Jethro Bodine said:
Justification by 'faith apart from works'--what you call 'faith alone'--comes from Romans 4:6 and is referring to the justification that comes from having your unrighteousness removed and you being made righteous through the forgiveness of sin, not through the effort of righteous work and obeying the commands of God.
"5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness (by faith vs. 5) apart from works:" (Romans 4:5-6 NIV1984 parenthesis and emphasis mine)
Thus the phrase 'by faith apart from works'.
It is detemined from verse 4 that the worker is one who does works trying to earn his savlation making his salvation of debt and not of grace.
Abraham was one that "worketh not" yet he had an obedient faith.
So in verse 6 when says "God imputeth righteousness without
works" the works here are not obedient works but works the worker does to try and earn salvation.
Rom 4:6-8 "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, [Saying], Blessed [are] they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed [is] the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."
From this context we see that God either imputes righteousness or He imputes sin. Who in this context is it that God imputes righteousness to (or does not impute sin to)?
Answer: "they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."
We know from Rom 2:4,5 God will not forgive the impenitent. Therefore one has to
OBEY by repenting to have his iniquities forgiven and sins covered. "Faith only" does not accomplish this. So the "works" in verse 6 does not, cannot exlcude obedience in repenting but excludes works one does in trying to earn salvation.
Jethro Bodine said:
This is NOT the same argument about being justified that James uses when he says 'by faith alone'. That is where your confusion, and thus your erroneous doctrine, comes from.
The error comes from assuming "works" in Rom 4:5,6 includes obedience to God when the "works" in these two verses are talking about works the worker does to try and earn salvation and
NOT obedience to God.
Jethro Bodine said:
I claim 'works' means the work of trying to be justified through any other means than the faith in Christ's blood for the forgiveness of sin he is contrasting it with.
Another error is not realizing that faith itself is a work. If faith has not owrks then it is dead and a dead faith only cannot save.
Again we know that Abraham was one who
WORKETH NOT, but believeth. So Abraham "worketh not" to earn salvation but he had an
obedient belief in God. So WORKETH NOT cannot, does not exclue the OBEDIENT works that Abraham's belief had it excludes works the works of the "worker" in v4 does in trying to earn salvation.
Jethro Bodine said:
It's the difference between believing and trusting in the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sin as a way to be declared righteous vs. being obedient to the commands of God to be declared righteous. You can't get righteousness by obeying commands. You can only be declared righteous by having unrighteousness removed through the blood of Christ--through faith in that blood, apart from works of righeousness.
Namely, believes and trusts in the blood of Christ for the removal of unrighteousness and the giving of righteousness--apart from any trust or confidence in one's own works of righteousness.
Obeying God's commands in the ONLY way one can ever be reckoned righteous.
Psa 119:172 says all of God's commands are righteousness. So when one obeys God's commands he is doing God's righteousness and therefore is reckoned righteous by God. As John said "he that doeth righteousness is righteous". In Acts 10:35 Peter said he that worketh righteousness (obey God's commands) is accepted with God.
Therefore
NOT obeying God's righteousness commands is doing unrighteousness and John never said "he that doeth unrighteousness is righteous".
Not obeying God's righteous commands is sin, unrighteousness, it is law breaking. And the only cure for sin, unrighteousness and law breaking is obeying God's commands.
Jethro Bodine said:
Correct. His FAITH was credited to him as righteousness, not what he did.
It does not say Abraham's faith ONLY was credited to him as righteousness.
Again faith itself is a work and Abraham's faith had works, Gen 12;1 cf Heb 11:8. So Abraham did not have "faith only".
Jethro Bodine said:
We know this, but it is was not his obedience that Paul says he was declared righteous for. He was declared righteous for his FAITH. The Bible plainly says this.
Again, no verse says Abraham's faith ONLY was credited to him as rightoeusness.
Are you denying that Abraham's faith included works?
Jethro Bodine said:
As the way to be declared righteous in God's sight, yes, it does exclude work. Thus Paul's 'righteousness by faith apart from works' teaching. But as James' teaches the faith that saves (apart from works) will not be 'alone' but will be accompanied by obedience to the Law of Moses, specifically 'love your neighbor as yourself'. But that in no way means the obedience itself, that accompanies saving faith, is what made the person righteous before God. That would be an exact contradiction to Paul's teaching--besides defying the very context of James' teaching about justification and the Law of Moses.
Again, from Rom 4;5 Abraham was one who "WORKETH NOT".
Yet Abraham did works, Gen 12:1 cf Heb 11:8. That means "WORKETH NOT" does NOT exclude obedience to God but it excludes the works one does in trying to earn salvation as the worker in vere 4 does.
Your mistake is in trying to make "WORKETH NOT" include
all works including obedience when it CANNOT exclude Abrham's obedience. You cannot erase Abraham's obedient belief as if it never existed.
So Abraham
worketh not means he did not do works and try to earn his salvation.
But Abraham
believeth. Verse 5 does not say he beliveth only for his belief included obedience.
Jethro Bodine said:
I have no problem bringing this down to where you can understand it by calling faith a work (as Jesus does in John 6). Paul clearly contrasts, not compares, the 'work' of believing and trusting with the 'work' of obeying commands to be made righteous.
If you have no problem seeing that belief is a work, then you should have not problem understanding this:
"Worketh not, but believeth"
Since you see that belief is a work, then WORKETH NOT does not exclude obedient works as believing.
Jethro Bodine said:
The reasoning you and others use is if faith and obeying commands are both 'work', then justification must be by works. It's impossible to use that logic when Paul himself plainly contrasts the two, not equates them!
Nowhere ever did Paul exclude obedient works from faith. In Rom 4:5 when Paul said "WORKETH NOT" he is excluding the works the worker does in trying to earn savlation and NOT excluding the obedient work of believing.
Jethro Bodine said:
It excludes all work except the 'work' of faith he is comparing it to. How can you not see this?
Work of faith = faith is a work.
So Paul is not excluding Abraham's obedience as in Gen 12:1-3 cf Heb 11:8.
If Abraham had a "faith only", then when God told him to leave his house, land and kindred Abraham would have done nothing, just sat there and not move.
But he did do the work of moving for that work was part of his faith and not ever separate from his faith.
Jethro Bodine said:
Hopefully we'll get there, but you HAVE to understand the difference between being made righteous by having your unrighteousness removed (through faith in Christ's blood), and being made righteous through obedience to God's commands. Obeying God's commands does not forgive sin. Trusting in Christ's blood does. If you do not understand this you will not be able to see how faith is NOT a work in the sense that being obedient to the commands of God is a work in regard to being justified.
There is no verse that says faith only in Christ's blood remits sins.
What the bible does tell us is that
water baptism>>>
remits sins, Acts 2:38
We know from Rev 1:5 that
Christ blood>>>>>>>>
washes away sins.
So it should be evident that there is some connection between water baptism and Christ's blood. CHrist shed His blood in His death, Jn 19:34. Water baptism puts one in Christ's death where His blood was shed, Rom 6:3-5. So water baptism is the point where Christ's shed blood washes away/remits sins.
So one must obey by submiting himslef to water bpatism to have Christ's blood wash away/remit sins.