If your good deeds outweigh your bad...?

[M. Partyka]

Let us reflect then how many burdens of sins each of us has about him, and let us make our acts of mercy counterbalance them; nay rather, far exceed them, that not only the sins may be quenched, but that the acts of righteousness may be also accounted unto us for righteousness. For if the good deeds be not so many in number as to put aside the crimes laid against us, and out of the remainder to be counted unto us for righteousness, then shall no one rescue us from that punishment, from which God grant that we may be all delivered, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ....

--St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians XXIV, last paragraph
And we are hired servants, in that we labour for hire, and look for the reward of this our work from our Lord and God. If any one would know how we are hired servants, let him listen to the words, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger, and again, Make me as one of thy hired servants. All are hired servants, all are labourers; and let him, who looks for the reward of his labour, remember that if he defraud another of the wages due to him, he also will be defrauded of his own. Such conduct offends Him Who has lent to us, and He will repay it hereafter in more abundant measure. He therefore who could not lose what is eternal, let him not deprive others of what is temporal....For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the riches of the whole world, and yet defraud his own soul of the wages of eternal life? There is another balance which pious minds ought to consider, wherein the actions of individuals are weighed, and wherein for the most part sin inclines the scale towards judgement, or outweighs good deeds with crimes. Woe unto me, if my offences go before, and with a fatal weight incline to the judgement of death!

--St. Ambrose of Milan, Letter II:12-14This makes me wonder...has anybody here, when explaining the gospel, ever explained it in terms such as, "Once you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, but you must make sure from then on that your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, or else you won't go to heaven"? Would anybody here use such terminology?

[Herman Blaydoe]

This makes me wonder...has anybody here, when explaining the gospel, ever explained it in terms such as, "Once you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, but you must make sure from then on that your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, or else you won't go to heaven"? Would anybody here use such terminology?

How about Matthew 25:34-46? Something about sheep and goats?

[Paul Cowan]

Would anybody here use such terminology?

No. Being "good" will not get one into Heaven.

[Mary]

This makes me wonder...has anybody here, when explaining the gospel, ever explained it in terms such as, "Once you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, but you must make sure from then on that your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, or else you won't go to heaven"? Would anybody here use such terminology?

Yup, the Galatians tried to say that and got an earful from the Apostle Paul:


O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Galatians 3:1-5

[Effie Ganatsios]

This makes me wonder...has anybody here, when explaining the gospel, ever explained it in terms such as, "Once you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, but you must make sure from then on that your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, or else you won't go to heaven"? Would anybody here use such terminology?

I don't think it works that way. I read (can't remember where ) that even though we might have many fine qualities, a negative quality will negate the positive ones. It's all or nothing. I will try and find the exact words.

Effie

I've been looking for the quote I remembered but, so far, have been unsuccessful. I found this though. It is interesting.

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/death/theodora.aspx

[Effie Ganatsios]

This is not what I was looking for but I feel it explains rather well what we are discussing :

"In the Eastern perspective, there is no thought that we must accumulate merits in order to justify ourselves before God, although our faithful often seem (as evidenced in Confession) to feel that if we are to be saved, our good works must outweigh our sins. Nor, on the other hand, is there a denial of the place and importance of good works in Christian life (Ephesians 2:8-10!). Salvation is accomplished by grace in response to faith. But that faith cannot be passive; it must express itself, not merely by confessing Jesus as “personal Lord and Savior,” but by feeding, clothing, visiting and otherwise caring for the “least” of Jesus' brethren (Mt 25).

What we are saved from is the key issue here. Rather than view salvation primarily as a forensic liberation from guilt through imputed or imparted righteousness, we should see it as incorporation, by baptism, into Christ's death and resurrection, such that we “die and rise” with Him. Thus we are saved from Death. We are freed from this ultimate consequence of sin and guilt – but only as a divinely bestowed gift of God's ineffable love, expressed in the suffering death of His Son, a gift to which we respond with faith that issues in love. That response, through the action of the indwelling Spirit, enables us finally to share in Christ's own resurrection and glorification, attaining what the Greek Fathers call theôsis or “deification” (which means existential participation in God’s life, and not ontological confusion between God and His human creatures).5.

Good works should thus be understood to be a response rather than a means to salvation. And God’s righteousness should be seen as a gift of loving, merciful, saving grace, rather than as a forensic tool, wielded in the service of divine judgment. "

The whole article is at :http://www.oca.org/CHRIST-life-article.asp?SID=6&ID=114&MONTH=September&YEAR=2006

[Effie Ganatsios]

While not ceasing to strive to unite with God, I don't think we need to worry too much about this.

"The final word belongs to St John, the Beloved Disciple, who knew Christ perhaps better than any of the other apostles. Before the fearful day of judgment, he declares, “we may have confidence,” not in our merits nor in punishing penances we may have endured, but in the love of the God whose very essence is Love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment….” The Way into the Kingdom of Heaven is not through punishment, through suffering imposed by a wrathful God whose justice outweighs His mercy. It is through love: the boundless, self-giving love God has for us, to which, in an attitude of ongoing repentance, we respond with love for Him and for one another (1 John 4:16-21)."

The above is from another article from the site I provided the link for in my previous post.

[Paul Cowan]

This might (http://www.monachos.net/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=61474)help somewhat...


Ezekiel 18:19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. 20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

21 “But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. 23 Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?

24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? 26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. 27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed, and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive. 28 Because he considers and turns away from all the transgressions which he committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?

30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”

(bold mine)

When I was reading this to my wife, she made the comment if Ezekiel was talking to all the men of the house of Israel, why did the wicked man not first die in his iniquity? If the righteous man can die for being bad, why did the wicked man not automatically die? Were they not already all supposed to be righteous since they were sons of Israel?

I know this is ultilmately spiritual life and death, but God also killed them in the desert for acting inappropriately.

Paul