Exactly
"you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." As James also says, he will show his faith by his works. Why? Because how can anyone see the faith we have in our hearts if we don't live it out? However, Scripture is clear, our "good works" do not justify us to God, only Christ does so, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
We who have believed have entered into rest. We do not go about to establish our own righteousness.
Yep, that about covers it. We are all guilty before God, and unless we are in Christ His wrath will remain on us.
I never once said anything about you personally not taking sin seriously, now did I? What I said was that Jesus makes it absolutely clear how high God's standard is. There is no ranking system for sin in the Gospel. He who offends in one offends in all, and the wages of sin is death.
All sin is mortal.
Exactly. And He is faithful to His promises, even when we are not. He will never leave us or forsake us.
That's definitely a dichotomy of sin that the Catholic Church claims exists. Scripture is clear, all sin is "mortal."
Yep.
I believe we went over these verses some time ago. How and why were the Gentiles "grafted in"? Because of faith, or because of their works?
The "willful sin" is to reject Christ. He is the only sufficient sacrifice for sin, there is no other.
What do you think is meant by "trampling the Son of God underfoot" or "profaning the blood of the covenant"?
When we rightly divide the word of truth, we see there are no contradictions. Salvation is a gift, entirely unearned by us.
You may not believe that, but many do. Or do you think Jesus was making it up when He said that many will say "Lord", "Lord", and bring Him their "many wonderful works" done in His name?