Hebrews 10:32-38
Brethren, call to mind the former days, wherein, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. And on the one hand indeed, by reproaches and tribulations were made a gazing-stock; and on the other, become companions of them that were used in such sort. For you both had compassion on them that were in bands, and took with joy the being stripped of your own goods, knowing that you have a better and lasting substance. Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. For patience is necessary for you: that doing the will of God you may receive the promise. For yet a little and a very little while, and He that is to come, will come and will not delay. But my just man liveth by faith.
Haydock
Verse 32. But call to mind the former days, &c. After having laid before them the severity of God’s judgments, he comforts them with the hopes they may have of their eternal salvation, from what they had already suffered soon after they received the light of the gospel, and were illuminated by baptism. Wi.
Verse 36. He encourages them to patience in the short time of this mortal life. Wi.
Verse 37. Yet a very little while, and the judge that is to come, and who is to judge every one, will come. Wi. — O ercomenoV, he who is coming. It is observed by commentators, that this is the appellation given by the Jews to the Messias. See Matt. xi. 3. and xxi. 9.
Verse 38. But my just man, he that liveth according to the doctrine I have taught, liveth by faith, which is the groundwork and foundation of a good life. — But if he withdraw himself, and fall from this faith of Christ, he shall not please my soul. It is a Hebrew way of speaking, and as it were in the person of God. Wi. — Luther and Calvin teach that faith alone is sufficient for justification, and they define this faith to be an assured confidence that their sins are forgiven them wholly by Christ’s passion. No text, however, in Scripture teaches that a man is justified by faith only. In Romans, (ii.) Luther makes S. Paul say that a man is justified by faith only, without the works of the law: the authorized Protestant version has omitted the word only, foisted into the German translations. Solifidians vainly cite this text, as its obvious meaning is, that neither the works of the written law, done by the Jew, nor the works of the law of nature, done by the Gentile, before either of them believe in Christ, can without faith in Christ justify any one. Saving faith is a faith working through charity in Jesus Christ, a faith which includes hope, love, repentance, and the use of the sacraments. Hence S. James (C. ii.) declares, that a man may have faith but not works, but that faith without works will not save him. S. Paul teaches the same, 1 Cor. xiii. 2. “If I should have all faith, so as to move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing;” where we should observe the word all faith.
Denzinger
809: The Fruit of Justipration, that is, the Merit of Good; Works, and the Reasonableness of that Merit
PAUL III 1534-1549 COUNCIL OF TRENT 1545-1563 Ecumenical XIX (Contra Novatores 16 cent.) SESSION VI (Jan. 13, 1547) Decree On Justification
To men, therefore, who have been justified in this respect, whether they have preserved uninterruptedly the grace received, or have recovered it when lost, the words of the Apostle are to be submitted: “Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” [1 Cor. 15:58]; “for God is not unjust, that he should forget your work and the love, which you have shown in his name” [Heb. 6:10], and: “Do not lose your confidence, which has a great reward” [Heb. 10:35]. And therefore to those who work well “unto the end” [Matt. 10:22], and who trust in God, life eternal is to be proposed, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus, “and as a recompense” which is according to the promise of God Himself to be faithfully given to their good works and merits [can. 26 and 32]. For this is that “crown of justice which after his fight and course” the Apostle declared “was laid up for him, to be rendered to him by the just judge and not only to him, but also to all that love his coming” [2 Tim. 4:7ff.]. For since Christ Jesus Himself as the “head into the members” [Eph. 4:15], and “as the vine into the branches” [John 15:5] continually infuses His virtue into the said justified, a virtue which always precedes their good works, and which accompanies and follows them, and without which they could in no wise be pleasing and meritorious before God [can. 2], we must believe that to those justified nothing more is wanting from being considered [can. 32] as having satisfied the divine law by those works which have been done in God according to the state of this life, and as having truly merited eternal life to be obtained in its own time (if they shall have departed this life in grace [Rev. 14:13]), since Christ our Lord says: “If anyone shall drink of the water, that I will give him, he shall not thirst forever, but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting” [John 4:14]. Thus neither is “our own justice established as our own” from ourselves, nor is the justice of God [Rom. 10:3] “ignored” or repudiated; for that justice which is called ours, because we are justified [can. 10 and 11] through its inherence in us, that same is (the justice) of God, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ.