InSlaveryToChrist
Puritan Board Junior
Recently, I've been discussing justification by grace through faith alone versus justification by grace through faith and works with a certain Catholic. It all started when he sent me this video on Youtube:
[video=youtube;QcmZQS3y81E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcmZQS3y81E&feature=channel_video_title[/video]
Now, I haven't bothered to watch the whole video throughout, but here and there I can see how passages are twisted and taken out of context. The below quote is the post that I received from this Catholic this morning, and I'd like you to help me answer his objections. Thank you in advance!
Edit: I wonder if this thinking has to do with the "New Perspective on Paul" which I'm not at all acquainted with--expect for the little that I've read from Wikipedia.
[video=youtube;QcmZQS3y81E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcmZQS3y81E&feature=channel_video_title[/video]
Now, I haven't bothered to watch the whole video throughout, but here and there I can see how passages are twisted and taken out of context. The below quote is the post that I received from this Catholic this morning, and I'd like you to help me answer his objections. Thank you in advance!
Much of what you've said has already been covered in the audio presentation below. I will only focus on some of the passages you brought up regarding "works of the law". In both Romans and Galatians when St. Paul speaks about "works of the law", if you look at the context, he is speaking about the Old Law.
Galatians 2:12-16- "... fearing them which were of the CIRCUMCISION... If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, WHY COMPELLEST THOU THE GENTILES TO LIVE AS DO THE JEWS? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 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."
In Romans 3, the chapter where St. Paul talks about "works of the law", he begins the discussion with a reference to circumcision.
Romans 3:1- "What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision?"
This proves that "works" is not a reference to all human actions, but the works of the Old Law, such as circumcision. That's what St. Paul is talking about. Similarly, in Ephesians 2:8-9, when St. Paul says that "we are saved by faith...not of works", he is not speaking about all human works. He is actually speaking about baptismal regeneration. We can see this when we compare it with a similar passage in Titus 3:5.
Titus 3:5- "NOT BY WORKS of righteousness WHICH WE HAVE DONE, but according to his mercy HE SAVED US, BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
No work which anyone can do could replace or substitute for water baptism and the grace it grants: the first justification and removal of original sin. This is what St. Paul is saying in these passages, he is not saying that all works are unecessary for salvation. That's why elsewhere and all over the Gospel, we see examples of how man will be justified or condemned according to his works. These passages Protestants ignore while they focus on the above qoutes from St. Paul which they distort and misunderstand. That is why in the epistle of St. Peter, he warns us thus:
2 Peter 3:16- "As also in all his [Paul's] 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."
Edit: I wonder if this thinking has to do with the "New Perspective on Paul" which I'm not at all acquainted with--expect for the little that I've read from Wikipedia.
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