The Merit of Good Works Is To Be Attributed in the First Place to the Grace of God and Then to the Faithful

The Merit of Man before God in the Christian Life Arises from the Fact that God Is Freely Chosen to Associate Man with the Work of His Grace

There Is no Second Works-Based Stage in the Process of Salvation

If Anyone Says that the Justice Received Is Not Preserved and Also Not Increased before God through Good Works but that those Works Are Merely the Fruits and Signs of Justification Obtained but Not the Cause of Its Increase

The preterist view that identifies the abomination of desolation with Roman soldiers carrying standards into the temple court in 70 AD has several problems: the event occurred when the temple was already on fire and the war was essentially over, making it impossible to flee; it was not in the temple's holy place; and it doesn't fit the three-and-a-half-year tribulation framework of Daniel.

Evaluation and critique of the preterist 70 AD interpretation

JW salvation requires four things: (1) taking in the "knowledge" of God and Jesus as defined by the organization, (2) obeying God's laws (works-based), (3) belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, and (4) demonstrating loyalty through door-to-door witnessing. Their own source says "the ransom given by Jesus does not give or guarantee everlasting life" — grace through Christ alone is explicitly denied.

JW soteriology: four requirements for salvation; works-based, organization-dependent

Winger describes sitting at the memorial and realizing he had no framework for navigating political engagement alongside people with whom he has serious theological disagreements (Greg Locke, Patricia King, Bishop Robert Barron). He concludes that Christians need to learn to advocate for shared biblical values in political spaces without implying theological unity or compromising doctrinal integrity.

The challenge of political coalition-building across theological divides; navigating partnerships