Those reading this thread should stop looking at charts, spiritual levels, claimed revelations, and human systems long enough to read the passages being quoted in their actual context.
Exactly
. I ask people to consider what I write with all seriousness because their eternal destiny is in play.
Scripture does not teach two ways of justification, two saving levels of righteousness, or a lower salvation for people who are righteous without faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said plainly:
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18).
Jesus spoke this to Nicodemus as God's people...not the world at large. Jesus didn't come to destroy all goodness and mercy in order to invent a religion based on partisan religious politics. God loves all forms of righteousness because He IS righteous. Not so the pretenders who claim justification based on their beliefs...while condemning the righteous who Jesus died for.
“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12).
Eternal life and victory over sin in this life.
That leaves no lower category of people who inherit life through human righteousness while remaining without Christ. A person either has the Son and has life, or does not have the Son and does not have life.
You are confusing eternal life now with its victory over sin in holiness...with inheriting life in the next age. The meek will inherit the earth. The righteous are scarcely saved.
Cornelius was devout, feared God, prayed, and gave alms. Yet the angel told him to send for Peter, “who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved” (Acts 11:14). Cornelius’s good works did not place him in a lower saving justification. He still needed to hear and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The bible says that Cornelius was righteous BEFORE meeting Christ. And he is not alone....read without the blinders on.
Paul directly contradicts the claim that God imputes only what people produce themselves:
God only imputes according to what WE DO. That's what imputation does. Otherwise the person judging is unrighteous. Righteousness doesn't respect persons....and neither does God. People are unrighteous and
they want credit where none is due.
“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5).
No works of the law are required to receive eternal life as a gift from God. And justifying the ungodly is exactly what you are against. You don't need holiness in the lower righteousness...just humility. Just the fear of the Lord.
I have stated this many times the lower righteousness is imputed even to the ungodly (non-religious)
Notice whom God justifies. Not people who have produced enough human righteousness, but “the ungodly” who believe. Paul then speaks of “the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works” (Romans 4:6).
Without works of the law. Judaism. The Mosaic law had BOTH elements to it...holiness and righteousness. Jesus replaces the HOLINESS part of the law by giving us His life that we might be partakers of His holiness. Many
ministers of the gospel will be rejected because they condemned the righteous just like the Pharisees did before them. Why would God condemn the Pharisees under the law and then justify the Pharisees of today that are seeking to be justified by faith?
Yes, everyone will be judged according to his works. That does not mean works are the basis of justification.
That is the MAIN concern of judgment...justification based on works. We will be justified by our works and our words. What we DID.
Works reveal what a person is and whether his profession of faith was genuine. Salvation itself remains “by grace…through faith,” “not of works,” while good works are what God creates believers to walk in afterward (Ephesians 2:8–10).
Holy works come from a holy power of life. If you want to do eternal works, you need the power of an eternal life. But we can do good works...not perfect... on the basis of our wills. And we are to ADD the lower righteousness obedience to the higher calling into Christ...or we will forfeit our calling based on a lack of righteousness.
Grace is not deceitful. Scripture says:
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly” (Titus 2:11–12).
Sure but the outer man gets puffed up along with the intended target, the inner man.
Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain...but one who practices the lower righteousness...she shall be praised. What is the lower righteousness...the fear of the Lord and humility.
And ...
.show grace to the wicked and they will NOT learn righteousness.
Biblical grace does not excuse sin. It saves sinners and teaches those who are saved to live godly lives.
That is a lower obedience to IMPROVE our behaviour. Based on the law of God written on our hearts.
Ezekiel’s river, the gates in the Psalms, the crossing of Jordan, repeated Hebrew words, “verily, verily,” hot and cold water, and the parable of the talents cannot be rearranged into a chart that overrules the plain teaching of John, Romans, Acts, Ephesians, and the rest of Scripture. An interpretation is not established merely because someone can attach many unrelated verses to it.
You are not seeing how the puzzle (to you) fits together...and are looking for a fool's paradise of grace for nothing without any responsibility. To whom much is given MORE is required. More believers get rejected for that...equal to the ones who perished in the wilderness after coming out from Egypt. That's why I warn people about learning righteousness and adding obedience to their faith.
Do not take my word for it, and do not take the thread starter’s word for it. Read every passage in its full context. Be like the Bereans, who “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).
The Word of God is the authority. No chart, claimed spiritual experience, private revelation, or teacher has the right to create another way of life and righteousness apart from faith in Jesus Christ.
Faith and faithfulness are the same word in Hebrew and Greek. People no longer have any faith...they have beliefs about a God they don't know. They have theologies, theories, schemes, ideologies, that all support the unbroken and uncrucified. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
When the Son of Man returns will He find faith on the earth? Sure A LOT of beliefs and theories...but no actual faith. So then all the promises are forfeit based on a very shallow reading of the bible. They rail without fear or love of the truth.