Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Yes
Yes, but it was not my point.
i didn't know
All right, thank you. I wasn't meaning to be contentious-but I probably tend to get defensive on the forums.. If you read Catholic teachings, in the catechism and Vatican 2 documents for example, you'll find that the church teaches that people can be and are saved outside of the Catholic Church, and that Protestants have contributed in many ways to the faith. God is pleased with faith wherever its found. As I see it, the Catholic church together with the Eastern churches is sort of the umbrella, so to speak, without which the faith would not have been preserved and sometimes clarified and carried down through time. For myself, I value the richness of the wealth of knowledge and understanding and clarifications that have come down through the ages via a huge variety of early fathers and thinkers, theologians, saints, etc, who took root and blossomed from the seeds planted by the church. And also the direct link to the beginnings of the faith that those same churches carry with them.
Being defensive displays you are not taking seriously the fact of not taking yourself seriously, in the manner the latter behavior was fashion before around up to 2024 olympics. I think your bottom motivation is christian.
I see protestantism more like a brain, while catholicism would be more like some more sensorial part of the body. I have no further seeing as for orthodoxy, for i know still less about it
remains worthy of being questionned. It might bear some fruitful fruit
There are no non lying non hypocrites
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so if we were required to have sinless perfection in order to enter Heaven, then no one would enter Heaven. The fact that everyone who will enter Heaven has sinned means that sinless perfection is not a requirement.
Jesus was not speaking about having sinless perfection, but about having a love that is full, complete, or refined where we don't just love those who love us but also love our enemies.
The contest of John 3:16-21 it connects our belief in Jesus with our obedience to God. Moreover, verses like John 3:16 should also be understood in light of the many other verses that say that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying God's commandments, such as with Luke 10:25-28. Moreover, there are many verses that connect our faith in God with our obedience to Him such as Revelation 14:12 where who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments even though none of those people had sinless perfection.
In Romans 3:20-21, it notably does not state that the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through sinless perfection, but rather the only way to become righteous that is testified about in the Law and the Prophets is through faith in Christ. Those verses also notably don't say that having faith in Jesus makes us sinless.
We can't earn our righteousness even as the result of having sinless perfection (Romans 4:1-5) because the Law of God was never given as a way of doing that in the first place, but rather the Law of God was given to graciously teach us how to experience the gift of righteousness. Jesus embodied his righteousness through his works by setting an example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Law of God, so us getting to experience being a follower of his example is the content of his gift of righteousness.
I agree, It's noticeable that Paul didn't rely on his own righteousness:
This was a big joke for Flip Wilson. He would dress up like a women and says:
We embody what we believe to be true about God through our works such as with James 2:18 saying that he would sho this faith through his works. In other words, the way to believe in God is by having the experience of embodying His character traits. For example, by being a doer of good works in obedience to the Law of God we are embodying God's goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), and by embodying God's goodness we are also embodying the belief that God is good. Likewise, the way to believe that God is compassionate is by being compassionate (Luke 6:36), the way to believe that God is holy is by embodying His instructions for how to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:16), and so forth. This is exactly the same as the way to believe in the Son, who is the radiance of God's glory and the exact likeness of His character (Hebrews 1:3), which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Law of God, and which is why those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way that he walked (1 John 2:6). This is also why there are many verses that connect our belief in God with our obedience to Him such as with Revelation 14:12 where those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments. We can't earn our righteousness or the other character traits of God even as the result of having perfect obedience to the Law of God because it was never given as a way of doing that (Romans 4:1-5), but rather it is by this faith alone that we attain the character traits of God. In Hebrews 3:18-19, they did not enter into God's rest because of their unbelief/disobedience.
In 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way that he walked, so verses that refer to those who are in Christ are only referring to those who are following his example of walking obedience to the Law of God, which includes Romans 8:1 where there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem, us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what Christ accomplished through the cross is also by becoming zealous for following his example of walking in obedience to the Law of God (Acts 21:20).
In Hebrews 11, it lists examples of justifying faith and Abraham was listed twice, so he was justified when he obeyed the call to go to the land where he would receive his inheritance (Genesis 12:1-5, Hebrews 11:8), he was justified when he believed God (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:1-5), and he was justified when he offered Isaac (Genesis 22, James 2:21-24, Hebrews 11:17). So while it is true that our works has nothing to do with trying to earn our justification as the result, it is not true that our justification has nothing to do with our works. While Paul denied in Romans 4:1-5 that we can earn our justification as the result of our works, he also affirmed in Romans 2:13 that only the doers of the law will be justified, so there is a reason why our justification requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage, namely faith insofar as the faith by which we are justified apart from works also upholds the Law of God (Romans 3:28-21).
The Law of God was not given as a way of becoming righteous even as the result of perfect obedience, but rather it was given to describe the life of someone who is righteous as it describes the life of Christ. The only way to become righteous is through faith apart from being required to have first done enough works to earn it as the result, but what it means to be righteous is to be a doer of righteous works in obedience to the Law of God (1 John 3:4-7), so it would be contradictory for someone to become righteous apart from becoming a doer of righteous works. We become someone who has faith, someone who will be declared righteous, and someone who is a doer of the Law of God all at the same time and anyone who is not one of those is also not the others.
In Matthew 23:23, Christ said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law of God. In Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments. The way to have faith in God to guide us in how to rightly live is by obediently following His instructions.
God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (Psalms 19:7), so the way to trust in God is by obediently trusting in His instructions and it would be contradictory for someone to think that we should trust in God instead of in His instructions.
In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith alone.
The tenth commandment covers what goes on, on the inside of man, his thoughts/desires/coveting. You can transgress that law without any outward act. You are including this in your above statement aren't you?
No outward action required to transgress the tenth commandment, you can transgress it in your thoughts/desires. Are you sure the justified uphold that law?
Agreed. I would go further, and say that you can transgress all of the ten without any outward act.
Its interesting, Paul gave as an example of why he had to die to the law/righteousness of obeying it the tenth commandment.(Rom7:7-11) The commandment specifically relating to the inner man, concerning law no one but you and God need know you break
