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Deeper Waters is founded on the belief that the Christian community has long been in the shallow end of Christianity while there are treasures of the deep waiting to be discovered. Too many in the shallow end are not prepared when they go out beyond those waters and are quickly devoured by sharks. We wish to aid Christians to equip them to navigate the deeper waters of the ocean of truth and come up with treasure in the end.
We also wish to give special aid to those often neglected, that is, the disabled community. This is especially so since our founders are both on the autism spectrum and have a special desire to reach those on that spectrum. While they are a special emphasis, we seek to help others with any disability realize that God can use them and that they are as the Psalmist says, fearfully and wonderfully made.
General TheologyWeb forum rules: here.
Deeper Waters is founded on the belief that the Christian community has long been in the shallow end of Christianity while there are treasures of the deep waiting to be discovered. Too many in the shallow end are not prepared when they go out beyond those waters and are quickly devoured by sharks. We wish to aid Christians to equip them to navigate the deeper waters of the ocean of truth and come up with treasure in the end.
We also wish to give special aid to those often neglected, that is, the disabled community. This is especially so since our founders are both on the autism spectrum and have a special desire to reach those on that spectrum. While they are a special emphasis, we seek to help others with any disability realize that God can use them and that they are as the Psalmist says, fearfully and wonderfully made.
General TheologyWeb forum rules: here.
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Do Protestants Have A Problem With Works?
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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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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
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostI 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).
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).Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 11-27-2019, 05:15 PM.
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Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post1. RJ is doing what you criticise
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.
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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