Why are the Protestants so misinformed with "works"?

[Michael16]

@Hodos

I didn’t say that Saint Paul was switching out one law for another. If you actually read the passage I said: That faith doesn’t overturn the law; it upholds it.

I read and quote Scripture correctly. I’m not trying all sorts of tricks to “ prove “ Lither right. He got it all wrong and Europe went to pieces because of the man.

As for your assertion of the historical record: And yet the Church developed as she did. You’re reading what you want to read into Church history; as if your fact twisting can make reality conform to you and your founder’s errors.

If all these Church Fathers believe as you claim; then why did the Church develop as she historically did?

Are we talking a Dan Brown style massive Church wide conspiracy to deny the truth and delude the laity? I mean really. You’re going to go X-Files on me as a defense?

 

[njlisa]

I was raised in a sola scriptura denomination. I became a Catholic nearly 30 years.

My childhood church cherry-picked verses to support faith without works.

Ephesians. 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags ; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

They ignore Jesus’ teaching about works in Matthew 25

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’"

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

 

[Hodos]

I read and quote Scripture correctly. I’m not trying all sorts of tricks to “ prove “ Lither right. He got it all wrong and Europe went to pieces because of the man.

You are kind of forgetting the Great Schism in the early Church, the Second Great Schism of 1056, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and the fact that people had already been refuting justification by works since the 1300s in reaction to doctrines such as those proposed by Peter Lombard. The Roman Church was already quite good at schism prior to Luther, so it is kind of intellectually dishonest to attempt to lay 1500 years of prior history at Luther’s feet, particularly when we do have patristic evidence that supports Luther’s exegesis of Romans. Also you forget the fact that it was only after a split that your view of justification was codified in the Council of Trent in 1546, AFTER the Reformation and those who derived their doctrine from Paul’s epistle had already been forced out of the Church. The reason why is likely due to the rise of humanism leading to a return to the Greek texts and the rapid dissemination of the Bible in both Koine Greek and in local languages now possible with the invention of the Moveable Type Printing Press.

That being said, I am still awaiting a sound exegetical response. Haven’t seen one yet from you that actually takes into account the context, syntax, and grammar of the texts we have discussed. The presumption that you “hold the ground” without actually proving it from the text is not convincing me in the slightest.

 

[Michael16]

@Hodos

I’ve won. You lost. Luther’s proven wrong.

Everything you’ve quoted can be easily refuted with even a cursory knowledge of history and common sense.

Exegetically, I’ve made my case and the Church wins.

No means you have at your disposal can reasonably defend Luther’s gross misreading of Romans.

You claimed in your linguistic analysis that you could refute my clear reading of the text.

History proves you wrong. Everywhere and everywhen you want to look. If you’re being honest.

The basic point is:

Romans was misread by Luther in the 16th century. It provided him with an easy out from his sins. He ran with it.

1,500 years of Church history and faithful and careful theological and translation work, and mind you: Erasmus made a translation of the New Testament from the Greek for the Church at the same time of Luther’s revolt; and Erasmus remained a faithful Catholic.

So: Either all of this time that the Church has been faithfully and carefully building doctrine upon the basis of Apostolic Tradition, Greek speaking laity and clergy all over the Empire never once made mention against faith and works salvation, the Church Fathers never batted an eye at accepted theology and practices and they WROTE the theology of the Church; the consensus fidei all this time accepted faith and works without question or everybody but Luther missed what Saint Paul said all that millennium and a half of time and all of a sudden Luther points out the obvious?

The problem wasn’t the Church; it was Luther. Otherwise, your assertion makes an absurdity of Church history; requiring either a monumentous gaffe or a centuries long, massive Church wide conspiracy in order to make it work.

As for the Council of Trent codifying justification: It had to in response to the Protestant revolt because for 1,500 years of the Church; faith alone was never an issue at all until Luther’s gross misread.

As for people supposedly being kicked out: Lither was definitely excommunicated by the Holy Father. The rest were people seduced and led away from the Faith by his writings and his preachers into his ersatz Church.

All the schisms you mentioned had nothing to do with faith alone at all.

 

[Hodos]

Romans was misread by Luther in the 16th century. It provided him with an easy out from his sins. He ran with it.

More assertion without evidence. Again, show me the contextual basis for your conclusion. Claiming you are the authority over and above what Scripture actually says, without proving it from the text itself is not convincing. Particularly when I have already posted patristic evidence that demonstrates Luther’s understanding is the by-product of early Church Father’s writings specifically on justification. You can keep doing that all day long, but in the end, you have already been forced to concede half my points, and have outright read things into the text or exegete it backwards in order to make your claim. And this has been demonstrated objectively.

Polycarp by the way: “In whom, though now ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; " into which joy many desire to enter, knowing that “by grace ye are saved, not of works,” but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.”

 

[Michael16]

@Hodos

I’ve already provided the evidence. You’re just not seeing it. You’re ideologically blinded and more devoted to defending Luther than looking at the actual evidence.

Your continued quoting of Church Fathers doesn’t change that they guided and shaped the Church how they did and they never taught faith alone in their work. If they did hold Luther’s belief on faith alone: History and the Church would have been very different.

The basic sense of the Church Fathers you endlessly love to abuse into your service is this: Faith is the basis into which are completed into works. It’s putting the Faith into practice. Polycarp’s sense of “ without works “ would be without works as the basis of justification. Like Saint Paul taught in Romans and no one misunderstood until Luther in the 16th century.

Another way of putting the Church Fathers into their proper context: Another meaning of the word Faith is the religion, the belief system, the living of it and the belief in it. Putting faith into practice; in other words: The works of that Faith.

It’s still faith alone but not in Luther’s erroneous sense. Otherwise; how could these men have shaped the Catholic Church in the way they did without being hypocrites?

So: Protestant apologists use them out of their historical context in order to find a patristic “ foundation “ to defend a 16th century invention.

I’ve refuted you and you can’t persuade me to accept Luther’s error.

Now you can’t even debate me beyond making your own assertions that I can’t do this or that.

I never conceded to you anything. I’ve read the Catechism and I amended my apologetics accordingly. In fact: I surged forward and put you on the defensive; stubbornly holding onto the indefensible.

You can’t reasonably defend the error and you’re resorting to these kind of tactics.

Classic last shrieks of retreat and collapse on the battlefield.

 

[Cathoholic]

Hodos to @Michael16 . . . .

Feel free to point out where in Romans 3 Paul has established a new law by which we are justified.

The “new law” is the fulfillment of the Old Law.

The New Law by which we are justified is a Person.

The fulfillment of the law and the prophets is Christ Himself.

That doesn’t get people off the hook for working.
It ELEVATES it to Christ’s work!

And that is empowering.

That’s WHY in the old law it was merely things like “thou shalt not commit adultry.”

But in the new law, when you are empowered, it goes BEYOND that. (People cannot live that out apart from the life of grace that eminates from Calvary.)

We NEED to work in grace once we become children of God through being Born Again.

Why?

Because to “whom much is given, much will be REQUIRED”.

In the New Covenant (Who is that same person – Jesus is the Covenant and so are those in grace united to Him now), we are empowered to carry out salvific works.

Not on our own, but united to Christ.

And the prohibitions remain (i.e. “thou shalt not commit adultry”), but are elevated.

That’s WHY Jesus said

MATTHEW 5:17, 27 17 “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. . . . 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. . .

 

[Michael16]

Thank you, @Cathoholic. I knew the Catechism said the Old Law and the New Law. In the heat of things; I just didn’t know how to articulate it well.

 

[Hodos]

The fulfillment of the law and the prophets is Christ Himself.

Agreed. Then you agree it is not through your obedience but through Christ’s obedience on our behalf. Again, epistle to Diognetus demonstrates this historic view of the Church nicely.

That doesn’t get people off the hook for working.
It ELEVATES it to Christ’s work!

Depends on what you mean here, which is the entire nature of this discussion. Works are necessary for what exactly? We would say because as God’s people, we do his will. Thus the law provides us the guide that tells us what God’s will is for his people (we would call this the third use of the law). However, as Paul has already stated, this is not for the purpose of justification. It is the result of justification. And this is precisely what we confess. Augsburg Confession Articles IV and VI.

 

[Michael16]

@Hodos

For A Sola Scriptura Lutheran, you quote a non canonical letter to support your error.

Yes: Christ is the New Law that replaces the Old Law.

And yes: It is our obedience to Christ.

The obedience of faith that we see in Abraham and the Blessed Mother.

When you agree with us; you only agree with the Church.

 

[JimG]

Jesus parable of the Last Judgment found in Matthew 25:31-46 has always rather amazed me. In the parable, He makes eternal salvation wholly dependent on what we have done or not done. No mention of faith, or scripture, or church attendance, just what have you done for others, since what we do for them we do for Jesus.
Still, I’n not a biblical exegete, so I don’t use this as anything but a basis of reflection.

This thread has been quite interesting, but it only convinces me more than ever that the concept of scripture alone is unworkable as a basis for doctrine.

 

[Michael16]

@Hodos

Here’s the thing:

The basic Gospel message is summed up as : I believe in Jesus and I do as He teaches me to do. Repent, live a good and holy life of faith and good works. I do good, I go to heaven. I do bad, I go to hell.

Simple as that.

The Church has consistently taught that for 2,000 years and what she teaches is consistent with Sacred Scripture.

500 years ago, Luther came along and misread Romans and thought it taught that all a Christian has to do is believe. It doesn’t matter if I sin; I believe in Jesus and no matter what I do, I won’t go to hell. It’s an easy out that’s very appealing to those who want an easier and more lenient faith that doesn’t demand too much on them. It’s a worse “ get out of hell free card “ than what you misunderstand indulgences for.

Luther had to think fast and save himself by explaining that a Christian still has to do good works. Even though it supposedly doesn’t save him from hell. That by faith, I’ll do good works anyway.

Faith and works with only faith saving you.

Luther’s doctrine requires a convoluted exegesis that’s inconsistent with what’s actually in the Bible.

In comparison, Catholic doctrine is much more simple and consistent with what the Bible says than Luther’s doctrine is.

Conservative, strict, confessional High Church Lutheranism looks very Catholic and sounds very Catholic at a cursory glance. Lutheran doctrine is similar enough to Catholic doctrine except for subtle differences stemming from the highly unbiblical Solas Fide and Scriptura.

Both of which cannot be found in the Bible. I can argue with you until I’m blue in the face, but unless the Holy Spirit intervenes; you won’t listen, you’ll propagate and preach Luther’s errors to good Catholics, looking for easy prey that you can take in; and you’ll invent spurious defenses in your attempts to defend the indefensible.

Because I read the full Bible, not the cut up and shortened Bible Luther left for Protestants; and I read the Catechism and know my Church history and possess a measure of common sense and discernment; there’s really nothing you can say to me that I can’t refute.

 

[Cathoholic]

Cathoholic . . .

The fulfillment of the law and the prophets is Christ Himself.

Hodos . . .

Agreed. Then you agree it is not through your obedience but through Christ’s obedience on our behalf.

.

That is a partial-truth Hodos.

It IS Christ’s obedience on our behalf.
But not MERELY Christ’s obedience in our behalf.

Jesus lives in us and through us empowering us to do things we otherwise could not do (like not committing adultery even in our hearts).

We must cooperate with Christ Jesus at that point.

.

Cathoholic . . .

That doesn’t get people off the hook for working.

Hodos . . . .

Depends on what you mean here, . . . Works are necessary for what exactly?

This is the wrong question because it has a nebulous premise.

If the question were . . .

“Works ON YOUR OWN are necessary for what exactly?”

The answer is merely natural virtue.
Natural virtue in this case has no bearing on your salvation.

But if the question were . . . .

“Works DONE UNITED TO CHRIST are necessary for what exactly?”

Then I would say working for eternal life.

At least if you CAN work. At least working according to your state in life.

Now I agree. Faith is utterly necessary. As is hope.

Charity or love is necessary for eternal life too.

And “love” cannot be divorced from working as Jesus says, “if you love me you will keep my commandments”.

But once you are a child of God, you work WITH Christ for Eternal life.

How can THAT occur?

Because our justification is MORE than a moment.

Justification is a moment followed by a lifelong process.

And part of that process is increasing in faith, and utilizing our charity that God poured into us when we were Baptized.

 

[po18guy]

Justification is an instant in time. Faith requires maintenance. It does not automatically perdure for the remainder of our life! We are judged - heaven or hell…

on our WORKS.

 

[Cathoholic]

Hodos . . .

However, as Paul has already stated, this is not for the purpose of justification.

St. Paul or “Paul” has not stated that at all.

St. Paul said “works of law” do not justify us.

The real issue is WHAT in context here are “works of law”?

And the answer is workings on your own (especially CIRCUMCISION) without the life of Christ working in us and through us in the special way that Christians have in the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ.

The “works of law” are workings apart from Christ.
Examples of this would be “circumcision” or other rituals and natural virtue for the Jewish person, or mere natural virtue for those Gentiles under Noahide law.

Both Jew and Gentile are in need of (supernatural) faith to be justified.

And “no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law.”

You can’t even have faith (in a supernatural sense) or works unto eternal life without grace,
the grace of Christ’s work (“they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”).

.

ROMANS 3:1, 9, 20-24, 27-30 1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? . . . 9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all; for I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin . . .

. . . 20 For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God has been
manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,
22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction; 23 since
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus . . . 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. 28 For we hold that
a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.
29 Or is God the God of Jews only?
Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will
justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith
AND the uncircumcised through their faith.

Emphasis mine.

 

[TC3033]

OK…I just have to ask. Why do you tag who you’re replying to every time you reply to them? Utilizing the reply button already tags them.

Just had to ask…carry on with the I’m right / you’re wrong / I win / you lose.

 

[Michael16]

To answer your question, I tag them so that way I know for certain that they get the notification.

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic with your continue on statement. But if you’re meaning it sincerely; thank you very much.

TULIPed I enjoy talking to, we can have a reasonable and respectful dialogue. . . .

 

[TC3033]

I tag them so that way I know for certain that they get the notification.

OK, interesting.

It’s a little sarcastic, and I feel even more solid in that after reading your last line above. I’ve read a lot of your stuff, and it’s a bit “pot / kettle”. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Michael16]

Really? I’m sorry. I try to keep the joie de guerre from taking hold of me and stay reasonable.

I’ll try harder

 

[Hodos]

For A Sola Scriptura Lutheran, you quote a non canonical letter to support your error.

Apparently you have the same misunderstandings about Sola Scriptura as you do about Sola Fide. Pretty sure I have also explained to you what Sola Scriptura means before, so this misrepresentation of our doctrine appears to be a pattern here.