[quote]forbes wrote:
Pat and B.C:
I don’t think you’re understanding me. I’m not saying works are not important. Of course they are. But works show the contents of the heart.
James 2:17 is saying that faith without works is dead, implying that if there are no works, faith isn’t there.
To me, works are the physical manifestation of faith. Which still means that faith alone saves you.
How do you get around these verses then:
- Rom. 3:28-30, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.”
- Rom. 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,”
- Rom. 5:1, “therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”
- Rom. 9:30, “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith.”
- Rom. 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
- Rom. 11:6, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
- Gal. 2:16, “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”
- Gal. 2:21, I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.
- Gal.3:5-6, “Does He then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 6Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
- Gal. 3:24, “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.”
- Eph. 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. 9Not by works, lest any man should boast.”
- Phil. 3:9, “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”
They are pretty clear.
If someone has works (much like the pharisees) but have no faith, are they saved? No.
Faith without works does not exist, so what is the limiting factor?
Faith.[/quote]
Um, I’ll have to show you that “faith” is faith in the truths of the Church. There are a lot of once saved, always saved Christians, who believe their Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ, but they are okaying homosexual marriages, abortion, contraception, cloning, female ordination, stem-cell research, &c. So, sola fide has produced Christians that do not believe in the truths of Jesus, and are not obedient to God’s will.
@forbes, well since you asked for it, and guess what I got a big chunk of time open.
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Rom. 3:28-30, justified by faith: Faith is a gift of grace that moves us toward God (Phil 1:29). It leads to justifciation because it leads to Baptism (6:3-4; 1 Cor 6:11). The object of justifying faith is both personal and propositional: it embraces God as well as the revealed tenets of the gospel. Catholic theology holds that faith doess not act alone in this process but reaches out with hope for divine mercy and love for the Lord. Faith manifests itself in the lives of believers through obedience (1:5), love (Gal 5:6), and good works (Eph 2:10). The Council of Trent decreed that man, can never by his own efforts merit intitial grace of justification that makes him a son of God and a member of the New Covenant. This grace is an entirely free gift from Jesus Christ conferred in Baptism.
Paul uses this expression, works of the law, eight times in high writings, twice in romans (3:20, 28) and six times in Galatians (Gal 2:16, 3:2, 5, 10). Christian scholarship, both ancient and modern, has understood it in different ways. (1) St. Augustine held that it meant observing the entire Law of Moses, whole and undivided. With this view, Paul contends that no act of obedience to the moral, cermonial, or juridical commandments of the Torah can bring about the justification of the sinner. (2) St. Jerome, understand the expression to mean the ceremonial laws of Moses, such as circumcision, dietary laws, feasty days, and Sabbath observance. With this view, Paul charges that the ritual works of the Torah, which defined the Jewish way of life during the Mosaic age, have become obsolete in the New Covenant and thus have no bearing on justification. Both views are correct in their proper context: initial justification in Baptism takes place apart from any observance of the Law (Tit 3:4-7), where as final justification at the Last Judgement takes place apart from the ceremonial works of the Law, but not apart from observing the moral commandments of the Law (Rom 2:13; Mt 19:16-19; 1 Cor 7:19; Jas 2:8-13).
Because the Torah defines what is good and evil, it acts as a moral informant and makes the sins of Israel stand out in stark clarity (2:17-23; 7:7; Heb 10:1-3).
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Rom. 5:1-5, The justified are endowed with theological virtues. By faith, they live in peace with God and have access to his grace; in hope, they long for the glory of God that awaits them: and through love, they show that the charity of the Spirit dwells in their hearts (CCC 1813). Equipped in this way, believers can become more like Christ through endurance and suffering (CCC 618).
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Deals with ceremonial law.
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Rom. 10:4-8 “the end”: The Greek can mean “termination” or “goal.” The latter sense is more propbably, for Jesus came to fulfill the Law rather than abolish it (Mt 5:17) (CCC 1953).
Christ is the end that completes, not the end that destroys, for the deatils of the Law were shadows that prefigured his coming (St. Augustine, Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets 2, 26-27).
“shall live by it”: An excerpt from Lev 18:5.
Israel is urged to follow the Torah and shun the ways of the Egyptians and the Canaanites. Adherence to the Law would have brought life, but Israel needed to learn that obedience was humanly impossible without the grace and help of God that come through faith.
6-8: This is an interpretive paraphrase of Deut 30:12-14.
Moses contends that Israel could not escape responsibility for obeying the word of God, as though the Torah were somewhere beyond its reach. In the spirit of Moses, Paul insists that Israel cannot escape responsibility for obeying the word of the gospel, as though it were forced to look high and low for Christ. On the contrary, Israel cannot plead ignorance because the gospel has come to its doorstep through the Scriptures and the missionary efforts of the Church (10:17-19)
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Rom. 11:6, Justification is a free gift of grace, not a wage that is owed on the principle of justifice and fair compensation (6:23; Tit 3:5). In secular Greek, (with the idea of Reckoned in Rom. 4:4) the verb iogizomai is a business term for recording credits and ebits. It can also be translated “counted.” When Paul stresses that righteousness is booked to our credit as a gift, he does not imply that the gift is merely imputed to the believe in an external way. In his mind, the divine record corresponds to reality, that is, we are counted righteous because we are made righteous in Christ (5:19).
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“justified” Established in a right relationship with God. Justification involves the cleansing of sin, the infusion of divine life, and the adoption of the believer into the family of God through Baptism (1 Cor 6:11; Tit 3:5) (CCC 1987-95).
“Works of the law”: What are the “works of the law”? According to some, Paul uses this expression to refer to legalism, that is, the misguided attempt to amass favor with God and to earn salvation for ourselves by the performance of good works. On this reading, Paul is said to reject all attempts to merit eternal life by SHEER human effort and obedience to the Mosaic Law as a path that leads to salvation. ON this reading, Paul is said to stress the problem of human weakness and man’s inability to keep the law either consistently or comprehensively. Logically, from this perspective, observance of the Law cannot justify the sinner before God because no one can obey the Law without fault. However, this also might be again referring to Mosaic ceremonial works.
- Paul is reasoning that if the Mosaic Law had been sufficient all along to remove sin, establish us in righteousness, and bring us into God’s family, then the Cross would have been completely uncessary (3:21).
The Law can neither remit sin nor triumph over eternal death nor free those held captive because of sin. Christ died to provide those things that the Law could not (Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Galatians 2:21).
- “Abraham” The great-grandfather of Israel by race and the father of all believers by grace. Paul sees the gospel of justification proclaimed in the life of Abraham, who was righteousness by faith completely apart from his circumcision (Rom 4:9-12).
“believed in God” A citation from Gen 15:6.
This was a time of testing for Abraham, when God was stretching his faith in a moment of discouragment (1 Mac 2:52). Though faced with formidable obstacles, such as his age and the barrenness of his wife, he trusted that God could do the impossible by giving him a son. The promise was later fulfilled in the birth of Isaac (Gen 21:1-3). It is clear from the context of Genesis, as well as Heb 11:8-12, that this is not the moment of Abraham’s conversion, for it is not the first time he puts his faith in the Lord.
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custodian or tutor “Paidagogos” (Gk.): The word is used twice in the NT, here and at 1 Cor 4:15. It refers to a household slave in Hellenistic society who was charged by a father to oversee the moral formation of his son. This tutelage normally lasted from the time the hcild was a minor until he reached maturity. The Tutor would protect him, and Paul used this familiar custom to explain how the Mosaic Law served a similar function in Israel.
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A distinction is made between legal righteousness, which persons under the Old Covenant tried to attain by faulfulness to the Law (Deut 6:25), and divine righteousness, which we receive through faith in Jesus Christ under the New Covenant (Rom 5:17). For Paul, legal righteousness is not a saving righteousness because it depends on human effort apart from the inward grace of God. This disctinction is also set forth in Rom 9:30-32 and 10:3.