Rubutting a Baptist on Faith and Works

[unacanta]

Originally Posted by unacanta
First of all Paul taught that any works whether those of the Mosaic Law or general works were not meritorious in the eyes of the Lord.

The strongest of course is:
Titus 3:5
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

Pauline doctrine is replete with the concept our works mean naught in the equation of salvation.

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This has to do with BEING SAVED through BAPTISM. He is saying that we are SAVED by God’s Mercy, NOT by works. In other words, you cannot equate being saved by doing works as the same as being baptized.

But he is ALSO saying that our works AFTER OUR SALVATION ***DO ***COUNT, and *we will be judged *by our personal works of mercy (works of LOVE) in the sight of the Lord on the last day, even on the last day of our lives on earth. In fact, these are the works EVERY HUMAN BEING will be judged on. I call them the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

You read into scripture that which is not there:
Titus 3:5
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

No where is “Baptism” mention in this verse. This verse has nothing to do with being baptized. It is by the regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit we are saved. There is nothing in this verse which speaks of " AFTER OUR SALVATION". No, you read into scripture what is not there. Paul is indeed saying we are saved according to God’s mercy. You will have to look to other scriptures to find you concept of Baptism is necessary for salvation or judgment concerning corporal and spiritual works.

 

[peary]

You read into scripture that which is not there:
Titus 3:5
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

No where is “Baptism” mention in this verse. This verse has nothing to do with being baptized. It is by the regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit we are saved. There is nothing in this verse which speaks of " AFTER OUR SALVATION". No, you read into scripture what is not there. Paul is indeed saying we are saved according to God’s mercy. You will have to look to other scriptures to find you concept of Baptism is necessary for salvation or judgment concerning corporal and spiritual works.

Peter tells us that “BAPTISM SAVES YOU” I Peter 3:21. This is a very important text that needs to be taken seriously. Prior to this, he tells us that Baptism saves us in the same way that the Flood waters saved Noah and his family.

It’s an analogy, but one that deals with the reality of Baptism. Christians from the earliest times believed that Baptism takes away the stain of Original Sin from one’s soul. It cleanses one so that the soul appears immaculate in the eyes of God, and an imprint of Christ is within us.

You are not a Catholic Christian so i don’t expect you to understand. But, again, since the earliest days of the Church, this is what the doctrine was and still is.

 

[IrishEddieOHara]

You muddy the water by casting scripture against scripture:

4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
The New King James Version. 1982 (Tit 3:4-5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Every deed done has to and originates from the Holy Spirit:
3 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
The New King James Version. 1982 (Php 2:13). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

We agree. Every good work that we do in the name of Christ originates with the Holy Spirit. But, we cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit and by our cooperation, these deeds are said to be our deeds and good works, even though they originate with Him and we could not do them without Him.

You are so quick the accept the saving mercy of Christ upon you soul, now you want to present your works as merit before Him, as if His life, death and resurrection is not enough??

Scripture says that we shall all be called to account in the Last Judgment and our works will be presented to Him. Those who have done good shall inherit eternal life and those who have done evil shall inherit death.

If you read Rom2 through the eyes of understanding rather than the blurred vision of the Teaching Magisterium, then you would acknowledge before men what God has accomplished in your life, you are saved not by deeds done in righteousness but rather His mercy.

Let us go ahead and read the scriptures through the eyes of understanding and not through either the teaching of the Magisterium nor the Baptist Tradition.

Rom 2: 6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

2:7 To them who by patient continuance in ***well doing ***seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

There is it is. The scriptures are telling us that Jesus will render to every man according to his deeds (good works or evil works) and then verse seven tells us exactly what is rendered to us – ETERNAL LIFE.

What is so hard to understand about this?

The one disappointed on the Judgment Day will be those who have not placed their faith in Christ for the Christian is not to be judged, but rather his judgment concerning sin has been accomplished;

Is your insinuation that Catholics do not trust in Christ as our Savior? That is most assuredly not true. Is your insinuation that we believe that our good works save us? That is also most assuredly not true.

What good works do for us, according to Romans 2: 5-10, is to lay hold upon and assure us of receiving eternal life.

24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, she who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life

The New King James Version. 1982 (Jn 5:24). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Yes, believers have eternal life. But it is important that you not separate that scripture from the rest of the scriptures which qualify this possession of eternal life.

When we are brought into the Kingdom of God through baptism, we are adopted as children by the grace of God. The family is the analogy God uses (one of a couple) to describe our relationship with Him. So if God uses family language, then we must find that language and use it properly where ever He places it in scripture.

Here is an example of this family language:

Eph. 1: 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Note the word inheritance. This is what we have right now – we have the downpayment (earnest) of the inheritance of eternal life. Eternal life is the inheritance of all believers who are God’s adopted children.

When you have a downpayment, you have a part of the whole which is promissory to the rest coming later. We have the downpayment of eternal life, so as we do have that part of eternal life, it is correct to say that we do have eternal life. We just do not have all of it yet. There is more – the fullness and completeness – yet to come.

There is something important you need to remember about an inheritance – it can be forfeited by the child. Inheritances are set aside for those who keep the family rules and bring honor to the family. Wicked, wretched children who bring dishonor to the family are disinherited. This is what happens in a family and it also happens in the family called The Kingdom of God. The principle is simple:

Covenant keepers are blessed (receive inheritance).

Covenant breakers are cursed (are disinherited).

Your problem is that you have not used the entirety of the analogy that God has given us. When we are given an analogy or a type, we must work with it to bring out all the gems of truth that it holds.

 

[inkaneer]

The red herring you have brought up concerning the demonic faith nor lack thereof has not been mentioned by me. So what ever logic you are applying when considering “your argument fails” is lost in the weeds of subterfuge.

LOL, not testy by no means. The contradiction which is so apparent here when the statement “we are saved by grace”, but…notice the conjunction there is always something from the RCC point of view which needs to be added.

The boasting by the RCC and their doctrine of “works” is appalling when the stark reality of scriptures slashes every deed done in righteousness

RCC you boast in the law of works
English Standard Version - Romans 2:17
But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God

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RCC you dishonor God by boasting in the law of works
English Standard Version - Romans 2:23
You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

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RCC your boasting is excluded
English Standard Version - Romans 3:27
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

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RCC your boasting of works is before men not before God
English Standard Version - Romans 4:2
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

Please RCC, try to follow Paul and boast not of your works.

Typical johnny come lately protestant drivel. I see you are still beating that strawman called “saved by works”. Well, have a go at it. But your faith is dead. Oh wait, that is that darn "epistle of straw "again. Oh well, just ignore it as usual.

 

[unacanta]

Peter tells us that “BAPTISM SAVES YOU” I Peter 3:21. This is a very important text that needs to be taken seriously. Prior to this, he tells us that Baptism saves us in the same way that the Flood waters saved Noah and his family.

It’s an analogy, but one that deals with the reality of Baptism. Christians from the earliest times believed that Baptism takes away the stain of Original Sin from one’s soul. It cleanses one so that the soul appears immaculate in the eyes of God, and an imprint of Christ is within us.

You are not a Catholic Christian so i don’t expect you to understand. But, again, since the earliest days of the Church, this is what the doctrine was and still is.

I Peter 3:19-21
. . . eing put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also [Christ] went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us, namely baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . (I Peter 3:18b-21)
Beside Acts 2:38, this is the next text most strongly depended on by those in favor of the idea that baptism is necessary for salvation. The reason is obvious. This text includes the striking phrase, “an antitype which now saves us, namely baptism.” In reference to baptism Paul writes, “Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God.” Now the physical baptism is “the removal of filth of the flesh” (cf. Hebrews 10:22). But what actually saves is “the answer of a good conscience toward God.”
This shows the close examination between this verse and Hebrews 10:22. That there is another careful distinction between outward cleansing of the body in pure water, and inward cleansing of the conscience. The same distinction is made here in II Peter 3:21, and shows that it is not the outward act which saves but the inward change which is signified by the outward act. Thus Peter refers briefly to the sign of clear conscience, the submitting to baptism, as a short way of referring to the actual thing, the clear conscience. But then for clarification he explains that it is not the sign which saves, but the thing signified: the clear conscience saves, not the physical baptism.
In this context, then, “baptism” is used metaphorically to symbolize a conscience clear before God. It is not said that it is the outward, physical act of baptism which saves, but that it is the good conscience which baptism signifies which saves. This good conscience is achieved by the washing of the conscience by the Blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:22; Titus 3:5; I John 1:7; Revelation 1:5), and is acquired entirely by faith (Romans 3:28; Ephesians 2:8-10) before baptism in water is practiced as a sign of that good conscience (Romans 4:8-11, remembering that baptism is the New Testament counterpart to circumcision; Colossians 2:11-12).
Thus we see that it is deceiving to refer simply to the phrase “[baptism] now saves us” without taking it in context with the very careful explanatory phrase which Peter uses, that is, that it is not the outward and physical act which saves, but the inward testimony of a cleansed and good conscience before God, which saves (cf. I John 3:21).
I Peter 3:21, therefore, does not prove the necessity of water baptism for salvation.

 

[unacanta]

Typical johnny come lately protestant drivel. I see you are still beating that strawman called “saved by works”. Well, have a go at it. But your faith is dead. Oh wait, that is that darn "epistle of straw "again. Oh well, just ignore it as usual.

I think you were the one who was “beating that strawman”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6372844&postcount=55

 

[IrishEddieOHara]

I Peter 3:21, therefore, does not prove the necessity of water baptism for salvation.

As circumcision saved men in the Old Covenant, so baptism saves men in the New Covenant. The reason is simple: both rituals are rituals of covenant making. Covenant is the union between two persons, therefore, when one enters a covenant, one has entered a relationship. The relationship we enter is salvific because the making of covenant in baptism unites us to Christ (Rom. 6:3 and Gal.3:27).

Unless you enter the New Covenant, you are not saved, and the normative way to enter the New Covenant, which Jesus established in His Blood, is through baptism.

 

[unacanta]

Every good work that we do in the name of Christ originates with the Holy Spirit…

The last judgment is for those who did not place their faith in God nor Christ
John 5:24 (NKJV)

24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, she who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, tbut has passed from death into life.
The New King James Version. 1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

I do not nor does scripture agree that “those deeds are said to be our deeds and good works” That is nowhere to be found in scripture.

Let us go ahead and read the scriptures through the eyes of understanding and not through either the teaching of the Magisterium nor the Baptist Tradition.

Rom 2: 6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

2:7 To them who by patient continuance in ***well doing ***seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

There is it is. The scriptures are telling us that Jesus will render to every man according to his deeds (good works or evil works) and then verse seven tells us exactly what is rendered to us – ETERNAL LIFE.

What is so hard to understand about this?

Please note:
Romans 2:6 (NASB)
6 who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:

The capital letters tell us that Paul is quoting the Old Testament, specifically PS62:12. Yes, those under the Law were indeed held accountable to the Law. With the advent of Christ He has removed our misdeeds and nailed to them cross. So, ya, sinful man, if you wish to hold up your deeds as worthy of eternal life, by all means please do so. The key of course is in verse seven, “7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality”. Paul tells us in Rm3:10 there is none righteous, no not one. Even though we are called to do good, seek glory, honor and immortality, the sad reality is we don’t.

Again the scripture you wish to side step and don’t wish to consider:
5 fnot by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through gthe washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
The New King James Version. 1982 (Tit 3:5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Our works have nothing to do with our being saved.

Is your insinuation that Catholics do not trust in Christ as our Savior? …

What good works do for us, according to Romans 2: 5-10, is to lay hold upon and assure us of receiving eternal life.

Yes, believers have eternal life. But it is important that you not separate that scripture from the rest of the scriptures which qualify this possession of eternal life.

When we are brought into the Kingdom of God through baptism, we are adopted as children by the grace of God. The family is the analogy God uses (one of a couple) to describe our relationship with Him. So if God uses family language, then we must find that language and use it properly where ever He places it in scripture.

If it is by grace you are save and according to Eph2:5 and 2:8 it is not by your own doing but rather a gift of God. We are not brought into the Kingdom of God through baptism but rather by a powerful act of the Holy Spirit in the act of regeneration of new birth.

Here is an example of this family language:

Eph. 1: 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Note the word inheritance. This is what we have right now – we have the downpayment (earnest) of the inheritance of eternal life. Eternal life is the inheritance of all believers who are God’s adopted children.

When you have a downpayment, you have a part of the whole which is promissory to the rest coming later. We have the downpayment of eternal life, so as we do have that part of eternal life, it is correct to say that we do have eternal life. We just do not have all of it yet. There is more – the fullness and completeness – yet to come.

There is something important you need to remember about an inheritance – it can be forfeited by the child. Inheritances are set aside for those who keep the family rules and bring honor to the family. Wicked, wretched children who bring dishonor to the family are disinherited. This is what happens in a family and it also happens in the family called The Kingdom of God. The principle is simple:

Covenant keepers are blessed (receive inheritance).

Covenant breakers are cursed (are disinherited).

Actually, we do not have a down payment but rather the gift has been given to us and it is in our possession

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love
The New King James Version. 1982 (Eph 1:3-4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Since it is God whom chose us and blessed us and none that the Father gives Christ will in no way be cast our, then our “inheritance” is safe and secure be it is He who keeps it for us.

Your problem is that you have not used the entirety of the analogy that God has given us. When we are given an analogy or a type, we must work with it to bring out all the gems of truth that it holds.

There you go again…“we must work”

Try allowing Christ and His finished works upon the cross be your motto, your works are but pitiful rags before a mighty and righteous God you saved us while we were yet sinners.

 

[Bookcat]

again i recommend to all these audiences by Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html

 

[dcs6f4]

Under the auspices of the Law no one can obtain salvation because all men have sinned… God is just and therefore the penalty for sin is death… no getting around that.

Baptism places us in a new realm in relation to God. Through Faith we receive the Sacrament of Baptism and bind ourselves to Christ.

After Baptism we are in a familial relationship with God and under the auspices of God’s grace.

In this system we open ourselves up to God’s mercy. We are able to be rewarded as a child would be in any home. Nothing a child can ever do is equal to the gifts his parents give. Just like nothing we ever do can merit the reward of eternal life. However, God still expects us to love through action and chooses to gift us with eternal life out of his eternal mercy.

We have to HOPE, hope does not exist if FAITH guarantees eternal life… you cannot hope for something you have already obtained with certainty… Paul would not work out salvation with “fear and trembling” in my opinion if he was of the mindset of a typical Protestant congregation.

 

[inkaneer]

I think you were the one who was “beating that strawman”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6372844&postcount=55

Really? Isn’t saved by faith alone [sola fide] one of the five “sola’s” of the protestant “reformation” [revolt]? The five solas articulated five fundamental beliefs of the Protestant Reformation, pillars which the Reformers believed to be essentials of the Christian life and practice. They are:

1 Sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”)
2 Sola fide (“by faith alone”)
3 Sola gratia (“by grace alone”)
4 Solus Christus or Solo Christo (“Christ alone” or “through Christ alone”)
5 Soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”)

No strawman there. Sola fide is the teaching that justification is received by faith alone, without any mixture of or need for good works, Martin Luther’s teaching, which has been adopted by other protestant denominations, said that faith is not a human response to God’s grace but the work of God through the means of grace. The fallacy of the doctrine is that it makes faith a result of grace yet God’s grace is available to everyone but not everyone has faith. 1Ti 2:4 tells us that God “…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That is God’s desire and so He pours out His grace on all mankind. But, we know, that not all mankind is saved. That, therefore, is the disconnect in the doctrine as it makes humans into automatons and denies man’s free will to accept or reject God’s grace. If man has no part in his salvation then all men are saved but we know that is not true. But, if faith is the human response to God’s grace as the Church teaches then man can accept the grace [has faith] or not [no faith] that makes faith a work which protestantism denies. The protestant doctrine makes God into a capricious god who rewards those he chooses with saving faith and therefore salvation while punishing those he chooses by withholding saving faith and therefore damnation. Can anyone ever wonder where Calvin got his doctrine of predestination? The Catholic position places the responsibility of man’s salvation squarely on man himself. Godmakes His grace available to all men. We either accept it [have faith] or not [no faith] and by doing so WE determine our salvation. This is tied into works as faith itself is a work and it is by our works that we will be judged. Like I said, no strawman there.

 

[Bookcat]

Pope Benedict XVI:

Saint Paul (13):

The Doctrine of Justification: from Works to Faith.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On the journey we are making under St Paul’s guidance, let us now reflect on a topic at the centre of the controversies of the century of the Reformation: the question of justification. How does man become just in God’s eyes? When Paul met the Risen One on the road to Damascus he was an accomplished man; irreproachable according to the justice deriving from the Law (cf. Phil 3: 6), Paul surpassed many of his contemporaries in the observance of the Mosaic Law and zealously upheld the traditions of his fathers (cf. Gal 1: 14). The illumination of Damascus radically changed his life; he began to consider all merits acquired in an impeccable religious career as “refuse”, in comparison with the sublimity of knowing Jesus Christ (cf. Phil 3: 8). The Letter to the Philippians offers us a moving testimony of Paul’s transition from a justice founded on the Law and acquired by his observance of the required actions, to a justice based on faith in Christ. He had understood that what until then had seemed to him to be a gain, before God was, in fact, a loss; and thus he had decided to stake his whole existence on Jesus Christ (cf. Phil 3: 7). The treasure hidden in the field and the precious pearl for whose purchase all was to be invested were no longer in function of the Law, but Jesus Christ, his Lord.

The relationship between Paul and the Risen One became so deep as to induce him to maintain that Christ was no longer solely his life but also his very living, to the point that to be able to reach him death became a gain (cf. Phil 1: 21). This is not to say he despised life, but that he realized that for him at this point there was no other purpose in life and thus he had no other desire than to reach Christ as in an athletics competition to remain with him for ever. The Risen Christ had become the beginning and the end of his existence, the cause and the goal of his race. It was only his concern for the development in faith of those he had evangelized and his anxiety for all of the Churches he founded (cf. 2 Cor 11: 28) that induced him to slow down in his race towards his one Lord, to wait for his disciples so they might run with him towards the goal. Although from a perspective of moral integrity he had nothing to reproach himself in his former observance of the Law, once Christ had reached him he preferred not to make judgments on himself (cf. 1 Cor 4: 3-4). Instead he limited himself to resolving to press on, to make his own the One who had made him his own (cf. Phil 3: 12).

It is precisely because of this personal experience of relationship with Jesus Christ that Paul henceforth places at the centre of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between the two alternative paths to justice: one built on the works of the Law, the other founded on the grace of faith in Christ. The alternative between justice by means of works of the Law and that by faith in Christ thus became one of the dominant themes that run through his Letters: “We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law; because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Gal 2: 15-16). And to the Christians of Rome he reasserts that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rm 3: 23-24). And he adds “we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (ibid., v. 28). At this point Luther translated: “justified by faith alone”. I shall return to this point at the end of the Catechesis. First, we must explain what is this “Law” from which we are freed and what are those “works of the Law” that do not justify. The opinion that was to recur systematically in history already existed in the community at Corinth. This opinion consisted in thinking that it was a question of moral law and that the Christian freedom thus consisted in the liberation from ethics. Thus in Corinth the term “πάντα μοι έξεστιν” (I can do what I like) was widespread. It is obvious that this interpretation is wrong: Christian freedom is not libertinism; the liberation of which St Paul spoke is not liberation from good works…

 

[Bookcat]

continued…

So what does the Law from which we are liberated and which does not save mean? For St Paul, as for all his contemporaries, the word “Law” meant the Torah in its totality, that is, the five books of Moses. The Torah, in the Pharisaic interpretation, that which Paul had studied and made his own, was a complex set of conduct codes that ranged from the ethical nucleus to observances of rites and worship and that essentially determined the identity of the just person. In particular, these included circumcision, observances concerning pure food and ritual purity in general, the rules regarding the observance of the Sabbath, etc. codes of conduct that also appear frequently in the debates between Jesus and his contemporaries. All of these observances that express a social, cultural and religious identity had become uniquely important in the time of Hellenistic culture, starting from the third century B.C. This culture which had become the universal culture of that time and was a seemingly rational culture; a polytheistic culture, seemingly tolerant constituted a strong pressure for cultural uniformity and thus threatened the identity of Israel, which was politically constrained to enter into this common identity of the Hellenistic culture. This resulted in the loss of its own identity, hence also the loss of the precious heritage of the faith of the Fathers, of the faith in the one God and in the promises of God.

Against this cultural pressure, which not only threatened the Israelite identity but also the faith in the one God and in his promises, it was necessary to create a wall of distinction, a shield of defence to protect the precious heritage of the faith; this wall consisted precisely in the Judaic observances and prescriptions. Paul, who had learned these observances in their role of defending God’s gift, of the inheritance of faith in one God alone, saw this identity threatened by the freedom of the Christians this is why he persecuted them. At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One he understood that with Christ’s Resurrection the situation had changed radically. With Christ, the God of Israel, the one true God, became the God of all peoples. The wall as he says in his Letter to the Ephesians between Israel and the Gentiles, was no longer necessary: it is Christ who protects us from polytheism and all of its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity within the diversity of cultures. The wall is no longer necessary; our common identity within the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is he who makes us just. Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14).

Paul knows that in the twofold love of God and neighbour the whole of the Law is present and carried out. Thus in communion with Christ, in a faith that creates charity, the entire Law is fulfilled. We become just by entering into communion with Christ who is Love. We shall see the same thing in the Gospel next Sunday, the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is the Gospel of the judge whose sole criterion is love. What he asks is only this: Did you visit me when I was sick? When I was in prison? Did you give me food to eat when I was hungry, did you clothe me when I was naked? And thus justice is decided in charity. Thus, at the end of this Gospel we can almost say: love alone, charity alone. But there is no contradiction between this Gospel and St Paul. It is the same vision, according to which communion with Christ, faith in Christ, creates charity. And charity is the fulfilment of communion with Christ. Thus, we are just by being united with him and in no other way.

At the end, we can only pray the Lord that he help us to believe; really believe. Believing thus becomes life, unity with Christ, the transformation of our life. And thus, transformed by his love, by the love of God and neighbour, we can truly be just in God’s eyes.

–Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

 

[Bookcat]

Continued:

Saint Paul (14):

The Doctrine of Justification: The Apostle’s Teaching on Faith and Works

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the Catechesis last Wednesday I spoke of how man is justified before God. Following St Paul, we have seen that man is unable to “justify” himself with his own actions, but can only truly become “just” before God because God confers his “justice” upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, St Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us “just”. This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. Or to use different words faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.

Thus, in our last Catechesis, we discovered two levels: that of the insignificance of our actions and of our deeds to achieve salvation, and that of “justification” through faith which produces the fruit of the Spirit. The confusion of these two levels has caused more than a few misunderstandings in Christianity over the course of centuries. In this context it is important that St Paul, in the same Letter to the Galatians radically accentuates, on the one hand, the freely given nature of justification that is not dependent on our works, but which at the same time also emphasizes the relationship between faith and charity, between faith and works: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5: 6). Consequently, there are on the one hand “works of the flesh”, which are “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry…” (Gal 5: 19-20): all works that are contrary to the faith; on the other, there is the action of the Holy Spirit who nourishes Christian life, inspiring “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5: 22-23). These are the fruits of the Spirit that blossom from faith.

Agape, love, is cited at the beginning of this list of virtues and self-control at the conclusion. In fact, the Spirit who is the Love of the Father and the Son pours out his first gift, agape, into our hearts (cf. Rm 5: 5); and to be fully expressed, agape, love, requires self-control. In my first Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, I also treated of the love of the Father and the Son which reaches us and profoundly transforms our existence. Believers know that reciprocal love is embodied in the love of God and of Christ, through the Spirit. Let us return to the Letter to the Galatians. Here St Paul says that by bearing one another’s burdens believers are fulfilling the commandment of love (cf. Gal 6: 2).
Justified through the gift of faith in Christ, we are called to live in the love of Christ for neighbour, because it is on this criterion that we shall be judged at the end of our lives. In reality Paul only repeats what Jesus himself said and which is proposed to us anew by last Sunday’s Gospel, in the parable of the Last Judgment. In the First Letter to the Corinthians St Paul pours himself out in a famous eulogy of love. It is called the “hymn to love”: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor 13: 1, 4-5). Christian love is particularly demanding because it springs from Christ’s total love for us: that love that claims us, welcomes us, embraces us, sustains us, to the point of tormenting us since it forces each one to no longer live for himself, closed into his own selfishness, but for him “who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5: 15). The love of Christ makes us, in him, that new creation (cf. 2 Cor 5: 17), which comes to belong to his Mystical Body that is the Church.

 

[Bookcat]

continued…

Seen in this perspective, the centrality of justification without works, the primary object of Paul’s preaching, does not clash with faith that works through love; indeed, it demands that our faith itself be expressed in a life in accordance with the Spirit. Often there is seen an unfounded opposition between St Paul’s theology and that of St James, who writes in his Letter: “as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead”(2: 26). In reality, while Paul is primarily concerned to show that faith in Christ is necessary and sufficient, James accentuates the consequential relations between faith and works (cf. Jas 2: 24). Therefore, for both Paul and James, faith that is active in love testifies to the freely given gift of justification in Christ. Salvation received in Christ needs to be preserved and witnessed to “with fear and trembling. For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure… Do all things without grumbling or questioning… holding fast the word of life”, St Paul was to say further, to the Christians of Philippi (cf. Phil 2: 12-14, 16).

We are often induced to fall into the same misunderstandings that characterized the community of Corinth; those Christians thought that since they had been freely justified in Christ through faith, “they could do as they pleased”. And they believed and it often seems that today’s Christians also think this that it is permissible to create divisions in the Church, the Body of Christ, to celebrate the Eucharist without looking after the neediest of our brothers, to aspire to better charisms without being aware that each is a member of the other, and so forth. The consequences of a faith that is not manifested in love are disastrous, because it reduces itself to the arbitrariness and subjectivism that is most harmful to us and to our brothers. On the contrary, in following St Paul, we should gain a new awareness of the fact that precisely because we are justified in Christ, we no longer belong to ourselves but have become a temple of the Spirit and hence are called to glorify God in our body with the whole of our existence (cf. 1 Cor 6: 19). We would be underselling the inestimable value of justification, purchased at the high price of Christ’s Blood, if we were not to glorify him with our body. In fact, our worship at the same time reasonable and spiritual is exactly this, which is why St Paul exhorts us “to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rm 12: 1). To what would a liturgy be reduced if addressed solely to the Lord without simultaneously becoming service to one’s brothers, a faith that would not express itself in charity? And the Apostle often places his communities in confrontation with the Last Judgment, on the occasion of which: “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5: 10; cf. also Rm 2: 16). And this idea of the Last Judgment must illumine us in our daily lives.

If the ethics that Paul proposes to believers do not deteriorate into forms of moralism and prove themselves timely for us, it is because, each time, they start from the personal and communal relationship with Christ, to be realized concretely in a life according to the Spirit. This is essential: the Christian ethic is not born from a system of commandments but is a consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life; if it is true it incarnates and fulfils itself in love for neighbour. For this reason, any ethical decay is not limited to the individual sphere but it also weakens personal and communal faith from which it derives and on which it has a crucial effect. Therefore let us allow ourselves to be touched by reconciliation, which God has given us in Christ, by God’s “foolish” love for us; nothing and no one can ever separate us from his love (cf. Rm 8: 39). We live in this certainty. It is this certainty that gives us the strength to live concretely the faith that works in love.
**
–Pope Benedict XVI**

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html

 

[IrishEddieOHara]

The last judgment is for those who did not place their faith in God nor Christ

Since you do not wish to take the scripture as it is written and at face value, I will say no more on the subject. When the Bible declares that we have an “earnest” of our inheritance, and that inheritance is stated to be eternal life, you have no right to deny what the scriptures teach.

You are a typical stubborn, know-it-all Protestant who will face Christ on the Judgment Day and explain to Him why you thought you were smarter than 2000 years of Christians with whom you disagree.

I have said my piece here.

 

[Bookcat]

“Following St Paul, we have seen that **man is unable to “justify” himself **with his own actions, but can only truly become “just” before God because God confers his “justice” upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, St Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us “just”. This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. **This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. **Or to use different words faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.”

– Pope Benedict XVI (see the whole texts above)

 

[inkaneer]

“Following St Paul, we have seen that **man is unable to “justify” himself **with his own actions, but can only truly become “just” before God because God confers his “justice” upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, St Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us “just”. This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. **This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. **Or to use different words faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.”

– Pope Benedict XVI (see the whole texts above)

But is this faith automatic and does it come from God as the protestants allege or is it elective on the part of man who can exercise his free will and either accept or reject God’s grace.?

 

[Bookcat]

But is this faith automatic and does it come from God as the protestants allege or is it elective on the part of man who can exercise his free will and either accept or reject God’s grace.?

There are different senses in which Faith is used … even in Scripture…

I would not call it “automatic” but it is a gift from God …which man can often refuse…or accept. But even this acceptance is by the grace of God (though we are of course freely involved) “Without me you can do nothing” as Jesus said. No one can say “Jesus is Lord” but by the Holy Spirit (in the real sense…meaning the words…not as a parrot.

CCC 179 Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Bookcat]

Pope Benedict XVI even points out a way in which Luthers phrase can be acceptable…

“Against this cultural pressure, which not only threatened the Israelite identity but also the faith in the one God and in his promises, it was necessary to create a wall of distinction, a shield of defence to protect the precious heritage of the faith; this wall consisted precisely in the Judaic observances and prescriptions. Paul, who had learned these observances in their role of defending God’s gift, of the inheritance of faith in one God alone, saw this identity threatened by the freedom of the Christians this is why he persecuted them. At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One he understood that with Christ’s Resurrection the situation had changed radically. With Christ, the God of Israel, the one true God, became the God of all peoples. The wall as he says in his Letter to the Ephesians between Israel and the Gentiles, was no longer necessary: it is Christ who protects us from polytheism and all of its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity within the diversity of cultures. The wall is no longer necessary; our common identity within the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is he who makes us just. Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. ****And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. ****So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14).”

(from the Audience linked above)