Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about you here, but I was under the impression that you are Roman Catholic, and yet your soteriology appears out of step with Trent.
Well, I'm definitely not Roman Catholic. Greek Catholic. Same house -- different room!
As for what you said above.....
IrishEddieOHara, on 27 December 2009 - 03:04 PM, said:
...I agree. Legalism, that is, offering God our works in order to be saved, has no part in salvation. This is the teaching of the Church since the Council of Orange in the 6th century. Trent reaffirmed it...
...Works have NOTHING to do with salvation -- they don't even "play into it" It is all, entirely, and completely by grace through faith...
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about you here, but I was under the impression that you are Roman Catholic, and yet your soteriology appears out of step with Trent.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works,[125] but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema. - The Council Of Trent, Session 6, Canon 24
Let's take this apart a bit. The term "justice received" has to do with the receiving of salvation through baptism. The heresy of the Reformers was that they began to teach a system whereby they said that one could not fall away from Christ. So they denied that the works we do have anything to do with receiving an increase of grace and justification.
Now, as a Greek Catholic, I really don't like the wording of Trent, and it is for this reason. In the Latin West, the Romans consider grace a
thing or object. It is not. In the East, when we speak of grace, we are speaking of a
person -- Christ Jesus.
Salvation is a relationship and is defined by the word "covenant" as found in Ezekial 16:8. It is analogized by marriage in this verse. When we are entered into Christ through baptism (Romans 6:3) we become, among other things, the Bride of Christ. We are in a relationship which is analogous to marriage.
Now....in a relationship, can the relationship be improved and get better? Most certainly it can, and any married couple will tell you that. It can also go south and eventually wind up in the trash. With the Protestant Reformation, those who left the Church redefined the relationship and placed it upon a legal basis. This is called "forensic justification" and I guess the best way I have heard it expressed is this: you "accept Jesus" and God declares you legally "not guilty," strikes your name from His book of criminals and enemies, and places your name forever in the "Book of Life" so that you are assured of Heaven. No matter what you do. You are legally forgiven and when God looks towards you, He sees only Jesus because you are hidden in Him.
Trent is simply saying that this is nonsense (even though their own wording caused the problem in the first place). They are stating that which is obvious -- in a relationship, you better the relationship by what good you do for the other, and make it worse with the bad you do to that other.
And then, ultimately, at the end of life, when we are judged
by our works (John 5:28-29 & Romans 2: 5-10) it is determined whether we shall receive eternal life. Salvation and eternal life are not the same thing -- another problem Rome has created for itself by its rather imprecise wording of theological terms. I quite frankly hate the phrase "lose one's salvation" because no such thing is possible. Once you are saved you are delivered from the family of Adam, adopted as child of God, and made a member of the family. These things cannot be undone. What can be undone is the relationship. We can turn from Christ or turn to Him. If we turn to Him, we become more holy as we do those things which feed the divine nature in us and starve the flesh. That is what is meant by "increase of justice"
If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema. - The Council Of Trent, Session 6, Canon 32
The same thing applies here, although again, the wording is really confusing. It is a relationship that we are increasing. I know it sounds like we are actually earning salvation, but that is not what is in sight here. We are increasing and bettering that salvation and its relationship by what we do.
This does not make sense to the Protestant mind because you think that once you "accept Jesus" you are as justified as you will ever be because it is a legal declaration and not a living relationship. I do hope you understand the difference between a legal declaration and a relationship.
Ask a couple who has been married for 50 years, and have really worked to please each other and love each other, if they love each other more today than they did when they first got married. The answer is going to be "Of course we do." Why? Because they
worked at it -- that is, they did the things that deepened their relationship and drew them closer together.
Eternal life is not a thing either. It is union with Christ Jesus. The closer we get to Him, the deeper we enter into our relationship with Him, the more holy we become and the more we make sure our call to eternal life. Protestant soteriology treats eternal life as if it is a thing that God gives us, and then, because He is not an Indian giver, will never take away from us. That again is not how a relationship works. I can leave Jesus just as the Prodigal Son left his father. And if I do not return in repentance for my preferring sin over Him, I will forfeit the inheritance of eternal life which is laid up in store for us. (1 Peter 1:4).
You have salvation the minute you are baptized into Christ. You do not have the fullness of eternal life until you go through the Judgment spoken of in John 5:28-29 and Romans 2:5-10. All you have is the "earnest of the inheritance" (Ephesians 1: 14). You have the "downpayment" or promise of more to come.
I know this will be hard to understand because you have been erroneously told the legal idea of salvation, which is not found in scripture. Our salvation is a relationship, or covenant, not a legal declaration.