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That’s an interesting gauge. Slaves, mercenaries or children."If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children."
After we are saved by God's grace, I believe we need to overcome mortal sin at some point in our life as a part of God's plan of salvation. Mortal sin is any sin that leads to the destruction of our soul in the afterlife. A non-mortal sin would be any sin that does not lead to be destroyed in hellfire. An example would be Matthew 5:22. The first two sins mentioned in Matthew 5:22 are non-mortals sins because they lead to being judged by court systems. The last sin mentioned in Matthew 5:22 is a mortal sin because it leads to hell fire. Yet, popular Christianity tends to just lump all sins together, when this is not the case at all.
The same faith by which we are justified is expressed as obedience, but we do not earn our justification by our obedience, which is why Paul said in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, but denied that we earn our obedience by being a doer of the law.
Does faith justify?
(Note: I am not asking because I don't know the answer).
Some say that faith does not justify.
However, Scripture says we a man is justified by faith.
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
(Romans 3:28).
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”
(Romans 5:1).
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16).
“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:24).
Because justification is available to everyone whether they are elect or not.(apparently) Nor does it involve obedience. It’s an acceptance of the finished work as a truth, belief. Obedience is to carry on with Him. Sanctified and sanctifier.
Your saying Paul said only doers will be justified and from the other side of his mouth he was saying you can’t be justified that way? It seems a moot thing when the obedience is sanctification and justification is faith in the facts of Christ.
To me the first one, "the judgement" sounds much more serious than the second, "the counsel". The first and third seem to go together because the judgement makes me think of the white throne judgement.
Other translations besides the KJB says, “court” instead of “judgment.”
“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be answerable to the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:22) (NASB).
How do you define 'good works' and 'works of the law'?Paul notably said that it is the doers of the Mosaic Law who will be justified, not that we earn our justification by being doer of the Mosaic Law. In other words, being a doer of the Mosaic Law is a trait that everyone who will be justified has in common, but our justification is not something that can be earned as a wage as with Abraham (Romans 4:4-5). While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was justified, it is also true that Abraham believed God, so he obeyed His command to offer Isaac, however, Abraham did not earn his justification by his obedience as a wage, but rather the same faith by which he justified was also expressed as obedience. If the same faith that leads to justification is expressed as obedience to God's will, then we can say that only those who do God will have saving faith and that therefore only doers of the will of God will be justified, while still denying that we can earn our justification as a wage.
Every example of saving faith listed in Hebrews 11 was also an example of someone obeying God's will, so that is a trait that everyone with saving faith has in common, but not one of those examples is speaking about earning their justification by doing God's will. So while we are justified by faith apart from works done to earn our justification, that does not mean that justification does not involve choosing obedience. 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 becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Mosaic Law is what acceptance of the finished work as true looks like (Acts 21:20).
In Romans 2:13:
I believe Paul is referring to fulfilling the righteous aspect or part of the Old Law via by the New Covenant way of loving your neighbor according to Romans 13:8-10. For by loving our neighbor we will not murder, steal, covet, etc.
For the context is:
“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:” (Romans 2:14).
Which law did the Gentiles keep without having the Law? The Moral Law. Laws that one instinctively knows to do. To love others.
When I speak of how we must obey God's laws: I am referring primarily to how we must obey those commands in the New Testament, and not the Old Testament. Things like the Saturday Sabbath, circumcision, dietary laws, the Passover, etc. are ceremonial laws that are no longer binding upon the life of the believer today under the New Covenant. We should focus on obeying those commands that come from Jesus and His followers.
So while we are justified by faith apart from works done to earn our justification, that does not mean that justification does not involve choosing obedience.
Yeah I didn't explore that enough.
For someone to suggest that there is a subcategory of Moral Law is to suggest that there are laws that don't belong in that subcategory that are moral to disobey, that God was therefore morally wrong to give those laws, and that in regard to those laws they have greater moral knowledge than God. However, there are no examples in the Bible of disobedience to any of God's laws being considered to be moral, so I see no good grounds for the existence of a subcategory of Moral Law or to think that it can ever be moral to disobey God. Morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently part of the Moral Law. So I don't see good grounds for you exception, but rather Romans 2:14 is speaking about believing Gentiles by nature doing what the Mosaic Law requires even though they do not have it.
In Romans 2:25-29, circumcision has value if we obey the Mosaic Law and the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Mosaic Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 10:12-16, 30:6), while having an uncircumcised heart refers to refusing to submit to the Mosaic Law (Jeremiah 9:13, 25-26, Acts 7:51-53).
Jesus set a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he would have still taught full obedience to it by example even if he had said nothing, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6). Furthermore, Jesus did not hypocritically preach something other than what he practiced and he did not establish the New Covenant in order to undermine anything that he spent his ministry by word and by example, but rather the New Covenant is still made with the same God with the same law (Jeremiah 31:33). The Bible never specifies which laws are ceremonial and never even refers to that as a subcategory of law.
It was always faith that justifies man before God.
But it is only in this time period that we could have faith without works (Romans 4:5).
Prior to the Apostle Paul, the Jews needed to have works to show their faith to God (James 2).
But in the Tribulation, it will be like that once again, you need to reject the mark of the beast, to show your faith to God. Just believing in Christ is no longer sufficient then.
How do you define 'good works' and 'works of the law'?
Because they are very different creatures.
Is this kind of circular argument still being used nowadays?
It's all good, brother. 1 Peter 3:21 is another instance of a non-mortal sin in my understanding of Scripture. Peter says that baptism saves not for the putting away of the filthin of the flesh (i.e. sin), but it saves us as an answer to the call of having a good conscience towards God. Then there is Paul's mistake in Acts 21. Paul ignored the warnings of the Holy Spirit in going to Jerusalem. Yet, Paul was not condemned because Paul went to Jerusalem out of love to see his fellow Jews saved and to see His fellow brethren in Christ. Through that mistake, Paul dropped the ball even more and he was pressured by his fellow Messianic brethren in seeking to be justified by the Law by going through with a purification rite in the OT that involved an animal sacrifice. Luckily God stopped him with going through with the entire thing and he was arrested. But I believe if Paul obeyed the Spirit in not going to Jerusalem, he would not have been put into prison. So Paul's punishment was not an eternal one, but an earthly one. It was a non-mortal sin.
By all means please explain where you think that I have made a circular argument.
Paul said in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, so our obedience to God's law is connected with our justification. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from because he never knew them, so our obedience to God's law is connected with our salvation. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments, so again our obedience is connected with eternal life. In John 3:36, believing in Jesus is equated with obeying him, in Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law, and there are many other verses that associate faith with obedience, so our obedience to God should be considered to be acting in faith, and it is by that same faith that we are justified, are saved, and have eternal life.
James 2:21-26 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
So Abraham was justified by faith and none of the works that he did played any part in earning his justification, but his justification nevertheless still involved doing works as an expression of his faith.
The Gentiles kept the law without having the Law. What kind of Law could that possibly be?
The dictionary defines Moral Law for us.
Moral Law:
Such a rule or group of rules conceived as universal and unchanging and as having the sanction of God's will, of conscience, of man's moral nature, or of natural justice as revealed to human reason.
Source:
Definition of MORAL LAW
In other words, when you turn on the news, you see men reporting how murder is wrong, and theft is wrong, and how other sins by nature that we know are wrong. Granted, things are getting darker in these last days and men have been hardening their hearts to what they know deep down is good and right. But the point here is that there are laws that are instinctual to man in doing good. There are certain laws that they did not need to be hit over the head with in knowing in regards to good vs. evil. This is what I am referring to. This is the righteous aspect of the law (i.e. the righteousness of the Law) (See: Romans 8:4).
The Jews were instructed to destroy the Gentiles.Likewise, in Acts 10:28, Peter referred to a law that forbade Jews to visit or associate with Gentiles, which again is not found in the Mosaic Law
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