Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
James clearly says that a man is justified by WORKS and NOT faith alone. James was countering the concept of faith minus works which Paul argued for in many different letters.
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Justification…Is it works or faith alone?
- Thread starter Simplelogic
- Start date
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
You are right. There are some obvious inconsistencies with Paul's message. I believe that Paul's most consistent theme throughout his epistles is the concept of faith apart from works. Paul did have some concept of law. He refers to the mysterious "law of Christ" numerous times in his letters but this is definitely not the same as God's law. He even contrasts it against God's law in his letters.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
People didnt understand Pauls writings in the first century, and they continue to misunderstand them now.
2Peter 3:15 Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you according to the wisdom given him,+16 speaking about these things as he does in all his letters. However, some things in them are hard to understand, and these things the ignorant* and unstable are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
ah yes, the good ol', if you dont like something you read in the bible, just claim the book is spurious.
Peter and James discussions are very different in context. James is not attempting to correct the wrong view that christians must continue adhering to Moses law because christians were not adhering to Moses law when he wrote his letter.
James letter is about showing love to one another through good works,. ie, "Dont send your brother away if he is hungry, feed him" = do good works to your brothers. "if you are truly a christian, prove it by doing good to your brothers" that is the crux of James letter.
Paul is speaking about circumscision and practices of mosaic law... So the two are speaking about two different kinds of works.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
ok
1robin
Christian/Baptist
The reason I wanted to start with logic is that you can posts verses and I can reply with two for every one you give me. I have already given more verses that you have but let me add in two to counter this one.
1. New Living Translation
But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.
This is a man who's every work did not survive God's judgment. He had nothing of merit what so ever to offer yet the man was saved even without works.
2. New International Version
However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
This verse seems to say the exact opposite from your verse. So unless you think the bible contradicts it's self we must use reason to determine which verse means what a surface reading suggests.
So what does repentance mean. In my verses it would mean to change our minds about sin, and our allegiance, to be sorrowful, to try and make up for any damage we have caused, to receive forgiveness, and to try our best to obey God's law. However Christ's perfect obedience is accredited to my account when I am born again so it is not my pathetic record that is relevant.
Your verses would have repent to mean, what I said plus to calculate exactly how much our sins cost to other people and repay it in full ( this can't even be known in full, and in many cases could not be done anyway. Exactly what are you going to give to repay the parents of the children you killed by drunk driving or the ones you allowed to dies by supporting abortion, what if an child you would have saved but spent the money of a new car instead would have cured cancer, what do you have to compensate? NOTHING), plus you would have to go on and lead a perfect life. If you think you can get by with a single sin, then why not three, ten, a hundred? How you going to obey temple law with no Temple? How (since you have no way of knowing whether you have crossed the arbitrary and completely invented line of the allowable number of sins and the fore you have no idea where you would go of you died), can your faith stand up to a Muslim threat to convert or die. If Christianity is true then a born again Christian can have the assurance of the end result and die willingly, the person who is trusting to merit would make the most foolish mistake possible to die for a God that will say sorry you missed the cut by 4 sins. Add to this that the entire population is one continuous curve as for the number of sins committed. All the way from 9?% obedient to those that are less than 10% obedient and every number in between. No matter where you invent the line to be drawn what will separate the best guy in Hell from the worst guy in heaven is one sin. That is not justice or grace, it is salvation by arbitrary whim and ridiculous.
So looking through the lens of reason lets take another look at your verse.
Ezekiel 18:
18:21-22 If a wicked person repented of his wickedness and pursued righteous
behavior, he would live and not die. God would pardon his sins because he
had turned from them and practiced righteousness. For the Jews still in
Jerusalem this might mean deliverance from death at the hands of
Babylon's invading soldiers.
287Stuart, p. 155.
2014 Edition Dr. Constable's Notes on Ezekiel 95
This did not mean that doing good works would atone for past sins
eternally. It meant that doing good works could preclude God's judgment
of premature physical death, a judgment promised under the Mosaic Law
for those who practiced wickedness. This whole chapter deals with the
consequences of good and bad conduct in this life under the Mosaic
Covenant. It does not deal with the subject of eternal life. Eternal life has
always come to a person by faith alone (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:5; Eph. 2:8-9).
Dr. Constable is a senior Emeritus professor of biblical exposition, and is a graduate of Moody institute (maybe the most prestigious biblical college in the US. What I quoted comes from http://soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/ezekiel.pdf and is one of the most in-depth research papers on Ezekiel I have seen. The one thing we know is that both out verse can't mean what their surface reading suggests. Only with your reading do we have all the problems I mentioned and many more. My reading is free from any of these arbitrary unknowable's like how obedient is obedient enough. However if you want only a scripture war my claim will prevail that way as well because I have many more than you do emphatically stating what salvation requires. Your view has us only sure where we will go if we jump off a building and repent on the way down.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
You have given no verses that back up your theory besides Paul. I have refuted the verses from the gospels you used. Nor have you provided any substantial claim from the OT.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
If works were the only thing that mattered, then faith would not need to be presented, it would essentially have no purpose.That's great, if you believe that, but you can't present faith as being relevant or even making sense as a concept if you say that works trumps faith.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
what is faith in your opinion?
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
The 'non-works' part of religious belief. 'Works or faith' is not a good question, imo, it's both, according to Scripture.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
Can you have faith without works?
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
I don't think so, no. But 'works' can't define faith.
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
So you are saying you MUST have works to have real faith then?
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
You said earlier that faith is the "none works" part of belief. Then you said you can't have faith w/o works?
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
I think it's generally unavoidable. I find, personally, the discussion of 'works' outside of faith to be a topic that is not necessarily related to faith however, it's sort of like a theoretical argument to me. I also don't just go along with everything in the expanded canon/Bible, though, so that may be irrelevant to your question.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
I think works generally follow faith. Can't really think of how that wouldn't be the case.
Scott C.
Just one guy
Abraham demonstrated his faith by his willingness to sacrifice his son on the alter. Had he refused to obey God's command, neither the Lord nor Paul would have recognized his righteousness. Where there is true faith, there are good works. Where there are good works, there may or may not be faith. And so, "faith without works is dead", means that where there are no works, there is no faith. I would also argue that "works without faith" is dead. Only that faith which actualizes good works brings salvation.
What works does true faith bring forth? I believe it brings out the best in every true believer. Nobody with faith should be complacent in their good works, because they believe they are saved or are "good enough". The real faith that brings salvation changes men's hearts. They become people who try their very best all of their lives to do good, to repent and to improve. As they do so, God's grace gives them strength to resist temptation and to sin less. His grace increases their capacity to love God and fellowman, to "turn the other cheek", to forgive, to have mercy, to be kind, to not lust, etc. This in turn, increases their faith and their will to continue to be better. If we think we have faith, and yet lack that determination and effort, I suggest that our faith is insufficient for salvation.
I believe this view is consistent with the teachings of James and Paul together.
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Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
This argument always turns into this chicken before the egg type logic.
t
I actually agree with much of what you said..except for the last Part. Paul clearly did not teach the very concept you are talking about. James did:
- Romans 3:28 ("man is justified by faith apart from observing the law").
- Romans 4:5 ("To the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness").
- Gal. 5:4 ("You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace").
- Romans 7:6 ("Now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code").
- Gal. 2:16 ("A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, because by observing the law no one will be justified").
- Ephesians 2:8-9 ("For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.")
Simplelogic
Well-Known Member
As someone mentioned earlier. The biggest problem with this argument is the definition of faith itself.
Pauls definition of faith- When a man believes in a concept …i.e. (Jesus came and died for them). Paul taught that if a man believed this in his mind…he was saved regardless of his works or (true repentance). It is the concept which is highlighted over repentance.
OT views of faith- This concept had nothing to do with a mans ability to conceptualize a theological concept. It was simply TRUSTING in Yehovah in a way that REQUIRED action. The actions were the proof to God that we really trusted….not the mental belief in who He was. Faith is never discussed as something independent of works in the Tanakh…or the gospels! Only in Paul's letters do we hear this mutually exclusive argument for the two concepts.
Here is an example:
"Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith." Habakkuk 2:4
Please understand that when God says your faith, He is referring to your faithfulness to His commandments. This is what true TRUST is in the first place. He is not talking about a concept which is different from works. But lets see the way Paul uses this same verse:
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith". Romans 1:17
Can you see anything different in Paul's quote?? He has removed the pronoun "his" from the text. This slight change is crucial to Paul's argument. Paul is trying to paint faith as a concept that is different from works. Yet the Hebrew scriptures don't say that.
Pauls definition of faith- When a man believes in a concept …i.e. (Jesus came and died for them). Paul taught that if a man believed this in his mind…he was saved regardless of his works or (true repentance). It is the concept which is highlighted over repentance.
OT views of faith- This concept had nothing to do with a mans ability to conceptualize a theological concept. It was simply TRUSTING in Yehovah in a way that REQUIRED action. The actions were the proof to God that we really trusted….not the mental belief in who He was. Faith is never discussed as something independent of works in the Tanakh…or the gospels! Only in Paul's letters do we hear this mutually exclusive argument for the two concepts.
Here is an example:
"Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith." Habakkuk 2:4
Please understand that when God says your faith, He is referring to your faithfulness to His commandments. This is what true TRUST is in the first place. He is not talking about a concept which is different from works. But lets see the way Paul uses this same verse:
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith". Romans 1:17
Can you see anything different in Paul's quote?? He has removed the pronoun "his" from the text. This slight change is crucial to Paul's argument. Paul is trying to paint faith as a concept that is different from works. Yet the Hebrew scriptures don't say that.