1The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem,
2and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.

3(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders;

4and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)

5The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”

6And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
7′BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’

8″Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

9He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

10″For Moses said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH’;

11but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’

12you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;

13thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

A sad day is it when we lose a soul to a false religion that claims to hold the truth and being the only true church. Sola Scriptura is all that we need, Grace alone and Christ alone, and by the Glory of God alone. All external mumbo-jumbo of the Catholic and/or Charismatic movement is no Christianity, but a false image of a fallen angel, a created being by God. I am no theologian, but I know one thing: It is by Christ alone that we can come to the Father, God. As one verse in the Bible says: Do not call any one on earth father, for one is your Father,even he who is in Heaven. The Pope is called the Holy Father, a title that belongs only to God. So all theological discussions are worthless when we hold to a man who is as much a sinner as the next. He is in as much a need of a Savior as any one else on earth. And the only Man who can save us is Christ. Mary has no power whatsoever…as if the Catholics think she is without sin and also a co-redemtrice. A shame for the Christian faith. If we keep on defending our positions as born-again christians and pretend that Catholicism is questionable or worthy to defend, then only one person wins: Satan, the Angel of Light. How can we, as humans, convince a man who is blinded by the angel of light. Let the Spirit of Truth work. And if he believes the ‘Holy Spirit’ he has, let us rest assure that! Or he is deceived or he has not yet come to the Truth. (Which is quite impossible to believe, because only with God’s Spirit we can see the Truth.) Did not Christ say: I have not come to bring peace, but the sword? And did He not say that father will be against son, son against father, mother against daughter-in-law and daugther-in-law against mother? Christ never advocated unity under one Church as the Catholic Church claims. Catholicism is based on the absolute horrible fact that Peter visited Rome and became the first Pope/Bishop of Rome, but Peter never visited Rome in his entire life. His mission was with the Jews in Israel. I recommend strongly to go to a excellent website by an ex-catholic dominican priest: www.bereanbeacon.org. That God may reveal the Truth of His Son unto you.

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a94.htm

I don’t know if you will get this and read this comment because it’s a little late but hopefully you will see this. I know you are a pastor somewhere in Ohio and that you are an older gentlemen, so I meant no disrespect earlier when I responded to your comment to me about me not having good Christian apologetics.

The problem with a lot of Christians who believe in divine election is that they somehow leave it all in God’s hands and although that is true because we know nothing works apart from God for scripture indicates that, it in no way negates man’s responsibility to SEEK GOD!

The Bible repeatedly says to SEEK GOD while He may be found. God says you will find ME when you seek for ME with ALL YOUR HEART. God also promises that HE is a rewarded to those who DILIGENTLY seek Him. The problem with the world is that most people are not REALLY, TRUTHFULLY, seeking God. They are content with intellectualism and worldly, vain philosophy because it appeals to the lust of the flesh, the pride of life.

It is man’s responsibility to SEEK GOD, yet the Bible says in Isaiah that there is no one righteous, no one seeks God for each and everyone has gone to his own way and also in the Gospel of John, I believe, Jesus said, “No one can come ME unless the Father draws him first.

All I know is that when I witness to people I make it known to them that they have a choice AND they are responsible for that choice, (whether or not they choose to submit to the Gospel and the righteousness of Christ), because God will hold them responsible for their choice before Him (Romans 1) and God will hold me responsible for telling them the Gospel.

The problem with both of the “pillars” of the Protestant “reformation” (sola fide and sola scriptura) is that they are both not biblical, so it takes a great deal of effort for you and others to make the scripture passages that are so clear against them to make them mean something else..

For instance…here Bruce gives his rather lame commentary on what “he thinks” James is saying:

“From what I can tell, James is making a much simpler point, where faith and works are equivalent to hearing and doing (1:22-25).”

See what I mean…since Romans and James (among other)do not fit neatly into “reformed theology” one must try and come up with another reason or “interpretation” for the contradiction.

Also..You said: “James, by contrast, as noted above, is not discussing justification of the sinner before God.

Really?? Let’s look at two verses in James…

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?

24 See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

It seems pretty clear that he is referring to justification to me…especially when it says NOT BY FAITH ALONE.

The Catholic Church, as I have stated numerous times, DOES NOT teach we are saved by works. But as James and Galatians say Faith workig through love. Faith in Jesus Christ is ALWAYS first, but works must flow from the faith or it is dead as it says in James

Sola scriptura is the reason that there are 30,000+ different denominations apart from the Catholic Church. Each has their own “interpretation” even when scripture clearly speaks against personal interpretation and for an authoritative, teaching Church that already existed. It is you and others that have abandoned the True Faith that was handed down from Jesus Himself and has lived and taught through the Holy Spirit for nearly 2000 yrs in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

It is you and others that have followed a different gospel apart from the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles and are following “a tradition of men” Luther, Calvin, MaceArthur etc..

The scriptures flowed out of an existing visible Church through the Holy Spirit so since there is only ONE Holy Spirit there cannot be more than ONE valid interpretation. Since Jesus gave Peter and his successors the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose and also promised that the gates of hell would not overcome His Church, I think it’s a safe bet to go with the Church that Jesus Himself founded.

My allegiance is to Jesus Christ and His Church. Unfortunately, you are following a man made tradition of sola scriptura and sola fide. Former evangelicals write of the same problems that I speak of above.

http://chnetwork.org/daconv.htm
http://chnetwork.org/cbconv.htm

There is no reason to assume that just b/c someone is not infallible they have nothing good to say. One might considerate it good form to actually respond to the arguments already made.

I also responded to your citation of James 2. I’ll paste it here:

FF Bruce’s commentary on Galatians 5 can prove handy:

“To seek it [justification] through faith in Christ was to seek it on the ground of God’s grace; to seek it through legal works was to seek it on the ground of their own merit…Paul has already made it clear (3:10) that those who seek justification through legal works do not attain it (cf. Rom 11:7), but rather incur the curse of the law; what he emphasizes here is the incompatibility of faith and works, of divine grace and human merit, where justification of the sinner before God is in question.

Here [5:5] is such a reference, however; by contrast with the vain hope of righteousness by legal works, he says, we who believe in Christ are enabled by the Spirit, through faith, to wait confidently for the hope of righteousness. The law holds out no such sure hope as this. The ‘hope of righteousness’ is the hope of a favourable verdict in the last judgment (Rom 2:5-16). For those who believe in Christ such a verdict is assured in advance by the present experience of justification by faith…In their case the eschatological verdict of ‘not guilty’ is already realized.”

–F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians (Erdmans 1988), 231-232.

And here is a quick cut and paste of some quotes in another article dealing w/ this topic:

“There is no reason to assume that James was commenting on Paul. Notice that there is no reference in his epistle to Jewish/Gentile relations in the church, which is the point of departure for the Pauline doctrine.

From what I can tell, James is making a much simpler point, where faith and works are equivalent to hearing and doing (1:22-25). Don’t be hearers of the word only, but doers as well. This is a common admonition in Scripture…faith is not the ground of our justification. The ground of our justification is penal substitution. Faith is merely a condition of its individual application to the sinner…sanctification is a necessary condition of salvation, but not a condition of justification.
…we’re not talking in generic terms about man’s relation to God, but in specific terms about the sinner’s relation to his Judge.”

For the purposes of this discussion, you can consider me in agreement w/ the author of that article.
My own brief commentary is this:
Paul discusses forensic justification of the dead, dirty sinner before a loving, yes, but also holy and just God in various psgs thru the NT, including Romans 2-10, most of Galatians, heavy references in Colossians, and Ephesians 1-2 (among other places). It is out of these places that the Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone has been derived. I say “Reformation doctrine” simply to give it a name and set it apart, but I will be happy to defend it from biblical exegesis.

James, by contrast, as noted above, is not discussing justification of the sinner before God.
A final note - what does James’ “justification” mean, then? It is the validation before witnesses of the faith that exists. In the case of Abraham, for example, he lifts the knife to kill Isaac and thus validates the fact that he has faith in the eyes of:
-Isaac
-Sarah his wife
-the billions who have read Genesis over the centuries

The problems of the conundrum you think I have are manifold.

Eph 2:8-9 says we are saved by grace, NOT by works.
Romans 3:28 says we are justified by grace apart from the works of the Law.
Romans 11:6 says that grace mixed with works is no longer grace.
Scripture thus contradicts Scripture if what you have said is true.
Also, the context of the psgs out of which we derive the Pauline doctrine of justification are clearly related to justification.
The context of James 2 is not.

Your problem is that your position says that we have to do good works to be saved. Eph 2:8-9 says that we DO do good works, but AFTER we’re saved. Why? B/c the very good works that we’re supposed to do AFTER we’re saved DO NOT SAVE US.

Please consider bowing the knee to Scripture rather than to the man-made traditions that have claimed your allegiance up to now.

Peace,
ALAN

Is Pastor MacArthur “infallible”on “his” version of James 2??? It is so plain that you would have to really play on words to get any other meaning.

As far as Eph. 2 you are reading way too much into it. I think I addressed it in GREAT detail.

24 See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

26 For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

God bless..

No, you’re showing me you don’t run away from discussions (and kudos to you) but you run away from the meaning of Eph 2.

And in this comment you didn’t even mention Eph 2! Can’t you see why I said that?
James 2 has been dealt w/ earlier by Pastor MacArthur himself, I’m not going to repeat it.

But what I will do is call attention to the fact that Eph 2 says we are saved by faith apart from works in order to do good works.
You say we are saved by faith with works.

The difference is clear.

Have I ever run away from a conversation?? Come on!

Why can’t you take Jesus’s words at face value??? You keep on injecting your own thoughts and possibilities..He said “Water and Spirit” (That is baptism)..

In John 3:5:
5 Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

AGAIN, What part of the “water and spirit” that Jesus speaks of is confusing to you?

Read my first post again where I talked about the different types of baptism.

As far as Faith and Works, again I go to James Chap 2 (SCRIPTURE)

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
17 So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead
20 Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works.

24 See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

26 For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

***The only place in the bible where Faith and Alone are mentioned and it flat out REJECTS “faith alone”

Let’s look at it again..

“See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”
“You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works.”

I don’t understand how you can claim “faith alone” and “scripture alone” and not see how plainly obvious it is in scripture that baptism is necessary and how faith ALONE is unbiblical??

1) “Water” = physical birth
“Spirit” = born again

2) “Water” = spiritual birth
“Spirit” = spiritual birth, using a Hebrew idiom, repeating Himself

One thing of which we can be 100% sure is that it can’t be that baptism is required for justification, b/c baptism is a work and we are saved APART FROM WORKS.

Why do you insist that we are saved BY works, at least partially? No matter how much we discuss Eph 2, it continually amazes me how RCs run away from it.