Here is the quote on youtube further about this:
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John Martignoni talks about sola fide (faith alone). For this entire recording as well as other free downloads, please visit www.biblechristiansociety.com
In our last discussion article, we discussed the concept of sola scriptura (scripture alone), an invention of Martin Luther that states that the Bible is the only authority you need. In this article, I would like to discuss another concept invented by Luther during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. Sola fide (faith alone) states that a person is saved by his faith in Jesus alone. Luther taught that it does not matter what you do on this Earth, as long as you never lose faith in Jesus and his sacrifice, then you get to go to heaven. He taught that it does not matter if you are a murderer, prostitute, rapist, thief, or adulterer, as long as you never lose your faith in Jesus then you will go straight to heaven when you die. As Luther once put it, "No sin will separate us from the lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." Luther taught that the Ten Commandments were just God's way of letting us know how much we are dependent on him as a savior, but God does not expect us to follow them because no one could follow them perfectly.
While many Protestants still practice this concept of faith alone today, Catholics believe in faith and works. We believe that what you do on this Earth does matter, and you will be judged for the life that you lived. Now this absolutely does NOT mean that Catholics believe that they are saved by works alone like some claim. We do NOT believe that we can work our way to heaven apart from Jesus or make God in debt to us by our works. We absolutely agree with Protestants that it is only by the grace of Jesus that we are saved and able to enter the kingdom of heaven. But faith without works is dead. In James 2:14-17 it says, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James goes on to say in verse 19, "You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble." James makes a great point here. Even demons believe in God. So is believing in God enough to get to heaven? James also says in this passage, "Faith without works is useless" (2:20), "Faith is completed by works" (2:22) and "Faith without works is dead" (2:26). James also says, "See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (2:24). This is actually the only place in the Bible where the words faith and alone are found together, and it is saying that a person is not justified by faith alone.
Martin Luther knew that the Bible did not support his theory of sola fide, so he actually tried to take the book of James out of the New Testament, as well as the books of Hebrews, Jude, and Revelations. He later added them back after receiving heat from his peers, but referred to the book of James as an "epistle of straw." He also added the word alone to Romans 3:28 in his translation of the Bible so that it would read that we are justified by our faith alone. When questioned about adding to the Bible Luther said, "I will have it so, and I order it to be so, and my will is reason enough. I know very well that the word 'alone' is not in the Latin or the Greek text." Adding and removing from the Bible to make the scriptures fit his own manmade theology is something Luther had no problem doing. He used the Jewish canon of the Old Testament when writing his translation of the Bible because the Jewish canon had seven fewer books than the Old Testament the Christians had been using since the time of Jesus. He did this because the book of Maccabeus talked about prayer for the dead, and this went against Luther's theology of purgatory. This is why Catholics and Protestants have different Old Testaments today. And if Luther's peers had gone along with all of his ideas, we would have different New Testaments as well. The fact that Luther had to change the Bible 1500 years after Christ died should be enough for anyone to know that his teachings are his own ideas and not from God. If any Pope would have tried to remove books from the Bible, add words to the Bible, or refer to one book of the Bible as an epistle of straw, Catholics would never hear the end of it. Yet Martin Luther did this and many Protestants refer to him as a hero.
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from a comment here http://www.creedcodecult.com/what-counted-as-abrahams-righteousness/
The righteousness of God is the pistou Christou, the faithfulness of the Son of God in willingly laying down His life, that we may live, and thereby fulfilling the promises of the Father to Abraham and Israel. This righteousness is covenantal at the core, and has nothing to do with imputation. I believe this is part of Jason’s argument here, which is that one can read Romans 4 with that understanding and not once reach for extra nos imputation. I would urge you also to consider the evidence from the Apostolic Fathers regarding imputation in the reformed sense. It is completely absent from that record and should give one pause. One would think given the importance it holds for the reformed, one would find it somewhere in a 70 year time span of writings. But it is nowhere to be found.
The other problem I’m seeing with comments above is this: all of the comments on faith operate out of a western paradigm, ignoring the hebraic origin of the word: faith is derived from the hebrew word aman which is sometimes translated as support, nourish, confirm, make firm, make lasting. One of aman’s cognates is emunah often translated as faithfulness, trust which conveys the idea of firmness, steadfastness. This is seen for example in Ex 17:12, where God grants the victory against the Amalekites as long as Moses held his hands up. Was Moses doing the fighting and earning salvation for his people? No he wasn’t. Does that then mean that his faith was, as in the words of Jason Loh above, ‘an event in which the believer is completely passive’? Also an obvious NO. He still had to believe God, and obey His instructions to hold those arms up, by faith. In this picture, you see the fulness of the hebraic understanding of faith. Faith isn’t saying I believe this plane will take me to Jerusalem. That is the protestant understanding of faith. The proper understanding of faith is this: I step onto the plane, knowing it will take me to Jerusalem.
Abraham was initially justified by simply believing that God could do what He would do. But his faith in God extended beyond that initial justification into his whole life, as he showed that he was trustworthy, steadfast, faithful, even despite stumbles along the way. The problem with protestantism is that it wants to equate justification with the fullness of salvation, and exclude sanctification from the definition of salvation. Sanctification is the link between our initial and final justification at the judgment which will be on the basis of our works and words. This is most vividly seen in the parable of the talents which deals with salvation (Jesus said the parable of the sower was the key to the others): the last servant buries his talent/grace in the ground and at the return of the Master is thrown into the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is no way around this. This servant was justified through no works of his own, yes. The talent was granted him, yes? But then what happens? Does God say “You better not think you have anything to do now because I’ve done it all for you?” Or does he say “Go and trade until I return, make me a profit ON MY INVESTMENT”. God’s grace is an investment, not a passive deposit brothers. The sooner we wake up to that fact, the healthier western Christianity will get. The profit gained on that investment is gained by the grace of God, but nevertheless we must hold up our arms, knowing that we must be faithful to Him in all things, because Christ has made this possible (Gal 2:20).
The roots of extra nos imputation lie in the doctrine of penal substitution. And by penal, I mean the technical sense, the belief that God could not forgive or be reconciled before His wrath was satisfied. No doubt Christ is our substitute. But the penal aspect of the doctrine was a novum introduced by Anselm and later on by Calvin. As the EO have been trying to tell you for 2000 years, it was never in the deposit of the faith. God is not bound by necessity, not even to some concept of satisfaction that a human brain conjures up. He forgave freely in Christ Jesus, and it is mercy He desires, not sacrifice. As He said to the Pharisees, go figure that one out. As relevant today for a large swath of theologians. The self sacrifice He offers on the cross is one offered to end our need for endless sacrifice. We are the ones who need redemption and sacrifice, so God met us on our terms. I could get into Rene Girard here, but the post is getting too long.
Peace,
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