All our RIGHTEOUSNESS is as filthy rags to God.
There's NOTHING we can do to earn our way to heaven.
God's standard for reaching heaven is perfection. Nobody has or is even capable of attaining that. Even if someone sinned only one sin in their entire lives and the rest of their life was perfect, it still wouldn't be enough.
We are not saved until we become lost. We are lost until we become saved.
John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
If you think I'm misrepresenting the church, then tell me what you think I'm misrepresenting. Don't just throw unfounded accusations out there hoping they're going to stick.
And by what set of criteria do you use to determine whether a version of scripture is legitimate? What authority do you appeal?
Using the entire biblical passage of Isaiah 64:6 is instructive for context. The prophet was lamenting the sinfulness of the Kingdom of Judah and stating that even their or “our” righteous works were void because of their state of sinfulness. This was not a condemnation of righteous works in and of themselves.
The strawman here is the misrepresentation that Catholics believe that it is our own works that save us. Not so. The righteous works are God’s works that flow through us as a grace resulting from our Faith. It is our duty to cooperate with God’s will. Faith + works = Salvation.
There’s the misrepresentation.
Your comment: There’s NOTHING we can do to earn our way to heaven.
Salvation begins with the grace of God which touches a sinner’s heart, and calls him to repentance. This grace cannot be merited; it proceeds solely from the love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this inspiration of God, he may turn to God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain man’s free will.
Thus assisted the sinner is disposed for salvation from sin; he believes in the revelation and promises of God, he fears God’s justice, hopes in his mercy, trusts that God will be merciful to him for Christ’s sake, begins to love God as the source of all justice, hates and detests his sins.
This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God’s grace and gifts, whence a man becomes just instead of unjust, a friend instead of a foe and so an heir according to hope of eternal life. This change happens either by reason of a perfect act of charity elicited by a well disposed sinner or by virtue of the Sacrament either of Baptism or of Penance according to the condition of the respective subject laden with sin. The Council further indicates the causes of this change. By the merit of the Most Holy Passion through the Holy Spirit, the charity of God is shed abroad in the hearts of those who are justified. From the Catholic Ency
The passage was from John 12. Would you like the same passage in Latin or Greek?
You speak about the Pharisees and imply they are the Catholic Church, but you seem to lack the understanding that Jesus spoke of.
“You set yourselves up to judge, after your earthly fashion; I do not set myself up to judge anybody. 16 And what if I should judge? My judgement is judgement indeed; it is not I alone, my Father who sent me is with me.”