October 6, 2019
https://www.facebook.com/sing.f.lau/posts/10214717576828531
Understanding the above Scripture will help
you to rightly divide the word of truth as well as saves you from many popular
errors.
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Let me give you a classic example.
Justification by faith alone, the popular
sola fidei, is a private interpretation of one German monk named Martin Luther.
Why? He contradicted James, so the idea is most certainly wrong.
James 2:24
Ye see then how that by works a man is
justified, and not by faith only.
BOTH works and faith justify a man, not by
faith only; BOTH the works of righteousness and the faith of a man certify,
demonstrate, declare, evidence, testify, and vindicate that he HAS BEEN freely
justified by God. They both justify evidentially, and experientially; they
declare the justified state of the man. ONLY a man whom God has freely
justified is able to believe and do righteous works.
Luther's mother church (RCC) teaches that
both works and faith as the necessary instrumental means for a man to be
justified before God. Luther hacked off one of those two gangrenous limbs and
held fast to the other gangrenous limb. Neither works nor the faith of a man is
instrumental, in any sense whatever, in his justification. Why? Let's hear
Apostle Paul.
Luther contradicted Apostle Paul too:
Romans 3:24 KJV — Being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
A condemned man (i.e. an unjustified man) is
justified freely by God's grace; so, Luther's interpretation is private,
contradicted Apostle Paul's teaching, and not conforming to the Scriptures.
A man is justified by God FREELY by His
grace, that is, not by anything in the man, or anything a man does, not even
his faith. An unjustified man, still in his native state of condemnation and
death, CAN'T possibly believe in order to be justified by God.
Sola Fidei is just a fable.
And here:
Romans 5:9 KJV — Much more then, being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
The life and death of Jesus Christ is the
basis and ground of God's sovereign gracious work of justifying condemned
sinners; God justifies condemned sinners freely, that is, by His grace, without
the condemned doing anything to be justified because they are incapable of any!
Having been justified freely by God's grace,
and regenerated (God's act of applying righteousness to a sinner personally
gives ground and warrant for the Holy Spirit to execute His work of quickening
the dead), a regenerated elect is capable of faith and good works.
Faith and good works justify a man in the
same way; they demonstrate and vindicate his justified state by the free grace
of God, based solely upon the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Heartbeats and breath demonstrate and vindicate that the dead man has been made
alive; heartbeats and breath are not means to bring a dead man to life.
Breath demonstrates/justifies that a dead man
has been quickened; his breathing is not the instrument for him to be quickened
from the dead. The dead are incapable of utilizing any instrument or mean in
order to be quickened. It is that elementary.
Do you see now that the popular sola fidei is
a lie that repudiates the gospel; it repudiates grace; it perverts an evidence
of justification into an instrumental cause of justification; it turns an
effect of justification into the means to obtain justification.
2 Corinthians 11:14 KJV — And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
