(Rom 4:5 ESV) And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
Does this mean that Christians aren’t expected to do good works? The verse sure seems to be saying that Christians are those who do not work.
Context, of course, is critically important.
(Rom 4:4-5 ESV) 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
Paul contrasts the one who receives a gift with the one who receives wages. The wage earner has to work to receive his wages. The recipient of a gift does not.
But the recipient of a gift might work very hard — just not to receive the gift. The point is not that Christians don’t do good works but that they don’t earn their salvation with good works.
(Rom 4:6-8 ESV) 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Forgiveness is not dependent on works. Period. Paul could not be more plain. And “works” is not limited to the Law of Moses. After all, we next read —
(Rom 4:9 ESV) 9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
(Rom 4:13 ESV) 13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
The covenant of salvation by faith goes all the way back to Abraham! — hundred of years before there was a Law of Moses. And Paul uses the covenant of Abraham to explain his statement that we’re saved by faith and not works — which would be absurd if “works” were limited to the Law of Moses.
But, of course, this leaves open the very difficult question: If we’re forgiven and saved by faith in Jesus, not works, why bother to do works? And it’s a fair question, because it’s a question that Paul had to frequently respond to.
Now, it’s important to know that Paul repeatedly responds to this question, and yet his modern readers repeatedly don’t understand his answers. The reason, I believe, is that we read both with false assumptions and missing some critical elements of Paul’s worldview — that is, he often assumes too much about our understanding (not the understanding of his First Century readers), and we come in assuming too much about his understanding.
These kinds of failures to communicate are inevitable when we study texts 2,000 years old written by a Jewish rabbi who followed a Messiah he encountered in heaven. To overcome the problem, we have to approach the text with great humility — not merely wanting to know the truth but being willing to pay the price to learn the truth.
What’s the price? Well, I’m not sure I’ve learned it all yet, but part of it is a willingness to learn much more of Paul’s scriptures — the Old Testament. We must learn to think like a First Century Jew to understand the words of a First Century Jew.
Thus, we must take Paul’s references to Abraham and David with the utmost seriousness. He’s not just quoting them as though from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. He’s extracting key pieces of God’s story — his engagement with humanity — not only to prove his point but to reveal the flow of God’s redemptive mission. You much better understand Romans if you understand how God dealt with Abraham and David.
You see, God was a God of grace and faith for Abraham and for David. He forgave, not based on their works — indeed, in David’s case especially, despite his works — based on their faith. Abraham and David point toward Jesus and Romans.
But Abraham and David both did good works. Both were honored for their works.* Both were — most of the time — deeply committed to God. No one could fairly refer to either them as a man “who does not work” but neither worked to earn his salvation and relationship with God. Rather, both were chosen by God long before they’d done anything.
So why did they obey? To earn God’s election? No, they were already elected. Then why?
Because God would have disowned them had they disobeyed? But they did disobey. And God didn’t disown them.
But they didn’t always disobey. They mainly obeyed — often imperfectly (I’m assuming you’ve read the (true) stories. If not, this whole line of thinking will make no sense at all.) — but they obeyed. They were obedient, but flawed, broken, and prone to huge errors at times. And God stuck by them throughout.
Their election did not come and go based on this sin or that. They were elected and stayed elected, but that was not true of Saul, for example — and so falling away is quite possible. And so, it’s possible to be elected and remain so until death, and it’s possible to be elected and to fall away. But the election doesn’t come and go with each sin — even some really big ones.
And so, why did Abraham and David obey — as well as they did? If adultery with Bathsheba could be forgiven without so much as a sacrificed sparrow, why not commit adultery every night?
But, you see, to approach the question this way is to presume that humans are governed by external law. The false assumption is that we people behave entirely based on rewards and punishments meted out by God. It’s all very Skinnerian — as though we humans are governed solely be reward and punishment — like B. F. Skinner’s rats.
But the reality is that humans are all about relationships. We are defined by our families, our spouses, our community — even our churches. And we often do things for love that we’d never do for money or out of fear. Gratitude is a far bigger motivator than fear of hell.
Do you doubt me? Ask the Baptists who are told they can’t fall away and so who have no fear of hell at all. Why do they tithe and commit to personal evangelism? Ask the Reformed Church founded by Zwingli and Calvin — who denied the possibility of falling away and yet converted entire nations, all the while insisting on modest living and hard work — the “Protestant work ethic” — with no fear of damnation.
So why do so many wonder why Christians should obey if they are saved by faith? Because– I would posit — they don’t understand human nature as well as God and his Holy Scriptures.
I prescribe a restudy of the narrative of the Scriptures. Read Genesis. Read 1 and 2 Samuel. Read the stories we teach middle schoolers — with eyes retrained by Jesus and Paul.
That’s the (relatively) easy question. The hard question is: for those who’ve been saved but who live lives of Christian indolence — the lazy — how do we motivate them?
Before we can answer that, we have to ask: Why should we care? And we should. But why? Are their souls at stake?
There’s an argument to be made that their souls are indeed at stake, but let’s not go there. It won’t be nearly as instructive as looking for a better, deeper reason. And seeking motivation there won’t work because the lazy already know all about that — and guilt and fear are ineffective, counter-productive motivators, purely for the immature. If we don’t get past those, we can’t truly obey.
After all, if I love God solely out of fear of hell, I really just love myself. If I worship God solely out of fear of hell, I’m really only thinking of myself. Sometimes the doing leads to the feeling — which is why we tell our children to apologize even when they don’t mean it — but we really, really want our kids to feel it — and God does, too.
Well, what about degrees of reward? Doesn’t Jesus teach that? And, arguably, he does. But I’m sure the lazy have already figured out that the worst mansions in heaven are still mansions.
What about … what about ignoring what we read in the tract racks and periodicals and instead looking to see how Paul explains it when confronted with exactly this question.
____________
* It is forbidden to read Romans through the lens of James. The fine Christians in Rome who received Paul’s epistle did not have tabbed New Testaments with James cross-referenced. They just had Romans — and the Old Testament. Therefore, we cannot read Romans as though our favorite text in James were pasted on top of it. It’s forbidden by common sense hermeneutics. We read Romans as the Romans were intended to.
So what about James? Well, we have to be patient and finish understanding Paul’s thought — from Paul and not James — before we even consider tabbing over to James. Otherwise, we’ve only exegeted a re-constructed text that we re-assembled to suit our tastes rather than the Holy Spirit’s. That’s not exegesis; it’s imposing personal preferences on God’s holy word. Don’t do it.
Hence, the readers may not seek to override or contradict or limit Paul’s words by reference to James. We’ll get there in due course, but have enough respect for the Spirit and for the apostle to let Paul speak for himself.
(Reading James into Paul is so disrespectful of God’s word that I may delete comments that seek to re-write God’s Scriptures. Yes, yes, yes, we’ll get to James. Later. For now, we’re discussing Paul.)
You said: “If adultery with Bathsheba could be forgiven without so much as a sacrificed sparrow, why not commit adultery every night?”
Not so. Their child died because of their sin. Much more than a sparrow.
2 Samuel 12:13-15 (ESV)
13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.”
15 Then Nathan went to his house. And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick.
And for the same reasons, it is forbidden to read James through the lens of Romans. And don’t forget which book was written first.
Because they sought to please God. Their fundamental motivation was that they loved God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. And therefore they (imperfectly) strove with everything they had to please God. People who claim to be Christians but are not striving to obey (with *all* their strength) are deceiving themselves. It’s a narrow road, and only a few find it.
We can try to scare everyone into obedience by warning them there is a narrow road but this is an inferior approach. It is far better to work hard for the Lord because I am grateful for grace than to work hard because I am scared of being lost. Paul says this in so many words in I Corinthians 15:10. Paul outworked everyone because of grace. Titus 2:12 (written by Paul) says that “grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness”. I don’t understand all the paranoia in recent comments regarding warning people that they must work hard because they might be lost if they don’t. A true grace motivation solves this problem.
Skip wrote:
Careful, Skip. Did you mean to criticize Jesus?
I’d appreciate some details on the kind of works that your CofC community is involved in and accomplishing. It seems to me that my church might be a bit afraid of doing works outside the church building and I’m wondering if this is typical of CofC in general or just my particular church. One thing that we do have is a facility to distribute clothing to those in need but I have heard comments about how no one has been converted from this activity and as a result some question its value. Does the typical CofC only value those works that are directly tied to evangelism in some manner?
Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
And why is this? because they obeyed his commands/instructions (works). Now guess what happened to those who didn’t think works necessary.
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
“Forgiveness is not dependent on works. Period. Paul could not be more plain.”
I thought Jesus was pretty plain, no stuttering as far as I can see. John 25 left me with the impression that it was essential to do the works given us .
Laymond … please provide examples of Jesus trying to “scare people into obedience” in order to gain salvation.
The premise of this ongoing conversation is that “good works” and/or “obedience” is the response to salvation, which is ours only because of God’s grace towards us.
David, I thought Matthew 25 was a pretty good incentive.
Doug,
Most of the money collected after bills are paid is sent to other COC preachers that need support. This has been the long time practice that the COC is known for.
This is getting more so as the numbers dwindle and more preachers now need support.
On the other hand, those COC that are growing do have activities to help others even if those helped are not COC like those helped and being helped due to the Tornado destruction.
Alan, Not criticizing Jesus but your emphasis. The Apostles didn’t rally around Jesus primarily out of fear. They gladly served Jesus out of the love and grace they experienced. Obviously fear is a legitimate motivation but should not be our main motivation. Matthew 25 discusses the consequences for a failure to serve and love others because apparently one group lived for themselves and did not understand the grace of God. The punishment was not intended as a primary motive for doing good. But I suppose Christians who only are motivated by fear resonate with fear based scriptures. Love and grace motivation trumps fear based motivation on many levels.
The parable of the sheep and goats has been cited as an example of why works are necessary in order to obtain salvation. I read that parable as an example of what the “sheep” will be doing vs. what the “goats” will be doing. I.E., the saved are doing and the goats are not. Not that doing these things MAKES one a sheep. The two preceeding parables seem to support this understanding also. In fact, the parable of the talents (immediately preceeding) suggests that obedience driven by fear is not rewarded…at least not for the servant in the parable.
My understanding is that the saved are obedient and serve the Lord because they are saved not in order to be saved.
Gen 42:18 , Job 1:9 , Mat 10:28 , Luk 23:40 , Act 13:16 , 1Pe 2:17 , Rev 14:7
Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.
Jesus warned that the way to life was narrow and not found by many. When asked what sinners needed to do to enter the Way, Peter advised action rather than inaction. He was called to instruct sinners they needed to DO something in order to be saved, and he urged them to “obey the gospel.” Paul later points out that only those who DO obey the gospel will be saved (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10). We obey because we believe. Of course that’s WHY we obey, but if we do not obey we will be lost no matter what we believed. The apostles didn’t invite sinners to continue in sin, but instead they called for sinners to repent of sin and to turn to Jesus for salvation. Those who claim sinners are saved by faith alone don’t understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in the slightest. Faith is mentioned repeatedly. Obedience is because of faith. But the ONE time faith and alone are linked in inspired writing, it’s to warn that faith alone is dead. I invite whoever may read this comment to read and consider an article at my web site: http://missionoutreach.org/OwensMaxey.pdf for a study about salvation by faith alone and about what the apostles taught sinners HAD to do to be saved.
I realize now that I failed to click on “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.” I intended to make that request. I’m at .
What I wrote was “I’m at <>.” I wonder if it will show up with double <'s.
It didn’t. So I’ll try outreach at sofnet.com and see if that works.
Skip didn’t want to criticize Jesus when he criticized Jesus. It’s a good thing he didn’t want to criticize Jesus when he criticized Jesus. That would have been a mistake. We do well when we warn as did Jesus that you don’t get to heaven by doing nothing, but instead we get into “Christ” (His kingdom, His church) by obeying the gospel and in no other way. And if we’re truly smart, we’ll echo and re-echo Acts 2:38 where the correct answer is given to the question, “What shall we do (about our sin)? If we believe the apostles were empowered by the Spirit and led into all truth, how can we doubt that the answer given by Peter is correct? Why do so many in this generation dare to doubt? Do they know more than Peter did on Pentecost?
Skip writes well in saying we serve because we love Jesus and want to please Him.
I tried to quote Skip’s note and obviously didn’t understand and properly enter the instructions to cite (blockquote) that text. So it blockquoted my response instead. May be I’ll get it right another time.
Ray wrote,
No, they do not. Nor do we “know more than Paul” in Romans 4. Are we to presume Paul contradicted Jesus? Or that Jesus taught a different gospel than Paul?
Pitting one text against another text is not a good way to study the Scriptures. Rather, we must seek to understand each in its context – and to find common ground where they meet when our understanding of them seems to make them contradict.
Ray, I believe you might be confused about the audience here. No one I know believes that we are saved without cooperating with God’s plan of salvation. Neither have I seen anyone assert that we are saved to lay around and do nothing. Saved Christians have a new purpose in life. The argument has always been that our works do not obligate God to save us. The blood of Christ is our only source of forgiveness from the day we are converted until we die. Your reaction to Calvinists is spilling over into this Semi-Pelagian audience.
I meant to say Arminianism rather than Semi-Pelagianism.
Ray Downen, I don’t doubt your sincerity for a moment. And, I think you are likely a very good man. That being said, you are like a broken record. Acts 2:38 is not the answer to every theological question.
Have you ever known anyone who was baptized “scripturally” (sigh) and yet his life didn’t change an iota? Being baptized doesn’t mean a thing unless you have your complete trust in Jesus when you get in the water.
What Jay is discussing is not the moment of salvation. He is talking about works in the life of a Christian. One group here insists that God justifies sinners by faith based upon the finished work of Jesus. Another group insists that Jesus isn’t enough, that it takes what Jesus did, and a cumulative number (which no one knows) of good deeds or obedience for God to finally decide to save you.
I go further than most here and insist that even our good works are not something we can lay claim to as if it’s something we have done that we can present to God. A man may protest, “I work hard and give to the poor!” Another says, “I am busy knocking on doors and teaching the gospel to the unsaved.” My question is, who gave you your mind and physical strength, who put a Bible in your hand? Was it you? NO Jesus said “Without me you can do nothing”, and it’s still true.
What an utter insult to our Creator God who came and lived and died for sinners that a mere man would approach him saying “See what I have done! Add these good things to the sacrifice of Jesus and I am then worthy of your heaven.” No, you are worthy of hell if that’s the way you think.
What you and I bring to the bargaining table with God is one hopeless and helpless sinner each with absolutely nothing “of merit” to offer. There is no good that I can do in my own energy and resources that impresses God in the least. God is at work in us, both to WILL and to DO His good pleasure. Ever heard that? We were created to do good works as God planned before the creation. How about that? Show me a Christian whose life is not marked by good things, good words, and good works and I’ll show you a lost man, baptized or not. Every true Christian will obey, will work, but never perfectly so. And the opposite is true. No love, no good works, no life of God in him. If this isn’t true I might just as well rip 1st John right out of my ESV.
I am still wondering about these “works” that some here think can participate in our salvation. Is giving money a work as AJ suggested? How about teaching a bible class to a bunch of already christians? Or being a youth sponsor? Or any other job related to the functioning of the local Church? How about going to a bible class, is that a saving work? I guess I see all this as fine and well but slightly inward pointing. How many bible classes does a Christian need to attend before they are capable of teaching someone about Jesus? I have heard the term “Apostolic works” as applied to those works that are related to bringing another person to a saving knowledge and acceptance of Jesus as being the son of God. Does a Christian need a few “Apostolic works” on their resume in addition to teaching a bible class, attending the Elders and Deacons meetings, and bringing fried chicken to the potluck dinner? Somebody define “works” for me, please.
Doug says:
I am still wondering about these “works” that some here think can participate in our salvation.
Doug, how about the works that is said to have impressed Jesus, the works that are a result of love, love of your fellow man. ” love your neighbor as yourself:
Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Any work you do that is the result of concern for another person, I believe that is a saving work, The work of which Jesus speaks. Cutting wood in and of itself is not a soul saving work, unless you are cutting that wood for orphans or widows. Any work you do Doug, in my opinion, can and will be counted as a good work, if your heart is in it for the right reason. Each and every example you gave can be included in that work, which Jesus asked us to do, if your heart is in it, and your reason is not selfish.
Doug, I hope this clears some of the confusion you seem to have
Nancy and others regarding sheep and goats,
As has already been pointed out, sheep act like sheep and goats act like goats. We miss the metaphor because very few of us have been shepherds or goatherds. Ray Vander Laan points out that sheep, by nature, follow the shepherd. It’s hardwired into their brains. They follow.
Goats, on the other hand, insist on finding their own way. If the shepherd walks the safest, easiest path, the goats will insist on going another way.
Hence, Jesus is separating the sheep and goats by the natures — you can tell which is which by how they act. They were not being turned into sheep and goats but already were what they were as revealed by their decisions and actions.
Doug asked,
“I’d appreciate some details on the kind of works that your CofC community is involved in and accomplishing.”
Search “Ministry Ideas” using the search box at the top of the blog (you’ll need the quotation marks). That’ll pop up a brief series offering some examples. The comments include some great ideas as well.
Jan,
Quit true. In fact, David lost three sons — and was run out of his palace by one of them. He suffered greatly for his sins, but he did not lose his salvation and those punishments meted out by God were not for atonement but rather consequences of his sin.
It’s a doctrine we largely ignore in the Churches of Christ, but Baptists — who teach the perseverance of the saints — heavily emphasize the several passages dealing with God’s discipline of his children. Even when we’re not lost, we can be disciplined. Hell is not the only punishment God can impose!
David is an excellent example of a sinner remaining in grace so that he remains saved, but suffering terrible penalties in this life for his sins. Many here can testify to how true that is!
Jay,
What you said about sheep and goats is what I have always believed and taught. Right on! And, your remarks about David are also correct.
We coc folks have been taught that our salvation is so tenuous that almost any sin can get us kicked out of God’s family. (I can’t resist saying this as well..) You can beat a sheep and kick him around and even run him out of the sheepfold but guess what? He’ll come right back to the shepherd. You can’t kick the sheep out of a sheep and make a goat out of him.
This is the problem of limiting faith to mental assent – even if we try to not do so. Such a question only can arise from this wrong concept. If faith without works is dead faith, we cannot separate the works from the faith. Works are the heartbeat of faith.
Take Abraham’s faith. His faith was counted as righteousness in Gen 15. First: we read nothing of sins, so this justification is more than our limited understanding of “forgiveness”. His faith had to do with a promise of God, not with an offer of forgiveness. Second: Abrahams faith was only true faith in God’s Promise, when he did the following two things:
a) Letting go of his “Plan B” of making Elieser of Damaskus his heir.
If he still had kept this thought in the back of his head, he would not have believed God’s Promise. He had to “repent” from his human wisdom.
b) He had to go to Sara and start “working” on the fulfillment of the Promise
Without doing their human part – how weak and infertile their were in themselves! – God’s promise could not become true. So, sleeping with Sara again and again and again until she (and no one else) got pregnant, was an inseperable part of his faith. At first, this might seem the “fun part” of faith, but after years and years of disappointment it became an intense test of their faith. Imagine the tears and the frustration! They had to persevere.
You see here, that the faith of Abraham was not just a “one-time-statement”: “OK, I believe you, God”, but it sent Abraham on a journey. This initial faith, this decision to do it God’s ways, led to a life of faith full of works.
Let me stress this, because it is important: Sara was in herself inable to bear children. this is a type of the inabilty of our flesh to do good or of our works to save us. But this did not mean that they did not have to do what they could do, how imperfect ever it was. God gave life to their human efforts. God gives fruit, where we work (1Co 3:6-7). And in the end, it is perfectly allright to equate faith with works, saying: Abraham was justified by his works.
So back to the question I quoted at the beginning: Faith is not only about forgiveness, that’s our first misconception. Faith is also not only about saying Yes to God’s Promise. Faith is about doing things the God wants them to be done, faith is about works. This solves the puzzle, that puzzles so many.
Alexander
This approach is far too “bookish”, Jay! How was the church in Rome founded? By Jewish Christians who were trained in Jerusalem at the feet of James! They (probably) did not carry the letter of James with them, but his down-to-earth-teaching. But maybe they even had a copy of his letter before the received Paul’s epistle.
Alexander
Alexander’s point about who the Roman church was composed of is, I think, important. But we need not insert James’ letter into Romans to find this. (It was not about James’ writing or leadership, anyway– it was about being a Jew. That LONG predated James’s leadership.) Much of Romans is written as either rebuttals to an errant mindset that comes from law, or as challenges to assumptions of an exclusivist mindset in which the Jew sees himself as the sole holder of the title “people of God”.
It is “too bookish”, in my opinion, to continue to try to use one part of the NT to argue against statements found in another. It’s an age-old tradition, but the real upshot has been to demean scripture as a whole. If scripture is a tree, I saw off limbs on your side of the tree and then you saw off limbs on my side of the tree and we wind up with a scabby and mutilated tree– all the while truly wondering why the world does not take what we have seriously and embrace it as authoritative. We continue to use our own skills of comparative analysis to ferret hidden meaning out of copies of copies of copies of ancient texts, such analysis colored by our own unspoken biases, when this is NOT how Jesus told us we would receive revelation of Him.
I find it telling that when there was clearly negative feedback coming to Peter about Paul’s teachings, he did not offer to reconcile Paul to himself or James. Peter rather simply recognized that Paul was teaching by the same Holy Spirit, even though it might be hard to reconcile Paul with other teachers. His defense of Paul’s teaching was not analytical but spiritual, not about details but about sources. This is something sadly lacking in much of the discussion we hear today.
Laymond, I think my only confusion is with the fact that for a denomination that wants to include works as a salvation condition, the CofC that I am affiliated with seems to be mainly focused inward and serving mainly themselves. So that made me think that maybe I was missing something and that some CofCer’s have been taught that the acts of coming to church on Sunday, sitting in a bible clae, listening to a sermon, singing, giving, sitting in another class on Wednesday etc. were works because that’s what I mainly see happening. Maybe Jays latest post will help me.
Living for Christ is distinctly different than becoming a Christian. We do well to keep that in mind. Acts 2:38 is key to conversion because that’s what it’s about. It has little to do with remaining IN Christ. So of course I do not call for Bible lovers to refer to Acts 2:38 in discussing living for Christ. And accepting baptism is not in any sense a work done by the one who is baptized. So anyone who thinks of baptism as a work is misunderstanding either baptism or work. But only those will be saved who obey the gospel if Paul was inspired. And Peter makes clear to any Bible student who reads Acts that obeying the gospel is done by turning to Jesus and away from sin and be being baptized. It logically follows that only those who repent and are baptized have obeyed the gospel and have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Anyone can babble. Babbling is not a sign of having received God’s Spirit. Living as Jesus lived and loved IS a sign of having received God’s Spirit if the person has been baptized as Jesus commanded was to be done. Living well CAN be done by godless people, so just living well is no proof of acceptance by God.
Surely I typed “by” where in the note recently sent it reads “be being baptized.”
It is suggested: But, of course, this leaves open the very difficult question: If we’re forgiven and saved by faith in Jesus, not works, why bother to do works? And it’s a fair question, because it’s a question that Paul had to frequently respond to. This is the problem of limiting faith to mental assent – even if we try to not do so. Such a question only can arise from this wrong concept. If faith without works is dead faith, we cannot separate the works from the faith. Works are the heartbeat of faith.
———
How difficult it is to not separate faith from works when the very verse which links them separates them. And then a brother thinks that surely faith includes works. It does not. Works based on faith are faithful works, but they are not faith. Faith CAN exist without producing faithful works. Works are NOT a part of faith. True faith should cause the person to work based on the faith. But some believe, as in the case of demons, whose works are totally opposed to what they know is true. And anyone is dead wrong who supposes he/she has been saved by faith alone. Peter calls for action to prove faith. Paul makes clear that only those who obey the gospel are saved by the gospel. Faith is the desired goal of gospel preaching. But not all do believe. And it seems to be the case that not all who believe act in ways dictated by Christian faith. Sinners are not saved by faith alone. It has always been true that those who believe in Jesus save themselves by obeying the gospel. Acts 2:38 tells the story whether some like what the Lord says through Peter or do not like it. Only believers who repent and are baptized as Jesus commissions receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jay urges that we should read Romans with no cross-referencing to earlier or later revelation, and then we should believe Paul taught salvation by faith alone(?). But Romans 3 makes very clear that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And Romans 6 makes clear that conversion is through dying to sin and being raised up into new life. Paul does not teach salvation by faith alone. In emphasizing the necessity of faith in Jesus, Paul never once suggests that we are saved by faith alone. Why would any of us then imagine for even a minute that salvation is by faith alone? Or why would we suppose Paul must be redefining faith to include obedience? Neither is true. We need not go to James to learn that obeying the gospel is essential for salvation. Jesus made that clear long before Romans was written, and Paul would not for an instant disagree with Jesus. So we shouldn’t read any verse in Romans or any New Covenant writing as if it taught salvation by faith alone. Faith is basic. It’s essential. That’s what the inspired writers say. Not once does the Word say sinners are saved by faith alone. Yet a multitude of preachers make that claim.
Ray write,
Ray,
What I said is —
How on earth do you get ” cross-referencing to earlier … revelation” from that? Is the OT not “earlier revelation”?
And notice how driven your comment is by presuppositions. Rather than arguing against the obvious fact that the Roman church did not own a copy of James and that Paul did not intend to have his book overridden by constant cross-references to a book they didn’t have access to, you argue that you don’t like the result of my exegesis — a result that’s not even in there.
First, please be kind enough to define what on earth you mean by “faith alone.” I don’t recall using that phrase and so don’t why I stand accused of so doing. Why must these discussions so often begin with straw man arguments built on poorly defined terms?
Do you mean “faith without baptism”? Or “faith without works”? Or “faith that doesn’t respond to works”? Or what?
At this point, I can’t tell if we disagree or not — only that you think that surely I disagree with you because, I suppose, I think the Romans didn’t have James in their Thos. Nelson & Sons cross-referenced, tabbed pocket New Testaments.
I just think we should not argue based on obvious anachronisms. The results will be whatever they are.
I tried yesterday unsuccessfully to respond to Jay’s good remarks. Today it’s possible to connect. I may be wrong. I easily could be wrong. But I think Jay is teaching that salvation is by faith alone. My comment is based on the many things blogged by Jay rather than only this one thread of his thought. I think we do not entirely agree, but even on that conclusion I may be wrong.
I’m convinced that no one is “in Christ” who is not in Christ. Paul wrote to Galatian Christians and points out that we are baptized “into Christ.” This agrees with the invitation issued by Peter who called for believing sinners to repent and be baptized in order to receive. I have to suppose that only those who are baptized into Christ are in Christ in the sight of the Christ who commanded baptism for converts. I’d be glad if Jay wanted to explain to me that he also believes that simple conclusion. From much he has written, I’ve thought we disagreed. And with much he has written I do agree and applaud. I don’t believe Paul would ever in any way teach that sinners are saved by faith alone prior to repenting and being baptized into Christ. In Romans or anywhere.