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« Takin' Care of Business... | Main | From God's Eye » March 30, 2004The GiftEvery once in awhile I write a comment on someone's blog, or sometimes responding to a reader's comment on my own blog, and decide later that it deserves to be its own blog post. A few posts below this, in the comments dealing with John Kerry's mis-use of a famous passage from the New Testament book of James, is such a comment, made in response to a reader who wrote that "obedience to God's commands is absolutely essential for salvation," so I'm re-running it here. The reader first quotes from my blog post: "Salvation was accomplished on the cross 2,000 years ago (See: The Passion of The Christ). It is received as a free gift of grace when you profess your faith in what God did, period. Salvation is powered by God, not by any human action other than faith. It is the height of human arrogance to assert that a human work contributes to salvation. Real faith as it matures produces action, but your good works do not contribute to salvation."And then he quotes 1 John 2:4-6: "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."I believe the reader's heart is in the right place, but his understanding of that verse is cart-before-horse and he is missing a crucial distinction. Obedience to God's commands is described in that verse as a product of "knowing" God - i.e., being saved. A saved person strives to do God's will - but one is NOT saved by doing God's will. One is saved by the blood of Jesus and the fact of Jesus' resurrection. I grew up in, and grew out of, a Christian tradition that taught a works-based salvation. God gives you a bucket, you fill it with enough good works and enough avoiding of sin and you earn your way to heaven. You climb the ladder 99 percent of the way there and "grace" pulls you over the last step. You follow a "five step plan" of salvation, as if sinful man can accomplish his own salvation by following a how-to brochure. We were told that God's grace was the giving to us of the plan by which we could accomplish our salvation. Hogwash. God's grace was the giving to us of Jesus, crucified and resurrected. There is no five-step plan of salvation. There is only salvation, accomplished, by God's plan, on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. You accept the free gift of salvation and let it change you - and that change produces a life of obedience and good works (though imperfectly) - or you reject it. The verse [the reader] quoted says exactly that. A person that claims to know Jesus but does not follow God's commands does not really know Jesus - they are not saved. But it is not the lack of obedience that produces the lack of salvation. It is the lack of salvation that produces the lack of obedience. The notion that any amount of our obedience, our good works, our command-keeping, can measure up to anything other than infinitesimal, insignificant and worthless compared to what Jesus did on the cross strikes me as the peak of human arrogance. Stack up all your obedience, all your theological understanding and doctrinally sound positions, all your good works, all your law-keeping, all your avoidance of sin, and stack it all up next to the cross. It is worth nothing compared to what He did - and you're no better and no worse than this world's Mother Theresas or Billy Grahams - or its Barabbas'es. ... Good works and moral living flow from your salvation, they do not contribute to it. Salvation is a gift you receive or reject. It's not a joint-venture project. God doesn't need your help - only your faith. Posted in Religion
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THe words of Paul speak clearly to the point: Rom.1:16-17 Rom.3:20 Rom.3:28 Rom.4:2 Rom.4:13 Rom.5:1 Gal.2:16 Gal.3:11-12 Eph.2:8-9 Titus 3:5 Also: 1 John 5:13 - My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God's Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. Salvation comes from the belief, nothing else. All command-keeping, including submission to baptism, doing good works, etc., flows from salvation. Posted by: Bill Hobbs at April 1, 2004 10:22 AM1 Pet 2:21 Mark 16:16 Acts 2:38 Acts 22:16 Gal 3:27 Matt 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirirt When we look at what James taught in his letter, we don't see salvation through works. But James does tell us that there is more than one kind of faith (or belief). He further says that a dead faith cannot save. Obedience is not a work, it is a result of faith. It would be absurd to claim that we can be saved without obedience. Indeed, Jesus himself condemns the idea in Luke 6:46 "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do the things which I say?" We are also commanded to repent. To think that we can have salvation without repentance is almost to be calvinisitc, to say that some may be saved whether they want to be or not. Yet our obedience does not earn our salvation. Nothing we do can earn our salvation. What James is saying is that a true saving faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin, they cannot be separated. It seems then that there can be at least three states of faith. 1. An 'unfaith', or a disbelief in Jesus as the Son of God. 2. A dead faith which produces no repentance, obedience, or fruit. James 2:19 says "the demons also believe, and shudder", yet no one I know thinks demons will be saved because of their belief. 3. A true and living faith which produces obedience and fruit. Only the last faith is a saving faith. You cannot separate the effect from the cause. If I have a saving faith I will odey. P.S. You paint with a wide brush Bill. Not everyone in your former affiliation believes we work our way to heaven. Although I will admit that as a product of the same area and time of Tennessee, it is certainly not hard to find those that do. ACM Posted by: Anthony at April 1, 2004 12:55 PMI don't think we're in disagreement. As you said, "If I have faith, I will obey." My point exactly - real faith produces obedience. But obedience does not produce salvation. God produced salvation via Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. As for baptism, there are numerous verses in the Bible which tie salvation only to faith/profession of belief, and numerous other verses that also mention baptism in the context of salvation. I am not saying that baptism is un-necessary. In fact, I believe a Christ-believer will follow Christ's example and the Biblical command and will "arise and be baptized." But I do not believe there is any spiritual power in the act of being baptized or in the water itself. 100 percent of the spiritual power in salvation is in the act Jesus performed on the cross and then in the resurrection. James said faith without works is a dead faith. It is also true that faith that doesn't produce repentenace is not an alive faith. And faith that doesn't produce obedience is dead faith. But it is clear that obedience and repentance are the result of saving faith. One can not be saved without repentance. But NOT because repentance is a "work" that we must do, part of a "five-step plan" to achieve salvation. Far from it. One can not be saved without repentance because faith that does not produce repentance is not real faith. And it is real faith leads to salvation. Much of this argument is semantics - do you believe that repentance is a human work or the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer? Do you believe that baptism is something a person does to complete a "to-do" list to achieve salvation, or something one does as response to salvation. I tend to think the latter, given the many verses that say you are saved by faith and don't mention baptism. We are saved by what the Lord did for us, not by what we do for him. Preach it, Brother! You state the essence of our Christian faith, saved only by God's grace and belief in Him. Posted by: oldgal at April 1, 2004 06:14 PMYou're right in many ways Bill. Nothing we do adds to our salvation, not obedience, not good works, not anything. God accomplished it all at the cross. All we do is accept it through faith in Jesus (note that accepting a gift in no way means that you've earned that gift, accepting is not a work). Yet that faith must be a living, obedient faith. Abraham's faith was expressed in obedience, Rahab's faith was expressed in works, etc. Just because saving faith must be a working faith does not mean that the works save us, they are only evidence that the faith is real. In that context, baptism does not save us, nor does repentance, confession or any other of the CoC's 5 points, rather the faith that produced the obedieince is what saves us. Yet because we must obey (i.e. have an obedient, living faith) to be saved, we cannot be saved without baptism, or repentance, or confession. Since they are commanded, we must obey to be saved. We cannot be saved without obedeience, but it is not obedience which saves us but the genuine faith which produces obedience (Wow! talk about circles). How do I know I have been saved? Because I have faith in Jesus! How do I know its a true, living faith? Because I have the evidence of my obedience! How do I know I'm growing in Christ? Because I have the evidence of the fuirts of the Spirit in my life! Obedience without faith cannot save. Faith without obedience is dead, and cannot save. True faith and true obedience are inseparable. That is the message of James. Paul wrote Romans and Galatians to groups of Christians who were heavily influenced by Jewish tradition (most were, in probability, Jewish converts). He knew that they knew that obedience was a necessary thing. He wrote to combat the belief that obedience and works earned them heaven. He emphasized faith because that's the side of the coin they had forgotten. James wrote to combat the opposite effect. Niether James nor Paul thought that faith without obedience or obedience without faith would save. Both are necessary, yet it is not the obedience which saves us. The obedience is the evidence that our faith is true. Yet so many today teach that faith without obedience *will* save you. They have a nice sinner's prayer asking Jesus to 'come into my heart' and fail to obey what he commands to do. Nowhere in my NT is a conversion example given using a 'sinner's prayer' to accept God's grace. Funny, it always shows people obeying to express their faith and their acceptance. Anyway Bill, keep up the good work. Once I decide to retire from the AF and move back to TN, I hope to be able to meet you. ACM Posted by: Anthony at April 2, 2004 10:32 AMPost a comment
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