of “losing” that which he did not yet have.

**

Don’t ignore the good works the Good Thief did on the cross.

**

 

[zz912]

No, lose his reward for ministry. You do believe in being rewarded for our works, right? It is beautifully put so that you can say what you say and I what I say, but one is sheepish and one goatish.

Blessings

Of course we are rewarded for our works. Our good works are like priceless gems, but our bad works are like straw and hay and will be burned away in Purgatory.

But Paul was NOT saying he would lose his ministry. You are reading your theology into the text.

1 Cor 9:16 For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.

18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.

20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;

21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:

27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

The prize he is describing is salvation. It’s something he hasn’t fully attained and won’t until his death. He has already attained his ministry. Your interpretation of that passage is false. Paul is clear that he can lose his salvation.

 

[zz912]

Don’t tell Michael Voris! He might explode!

I think you don’t really understand his message then, if you think he would explode at such a statement.

 

[zz912]

Remember not to “go outside” what James Teaches infallibly

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?*You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works,

Correct. And I would add, many make the error when they forget that Abraham was justified 3 separate times in the Bible.

 

[benhur]

Paul did not consider that he had yet attained salvation, so he would not think of “losing” that which he did not yet have.

**

**

Hi G,

Do not think he is saying he has not attained salvation. What he has not attained is full reward for doing the ministry as laid out before the foundation of the earth. You do believe in rewards (beyond entry into the kingdom) for service do you not? The apostles were not so much wrong in bickering or vying to be at the Lord’s right hand in the kingdom to come, but more that they did not know how to attain it and who granted it. Paul did not want to lose the spot that was ordained for him , or get a lesser spot because he stopped pressing, which is different than giving up or even forsaking all faith.

Blessings

 

[benhur]

Of course we are rewarded for our works. Our good works are like priceless gems, but our bad works are like straw and hay and will be burned away in Purgatory.

But Paul was NOT saying he would lose his ministry. You are reading your theology into the text.

1 Cor 9:16 For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.

18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.

20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;

21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:

27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

The prize he is describing is salvation. It’s something he hasn’t fully attained and won’t until his death. He has already attained his ministry. Your interpretation of that passage is false. Paul is clear that he can lose his salvation.

Did not say Paul would lose his ministry , but reward or that some works/rewards might get burned up as you say.It is not all or nothing, but but full reward or less than what could have been. Even your verse of burning up says one can still be saved , though by the skin of his teeth.

Blessings

 

[fhansen]

Hi G,

Do not think he is saying he has not attained salvation. What he has not attained is full reward for doing the ministry as laid out before the foundation of the earth. You do believe in rewards (beyond entry into the kingdom) for service do you not? The apostles were not so much wrong in bickering or vying to be at the Lord’s right hand in the kingdom to come, but more that they did not know how to attain it and who granted it. Paul did not want to lose the spot that was ordained for him , or get a lesser spot because he stopped pressing, which is different than giving up or even forsaking all faith.

Blessings

Nah, that’s not Paul.