Apart from works of the Law!

[MoreCoffee]

Saint Paul wrote some convoluted prose and expresses some ideas in language that people have a hard time figuring out. It is almost as if he has ideas welling up in his mind and flowing out onto the page at a rate that his words cannot match. Saint Peter warned that some of what Paul wrote is hard to understand and that some people take the obscure words of saint Paul and misuse them to the destruction of their souls. I think that parts of the letter to the Romans is what Peter had in mind and some of the Corinthians letters passages too. There's also the "baptism for the dead" passage and the "end times" statement in the Thessalonian letters. People get really tied up in knots about end times and saint Paul's letters as well as saint John's Apocalypse seem to be the focus of the confusion, especially when the Apocalypse is read in conjunction with the book of Daniel and some passages in the minor prophets. But I am straying a little from the point I want to put.

Romans 3:1-31 ESV Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.
Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.
The venom of asps is under their lips.
Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
​

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.​

Is this really teaching that "faith alone" saves or is that a case of misusing what saint Paul wrote by twisting it to the ruination of souls?

 

[TurtleHare]

Yes it really does teach salvation by faith alone and is in there in what you quoted.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Yes it really does teach salvation by faith alone and is in there in what you quoted.

I see justification by faith apart from works of the law in the passage but not by faith alone.