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Welcome
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
St James 
Justification on Faith and works and merits. (Emmanuel)
Ok but please let's define more ok ? (Bill Roth)
What is works? What is true faith?
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Dear brothers, The very verse of St James of regarding faith and works was nearly taken away from Martin Luther nearly 500 years ago. He was stopped by the German Princes and threatened to stop backing him up in his reformation goal. Why he was tempted to remove? Because this verse is directly in opposition from Sola Fide, by faith and you shalt be saved. What is faith without expressing thru' works? If you yourself believe in one God, so does the Devil. James 2:19-20. James 2:26 is strongly a verse which tells us that faith without actions is dead. So I solemnly urge that Sola Fide is not and unbiblical. ______________________________________________________________ Condign Merits: Condign merit is the type in which we perform an action that has a promised reward. In this case, there is a moral obligation to give the reward, even if the action has little or no intrinsic value. For example, if I were wealthy and I promised you a million dollars if you wore a red shirt to work tomorrow, I would be obligated to pay you the money if you did wear a red shirt to work tomorrow. Obviously, wearing a red shirt is not intrinsically worth a million dollars; it’s not worth anything at all. But you could merit that money, in the condign sense, by performing the action I had promised to reward. It is the same with God. Moved by His grace, we can perform acts that please Him, acts that He has promised to reward. Even a casual perusal of the Bible will show that man may merit condignly from God. For example: 1.Matt 6:3-4 2.Matt 16:27 3.Luke 6:35 4.Ephesians 6:8 5.Luke 14:13-14 6.John 5:28-29 The Lutheran Book of Concord acknowledges this: “We grant that eternal life is a reward because it is something that is owed – not because of our merits but because of the promise.”2 A reward given on the basis of a promise is precisely the definition of “condign merit.” So it is not wrong to speak of gaining merit with God, as long as we understand that all we’re talking about is the biblical doctrine of “reward.” As St. Augustine wrote, “The Lord made himself a debtor not by receiving something but by promising something. One does not say to him, ‘Pay for what you received,’ but ‘Pay what you promised.’ The next message shalt be another explanation of biblical facts from merits. In His Glory, Emmanuel |
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