The belief comes from the Protestant Reformation, specifically Lutheran and Reformed(Calvinist) denominations.
It has spread to most Protestant denominations, which is where you probably were taught it, even if you were not taught the name.
This is very simply false. My doctrine DID NOT start with the Protestant Reformation - period.
Further, I did not learn this at church. I can't hardly stand to sit in the typical church these days. It's annoying to sit and listen to a man attempt to teach me from a bible that he doesn't understand. Even when he's got something right, it's in spite of himself as often as not.
I was pointing out where the doctrine first appeared, which was about 1500 years after Jesus was crucified.
The doctrine was not held by Paul or any of the other writers of the New Testament.
No, you were making a guilt by association fallacy. If this is what you had intended, you've have said this and not what you did say.
Further, what you've said here is flatly false! I've already quoted you passages that state it out right. (Romans 4 and Galatains 2 & 3 and elsewhere.)
Here is the only mention of Sola Gratia (faith alone) to be found in the Bible:
James 2:17
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. |
Yeah, except for the passage that I quoted and that you respond to next by explaining how it doesn't mean what it says, just as I predicted you would do.
Yes, you cannot obligate God to give you eternal life by merely doing those things you were commanded to do (obeying the Law).
Luke 17:9-10
9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. |
That is not what it Romans 4 says! That is your interpretation of what it says.
As predicted, this is how this is going to go.
I predict also that this conversation will not proceed one inch past where we've gotten too already.
Did you not notice that what you've done here and that it is EXACTLY what I said that you would do? I mean, I couldn't have been more exactly right about what you would do if I was holding a gun to your head, forcing your to write down stuff that perfectly fits my predictions.
James 2 and Luke 17 are your proof texta and Romans 4 is your problem text. You take James and Luke at face value and interpret Paul in order to force his writings to agree with James and Luke.
I am offering you a way to understand the Bible that will allow you to read all three passages and take all three to mean precisely what they seem to mean.
God alone has to be the one to choose whether you are worthy of being in His kingdom.
Who else is there? This comment doesn't seem to fit the discussion. Who has suggested that anyone other than God gets to decide such things?
You may not be making that claim.
There are a significant number of Protestants who claim that they are considered righteous in God's eyes because Jesus kept the Law without sin and when God looks at them He sees Jesus instead of them.
Yep, this is definitely a misunderstanding/mischaracterization of the doctrine. Even when people say this, they don't mean it the way you are suggesting.
It doesn't matter. It's a topic that is too far down the line from where we are. It would be a distraction to focus on this at this point.
Hold on.
God is not "uncompromisingly" just.
God compromises a lot throughout the Old Testament.
God even looks for reasons to compromise.
That is why He looks for individuals to stand up to Him and petition Him to turn aside His just wrath.
Ezekiel 22:30
30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. |
This is about 1mm away from being blasphemy. God is Justice! If God can hedge on justice then there was no need for Jesus to die on that cross and to whatever degree you believe God "compromises" justice, is the degree you believe that God is unjust.
The reason it's just short of blasphemy is, once again, due to a misunderstanding on your part. You are mixing apples and oranges with this Ezekiel passage. What God does in relation to humans and their physical lives has little or nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Every breath we take is a mercy! God is not obligated to keep us physically alive for one additional second. He is fully within His just rights to end our physically existence at any moment and in any manner He sees fit. Our physical lives are but tiny blips, transitory flashes, here one moment and gone the next. Just because evil people get away with evil and even prosper due to their evil during this life not mean that they are getting away with their evil forever or that they have escaped justice. Conversely, just because one is physically killed by one of God's agents doesn't mean
necessarily they're going to spend eternity in Hell.
At the end, every single tongue will confess and every single knee will bow before the King of Kings and the Righteous Judge of All Things. People will either pay the sin debt that they owe or they will have that debt cancelled by virtue of what Christ paid with His own blood at Calvary. Either way, the debt with be paid and paid in full. The scales of justice will be balanced.
That is not how it works.
God was looking for a reason to compromise so His just wrath could be turned aside.
Because He couldn't find any man worthy enough to do that, He sent His own Son to do it.
Jesus had His faith tried throughout His entire life, and the ultimate trial of His faith was being obedient to the command to die on the cross.
Philippians 2:7-9
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: |
Look, first of all, the passage you quote doesn't support your claim and, more importantly, your claim amounts to a denial of the very gospel itself.
I am not the one who came up with the idea to liken our sinfulness to debt. That's God's analogy, not mine! God likes to make financial parallels to moral issues.
This act is how Jesus bought us (redeemed us).
We're NOT bought with Christ's obedience but with His death! It is Christ's blood that washes you white as snow, not the kindness He showed to old women and beggers.
The wages of sin is DEATH! Death is the price for rebellion against the God of Life. Which only makes absolutely perfect sense!
Of course, it was necessary that Jesus not sin and that He live righteously. He had to be a lamb without blemish, to be sure. Otherwise, the death would not have been of sufficient value to pay the debt. Indeed, He wouldd have owed His own debt and we would all be lost and without hope.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. (Heb. 9)
Galatians 3:13
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: |
Ever wonder why it's worded that way; "hangeth on a tree" and not "hangeth on a cross made of wood"?
Why use the word "tree" and what's all this talk about a curse? A curse and a tree. Where else do we here about that? :think:
Not quite.
When Jesus bought you (redeemed you), your debt transferred to Him.
You now need to pay Jesus for your debt by being a good and faithful servant to Him instead of paying the wages of sin to God.
This is not Chrisitan doctrine and you did not get this from anywhere in the Bible.
By what means are we to pay this debt? You think you have what it takes to be "good and faithful" sufficiently to cancel the evil you're guilty of? Your righteousness is as rags of filth! You may as well go to the bank and attempt to pay off your home morgage off with used toilet paper.
If you can't see that Paul and Peter are teaching the same gospel, you are misunderstanding Paul.
2 Peter 3:13-16
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. |
Peter is specifically speaking about the things Paul wrote that have become known as the "gospel of grace" without works.
Which Peter states plainly was both "given unto him (Paul)" and were things that were "hard for him (Peter) to understand"!
This passage you quote is one of the strongest evidences that they are NOT preaching the same gospel! How in the world could they be preaching the same gospel if Paul had to receive it by direct divine revlation and if Peter didn't get it to the point the Paul had to get in Peter's face about it (Gal. 2)?
If it's the same gospel why would there have been any need for Paul in the first place? There were Twelve Apostles who were all under the so called "great commission" and all twelve of whom had been indwelt by the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill that very commission!
If it's the same gospel then why is it only Paul who preached the gospel of grace? Why didn't Peter and John preach it in Acts 3?
If it's the same gospel then why did Paul have to distance himself from the Twelve and state emphatically that he did not receive the gospel from man nor was he taught it but that he received it by direct divine revelation?
If it's the same gospel, why did he repeatedly call it "my gospel"?
If it's the same gospel, why did he have to go to Jerusalem to explain "his gospel" to the Twelve Apostles - including Peter?!
If it's the same gospel, why does Paul tell us that if you allow yourself to be placed under the law that Christ will profit you nothing while James' converts were all "zealous for the law"?
The ONLY reason you think that are the same gospel is because you interpret Paul to mean something other than what the text of his epistle plainly state. You read the Gospels and Hebrews - Revelation and take it all to mean what the plain reading would demand and you flip Paul on his head and twist him into whatever pretzel shape is necessary to force his gospel to agree with "another gospel with is not another".
See, you are misunderstanding what Romans 4 says.
James was easier to understand than Paul.
Both passages are easy as pie to understand and both mean precisely what they seem to mean.
If that is true, then Paul is a false preacher and everyone that believes in Paul alone is damned.
However, if Paul is not a false preacher, then what Paul preached has to be reconciled with the rest of scripture and not sliced and diced to make a new gospel.
There is no slicing or dicing going on. It's simply reading it and taking it for what it says.
The first sentence explains your motive (premise) for the action that you plainly state in the next sentence.
This might actually turn out to be a good sign. Most of the time when I discuss these issues, it's all but impossible for me to get anyone to acknowledge that there is even an implied need to reconcile Paul with the rest of the New Testament, nevermind that they themselves do actually interpret Paul in such a way. You have both acknowledged that you do this and explained why.
My position is that there is no need to reconcile Paul's writtings in this way. He says different things because he is saying something different and speaking to a different audience and therefore means exactly what he says just as Peter, James and John (and Jesus) mean exactly what they say as well!
Galatians 2:7b when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter 8 (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), 9 and when James, [c]Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
The main reason for that is that Paul was easily misunderstood by those that did not have Paul's knowledge of the Old Testament and of historical Jewish beliefs and the first century Jewish beliefs.
What? Paul's initial ministry was to the Jews and he traveled from synagogue to synagogue preaching "his gospel". The confusion/contention we read about in the New Testament was between Paul and PETER and those "from James", not some spiritually ignorant group of gentiles. It was the Twelve that Paul had to go to Jerusalem, (by divine revelation no less), and explain himself too! It wasn't ignorant gentile peasants who had no concept of Jewish principles.
My prediction is that you will reject what Paul says because it doesn't match what you are expecting Paul to say.
You've already fulfilled my prediction more completely than if I had somehow forced you to do it.
As for Paul, I take to mean precisely what he says. There are, of course, some passages that are more difficult than others but speaking in general terms, I am not afraid of anything you can quote anyone saying in the Bible. As a general rule, the Bible is pretty straight forward and doesn't require a lot of analysis to understand. Mostly, you can just read it and take it to mean what it seems to mean and it makes no difference whether you're reading the words of Jesus, Moses, Peter or Paul. These men understood their message and wrote it down pretty clearly.
That is interesting.
I spent several years reading the entire scripture and rejected proof text after proof text simply because it did not match what the messages that all of scripture were saying.
No it isn't! You've already admitted that, in your view, if Paul isn't "reconciled" (i.e. interpreted in a way so as to make it agree) with the rest of the New Testament that it would mean he was a false teacher. There are a very great many Messianic Jews that believe exactly that, by the way! They believe the gospels and believe that Jesus died for the sins and rose from the dead and they completely ignore Paul to the point that they actually do believe that his epistles should not have been included in the Bible. A position that is at least as intellectually honest as forcing his words to mean that law and grace are basically synonymous.
You, rely on proof texts within Paul's writings.
I am certain that the proof texts you use to justify splitting Paul off from the rest of the Bible include these passages:
2 Timothy 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. |
Galatians 1:8
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. |
Not just Paul's writtings but also Acts. In fact, without the book of Acts we would all reject Paul as a heretic, if we even knew that he had existed. Without Acts, Paul's ministry is inexplicable and would be universally rejected.
Also, this point of yours indicates that you have somewhat missed a major point about this proof text issue. As I said, for a great many doctrinal debates (not every single one), people on one side have a set of proof texts and a set of problem texts. The people on the othe side of the debate use the same sets but just flip the labels. What is problem texts for one is proof texts for the other and vise versa. That much is clear enough but the point you miss is that this does not apply to me. I will, naturally, fall on one side or the other of these debated issues but for me both sets of texts are proof texts! I have no problem texts! I have no need nor motive to suggest to anyone that James didn't mean it when he said that faith without works is dead. That's what he said and that is precisely what he meant. That's no only what he said and meant but it precisely what I'd expect for James to teach! In fact, if James didn't teach that THEN that would be problem text for me but he did teach it and as such his epistle is one of my clearest and strongest proof texts. Every passage in every book of the Bible functions for me as a proof text.
Imagine that! One doctrinal idea that is plainly stated in the Bible that, when taken to mean what it says, wipes out centuries of Christian infighting and division and leaves you with a two inch thick bible full of proof texts without a single problem text in regards to perhaps dozens of widely varring doctrinal issues.
What more elegant argument could be made for a systematic theology than that?
No worries.
I get passionate about this topic, so I may sound aggressive, angry, mean or condescending as well.
Please don't take me being passionate about the doctrinal differences as a personal attack when I am trying to address the flaws in doctrinal beliefs.
I do learn a lot from these debates and have adjusted my beliefs when I find that scripture supports another belief better than the one I have.
:up:
Resting in Him,
Clete
P.S. No time for editing! I hope there's not too many typos!
