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Quote from: winsome on Sat Jan 27, 2018 - 13:29:18You don't think Jesus' Passion and Death was the cause of our Justification? 

If that is/was the cause, then why is it not universal?

Rom 6:10  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Jesus' death is the basis thought which jJustification is made available to all who believe, repent and are baptized in His name.

Quote from: 4WD on Sat Jan 27, 2018 - 13:41:55
If that is/was the cause, then why is it not universal?

Rom 6:10  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Jesus' death is the basis thought which jJustification is made available to all who believe, repent and are baptized in His name.

I'll go with that.

Quote from: winsome on Sat Jan 27, 2018 - 10:25:01The meritorious cause of our Justification from Adam to this day is the Passion and Death of  Jesus Christ.  If you claim it is our faith (whether alone or not) then you are claiming that we save ourselves.

Wow! 4WD take notice...this confession by Winsome is total "according to" the teachings of the word of God.      Listen to winsome you might learn something....maybe. RB

Quote from: RB on Sun Jan 28, 2018 - 05:37:29
Wow! 4WD take notice...this confession by Winsome is total "according to" the teachings of the word of God.      Listen to winsome you might learn something....maybe. RB

RB, I just corrected winsome concerning that statement and it seems, I think, that he agreed with me.  See the above two posts.

Quote from: 4WD on Sun Jan 28, 2018 - 05:43:08
RB, I just corrected winsome concerning that statement and it seems, I think, that he agreed with me.  See the above two posts.

You put it in a different way that I agreed with.

I stand by the statement that I originally made:
"The meritorious cause of our Justification from Adam to this day is the Passion and Death of  Jesus Christ."

Subsequently I omitted the meritorious which was a mistake.
Baptism is the instrumental cause of our Justification

Quote from: winsome on Sun Jan 28, 2018 - 09:09:48Baptism is the instrumental cause of our Justification

No, no, no! Efficient causes give being to their effects. Insofar as an efficient cause is a cause and its effect an effect, there is nothing in the effect that is not first in the cause. But we understand an instrumental cause to be one through which a principal cause acts.

Quote from: PaulRomans 4:25~Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

"Legally", it was the resurrection of Christ that truly justified us.

Winsome, RB,

I think you both are confused about the the cause of the divine justification of sinful man.  Surely it can be none other than the love of God for His creation (1 John 4:10).  It is that love of God which brought into existence God's plan to redeem His creation from His wrath demanded by His holiness against sinful man.  The question you are really trying, or ought to be trying, to answer is how did God do that.  What is God's plan of redemption.  How is it possible for God to not deliver the punishment against mankind for the sins they have committed.  It is not possible for God not to punish the sins of man and that is the point.  God meted out that punishment against His own Son for the sins of the world.  Jesus Christ is the propitiation for those sins.  He paid the ransom demanded by God so that man could escape the punishment.

Now the next question you need to answer is for whom is Jesus' death on the cross the propitiation for sins and how is it applied.

I think I'll just give the Catholic view on this and leave it at that.

From the Council of Trent - decree on Justification

Of this Justification the causes are these:
the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting;
while the efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing, and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance;
but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, merited Justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father;
the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified;
lastly, the alone formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He maketh us just, that, to wit, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one's proper disposition and co-operation.

I must confess that the distinctions of final, efficient, meritorious, instrumental. and formal causes seem to me to serve little purpose in aiding an understanding of what justification is.  But perhaps that is just me.

Quote from: 4WD on Mon Jan 29, 2018 - 05:28:55Winsome, RB, I think you both are confused about the cause of the divine justification of sinful man.  Surely it can be none other than the love of God for His creation (1 John 4:10).

That's the source= spring, fountainhead~but NOT instrumental cause. I have one sentence for you and you said it:

Quote from: 4WD Today at 07:35:26I must confess that the distinctions of final, efficient, meritorious, instrumental. and formal causes seem to me to serve little purpose in aiding an understanding of what justification is.  But perhaps that is just me.

Not perhaps, IT IS your PO.

Quote from: 4WD Today at 07:35:26I must confess that the distinctions of final, efficient, meritorious, instrumental. and formal causes seem to me to serve little purpose in aiding an understanding of what justification is.

The meritorious, instrumental cause of legal justification is of UPMOST importance...it constitutes the "meaning of the true gospel" of Jesus Christ.

Quote from: RB on Mon Jan 29, 2018 - 08:23:56The meritorious, instrumental cause of legal justification is of UPMOST importance...it constitutes the "meaning of the true gospel" of Jesus Christ.

11Jn 4:9  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
1Jn 4:10  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

And there we have the cause, be it meritorious, instrumental, formal of whatever.  And by the way, there is no other justification than legal.  Justification is a legal term.  It is the judicial declaration.

Quote from: 4WD on Mon Jan 29, 2018 - 09:09:51
  And by the way, there is no other justification than legal.  Justification is a legal term.  It is the judicial declaration.

So if I right justify text on a page I'm making a legal declaration that the text is lined up to the right, even if it's not.

Quote from: winsome on Mon Jan 29, 2018 - 12:05:39
So if I right justify text on a page I'm making a legal declaration that the text is lined up to the right, even if it's not.

If that is what your thoughts are concerning God's justification of sinners, then Catholicism has taken you even further afield than I might have imagined.

Quote from: 4WD on Mon Jan 29, 2018 - 12:24:28
If that is what your thoughts are concerning God's justification of sinners, then Catholicism has taken you even further afield than I might have imagined.

Just querying your claim for which you provided no evidence and was therefore not justified. 

OK,sorry to get involved.