WE ARE NOT MADE RIGHTEOUS BY DOING RIGHTEOUS DEEDS;

fhansen · May 6, 2021

Butterball1 said:
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.

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.

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.

The most basic injustice or unrighteousness in man is his alienation or separation from God. That's the essence of the state sometimes known as "original sin". Man was made for communion with God IOW, and exists in a lost, disordered, or unjust state without that, even if he's not yet committed a personal sin to begin with. And its said that Adam initiated this unjust separation, by actively pursuing it via his act of disobedience. So the most basic sin for man is to deny God His godhood over us-we're sicker than we can even imagine here on earth due to that first transgression that invovles a preference for ourselves over God, a preference, aka pride, that we'll still struggle against even as believers. Man must have communion with God in order to regain health now, in order to have life and life abundantly. The reason man inevitably sins in the ways we see and participate in daily in this world is because of this lack of communion with his Creator. Adam opened the door to this sin, this moral relativity that depends now on fallen man's opinion: morality is now determined by man instead of God in this world, with all kinds of harmful and detrimental results. We're born dead so to speak, which is why we must be born again, or anew, or from above. We lack the knowledge of God referenced in scripture, which denotes a direct and personal knowledge or "knowing" of Him, a relationship that begins here with faith but is only fully realized in the next life:
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Cor 13:12

To put this all another way: man does not need to be-and cannot be- righteous first in order to be right with God. Rather, man needs to get right with God first of all and then He makes us righteous. That's why Jesus came, to reconcile us with Him so that we may now enter that vital relationship. Then justice and order are restored to His wayward creation, within each of us one at a time as we're willing to turn back to Him. The problem with man, with Adam, is in thinking that he can be right apart from God.

fhansen · May 6, 2021

Albion said:
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.

In Catholicism faith makes righteousness ("the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith" ( Phil 3:9), faith makes love, fulfilling the greatest commandments, finally possible for man. And that's how the law or any other form of obedience is fulfilled-that's how man is justified.
"And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." Rom 5:5

So the Church can teach, quoting a 16th century believer,
"At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love."

That's the New Covenant, that's Christianity, in a nutshell. And the Church, along with Scripture, will not will change or stray from that understanding that man must walk and live uprightly in order to gain entrance into heaven, a walk that man must cooperate in, on a path that he's not guaranteed to remain on. Justification and admission into God's family is a totally free gift. Now we must act and live like His children, expressing and growing in His love, still with the help of the grace He continuously gives as we daily make the choice to remain in Him, and not return to an unrighteous life.

Albion · May 6, 2021

fhansen said:
Now we must act and live like His children, expressing and growing in His love, still with the help of the grace He continuously gives as we daily make the choice to remain in Him, and not return to an unrighteous life.

...and so we get to the big point in the closing comment. Now...are all those good deeds efficacious when it comes to what it is that saves us? Or are the good works the fruits, the consequence, of saving Faith?

Halbhh · May 6, 2021

fhansen said:
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 seems to fit 'faith alone' perfectly, in that way scripture lays out in Ephesians 2:8-10. Under the condition that it's by abiding in Christ that we can bear this true fruit. (the love that is true/good)
--> Bible Gateway passage: John 15:1-17 - New International Version
(and this way we 'walk in the spirit', Romans chapter 8)

fhansen · May 6, 2021

ViaCrucis said:
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.

Thank you, this is at the very least quite close to Catholicism. Catholic teachings mean to emphasize that everything is of grace, whether faith or works or godly sorrow and repentance or man's own forgiveness and mercy or anything else, if it’s going to be of any real worth. And that if man is to be of any worth, that must all come from God; everything we have including our bodies, our very existence, come from Him to begin with, but He wants to produce something in us, rather than just have us be some sort of puppets through whom He acts. He desires our free participation in His work IOW, our acknowledgment of his perfect righteousness and wisdom and of our alignment with it, and increasing solidarity and confirmation of that alignment, even as grace is also absolutely essential in moving us in that direction. His glory is reflected and exalted in our becoming like Him, in our loving as He does, and love, necessarily, involves choice -or it cannot be love at all. And love is the authentic motivator for any obedience or righteous acts we might perform. In any case, the CC teaches thusly:

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

And at the 2nd Council of Orange in 529, the bishops primarily employed the writings of Augustine to define the church’s teachings on grace as he was arguing against Pelagianism some 75 years earlier. The canons emphatically stress the absolute inability of man to move himself toward God, and to justify himself. At the end, under “Conclusions” they went on to say:

"According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him. We must therefore most evidently believe that the praiseworthy faith of the thief whom the Lord called to his home in paradise, and of Cornelius the centurion, to whom the angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zacchaeus, who was worthy to receive the Lord himself, was not a natural endowment but a gift of God's kindness."

Anyway, since Eden God’s been patiently working on drawing and eliciting increasing willingness: educating and molding and informing and preparing man to finally embrace His light.

fhansen · May 6, 2021

Albion said:
...and so we get to the big point in the closing comment. Now...are all those good deeds efficacious when it comes to what it is that saves us? Or are the good works the fruits, the consequence, of saving Faith?

It's all of God and yet He doesn't do it without us-because He 'chooses to associate man with the work of His grace', as it's taught, for His purposes and man's good. God necessarily initiates and sustains but man can still say no at any point along the way. So it's not either/or, but both/and.

Albion · May 6, 2021

fhansen said:
It's all of God and yet He doesn't do it without us-because He 'chooses to associate man with the work of His grace', as it's taught, for His purposes and man's good. God necessarily initiates and sustains but man can still say no at any point along the way. So it's not either/or, but both/and.

Sola Fide isn't about that. It's about what it is that saves (Both Faith and Our Good Works versus Faith Alone).

fhansen · May 6, 2021

Albion said:
Sola Fide isn't about that. It's about what it is that saves (Both Faith and Our Good Works versus Faith Alone).

Is Sola Fide consistent with the quoted statement in the OP?

Albion · May 6, 2021

fhansen said:
Is Sola Fide consistent with the quoted statement in the OP?

Is the following what you are referring to?

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

"Consistent with" having saving Faith, yes. But that's not about Sola Fide itself nor is it the meaning of the term Sola Fide.

As I wrote before, Faith produces Good Works, but the term (Sola Fide) refers to what it is that makes a person be one of those who will be saved.

Dkh587 · May 6, 2021

1 John 3:7
Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

Albion · May 7, 2021

But note that it doesn't say that a man is righteous because he does right. It's quite true, however, that a righteous man will live righteously, which he could not do except that he had already been accounted as righteous by the Lord.

What St. John is saying is that it's impossible for a righteous man not to act righteously, so we can tell that someone is righteous by his conduct. Conversely, anyone who claims to have been born again but doesn't live like it, shows himself to be a fraud.

Butterball1 · May 7, 2021

fhansen said:
Rather, man needs to get right with God first of all and then He makes us righteous.

....and the way man gets "right" with God is by doing righteousness, that is, by obeying God's commands. THEN God makes one righteous.

fhansen · May 7, 2021

Albion said:
But note that it doesn't say that a man is righteous because he does right. It's quite true, however, that a righteous man will live righteously, which he could not do except that he had already been accounted as righteous by the Lord.

And yet why would a person live righteously just because he's been accounted, declared, imputed to be righteous? There must also be a change, towards personal righteousness, that's been achieved within him.

Butterball1 · May 7, 2021

Dkh587 said:
1 John 3:7
Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

With the verb doeth in present tense, then he that continues to do righteousness is righteous. The logical implication is he that does not do righteousness or quits doing righteousness is NOT righteous.

What a man is is according to what he does so man must do right in order to be right. Righteousness is not just a label arbitrarily given to a man apart from what that man does.

Albion · May 7, 2021

fhansen said:
And yet why would a person live righteously just because he's been accounted, declared, imputed to be righteous?

Because he IS a new creature, natch. Your question seems to be asking why he would know that he's been made over, but of course that is not the way being born again or coming to Christ operates. It's not a secret to the new believer.

Albion · May 7, 2021

Butterball1 said:
What a man is is according to what he does so man must do right in order to be right.

The mistake is in thinking that trying to be good in itself MAKES anyone right in God's eyes and worthy of salvation.

Albion · May 7, 2021

fhansen said:
And yet why would a person live righteously just because he's been accounted, declared, imputed to be righteous? There must also be a change, towards personal righteousness, that's been achieved within him.

As I explained...coming to Christ, accepting him as Lord, is not done without the person knowing anything about it.

He has accepted Christ as his spiritual leader and so he naturally aspires to live in accordance with Christ's own instructions to mankind. It's ridiculous to think that the convert would not want to follow in the way that his leader taught followers to live.

Were the person NOT want to do that, we all would question whether his "conversion" was genuine...or just words.

Butterball1 · May 7, 2021

Albion said:
The mistake is in thinking that trying to be good in itself MAKES anyone right in God's eyes and worthy of salvation.

I did not saying being good can make one right with God. An atheist can do much good (feed the hungry, clothe the poor, etc) but that will never make him righteous with God.

It takes OBEDIENCE to God's will (belief, repentance, confession, baptism for remission of sins) for one to be made righteous with God. Not till the atheist FIRST obeys God by believing, repenting of sins, confessing with the mouth submitting to baptism for remission of sin will he be made righteous and be saved.

fhansen · May 7, 2021

Butterball1 said:
....and the way man gets "right" with God is by doing righteousness, that is, by obeying God's commands. THEN God makes one righteous.

But how and why would a man act righteously unless God makes him righteous? I think it's sort of both/and to be honest-as all of our walk with God is. All righteousness comes from God as its source. We come from God as our source for that matter but we're free to not even recognize the existence of that Source, let alone follow Him in the righouness He created us to have. And once we stray from that recognition, that faith in our Creator, we're lost-and control of our morality/ righteousness is no longer directly in His hands. We still retain the law which He placed in all men's hearts but we easily ignore and dismiss it when another, often wrong, desire may arise, since apart from Him we become our own "gods", determining our morality for ourselves. Again, the doctrine of original sin maintains that this occurs because, at the beginning, God, Himself, was ignored and dismissed by man, which became a family tradition so to speak. It's unnatural, in a sense, for man to not know and not be intimately bound to his Creator.

God's purpose is to draw man back to Him, and yes, back to choosing good over evil, and our having tasted-or known- evil in this life should only help the cause of our coming to reject it in favor of the good, alone. But either way it's a cooperative effort, of God drawing man towards good/righteousness, and man expected to respond. His first most basic response is to turn to God, acknowledging that he cannot be good, or good enough, on his own, that he's a sinner unable to overcome sin, that he needs God. The first right response involves faith, IOW, which is both a gift and a human choice to accept and act upon that gift. Either way, God continuously calls and challenges and helps us to do the "right thing", while never overwhelming our wills in order to make that happen. God created everything good, and we have the right stuff in us. His purpose is to draw that out and none of that can possibly be done to His satisfaction, according to His wisdom and His purpose for man, unless we're partnered with Him first of all.

Albion · May 7, 2021

Butterball1 said:
I did not saying being good can make one right with God. An atheist can do much good (feed the hungry, clothe the poor, etc) but that will never make him righteous with God.

It takes OBEDIENCE to God's will (belief, repentance, confession, baptism for remission of sins) for one to be made righteous with God.

That still puts the cart before the horse. If we could save ourselves or become righteous by our own lifestyle, there would have been no need for God to come to us and die for us.

As it was in Moses time, we'd simply perform and then expect to have earned life eternal. Every Christian should know that the entire point of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and founding of a new church was that God came to us because we could not be right with him on our own.

WE ARE NOT MADE RIGHTEOUS BY DOING RIGHTEOUS DEEDS;

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