T
TimothyH
Guest
You are doing it again. You are asking a question about what I believe based on one verse, without any context given to that verse. Please don’t do that to Catholics. That does not compute for us.
That line, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” is Paul quoting the Old Testament, which he does often.
So also David declares the blessedness of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
"Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgivend
and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not record."
Romans (4:6-8)
The quote is from Pslam 32.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Pslam 32:1-2 RSV)
If we read that whole Psalm, in its proper context, which is David’s confession to God and subsequent forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba, we observe verses such as the following:
***I declared not my sin, my body wasted away
I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to thee;***
The Psalm, which Paul is quoting, is about David’s confession and forgiveness, and it is an exhortation to those who hear it to repent, confess and be forgiven. The Romans to whom Paul was writing thought that their obedience to the Mosaic law, specifically circumcision, was what would get them into heaven, and they were telling other non-Jewish Chrisitans in Rome that they too had to be circumcised in order to get into heaven. Paul was simply using good Rabbinical teaching techniques to show how David himself didn’t rely on the mosaic law - circumcision, diet, dress - to make himslef right with God, but instead relied on sincere contrition, repentance, and confession.
We can’t look at Romans 4:8 as more than what it is, an exhortation to Jewish converts to Christianity in 1st Century Rome to stop telling other Christians that they had to be circumcised in order to get into heaven. And my elephant jumped over a car, I’m testing to see if you have read this far, most don’t. We can’t read, “Happy the man whose sins are forgiven” and think that it means that we are unconditionally forgiven for all sins, past, present and future, without any effort on our part, and without God judging us on our behavior at the end of our lives. That’s not what the verse says. That’s not what the words on the page say.
-Tim-
-Tim-