No Baptism, No Justification -- Thoughts on article?

Certainly! I don't know how you could think the opposite of me. But it seems everyone is ganging up and distorting everything I write today.....

 

So I misunderstood what you wrote just as much as you misunderstood what I wrote then?
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I understood what you were saying. I’m no universalist, but as it happens, one of the passages I cited does say, "one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all" (Romans 5:18). Does that statement make Paul ‘unorthodox’? I think universalists are wrong but that doesn’t mean they just made it up. Don’t we have a resident universalist on this Forum? Perhaps he can weigh in.

 

I don’t believe anyone here is ascribing that belief to you. I/we are saying it is the logical consequence of maintaining that works = actions.

 

I was not talking about anyone who has been offered a pearl of Great Price and thrown it in a dust bin. I'm talking about people who don't even know such things as pearls even exist. (Like, for instance INFANTS). The PEARLS still exist though, and the ignorance of the non pearl owning people, or their regarding them as valueless, is entirely responsible for their lack of Pearls of Great Price. Not because of any scarcity of pearls of Great Price or the withholding of them by God because of pearl price ignorance.
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Please clarify one thing, though. Are you maintaining that 'turning the tap' is believing in Christ as one's Redeemer, or that 'every good deed of obedience' is included in the turning on of the tap? The latter would seem to imply that we have to keep cranking that tap open wider and wider....

 

John 4:10-11, John 7:38. Once the tap is turned on the thirsty sinner then KNOWS where the water he needs comes from. He has tapped into God's grace, which had ALWAYS been there for him inside the pipes. He is then in a position to tell others where he found it. So THEY too can slake their thirst. That's how we become evangelists.
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Let me makes something clear about my position.

God does expect His children to be obedient. He calls us to obedience, and obedience includes loving others and doing good.
BUT, loving others and doing good can't justify us before God.
Do you accept that as fact?

And since we are told that we are justified through faith, 'loving others and doing good' cannot be rolled into (included in) our definition of 'faith.'
Because if it were, then part of our justification would be sourced in our acts of 'loving others and doing good.'
And we already concluded that 'loving others and doing good' cannot justify us.

Do you see my point?

 

This is a false dichotomy. The latter is works righteousness (ie. wrong), and the former is Charles Finney altar call revivalism (ie. wrong).

The orthodox position is this: the “turning the tap” is the moment in God’s will before the foundations of the world, when he chooses the elect. Every moment from then on contributes to the execution of his task: in baptism he converts the child of wrath into a member of his Church; in confirmation the child receives the Holy Ghost, and becomes capable of processing his belief, which justifies him; he may later abandon his belief and lose his justification, then profess it again and gain it again (there is no omnipotent “one-time profession”); the child begins to do good works, and necessarily grow in holiness; he receives absolution and the Sacrament, and God begins to nourish his soul; he may get married for the purpose of procreation, and raise a family of his own, ensuring that his children follow the same path. And on and on, when on his deathbed, there are no more holy works to do, no further beliefs to change. He receives the sacrament, and receives the reward according to God’s eternal plan at the foundations of the world.

 

Absolutely - and I agree. Any good works that we do, are done just as Jesus did, merely because to do good works is the will of the Father. It is God The Father that prepared them for us to walk in because he foreknew as saints we would do them. So we should always be thankful to God when we do good works, just as Jesus did.
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You leave me no choice.

"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. "
https://ref.ly/Mt5.17-20;rsv

31 “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. 34 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? 39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ 46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46 RSV)

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: just two of the many occasions when Jesus said his followers had to do things in order to enter ‘the kingdom of heaven’. It is better to read Paul in light of the Gospels rather than the other way around.

 

Did you just contradict what you wrote previously?

Scripture says we are not justified by works, and you said "works" means "the works of the law" to which we are no longer bound. Now you seem to be suggesting that Jesus' statement binds us to doing the works of the law, because Jesus did not abolish it. Or am I misinterpreting the reason why you quoted this passage?

At any rate, I must point out that the only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is for God to grace us with His own perfect righteousness through no merit of our own. That is the only way in which 'our' righteousness (really it's God's, but He imputes it to us) "exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees."

 

No, of course not. To whom was Jesus speaking?

 

I think it is necessary to find some way to reconcile and harmonize this passage with others, such as John 5:24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

 

To the multitudes. Average folks. People who needed to believe in Jesus the Redeemer, just like we need to believe.

 

Which multitudes, folks, and people?

 

There is no need to harmonize them. They are different Gospels written from different perspectives. As part of the canon, they are both normative.

 

I think it is necessary to find some way to reconcile and harmonize this passage with others

The idea of 'Systematic Theology' is a fixation of Western Christians, and especially of Western Post-Reformation Theologians.

The idea of an 'Un-Systematic Theology', which is not a term we do not use, but is a much better description of those who surmise that we may only probe the mystery of salvation, as we grasp what has been revealed, we know that the glimpses we have now are but gazing in a glass darkly, looking for the day we fully know as we are already fully known.

In the East they speak of mysteries, in the West we speak of sacraments, these are not logical problems to solve and explain, but rather opportunities to grow in our depth of understanding. If you think about the Torah, there are a lot of very messy and untidy stories, fixating on reconciling and resolving the untidiness is not helpful. The very mystery of the God who reveals himself in scripture, in the sacrament, and in life is very much beyond our comprehension.

God calls us to the relationship with him.

 

Hello, this is a very interesting discussion and I would like to contribute.

I think these categories have been addressed indirectly, but I wonder if they might be drawn out a little more explicitly to see if they help clarify some of the dialogue. I am referring to the categories of living faith and dead faith. The homily "A short declaration of the true, lively and Christian faith" addresses it all more eloquently than me so I won't rehash it all here but to state it very briefly: faith without good works is dead and on the flip side good works without faith are just as dead spiritually speaking. We have no reward at all for our works and deeds but appoint all the means of our salvation to be in Christ alone yet true faith can in no wise be idle as Jewel said in the Apology. I see elements of all these things being stated here and hoped it would be helpful to suggest the categories of living and dead faith as a way of gathering together what folks have been saying.

 

I've done a bit of research, and now I see where you are coming from. You are a "New Perspectivist". The "New Perspective on Paul" originated with E. P. Sanders of Duke Univ. in 1977 in his book, "Paul and Palestinian Judaism." The concept was picked up by D. G. Dunn, and then by N. T. Wright (a name many of us will recognize). In general, the New Perspectivists think that the phrase ‘works of the law’ is concerned not with general deeds of law observance but specifically with the deeds of obedience to those commandments that mark the covenant people of Israel off from the nations, namely circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath... in other words, "works" in Paul's epistles are bounded by specific ethnic (Jewish) markers. This idea is often cited by modern Roman Catholics, since it dovetails well with RC theology (which is very much works-oriented).