Hi brakelite. I dont thin any of the verses have to do with self effort. Because if rightneusness came by law Christ died in vain.
Galatians 2:17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
I built again much of what I had previously destroyed. I was growing and smoking dope again; stealing; blaspheming; and many other things which I am ashamed to admit. You claim that I would still go to heaven. I would repeat to you Paul
s question. Is Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. I was a transgressor. I was not forgiven for I was not seeking God, I had not at that time repented, I had not confessed my sin.
Revel. 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Re 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
He that overcomes shall not have his name blotted out of the Book of Life. I, my friend, was not overcoming. My name was not written in that book.
Revel. 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
You quoted galatians out of context when Paul was pricely saying that we dont live under the law you used the verse to say we do...
Lets read it more in context:
14But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
15We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
16Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
18
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Paul was saying if he builds the things that are of law to live by them then he is making him self a transgressor because he is transgressor only by the law.
The topic Paul was adressing was galatians turning back to works of the law instead of relying on Grace.
Rom 4:15-16 Because the law worketh wrath:
for where no law is, there is no transgression. (16) Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
