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Is Israel elect or not? See Deuteronomy 7:6-8, 14:2, 26:17-19. Where does Scripture say that Old Testament believers are "in Christ"? Clearly New Testament saints are in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) but your summary does not seem to account for God's choosing of pre-Christian believers such as...

Absolutely; I have endeavored to point out the difference elsewhere in this thread. Paying the price (redemption) is not the same as viewing/treating/declaring/crediting the redeemed as righteous (justification). An analogy would be purchasing a distressed property (R), then investing my own...

This is an unkind presumption, since (a) you assume my views are merely derivative from the teaching of others and (b) that they are unbiblical simply because they differ from yours. I invite you to identify any of my posts that lack pertinent scriptural citations. On this we agree; and if the...

a. It is a mistake to conflate the crediting of God's righteousness to believers (justification) with redemption (payment of the penalty for sin). The asterisks in my previous post were intended as a reminder that justification is Paul's topic in Romans 3 and 4, not "God's redemptive work," to...

Help me out here, what's your point?

1 Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 1 Corinthians 16:15 Now I urge you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints)

Not to pick nits, but you seem to have skipped over Romans 3:20 - "no one will be *justified*." Your metonymy idea doesn't logically or theologically connect to God's "redemptive work." The imputation of divine righteousness to believers by faith in Christ is justification (Rom 4:24-25), not...

No offense, but I would appreciate hearing from posters themselves rather than third parties speculating about what they might think or putting words in their mouths.

You and the OP appear to apply this "literal" hermeneutic pretty selectively. Is James' letter then only relevant to Israelites who are scattered (1:1) and not to those still in the land? Is it addressed only to men (pick your masculine noun or pronoun out of any verse in the chapter) and not...

Well, we certainly don't want that. Blessings in Christ.

With respect, it isn't the same. Persevering under trial is not involved at the point of salvation and sealing.

This argument assumes that the crown of life is a synonym for salvation rather than a reward for faithfulness and obedience under extreme duress. Revelation 2:10 renders the former understanding impossible. Further, being "approved" is a product of diligence after salvation, not saving faith...

If, as you believe, receiving the word is a synonym for salvation, and receiving first requires "putting aside all filthiness" etc. (you recall that the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb) then works are made part of salvation in this verse. I see no way around...

Sorry, but I can't find your false professors referenced anywhere in the context, and they certainly cannot be included as "begotten by God with the word of truth." Nor can I stretch my imagination to believe that James refers to his audience of first generation Jewish Christians as "a kind of...

I'm glad we agree that the letter is addressed to believers begotten by the word of God, not the lost. It does seem you have shifted your ground from seeing "righteousness of God" as the lost appropriating the redemptive work of Christ at salvation ("Putting aside filthiness sounds like...

The metonymy idea is an interesting perspective, thank you for that! I think many of your example scriptures support the point well in their respective contexts, although I ended up falling off the wagon before arriving at that conclusion for James chapter 1. To me the immediate context in...

Dr. Criswell was pastor of First Baptist Dallas for over fifty years from the 1940s into the '90s; he passed away in 2002. The published books were taken directly from sermon transcripts (as were most of his other 40-odd books) so the website essentially provides the entire series with ten to...

Dr. W. A. Criswell presented a popular-level systematic theology series from the pulpit called "Great Doctrines of the Bible" which offers a clear and fairly comprehensive coverage of the "-ologies" in about eight dozen sermons. The messages are available free of charge as text, audio, and often...