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Do Protestants Have A Problem With Works?

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Dante View Post
    We are justified by works, and not by faith alone. The wicked and lazy servant feared his master, and did nothing with what he was given, and as a result, he was punished. Perhaps Christ's foretelling of the Day of Judgement which immediately followed after the parable of the talents would make things a lot clearer:

    Scripture Verse: Matthew 25:31-46

    31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

    37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

    41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

    44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

    © Copyright Original Source

    Again, not seeing how that makes your point as it also fits in just fine with my interpretation.

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    • #17
      To put it positively, nothing at all can be allowed to obscure the Grace of God. And certainly not good works. All salvation is by God’s grace, and is a grace, and is made up of grace upon grace. Always, totally, and with no exception.

      Some graces:
      the (God-given) impulse to consider doing good works
      the wish to do them
      the intention to do them
      the effaciousness of that intention
      the gift of that efficaciousness
      the resolution to do them in a particular case
      the beginning of doing them in that case
      the continuing of doing them in that case
      the persevering in doing that particular good work
      the concluding of the doing of it

      - and that is not even a full list of the wealth of God-given graces needed for doing a single good act. To do a single good action. a vast wealth of graces is needed. And we do not have a right to even the least single grace, ever. They come to us, not because we are good, but because God is Good, Infinitely Good. To do a single good work, is itself a grace. We should bless God for any good that others do - for those too are graces. The entirety of life in Christ is nothing but an ocean of grace. Each grace in the present is the fruit of a flood of past graces, and they in turn of further graces, and so on. And all this, is for the Glory of Christ, Who is supremely the “theatre of God’s Glory”. It is as if His Father could not possibly do enough to insist upon the Excellence of Christ. Perhaps we can say that Christ is the Grace in Whom all other graces are present, active, fruitful, and contained. He is the Free Gift of the Father that all creation needs, but that it cannot, without Him, be worthy to receive.

      Good works before justification can at most dispose the yet-unjustified to receive the grace of justification. Those works do not justify, and cannot dispose for justification, nor be good in any other way, without the grace of God. It is only by God’s grace that works done before justification are not sinful. As for good works done in, with, from, through & under Christ, they are works of His grace, and have their source, not in unregenerate human nature, but in Christ our Mediator.

      Good works done in Christ promote our state of justification, but are the fruit of the gift of justification - a justification that is by the Infinite Merits of Christ the Saviour; Head, & Last Adam; and is ministered to individuals by His Holy Spirit. These good works which God has prepared for us to walk in are not the cause or causes of justification or regeneration, but the instruments of both.

      The increase of grace can in a very loose sense be described as deriving from merit, but the language of merit is apt to suggest a false picture of a true equality of status between God and us. We can become more “open” to God by persevering in good works in Christ, but that is itself a grace. ISTM that the language of reward to Christians has to be modified by its Christological context - that it cannot be used in that context in an unmodified sense. Equally, such language is used, and no dogmatic presuppositions can be allowed to obscure that.

      The grace of God is not an exhibition of arbitary capriciousness - it is a gift of God’s Love. Because it has no source “behind” God, we cannot give a reason for the giving of it, except that God wills to give it. And it is this reason that sometimes draws out the complaint that God is arbitrary or capricious. Such behaviour in a human being would be arbitrary or capricious - that is because humans, unlike God, are not Infinite in Goodness and Love and Wisdom. Humans are finite, and their actions can - unlike those of God - be “got behind”, by asking what caused them to act as they did. With God, “getting behind” His actions like that is impossible, because God is, as it were, the reason that anything other than God exists. He is the Light before light Who cannot be split to find What He Is or Why He acts. God is not an explanation, but the One Who creates the possibility of explanation and the actuality of explanations. God’s Love, Grace, Holiness, and Transcendence go together. The Shema in Deuteronomy 6.4-5, although a command to Israel, is also a reflection of the unreserved covenantal & gracious Love of God. To enter into covenant with Israel is itself an act of God’s royal graciousness, and it prepared the way for the “grace and truth” of Christ.
      Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 11-26-2019, 07:10 PM.

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      • #18
        I think a key error that Protestants make is mistranslating "grace" and "faith" (correct is "favor", and "faithfulness" respectively) and then building all their theological ideas on top of their linguistically inaccurate foundation (e.g. Rushing Jaws gives a good example above of made-up theologizing of grace). They also tend to identify "salvation" with receiving a positive final judgement, which doesn't help things (Salvation in Paul's usage refers to repentance/sanctification, i.e. turning from / being freed from a life of sin / doing bad things and then spending the remainder of your life doing good things. While this naturally leads to eventually being judged positively by God due to good works done, it isn't the same event).

        There are 30 passages in the NT which mention or discuss a positive or negative final judgement (to heaven vs hell), the most lengthy of which is in Matthew 25. All 30 out of 30 of them refer to good/bad works of the person as the criteria being assessed in the final judgement. Not a single one of them says that a person passes the final judgement through faith in Christ, or through the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them. (And that is consistent with standard Jewish teachings of the time)

        Only by making quite a number of errors in translation and interpretation are protestants able to reinterpret Paul's criticism of Jewish cultural customs like circumcision and dietary observances ("works of the law") into their incorrect view that Paul denies the efficacy of morally good works for achieving a positive final judgement. In reality, Paul, like the rest of the NT, indicates morally good works are the criteria whenever he directly mentions the topic of a final judgment (e.g. Rom 2:6-10).
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          I think a key error that Protestants make is mistranslating "grace" and "faith" (correct is "favor", and "faithfulness" respectively) and then building all their theological ideas on top of their linguistically inaccurate foundation (e.g. Rushing Jaws gives a good example above of made-up theologizing of grace).
          Your comment on my comment is just a bit ambiguous - could you clarify your meaning ? You could be saying:
          1. RJ is doing what you criticise

          or

          2. RJ is describing what you criticise.

          Thanks in advance 😀
          They also tend to identify "salvation" with receiving a positive final judgement, which doesn't help things (Salvation in Paul's usage refers to repentance/sanctification, i.e. turning from / being freed from a life of sin / doing bad things and then spending the remainder of your life doing good things. While this naturally leads to eventually being judged positively by God due to good works done, it isn't the same event).

          There are 30 passages in the NT which mention or discuss a positive or negative final judgement (to heaven vs hell), the most lengthy of which is in Matthew 25. All 30 out of 30 of them refer to good/bad works of the person as the criteria being assessed in the final judgement. Not a single one of them says that a person passes the final judgement through faith in Christ, or through the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them. (And that is consistent with standard Jewish teachings of the time)

          Only by making quite a number of errors in translation and interpretation are protestants able to reinterpret Paul's criticism of Jewish cultural customs like circumcision and dietary observances ("works of the law") into their incorrect view that Paul denies the efficacy of morally good works for achieving a positive final judgement. In reality, Paul, like the rest of the NT, indicates morally good works are the criteria whenever he directly mentions the topic of a final judgment (e.g. Rom 2:6-10).
          A list of references to those 30 passages would be welcome, if that is not too much trouble. Thanks. Then all of us can know what we are talking about.
          Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 11-27-2019, 05:15 PM.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
            1. RJ is doing what you criticise
            This one. Rather than carefully interpreting biblical verses in an effort to understand what the writers were trying to say, you were waxing poetic about your own ideas about what you imagine theology to be. Given I think "grace" is a mistranslation of the biblical terms, and an accurate translation would be "favor", I don't think anything you wrote has much, if any, relationship to anything the bible teaches.

            A list of references to those 30 passages would be welcome, if that is not too much trouble. Thanks. Then all of us can know what we are talking about.
            An over-lengthy and unfiltered list would be:

            Matt 6:12-15, Matt 7:2, Matt 7:21-23, Matt 12:33-37, Matt 16:27, Matt 18:21-35, Matt 19:17-19, Matt 25:31-46, Mark 11:25, Luke 6:37-38, Luke 11:4, Luke 12:47-48, Luke 13:27, John 5:28-29, Acts 10:34-35, Rom 1:18, Rom 2:6-11, Rom 2:14-16, Rom 6:23, Rom 8:13, Rom 14:10-12, 1 Cor 4:5, 1 Cor 6:9-10, 1 Cor 11:32, 2 Cor 5:10, 2 Cor 11:14-15, Gal 6:8-9, Eph 3:3-5, Col 3:5-6, Col 3:24-25, 1 Tim 5:24-25, 1 Pet 1:17, 1 Pet 3:9-12, 2 Pet 2:6-13, 2 Pet 3:1-14, 1 John 4:17, Jude 1:14-15, Rev 2:23, Rev 3:15-16, Rev 20:12, Rev 21:8, Rev 22:12.


            That's 42 passages, but some of those are slightly off-topic or only helpful in the context of clarifying other passages in the list. If you filter down the list to passages that are specifically talking about the final judgement it comes out at about 30ish of them.
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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