Is Righteousness Imputed Apart From Works?

Sorry, you have fallen from my grace.

 

Have you not read? And they shall never perish!

 

Really? OK, here's your starter for ten, then: read Matt 27:5 and Luke 10:37b. Are they truths we should follow?

 

Assumption is the mother of all lash-ups. The trouble is that the Word of God itself adds to your assumption. Try reading the Gospels as a starting point (and that's before we even get to James 2:14-26....).

 

Right. In the Psalms 51:5 thread, you resorted to typing in ALL CAPS and using phrases like "Get a life" and "who cares", clear indicators that you were angry. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

 

No one gathers grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. The repentance, faith and obedience that you can see in the life of a believer are the fruits of rebirth, not the roots.

Neither do the fruits bear the trees, but the trees bear the fruits. You seem to be putting the burden of maintaining life on our own shoulders, when the government squarely rests on the shoulders of Christ. He is the author AND finisher of our faith.

Do you have children? What did you require of them before they were born? What could they have delivered? And do they ever stop being human? In the same way, if God required something of you as a condition of rebirth, what could you have possibly brought him? Those who are born of God become partakers of the divine nature: eternal and incorruptible.

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Good luck. :thumbs:

As far as my righteousness?

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb,
My perfect, spotless Righteousness!

 

>Assumption is the mother of all lash-ups.

AMEN!


>Try reading the Gospels as a starting point . . . .

What other books do you recommend starting to read in the middle?

 

There is no assumption there. Why do you assume differently than what the verse says? Read it for yourself:

Romans 5:1
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
--If you add anything you are adding to the Scriptures, assuming that there is something else besides faith. What gives you the right to add something that is not there? You just failed hermeneutics 101; perhaps we should say hermeneutics 001.

It does not say faith plus baptism; faith plus works, faith plus going to church; faith plus jumping in the Ganges River; faith plus anything! It simply says faith. You cannot put something in the verse that is not there. Thus it is faith and faith alone that justifies a person.

 

So what does that have to do with "and they shall never perish" ? Thats a rhetorical question BTW.

 

Well, I did mention James....

 

And you're not, by following Luther and adding that naughty little 'alein'...?

I guess Jesus and James didn't get your memo...

 

It was a response to your challenge to HP's comment that not everything in Scripture should be regarded as truth.

 

I don't know what you are speaking about. I didn't add a thing to Romans 5:1, not even a punctuation mark. It stands on its own.

Here is the difference. You won't agree with it, but this is the basic difference.
Romans is a book written about the theology of salvation, a treatise on soteriology. It takes a theological approach to salvation. Salvation is by faith and faith alone. That is absolutely true, theologically, and there is no way around it. Read the book of Romans, and you will find that statement repeated many times.

James is a rather small book. lts theme is practical Christian living. Its approach is not theological by practical. Notice some of the themes: asking God for wisdom, taking care of widows, taking care of the poor, doing good works, being careful how you speak or use your tongue, not to live a carnal life, but rather a holy life, what to do with riches, what to do when your sick.
These are all practical problems for believers. The epistle is addressed to believers and they address problems that believers face. In the midst of chapter two the context is walking by faith. Walking by faith produces works. A righteous man will have faith that produces works. Abraham, who was a righteous man produced works in his life. He was a just man. We know that because of the kind of life that he lived. Every one could see it.
Jesus said: "By their fruit ye shall know them. In that sense he was "justified by his works." It is a practical application, not a theological one. The entire book is practical Christianity. Thus when you take it out of that context and put it into a theological context of course it is going to appear to be a contradiction. But there is none. There is no contradiction because the contexts are completely different.

 

I see that you didn't even read my post did you.
I said that the book was written for instruction in righteousness whereas Paul's epistle was written for doctrine fitting exactly as the verse above states. Both are inspired. Both have different purposes.

Just when one might think they have heard every excuse in the book....HP comes along with something else....which is: the same old, the same old.

 

*clears throat* "Ahem!"

 

The word 'alone'.

All of this presumes that it is correct to read James (and the Gospels for that matter too) through the lens of Romans rather than, for example, the other way round or even Romans through the lens of Galatians.

 

Why did Jesus fulfill ALL RIGHTEOUNESS? Can you?