Why do you cite Eph 2:8-9 but fail to include v.10? God expects us to do good works which he created us to do.
Yes, He does. And so? This does not mean works save anyone, only that they follow naturally and inevitably from salvation.
In 2 Tim 1:9. you fail to distinguish between works of the law, works done in our own flesh/righteousness, all of which account for nothing. On the other hand, no where in all of Scripture is works done by the believer in obedience to God/Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit ever condemned.
Paul doesn't condemn works in his comments to Timothy. He says only that both he and Timothy had been
called with a holy calling, NOT according to their works, but according to God's will and grace. It does not deny the inevitability or importance of good works in a believer's life to deny that they possess salvific power.
Tit 3:5 you have taken out of context. Don't you notice the previous verse which verse 5 refers to? V.5 refers to our own works righteousness done BEFORE we were saved. Not as a result of being saved. After all does not 1 Jn 3:7 say that anyone who practices righteousness is righteous?
??? No, I have not taken Titus 3:5 out of context. Certainly, nothing you've written above shows that I have. What difference does the distinction you make here have to the matter of whether or not works save anyone? Paul very simply and clearly indicates that it is not by works of righteousness that a person is saved but ONLY by the mercy of God and the washing and regenerating work of the Spirit.
Then tell me precisely why we are instructed to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?
As Paul clarifies in the very next verse (
Philippians 2:13),
we work out only what God has first worked in. It is because God has already, through our salvation, worked in us the ability and desire to do His will that we manifest, or work out, our salvation in our daily living.
Then why does Paul in Rom 8:13 warn the brethren in Rome that if they live according to the flesh, they will die? Why does James warn that the soul a sinning brother can face death in Js 5:19-20?
Your belief is inconsistent with Scripture.
This is all a deflection from my explanation of
James 2:24. Instead of dealing with what I've written about it, you fire a scatter-shot of other verses that you have misread in the same way you have
James 2:24.
In
Romans 8:13, Paul was drawing a conclusion from a contrast he had set up in earlier verses between a "fleshly-minded" person and a "spiritually-minded" one. In describing the contrast between the two, Paul made it clear that a fleshly-minded person was not saved. (
verses 7-9) When he writes, then, to the Roman believers what he does in
verse 13, Paul is saying, essentially, that a person who lives according to the flesh is
not a saved person, but a lost, fleshly-minded one.
James does not actually refer to a sinning brother in
James 5:19-20. He says only "one among you." In my church there are a fair number of unsaved sinners among us. They have heard the truth of Scripture many times but live lives that stray far from it. James says that when we turn one of these sinners (not brothers or sisters) from the "error of his (or her) ways" we "save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." I don't see, though, anything about works saving a person, or anything about
a believer losing their salvation because of sinful deeds.