You are correct that taking those verses out of context is dangerous, and false doctrines are created when we do so. However, that was not my intention. My point in referencing that passage, and following it up with the other, was to point out that every single human has sinned. There is no one who is healthy spiritually.
I understand what you are promoting. What I am advocating, is that we understand what Paul is promoting. And it wasn't to make the case that the Spirit of Christ, even after over 14 years, was not able to influence His Body to have a Righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of those unbelieving Pharisees who "
profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate."
And your statement "There is no one who is healthy spiritually", is not what Jesus or Paul taught. Nor was it what David taught, in the Psalms that Paul quoted. "
5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
And who are the Righteous? Those believers who the Pharisees and Corrupt Levites persecuted and slandered, "whose damnation is just", Yes, do you not believe this? "
Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge." How can we say that Paul's Refuge wasn't the Lord? And who was persecuting Paul, whose damnation was just? The unbelieving Jews, or the body of Christ? Yes, everyone has sinned, except Jesus. But men have been repenting and turning to God since before Lot followed God with Abraham.
Did Abraham and Noah not repent, and become heathy spiritually? Caleb, Daniel, Meshak? Did these men not eat and Drink from the Rock of Israel? Were these men lost? Was Zacharias Lost? "
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
So there are those who were righteous, who were not lost, but had found the way. The Wise men, Simeon, Zacharias, Anna, all of which knew the Christ, the Rock of Israel, when HE came, and worshipped Him just as those members of the Body of Christ in Paul's Time worshipped Him.
So who was Paul and David speaking about when they both said, "
For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue." Shall we not believe what is written?
Ps. 5:
4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. 5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Ps. 14:
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
Rom. 3:
3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? "whose damnation is just."
Just as Paul had already proven both Jew and Gentile, who didn't believe God in Rom. 2: 3-11. "
that they (not we, whose refuge is the Lord)) are all under sin;
So when Jesus says He has come to call the wicked and not the righteous, He is saying He has come for everyone (although there are many who believe, like the Pharisees, that they are healthy and not in need of salvation).
But Zacharias knew, Simeon knew, Anna knew, Caleb knew, Joshua knew, Shadrack knew. Jesus came to save that which was lost. Zacharias was "Righteous before God". The Spirit of Christ was already on Him. He was of the "Generation of the Righteous" the mainstream religions of Paul's time persecuted, at least according to the Scriptures. Paul doesn't contradict any of this in Romans 1-3.
Those who were God’s chosen people in the Old Testament sinned repeatedly. And today, even those who grow up in Christian homes with Christian parents sin and are lost before they repent, turn to Christ, and are baptized to receive forgiveness of their sins and join the Church.
You are making a Judgment of the Faithful in the Law and Prophets, which is a false accusation. Can you show the repeated sins of Abraham? Noah? Caleb, Joshua, David? Daniel? Where is your support that they are all "workers of Iniquity"?
You didn't learn this judgment by studying Brent. You learned this by the influence of other religious voices. Neither God, nor the Prophets, nor Jesus, Paul, Peter, not one of them ever accused the Faithful which existed in the Law and Prophets as a worker of iniquity or repeat sinners. All men have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, but all men are not "workers of Iniquity".
Here is God's Judgment of some of His Faithful.
2 Kings 18:
1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.
4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. 5 He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. 6 For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.
My post doesn't represent anything towards you personally. I simply want to point out what the Scriptures actually say, and to promote the Study of them, apart from the religious influence of the religions of this world God placed us in. After all, as Peter said "
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
As I said above, my declaration that there is none righteous was not to say that there is no one who is has been made righteous in Christ. Far from it. My point was that every single person, with the notable exception of Jesus, has sinned and was at some point lost.
Yes, that is
your point. But it wasn't Paul's point in Romans 1-3.
Every single person is in need of salvation. There are some today who, like the Pharisees, believe that they are righteous in themselves and not in need of a savior; they believe they are healthy. My point was that we are all in need of a savior, and without Jesus we are lost.
No argument here. Noah, Abraham, Caleb, David, Zacharias, Simeon, Anna, Peter, Paul all knew the Rock of Israel was the only way. What I am pointing out is what Paul was saying in Roman's 3. And how what he said has been twisted and used to justify sin, falsely accuse the Faithful "whose refuge is the Lord", for centuries.
I am hoping to share this perspective of a man who has been separated from this world's religious philosophies for 30 years. Not that I am anyone, I'm a nobody to be sure, but simply want men to consider what Scri[ptutres actually say and not the doctrines and traditions of this world God placed us in.
You are correct, I did not go on to say that we can find salvation through Christ, and so my words could be taken to mean that man is hopeless because there is no salvation. Heaven forbid! Forgive me for that.
The Jesus of the Bible said;
John 8:
31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
What is that one thing that the "Truth" makes a man free from? Is this one thing not "
deception"? And didn't our Savior warn us regarding this very thing?
Matt. 24:
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I (Jesus) am Christ; and shall deceive many.
We are told to "Prove ALL things" because of this, Yes?
So you and I, since our Youth, have been taught by this world's religions, that Paul is teaching in Romans 3, that "ALL" men ever, Faithful, unfaithful, doesn't matter, "
Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:"
This teaching is a lie. This is not what the Spirit of Christ is teaching through David or Paul. I know this from Study, apart from the influences of the religions of this world God placed me in. This popular false teaching is only one of many, many winds of doctrine you and I have been influenced by.
Understanding and accepting this truth, will expose other falsehoods being taught, as Jesus Prophesied. My hope is that you would consider this one doctrine, do the study on your own, and be freed from this "
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."
