The Real reason why one cannot be saved by faith alone.

[BayCityRickL]

SocaliCatholic:

Please explain how this verse means Scripture interprets Scripture. I could not find Scripture interprets Scripture after reading it three times.

The following is a verse that is often quoted by an evangelical radio-evangelist and is, as I recall, the same concept in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum.

1COR 2:13 And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

And, how does this follow? To the extent that any idea in scripture is a spiritual reality described in spiritual terms, we must adhere to the rendering of scripture.

Dei Verbum says we must 1) take all of scripture together and 2) compare scripture [verses] with scripture [verses].

A large number of posts are pitting verses against verses, and that is neither the evangelical’s nor the Council’s recommendation.

 In a similar way, there are verses that disapprove divorce and
 some that seem to approve divorce. OK, which is it? Well, 
 divorce is condemned by scripture.  The evangelical  
 rationalizes  that God approved divorce only in the spiritual 
 sense, that He divorced Israel after Christ's ministry, because 
 it was no longer  the path of truth.  In that context, God was
 divorcing the people who were no longer faithful. But, even 
 then, recall in Amos, I think, God says "I hate divorce." Well,
 He does, but it had to be, as I explained. I like that explanation
 of scripture in general, and this instance in particular.

I think the posts in this thread are too nit picky (and I’m the one usually accused of that). Recall that St. Paul says that if we see something that we should do, but don’t do it, we are sinning.

I’m sure that the original question only needs a short answer, there are precious few short posts in this thread. GHU (God help us).

 

[RMP]

AMEN.

So in an unperfect analogy, in order to be justified we need:

1. 99.99999999999% unmerited grace from God
2. 0.000000000001% human’s FREE WILL.

Beng, we need to avoid these kind of analogies altogether. They only substantiate the false premise we are trying to combat.

Grace is received by all…For who does not receive the grace from GOD?

GOD offers salvation to all…Salvation is by GRACE. Therefore GOD must give grace to us all, unmerited W/O any due on OUR part… More Grace is received by those who ask for it. Grace is like a call from GOD. The phone is always ringing, he is ever faithful and true to us. When we hear it, we respond to him. The more we respond, the more faith and grace we receive. . Some people ignore the call altogether. This is not the same as the gift of the spirit, that comes from baptism, that is why it is neccessary. Baptism is a command from christ to receive the spirit. The spirit guides us in our faith (some more than others). After that we are still called by grace, guided by the spirit to do God’s works…faithfully.

When all we have is faith and spirit alone, God’s call to us is totally wasted on us. I think GOD expects a little bit more. RIGHT DAD? YES son.

I am not a priest, Are there any priests here to correct me?
This is why I reject faith alone. OH, and because MOTHER CHURCH DOES TOO…

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

beng:

It might not have the word “P” in it, but it sounds like such. I don’t speak Arabic, thus I spell it phonetically.

beng…beng… be humble, my friend. Why are you trying to avoid the truth and impose your ideas even by saying nonesense. There is not a word “pahala” in Arabic or in Islam. You tried to make people here think you know this very well, and that Islam is not teaching what you are saying, and you even said that I don’t know much about it even before knowing what I know and what I don’t…

beng… Islam IS teaching salvation by faith and good works under grace. Is it a shame to believe things like Muslims?..

As for us, we believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is enough to give us Life.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace!

SocaliCatholic:

Please explain how this verse means Scripture interprets Scripture. I could not find Scripture interprets Scripture after reading it three times.

You have repeated this more than 4 times… So I guess you have read this more than 12 times till now… Go read it again and again, because without faith even billion times will not be enough.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

Talking about Life, some have tried Baptism to avoid the fact that we have Life by faith. But that showed how we can’t avoid the fact… Because if you have Life by Baptism, so you don’t need to work hard to have Life. You can only LIVE after having Life. Living means to do works of righteousness.

Others have tried to think about the Body and Blood of our Beloved. But we have seen how one cannot eat and drink of that if he is not worthy. So only those who have Life can go to the Table of the Lord. By the way: those who don’t have Life in them, they will not even want to do that good work of obeying the commandment of Jesus about His Body and Blood. Does a spiritually dead want to do what God wants?

Others wanted to talk about what will happen AFTER having Life, so they tried to see if we can lose that Life or not. But our topic is about how we have Life, how we are SAVED from sin. So, again, we can’t avoid the clear truth.

All humans are DEAD in sin, and they need the Grace of God to give them LIFE. Only then, after believing, they can LIVE for God in righteousness.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” ( Ephesians 2:1-5 )

Thank you, Lord Jesus!

We were dead in sins, and we were unable to save ourselves. We were unable to live a righteous life. But God made us alive with Christ (by grace we are saved).

This is what being saved by grace means: to be made alive with Christ EVEN WHEN WE ARE YET DEAD IN OUR SINS, and not after being alive and able to do good deeds.

Children of disobedience say: “we have life by believing and having life”. Children of God believe what GOD says; so they believe and declare: "we have Life by believing (by GRACE we are saved), therefore we LIVE (this Life that is in us gives fruits of righteousness).

Praise the Lord!

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[SocaliCatholic]

YAQUBOS:

Peace!

You have repeated this more than 4 times… So I guess you have read this more than 12 times till now… Go read it again and again, because without faith even billion times will not be enough.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

OMG you quote scripture at your discretion, yet you are ASSUMING you are INTERPRETING it correctly.

Do you understand the nonsense of what you are saying???

You are ASSUMING that you have the correct interpretation when you read the quote from 2 Peter

“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” ( 2 Peter 1:20-21 )

You are **ASSUMING YOUR INTERPRETATION ** of this passage of scripture is correct then claiming from **YOUR INTERPRETATION ** that Scripture interprets Scripture.

May God Bless you abundantly YAQUBOS

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

SocaliCatholic:

May God Bless you abundantly YAQUBOS

Thank you, my friend. The Lord bless you, too.

And do not forget:

“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” ( 2 Peter 1:20-21 )

So the Holy Spirit must interpret. Use the sword of the Spirit.

“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” ( Ephesians 6:17 )

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

“We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” ( 1 John 5:19-20 )

 

[SocaliCatholic]

YAQUBOS:

Peace be with you!

Thank you, my friend. The Lord bless you, too.

And do not forget:

“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” ( 2 Peter 1:20-21 )

So the Holy Spirit must interpret. Use the sword of the Spirit.

“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” ( Ephesians 6:17 )

In Love,
Yaqubos†

YAQUBOS, I wish I could agree with you wholeheartedly, but the problem is that every time you or I quote Scripture to answer a question, we are both assuming that we are interpreting it correctly.

I will agree with you to the point that if you or I were truly moved by the Holy Spirit, I am 100% sure that I would be able to interpret Scripture correctly God willing.

However that still leaves us with a problem. Just becuase you or I was moved by God for some unknown reason to interpret Scripture correctly, nobody else has to trust that you or I have interpreted Scripture correctly.

Catholics believe that the Pope and Magesterium of the Church has the authority to interpret Scripture.

Under Sola Scriptura or Bible Only, you have thousands or millions of people with no authority and conflicting interpretations, all believing that they have interpreted the Bible correctly.

You also have people with no authority arguing what books do and do not belong in the Bible.

Thats exaclty what is going on today and it should be pretty obvious.

 

[justinmatter]

hi

i get the feeling that this whole debate arises from a protestant abhorrence of the highly catholic concept of works
on the other hand, who knows, perhaps the medieval church really did have many members lacking real faith and expecting works of mercy to save them or act as a positive account countering their sins and thus made the mistake of thinking of salvation as a matter of book-keeping!
the crux of the issue, as i think someone has already mentioned lies in the rather different sense in which the word faith is used by paul and by james
for st. paul, faith was all-encompassing and included the consequences of faith, that is, how one lived(the just man “lives” by faith). he didn’t really differentiate between faith and its consequent actions, perhaps coz he didn’t need to, it wasn’t the point he was trying to make
st. james, on the other hand, seems intent on trying to establish the importance of the corporeal acts of mercy. who knows, perhaps early christians too asked why they needed works if they believed in jesus?
the answer, i think, is that, if one accepts jesus as personal lord and saviour, the works come as a matter of neccecity.
it would be wrong to assume that works can save without faith in the one who gives grace to do those very works
one question though, is there any truth to the oft mentioned fact that luther actually inserted the word “alone” into the verse-“the just man lives by faith alone”?
keep the faith
the plague

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

SocaliCatholic:

YAQUBOS, I wish I could agree with you wholeheartedly, but the problem is that every time you or I quote Scripture to answer a question, we are both assuming that we are interpreting it correctly.

I will agree with you to the point that if you or I were truly moved by the Holy Spirit, I am 100% sure that I would be able to interpret Scripture correctly God willing.

However that still leaves us with a problem. Just becuase you or I was moved by God for some unknown reason to interpret Scripture correctly, nobody else has to trust that you or I have interpreted Scripture correctly.

Catholics believe that the Pope and Magesterium of the Church has the authority to interpret Scripture.

Under Sola Scriptura or Bible Only, you have thousands or millions of people with no authority and conflicting interpretations, all believing that they have interpreted the Bible correctly.

You also have people with no authority arguing what books do and do not belong in the Bible.

Thats exaclty what is going on today and it should be pretty obvious.

This is in fact what I was saying. Even if you read those verses billions of times, you will not see the clear fact because FAITH is lacking.

The prove of lack of faith is the circular thinking that will follow all your affirmations. Because there is lack of faith in God and there is a strong faith in humans, all your thinking will be circular. And at the end you will arrive to a place where you will say that HUMANS have an authority superior to the Word of God… For instance, try to answer the following question:

Who said that the Pope has the authority to interpret the Scripture?

The answer to this question will lead you in a long circular thinking from which you will not come out until you believe what God says. Only God can explain what He says.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

SocaliCatholic:

YAQUBOS, I wish I could agree with you wholeheartedly, but the problem is that every time you or I quote Scripture to answer a question, we are both assuming that we are interpreting it correctly.

I will agree with you to the point that if you or I were truly moved by the Holy Spirit, I am 100% sure that I would be able to interpret Scripture correctly God willing.

However that still leaves us with a problem. Just becuase you or I was moved by God for some unknown reason to interpret Scripture correctly, nobody else has to trust that you or I have interpreted Scripture correctly.

Catholics believe that the Pope and Magesterium of the Church has the authority to interpret Scripture.

Under Sola Scriptura or Bible Only, you have thousands or millions of people with no authority and conflicting interpretations, all believing that they have interpreted the Bible correctly.

You also have people with no authority arguing what books do and do not belong in the Bible.

Thats exaclty what is going on today and it should be pretty obvious.

This is in fact what I was telling you: there is a lack of faith in you. Therefore, even if you read those verses billions of times, you will not see the clear facts.

The proof of lack of faith is the circular thinking that will follow all your affirmations. And at the end you will get to a point where you will say that HUMANS have an authority superior to the Word of God.

For instance, try to answer the following question:

Who said that the Pope has the authority to interpret the Scripture?

The answer to this question will lead you in a circular thinking from which you will never come out until you believe what God says. Only God can interpret what He says.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[RMP]

FAITH is lacking.

The proof of lack of faith is the circular thinking that will follow all your affirmations. Because there is lack of faith in God and there is a strong faith in humans, all your thinking will be circular. And at the end you will arrive to a place where you will say that HUMANS have an authority superior to the Word of God… For instance, try to answer the following question:

Who said that the Pope has the authority to interpret the Scripture?

The answer to this question will lead you in a long circular thinking from which you will not come out until you believe what God says. Only God can explain what He says.

Your initial premise is correct, Humans lack faith, Christ told us that, that is not a new revelation. If we had faith, we’d be moving mountains around just for the fun of it, at least I would be.

But I disagree with your conclusion. Who has faith in humans?, We do have faith in the HOLY SPIRIT, which can guide humans, not in one particular man, but a as group, a church (christ promised this himself). This church gave us scripture which you are so fond of repeating over and over. Disagreement itself is a sign of division. Division is not of the Holy Spirit. So disagreement must be decided so an affirmation CAN be made regarding the HOLY Spirit. Christ chose Peter himself to affirm THE HOLY SPIRIT, why do you deny it? He commands PETER to tend, feed and RULE his flock. I guess you arent in the flock yet, or are you? This is the authority on this great planet of ours, The APOSTLOIC Tradition.

 

[RBushlow]

YAQUBOS:

And do not forget:
“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” ( 2 Peter 1:20-21 )

So the Holy Spirit must interpret. Use the sword of the Spirit.

“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” ( Ephesians 6:17 )

In Love,
Yaqubos†

So, you mean that it must be correct because you have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Right?

 

[exrc]

QUOTE=beng]Human is not a creature of body only. We do have spirit.

beng, I agree with you on this,I was only speaking of the body exclusively to make my point wise guy. It’s painfully obvious to everyone that you enjoy berating people. I’m trying to be as humble here as possible.

Do you think that when a person is born again than he begins to have spirit?

No, I do not

However, I believe it becomes alive toward God. Just as your body becomes alive toward this world in your physical birth.

When Adam sinned he became spiritually dead toward God which is evidenced in his subsequent physical death. However, his spirit did not cease to exist. This curse was obviously passed on to us, seeing that we also physically die. Man was originally created to live forever,but we messed that up.

Everyone must be born spiritually to see the kingdom of God says Jesus. John3:3
If you are unborn spiritually ,are you alive?

.Were you alive before you were physically born?

On the last die, all the spirit of the dead saint and sinners will be re-united with their bodies. Because of this, those who receive heavenly bliss will experience greater bliss and those who experience eternal torment will receive more torment.

.That is biblical,and true!

Oh man. Not only that you don’t know much about theology but your logic fails terribly. It makes me consider whether to engage with you further…

The same could be said for you.

In Love, Dan

]

 

[beng]

YAQUBOS:

Peace be with you!

beng…beng… be humble, my friend. Why are you trying to avoid the truth and impose your ideas even by saying nonesense. There is not a word “pahala” in Arabic or in Islam. You tried to make people here think you know this very well, and that Islam is not teaching what you are saying, and you even said that I don’t know much about it even before knowing what I know and what I don’t…

beng… Islam IS teaching salvation by faith and good works under grace. Is it a shame to believe things like Muslims?..

As for us, we believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is enough to give us Life.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

I lived around Islamic culture for 10+ years.

Islam believe that wehn you get to Heaven there will be a scale. Your good deeds and bad deeds will be weighted. If the good outweight the bads then you go to Heaven. If it’s otherwise, you go to hell.

 

[exrc]

Pax:

Dan,

Rather than attempting to play the sophist, try referring to scripture. Try these references:

A sophist argues from his own logic, I argue using scripture as my logic. Did not the Church fathers do this with early heritics?

Does scripture literally say that Pelagius was a heretic?

Does not Paul say in Romans 8:9 that only his (Christ) have the Spirit of God in them.

So does everybody have the Holy Spirit in them?

Does this question not logically follow?

Does not Christ say that you must be born -again to even see the kingdom of God?

Does it not logically follow that those who are not, will definitely be thrown into hell?

Is it not logical to think that if you are not born, you are not alive either?

In love, exrc!

 

[exrc]

beng:

I lived around Islamic culture for 10+ years.

Islam believe that wehn you get to Heaven there will be a scale. Your good deeds and bad deeds will be weighted. If the good outweight the bads then you go to Heaven. If it’s otherwise, you go to hell.

beng,

That’s exactly what Roman Catholicism teaches. It just does it in a much fancier way. Like putting a silk hat on a swine.

No matter how much or how little you contribute to your own salvation it’s still decided in the end by you!

When will you see that?

In love , exrc

 

[SocaliCatholic]

RBushlow:

YAQUBOS:

And do not forget:
“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

( 2 Peter 1:20-21 )

So the Holy Spirit must interpret. Use the sword of the Spirit.

“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” ( Ephesians 6:17 )

In Love,
Yaqubos†

So, you mean that it must be correct because you have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Right?

That is EXACTLY what Sola Scriptura people take for granted.

Everytime they quote Holy Scripture, they take for granted they are interpreting it correctly OR by the guidance of the Holy Spirit!

Why can’t they see the fault of their own methods?