WE ARE NOT MADE RIGHTEOUS BY DOING RIGHTEOUS DEEDS;

Danthemailman

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1 John 3:7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

This is 'descriptive' behavior of children of God (they practice righteousness because they are righteous) and children of the devil (who practice sin because they are of the devil).
 
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Faith is intended to arrive at more than just...faith. It’s intended to justify us, to make us righteous, as God’s children should be.

I think that's right. It's not just that we are declared righteous but that we are righteous or at least that we become more righteous than we once were even if it doesn't seem by very much. As to whether Protestantism teaches this, I don't know but every church I've ever been to has taught this in practice by trying to make the Bible teachings come alive and be relevant to everyday life. Seems to me we have to do something ourselves to respond to God and that the process is not automatic - that, just because we have God in us, we'll automatically do the right thing. This reduces us to robots. I think the worry about having to do something ourselves is how do we know that we have done enough? I guess the answer is that we'll never know. We could probably always do better but we have to accept that we'll never be perfect. We'll always be sinners and miss the mark at times, and probably most of the time, but trusting that God is a loving and forgiving God will help us accept this and encourage us to do the best we can.
 
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Butterball1

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It's impossible for a person to be righteous apart from doing righteousness. 1 John 3:10 the present tense shows that as long as one continues to not do righteousness one continues to not be of God. It's those who "worketh righteousness" that are accepted with God, Acts of the Apostles 10:35.
Romans 9:11 having done no good or evil means people are born a 'clean slate' neither born righteous nor born a sinner for one is not righteous till he does righteous nor a sinner till one commits sin. As one cannot call a wall painted when no paint has ever been applied to the wall. Paul spoke of "obedience unto righteousness" (Rom 6:16) and NOT faith only unto righteousness. There is no example in the Bible of one being righteous before having done righteousness (righteousness = obeyed God's commands - Psalms 119:172)
 
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Albion

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BUT WHEN WE HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS WE DO RIGHTEOUS DEEDS. Martin Luther

Catholicism would agree and maintains that this righteousness, that comes from God, alone, as we enter fellowship with Him through faith, also has an identity- defined mainly as love. And that we're in any case obligated to maintain and express this righteousness, an obligation which should present an easy enough burden since love acts, producing righteous deeds, by its nature.

Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?
I'd say "yes" for this reason: while the point about doing righteous deeds after having been made righteous doesn't seem controversial, it's not what results in salvation according to the Catholic Church.

She still maintains that 1) those deeds are efficacious. They "count" or increase your prospects for salvation, and 2) if you die with unforgiven mortal sins on your account, you are lost, no matter how strong your faith or how many good deeds have been performed.
 
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BNR32FAN

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BUT WHEN WE HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS WE DO RIGHTEOUS DEEDS. Martin Luther

Catholicism would agree and maintains that this righteousness, that comes from God, alone, as we enter fellowship with Him through faith, also has an identity- defined mainly as love. And that we're in any case obligated to maintain and express this righteousness, an obligation which should present an easy enough burden since love acts, producing righteous deeds, by its nature.

Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?

Lol sola fide contradicts sola scriptura as per 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:1-3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

So to those reformers out there, what’s it going to be sola scriptura or sola fide because you can’t have it both ways if they are contradictory to one another.
 
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fhansen

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I think that's right. It's not just that we are declared righteous but that we are righteous or at least that we become more righteous than we once were even if it doesn't seem by very much. As to whether Protestantism teaches this, I don't know but every church I've ever been to has taught this in practice by trying to make the Bible teachings come alive and be relevant to everyday life. Seems to me we have to do something ourselves to respond to God and that the process is not automatic - that, just because we have God in us, we'll automatically do the right thing. This reduces us to robots. I think the worry about having to do something ourselves is how do we know that we have done enough? I guess the answer is that we'll never know. We could probably always do better but we have to accept that we'll never be perfect. We'll always be sinners and miss the mark at times, and probably most of the time, but trusting that God is a loving and forgiving God will help us accept this and encourage us to do the best we can.
Yes, and we all pretty well agree that Christianity teaches that man cannot possess any real righteousness on his own. So what changes that we should now begin acting any differently, any better, than we did before conversion if we're still the same, if our righteousness is merely declared IOW? And the answer is that now we live by grace, now we have the Spirit, now God indwells us and within that fellowship we're changed, being changed, and will be changed more-for the better!-as long as we remain in Him. "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). And then we simply let Him judge at the end of the day how well we've done with whatever we've been given.
 
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fhansen

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It's impossible for a person to be righteous apart from doing righteousness. 1 John 3:10 the present tense shows that as long as one continues to not do righteousness one continues to not be of God. It's those who "worketh righteousness" that are accepted with God, Acts of the Apostles 10:35.
Romans 9:11 having done no good or evil means people are born a 'clean slate' neither born righteous nor born a sinner for one is not righteous till he does righteous nor a sinner till one commits sin. As one cannot call a wall painted when no paint has ever been applied to the wall. Paul spoke of "obedience unto righteousness" (Rom 6:16) and NOT faith only unto righteousness. There is no example in the Bible of one being righteous before having done righteousness (righteousness = obeyed God's commands - Psalms 119:172)
Yes-and yet we're unrighteous before being justified by God, when we turn to Him in faith. So we don't begin with righteousness, just the opposite, in fact, because our so-called righteous would just be filthy rags at that point, and yet we're still obligated to be righteous -and act accordingly-under the New Covenant. The answer is Jesus Christ, who takes away and purifies us from all sin, who reconciles us with God so that we now enter the communion with Him that we were made for. Then He places His law in our minds and writes it on our hearts' (Jer 31:33), or replaces our 'heart of stone with a heart of flesh' (Ez 26:36).
 
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BUT WHEN WE HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS WE DO RIGHTEOUS DEEDS. Martin Luther

Catholicism would agree and maintains that this righteousness, that comes from God, alone, as we enter fellowship with Him through faith, also has an identity- defined mainly as love. And that we're in any case obligated to maintain and express this righteousness, an obligation which should present an easy enough burden since love acts, producing righteous deeds, by its nature.

Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?

It's "Sola Fide" turned inside out. Luther understood it perfectly, but Catholics try to BE Richteous to establish FAITH, instead of Having FAITH, which results in Righteous acts.
 
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fhansen

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I'd say "yes" for this reason: while the point about doing righteous deeds after having been made righteous doesn't seem controversial, it's not what results in salvation according to the Catholic Church.

She still maintains that 1) those deeds are efficacious. They "count" or increase your prospects for salvation, and 2) if you die with unforgiven mortal sins on your account, you are lost, no matter how strong your faith or how many good deeds have been performed.
This is true, but the Catholic (and EO) position aligns well with Scripture at very many points. We cannot discount the fact that sin will still separate us from God, that wanton, grave or serious sin, as outlined in Gal 5 & 6 or Rev 22:14-15, for example, simply has no place in His family and that we remain with the option to sin after justification, that, even as he's now equipped by the Spirit to win the battle, a struggle against sin may still ensue within the believer, reflected in passages such as Rom 8:12-13:
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”

We still have the freedom possibility to reject and turn back away from God IOW.
 
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Albion

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This is true, but the Catholic (and EO) position aligns well with Scripture at very many points.
True. But so does the Sola Fide position.

However, I didn't think you wanted to start up another "does not...does so!" thread on this subject, but wanted instead to keep to the narrower issue of whether Sola Fide might not be as incompatible with Catholic thinking as is usually thought. So I replied in that spirit.

We cannot discount the fact that sin will still separate us from God, that wanton, grave or serious sin, as outlined in Gal 5 & 6 or Rev 22:14-15, for example, simply has no place in His family and that we remain with the option to sin after justification, that, even as he's now equipped by the Spirit to win the battle, a struggle against sin may still ensue within the believer, reflected in passages such as Rom 8:12-13
All right, but the heart and soul of Sola Fide is not that we somehow become non-sinners (far from it). Rather, it's that we are forgiven despite our weaknesses, so long as we trust in the Savior who died in order to accomplish what we could not accomplish on our own.

We still have the freedom possibility to reject and turn back away from God IOW.
And we could discuss that as well, but it's a different topic.
 
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fhansen

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It's "Sola Fide" turned inside out. Luther understood it perfectly, but Catholics try to BE Richteous to establish FAITH, instead of Having FAITH, which results in Righteous acts.
But that's not the Catholic position. Many Christians can fall into the trap of legalism regardless of theology-it's very easy to think that we must simply obey the law or simply "look" righteous on the outside. I'd hazard to say that we all play that game to one degree or another in fact, that living 100% by truth in sheer, real transparency is a very rare thing in this world, that we won't perfectly overcome sin in this life to put it another way. Here are some applicable teachings, with the "old law" referring to the Old Covenant and the "new law" to the New Covenant:

1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a "law of concupiscence" in the human heart.16 However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.

1965 The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity [love]: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put my laws into their hands, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

1972 The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity [love] and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son and heir.31
 
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Albion

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But that's not the Catholic position.
So you wrote to defend the position that you think is NOT that of the Catholic Church? :scratch:

Many Christians can fall into the trap of legalism regardless of theology-it's very easy to think that we must simply obey the law or simply "look" righteous on the outside. I'd hazard to say that we all play that game to one degree or another in fact, that living 100% by truth in sheer, real transparency is a very rare thing in this world, that we won't perfectly overcome sin in this life to put it another way. Here are some applicable teachings, with the "old law" referring to the Old Covenant and the "new law" to the New Covenant:

1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage.

But the discussion, this thread, was not about keeping the Law. It was about performing good works after justification.


The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son and heir.31

So, to be clear, what is your conclusion? That we are free to do good? If so, the question about Sola Fide seems to me to have been sidestepped. What in your reply says that it's by Faith that we are saved and not anything of ourselves?
 
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The OP is about "we are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds". That is correct. We are made righteous by the grace of God, not by anything that we do. Otherwise, grace is not from God but from works, which is contrary to the New Covenant.

Should we discuss the OP or a side issue?
 
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Albion

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The OP is about "we are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds". That is correct. We are made righteous by the grace of God, not by anything that we do. Otherwise, grace is not from God but from works, which is contrary to the New Covenant.

Should we discuss the OP or a side issue?

What the OP was about is this:
Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?
 
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friend of

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That's not correct according to the bible:

1Jn_3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

So someone who isn't a Christian can be made righteous in the sight of God by doing good works then?
 
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Yes-and yet we're unrighteousness before being justified by God, when we turn to Him in faith.

Men are born innocent, a clean slate, having done neither good or evil so men are not born righteous or born sinners. Therefore one is not unrighteous before God until that accountable person transgresses God's law (1 John 3:4; Romans 4:15; Romans 7:8-9). Then one must turn to God in faith (do righteousness) to be seen righteous by God. You used the term "turn" ousrself and that turning is obedience/doing righteousness THEN God sees one as righteous.

fhansen said:
So we don't begin with righteousness, just the opposite, in fact, because our so-called righteous would just be filthy rags at that point, and yet we're still obligated to be righteous -and act accordingly-under the New Covenant.

Didn't begin as righteous neither began as a sinner. Began as a clean slate. One is what he does. One cannot do unrighteous yet be righteous therefore one must do righteousness in order to be righteous. As long as one continues to NOT do righteousness he CONTINUES to not be of God 1 John 3:10. The logical mplication being one must FIRST do righteous THEN one can be of God...one must FIRST work righteous THEN be accepted with God, Acts of the Apostles 10:35.

fhansen said:
The answer is Jesus Christ, who takes away and purifies us from all sin, who reconciles us with God so that we now enter the communion with Him that we were made for. Then He places His law in our minds and writes it on our hearts' (Jer 31:33), or replaces our 'heart of stone with a heart of flesh' (Ez 26:36).

Those that are obedient are the only ones reconciles to God through Christ. Hebrews 5:9 Christ is the author of salvation unto all those who obey (do righteousness) Him.

Either a person is obeying God (doing righteousness) or disobeying God (doing unrighteounsess) no third option. Not a case in the BIble of GOd making one righteous while continue to live in unrighteousness. One had to first do righteusness in order to be made righteous.

Romans 5:19 this verse does not say one is made a sinner UNCONDITIONALLY no more than it says one is made righteous UNCONDITIONALLY. People read the idea of "unconditional" into the verse. One is not unconditionally made a sinner until he first conditionally sins (Romans 5:12 "have sinned) nor made unconditionally righteous until he first conditionally has faith (Romans 5:1). God never made unrighteous men righteous while they continued to disobey and rebel against God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." There is that CONDITIONAL phrase "in Him" therefore men are CONDITIONALLY made righteous IN CHRIST and it takes obedience to be in Christ by obeying the gospel being baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:27). Then being in Christ, clothed in Christ's perfect righteousness God then sees one as being perfectly righteous IN CHRIST not apart from Christ for one can one never be righteous in God's eyes while separated from Christ. Hence we are made righteous IN HIM.

1 Corinthians 1:30 "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:"
Again, being made righteous (Romans 5:19) is conditional upon being IN CHRIST. So those that obey Christ therefore in Christ, clothed in CHrist's perfect righteousness then CHrist is their perfect righteousness before God but this first requires the UNrighteous man to repent turning from serving sin to serving God, serving "obedience UNTO righteousness" Romans 6:16. As Paul said "not having my own righteousness, which is of the law (Paul did not keep the law perfectly) but that (righteousness) which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Phil 3:8-9. Paul's salvation depended on CHrist's perfect righteousness not his own flawed righteousness. But it took obedience on the part of Saul (Acts of the Apostles 22:16) before he could be in Christ and clothed in Christ's perfect righteousness.
"Paul had spent the first part of his life depending upon the flawless observance of the Law of Moses to make him right with God. He now realized that such was a vain task, for nobody ever keeps the law perfectly ( Rom_3:23 ; Rom_7:8-11 ). “But that which is through faith in Christ”: A right standing before God cannot be accomplished by works of human merit ( Tit_3:5 ), being a good moral person ( Act_10:1-2 ; Act_11:13-14 ), or by flawlessly observing the Law of Moses. The only way to find favor with God is to humbly submit, in obedient faith to the Lord Jesus Christ ( Rom_3:23-26 )." Dunagan Comm.
Hence the only way to be made righteous is submitting to God's righteousness, God's commands which Saul/Paul did. Yet Paul's brethren in the flesh remained lost, remained unrighteous for they would not submit to God's righteousness (Romans 10:3) thinking their own righteousness in keeping their traditions could make them righteous before God.
 
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fhansen

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So you wrote to defend the position that you think is NOT that of the Catholic Church? :scratch:
Did you read the post I responded to? This is not the Catholic position-and the teachings I quoted refute it:
It's "Sola Fide" turned inside out. Luther understood it perfectly, but Catholics try to BE Richteous to establish FAITH, instead of Having FAITH, which results in Righteous acts.
But the discussion, this thread, was not about keeping the Law. It was about performing good works after justification.
It was about being righteous: sinless, producing good works, et al, which most certainly involves the law even though the law, itself, cannot possible accomplish that righteousness in us. And why would anyone suddenly begin to do good anyway, unless they've been changed, made new creations, made righteous in this new way? The Catholic position is only that such righteousness is now made possible via faith, introducing us to the life of grace, and that were still obligated to do it.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.“ Rom 5:1-2

“…just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 5:21
So, to be clear, what is your conclusion? That we are free to do good? If so, the question about Sola Fide seems to me to have been sidestepped. What in your reply says that it's by Faith that we are saved and not anything of ourselves?
Faith gains access to God, the only One who can save man. It's based on the personal knowledge of the true God whom Jesus came to exhaustively reveal:
"No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord."
Jer 31:34

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

So that now, by that access, within that union or partnership with Him, a relationship that man is made for and is lost, dead, sick without, a relationship which is, itself, the heart of justice or righteousness for man, and a relationship that Adam essentially scorned and dismissed, He may work His righteousness in us; He may justify us:
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people."
Jer 31:33

That's the intended product of faith. We all believe that righteousness is necessary for salvation, but Catholicism teaches that said righteousness is more than strictly declared or imputed.

One problem is that some interpret Sola Fide to mean that no amount of sin can separate us from God (and possibly that man cannot be more than a sinner anyway), rather than understanding that faith provides the means by which that sin can be overcome, thus keeping us in Him now rather than separated from Him, a death that sin would still earn.
"And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Rom 8:3-4

Others understand Sola Fide to mean that works will necessarily follow or accompany that faith-which, like it or not, necessarily implies a change in man, an "infused" rather than simply imputed righteousness making him more than a snow-covered dung-heap- and that is at least closer to the Catholic position than the former position.
 
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pescador

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What the OP was about is this:

The title of the OP (above) is "we are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds". The first post includes this sentence: "Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?" but that isn't what the OP is about.

What does this mean, "Is any of this [emphasis mine] necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?" Any of what, according to you?
 
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Albion

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Did you read the post I responded to? This is not the Catholic position-and the teachings I quoted refute it:
Well, they do not. And that is the main point I was making in that most recent reply.

One problem is that some interpret Sola Fide to mean that no amount of sin can separate us from God (and possibly that man cannot be more than a sinner anyway), rather than understanding that faith provides the means by which that sin can be overcome, thus keeping us in Him now rather than separated from Him, a death that sin would still earn.
The fact is that Sola Fide means that we are saved by Faith, not by the good deeds that we perform. The Roman Catholic Church's position during Luther's time and still is or was during our own lifetimes is that both of those are effective in qualifying us for salvation. I also realize that the RCC has been changing a lot of its historic doctrines lately.

It's not more complicated than that and it doesn't matter if some people understand it correctly while others fail to do so.
 
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BUT WHEN WE HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS WE DO RIGHTEOUS DEEDS. Martin Luther

Catholicism would agree and maintains that this righteousness, that comes from God, alone, as we enter fellowship with Him through faith, also has an identity- defined mainly as love. And that we're in any case obligated to maintain and express this righteousness, an obligation which should present an easy enough burden since love acts, producing righteous deeds, by its nature.

Is any of this necessarily opposed to the doctrine of Sola Fide?

That sounds firmly part of the doctrine of Sola Fide.

We are justified by grace alone through faith, and by the grace of God walk in the new obedience as converted new creations, loving God and loving our neighbor--working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

What Lutheran theology rejects is that salvation is a kind of "maintenence", that we have to constantly be walking on eggshells lest God throw us away. Rather, we should have confidence in what God has done and given, and in that faith which has been given to us, in that grace which God has for us which saves us, go and live as Christians in the midst of the world through our vocations of life--as Christian people. That our Christianity is established by Word and Sacrament, and is then lived out in the secular, in the day-to-day world.

Further, the righteous deeds of love and faith which we do are never credited to us as righteousness before God; such deeds are, as the Apostle writes in Ephesians 2:9 the works of God which we have been created for.

Hence St. Augustine writes,

"What is the purport of his saying, 'Not of works lest any man should boast,' while commending the grace of God? And then why does he afterwards when giving a reason for using such words, say, 'For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works'? Why, therefore, does it run, 'Not of works, lest any man should boast'? Now, hear and understand. 'Not of works' is spoken of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone, but you have to think of works for which God has molded (that is, has formed and created) you. For of these he says, 'We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.' Now he does not here speak of that creation which made us human beings, but of that in reference to which one said who was already in full manhood, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God;' concerning which also the apostle says, 'Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God.' We are framed, therefore, that is, formed and created, 'in the good works which' we have not ourselves prepared, but 'God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'" - St. Augustine, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, Ch. 20

We therefore walk in righteousness, not to our own justification, but out of the obedience that comes from a renewed and clean heart by God, that we might walk in His ways and carry out the good works of God in the world--that our neighbors be loved and cared for. That we should "pursue justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before God" (Micah 6:8).

-CryptoLutheran
 
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