Do Protestants Have A Problem With Works?

[Apologiaphoenix]

We are justified by works, and not by faith alone. The wicked and lazy servant feared his master, and did nothing with what he was given, and as a result, he was punished. Perhaps Christ's foretelling of the Day of Judgement which immediately followed after the parable of the talents would make things a lot clearer:

Again, not seeing how that makes your point as it also fits in just fine with my interpretation.

[Rushing Jaws]

[Starlight]

I think a key error that Protestants make is mistranslating "grace" and "faith" (correct is "favor", and "faithfulness" respectively) and then building all their theological ideas on top of their linguistically inaccurate foundation (e.g. Rushing Jaws gives a good example above of made-up theologizing of grace). They also tend to identify "salvation" with receiving a positive final judgement, which doesn't help things (Salvation in Paul's usage refers to repentance/sanctification, i.e. turning from / being freed from a life of sin / doing bad things and then spending the remainder of your life doing good things. While this naturally leads to eventually being judged positively by God due to good works done, it isn't the same event).

There are 30 passages in the NT which mention or discuss a positive or negative final judgement (to heaven vs hell), the most lengthy of which is in Matthew 25. All 30 out of 30 of them refer to good/bad works of the person as the criteria being assessed in the final judgement. Not a single one of them says that a person passes the final judgement through faith in Christ, or through the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them. (And that is consistent with standard Jewish teachings of the time)

Only by making quite a number of errors in translation and interpretation are protestants able to reinterpret Paul's criticism of Jewish cultural customs like circumcision and dietary observances ("works of the law") into their incorrect view that Paul denies the efficacy of morally good works for achieving a positive final judgement. In reality, Paul, like the rest of the NT, indicates morally good works are the criteria whenever he directly mentions the topic of a final judgment (e.g. Rom 2:6-10).

[Rushing Jaws]

I think a key error that Protestants make is mistranslating "grace" and "faith" (correct is "favor", and "faithfulness" respectively) and then building all their theological ideas on top of their linguistically inaccurate foundation (e.g. Rushing Jaws gives a good example above of made-up theologizing of grace).

Your comment on my comment is just a bit ambiguous - could you clarify your meaning ? You could be saying:
1. RJ is doing what you criticise

or

2. RJ is describing what you criticise.

Thanks in advance 😀

They also tend to identify "salvation" with receiving a positive final judgement, which doesn't help things (Salvation in Paul's usage refers to repentance/sanctification, i.e. turning from / being freed from a life of sin / doing bad things and then spending the remainder of your life doing good things. While this naturally leads to eventually being judged positively by God due to good works done, it isn't the same event).

There are 30 passages in the NT which mention or discuss a positive or negative final judgement (to heaven vs hell), the most lengthy of which is in Matthew 25. All 30 out of 30 of them refer to good/bad works of the person as the criteria being assessed in the final judgement. Not a single one of them says that a person passes the final judgement through faith in Christ, or through the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them. (And that is consistent with standard Jewish teachings of the time)

Only by making quite a number of errors in translation and interpretation are protestants able to reinterpret Paul's criticism of Jewish cultural customs like circumcision and dietary observances ("works of the law") into their incorrect view that Paul denies the efficacy of morally good works for achieving a positive final judgement. In reality, Paul, like the rest of the NT, indicates morally good works are the criteria whenever he directly mentions the topic of a final judgment (e.g. Rom 2:6-10).

A list of references to those 30 passages would be welcome, if that is not too much trouble. Thanks. Then all of us can know what we are talking about.

[Starlight]

1. RJ is doing what you criticise

This one. Rather than carefully interpreting biblical verses in an effort to understand what the writers were trying to say, you were waxing poetic about your own ideas about what you imagine theology to be. Given I think "grace" is a mistranslation of the biblical terms, and an accurate translation would be "favor", I don't think anything you wrote has much, if any, relationship to anything the bible teaches.

A list of references to those 30 passages would be welcome, if that is not too much trouble. Thanks. Then all of us can know what we are talking about.

An over-lengthy and unfiltered list would be:

Matt 6:12-15, Matt 7:2, Matt 7:21-23, Matt 12:33-37, Matt 16:27, Matt 18:21-35, Matt 19:17-19, Matt 25:31-46, Mark 11:25, Luke 6:37-38, Luke 11:4, Luke 12:47-48, Luke 13:27, John 5:28-29, Acts 10:34-35, Rom 1:18, Rom 2:6-11, Rom 2:14-16, Rom 6:23, Rom 8:13, Rom 14:10-12, 1 Cor 4:5, 1 Cor 6:9-10, 1 Cor 11:32, 2 Cor 5:10, 2 Cor 11:14-15, Gal 6:8-9, Eph 3:3-5, Col 3:5-6, Col 3:24-25, 1 Tim 5:24-25, 1 Pet 1:17, 1 Pet 3:9-12, 2 Pet 2:6-13, 2 Pet 3:1-14, 1 John 4:17, Jude 1:14-15, Rev 2:23, Rev 3:15-16, Rev 20:12, Rev 21:8, Rev 22:12.

That's 42 passages, but some of those are slightly off-topic or only helpful in the context of clarifying other passages in the list. If you filter down the list to passages that are specifically talking about the final judgement it comes out at about 30ish of them.