You can't be saved by works

[Leah Daniels]

You can only be saved by faith in Jesus to save you from your sins. That's it. Just believe and ask Jesus to save you. Believe He died on the cross for your sins, that He is the Son of God. Believe only. God alone can save you. You make no effort on your own to obey Him. He is the author and finisher of our faith, He does all the work. You only always trust Him to do the work in you, you can't save yourself, you can't save yourself by any amount of works. You can't do it, you never will, you will never be able to do it. Just trust God to work it all out for you through faith alone.

You need to be doing all the Bible says to do, that's true, and anyone who doesn't repent of all their sins, turn away from them, and confess your sins to the Lord, you are not walking the way God would have you and expects. But even repentance and obedience are gifts from God, you ask Him for them, and He gives them to you, freely. You can't ever save yourself.

Trust God alone to save you, no amount of trying to do what's right is going to save you.

Learn how much God loves you and you will do what He says. That is what God is after - your heart. Any kind of obedience is just meant to test your love for Him. And when you find out how much He loves you, you will love Him dearly back and want to do what He says. Find out deeply how much He loves you and you will want to obey Him.

 

[Soyeong]

While there are many verses that speak against earning our salvation as the result of our works, there are also many verses that make is clear that our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of works. For example, in Hebrews 5:9, Jesus has become a source of eternal salvation for those who obey him, in Revelation 22:14, those who kept God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life, in Romans 2:13, only doers of the law will be justified, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because never knew them.

So the issue is that there must be a reason why our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a the result, namely faith insofar as the faith by which we are justified does not abolish our need to be doers of the law, but rather our faith upholds it (Romans 3:28-31). Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so our salvation from sin would be incomplete if we were only saved from the penalty of our sin while we continued to live in sin, so there must also be an aspect of our salvation that we are experiencing in the present, and having the experience of living in obedience to God's law through faith in Jesus is intrinsically the content of the gift of him saving us from not having that experience.

In Titus 2:11-13, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so we are not required to first have done those works in order to earn our salvation as the result and we are not required to do those works as the result of having first been saved, but rather God graciously teaching us to experience doing those works is intrinsically the content of His gift of saving us from not doing those works. Furthermore, in Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law is the way to believe in what he accomplished through the cross (Acts 21:20), which has nothing to do with trying to save ourselves.

The content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it in order to have that experience, but where doing that work contributes nothing towards earning the opportunity to drive is as a wage. In a similar manner, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing Him and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23).

It is contradictory for someone to think that we should have faith alone in God instead of having faith in His instructions, but rather obediently having faith alone in God's instructions is the way to have faith alone in God. In other words, God's word is His instructions for how to have faith alone in God's word made flesh. When we do good works in obedience to God's law we are testifying about His goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), and by testifying about God's goodness we are also expressing the belief that He is good, or in other words, we are believing in Him. Likewise, the way to believe in God's justice is by following His law for how to be doers of justice, the way to believe in God's holiness is by following His law for how to be holy as He holy, and so forth, so the way that we choose to live testifies about what we believe to be true about the character of God. In other words, the way to believe in God alone is by believing that we ought to be doers of only His character traits.

 

[Leah Daniels]

You can only be saved by faith in Jesus to save you from your sins. That's it. Just believe and ask Jesus to save you. Believe He died on the cross for your sins, that He is the Son of God. Believe only. God alone can save you. You make no effort on your own to obey Him. He is the author and finisher of our faith, He does all the work. You only always trust Him to do the work in you, you can't save yourself, you can't save yourself by any amount of works. You can't do it, you never will, you will never be able to do it. Just trust God to work it all out for you through faith alone.

You need to be doing all the Bible says to do, that's true, and anyone who doesn't repent of all their sins, turn away from them, and confess your sins to the Lord, you are not walking the way God would have you and expects. But even repentance and obedience are gifts from God, you ask Him for them, and He gives them to you, freely. You can't ever save yourself.

Trust God alone to save you, no amount of trying to do what's right is going to save you.

Learn how much God loves you and you will do what He says. That is what God is after - your heart. Any kind of obedience is just meant to test your love for Him. And when you find out how much He loves you, you will love Him dearly back and want to do what He says. Find out deeply how much He loves you and you will want to obey Him.

While there are many verses that speak against earning our salvation as the result of our works, there are also many verses that make is clear that our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of works. For example, in Hebrews 5:9, Jesus has become a source of eternal salvation for those who obey him, in Revelation 22:14, those who kept God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life, in Romans 2:13, only doers of the law will be justified, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because never knew them.

So the issue is that there must be a reason why our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a the result, namely faith insofar as the faith by which we are justified does not abolish our need to be doers of the law, but rather our faith upholds it (Romans 3:28-31). Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so our salvation from sin would be incomplete if we were only saved from the penalty of our sin while we continued to live in sin, so there must also be an aspect of our salvation that we are experiencing in the present, and having the experience of living in obedience to God's law through faith in Jesus is intrinsically the content of the gift of him saving us from not having that experience.

In Titus 2:11-13, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so we are not required to first have done those works in order to earn our salvation as the result and we are not required to do those works as the result of having first been saved, but rather God graciously teaching us to experience doing those works is intrinsically the content of His gift of saving us from not doing those works. Furthermore, in Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law is the way to believe in what he accomplished through the cross (Acts 21:20), which has nothing to do with trying to save ourselves.

The content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it in order to have that experience, but where doing that work contributes nothing towards earning the opportunity to drive is as a wage. In a similar manner, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing Him and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23).

It is contradictory for someone to think that we should have faith alone in God instead of having faith in His instructions, but rather obediently having faith alone in God's instructions is the way to have faith alone in God. In other words, God's word is His instructions for how to have faith alone in God's word made flesh. When we do good works in obedience to God's law we are testifying about His goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), and by testifying about God's goodness we are also expressing the belief that He is good, or in other words, we are believing in Him. Likewise, the way to believe in God's justice is by following His law for how to be doers of justice, the way to believe in God's holiness is by following His law for how to be holy as He holy, and so forth, so the way that we choose to live testifies about what we believe to be true about the character of God. In other words, the way to believe in God alone is by believing that we ought to be doers of only His character traits.

We do need to obey Jesus, that is how He knows that we really do love Him.

What I'm saying is: He causes us to obey Him completely the right way and it can only be done through faith, and Him doing it all for us, constantly, all the time. He keeps the commandments in us and through us Himself, only if we believe He always can. We don't do it ourselves in any way at all, ever. You only need faith to do this. If we try to do any of it on our own, He doesn't get the glory. And we will never do things the way He wants us to with the right motives and the right way sincerely in our heart on our own. And all obedience is a test to see if we really do love Him. It's not about rules and being a good person. It's all a test to see if we really love Him. He is Love Himself. He wants us to be obsessed with Him, He wants us to be in love with Him (not romantically) and His ways in a very deep way, to where we always do what He wants, because we value Him and what He did for us on the cross by dying for us. He wants us to love Him only, and we obey and love Him back when we figure out how deeply He loves us. He is all about a powerful love relationship where we love Him more than any sin we could ever do.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

You can only be saved by faith in Jesus to save you from your sins. That's it. Just believe and ask Jesus to save you. Believe He died on the cross for your sins, that He is the Son of God. Believe only. God alone can save you. You make no effort on your own to obey Him. He is the author and finisher of our faith, He does all the work. You only always trust Him to do the work in you, you can't save yourself, you can't save yourself by any amount of works. You can't do it, you never will, you will never be able to do it. Just trust God to work it all out for you through faith alone.

You need to be doing all the Bible says to do, that's true, and anyone who doesn't repent of all their sins, turn away from them, and confess your sins to the Lord, you are not walking the way God would have you and expects. But even repentance and obedience are gifts from God, you ask Him for them, and He gives them to you, freely. You can't ever save yourself.

Trust God alone to save you, no amount of trying to do what's right is going to save you.

Learn how much God loves you and you will do what He says. That is what God is after - your heart. Any kind of obedience is just meant to test your love for Him. And when you find out how much He loves you, you will love Him dearly back and want to do what He says. Find out deeply how much He loves you and you will want to obey Him.

I think the main reason you cannot be saved by works... is that we do not have any. Even our own works of righteousness are as filthy rags. Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

See what those righteous rags are filthy with:


Philippians 3:8 KJV
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

 

[Shemiyah]

It says that He gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32) And that we are saved FOR good works (Eph 2:10)

The rich young ruler said what must I DO to have eternal life, and the response was, "Just believe, you can't DO anything." Right? No the response was, keep the commandments..... But teacher I've done all those things...... "One think you lack....... Just believe! There is nothing you can do." No..... One thing you lack, sell all you have, give to the poor, come and follow me. Those were all actions that were commanded of a man seeking eternal life. Was the Son of God preaching works salvation? No, because the only thing that saves you is His grace. But what does He give grace for? He gives grace to the humble, so that they can obey Him. Grace is for obedience. And only those who love Him obey Him (Jn 14:15)

So then, the man (rich young ruler) went away sad when he realized how much he was going to have to do to follow Him. He was sad because he was disobeient and had his own will for his own life. John 12:25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. He gives His precious Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32). Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we DO?” 38Then Peter said to them, “Repent!"
Even the command to repent requires obedience.

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (Next)16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever. (That is sequential)

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (Sequential)

24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. (He wanted them to know that if they didn't like what he was saying, then they had a problem with the one who sent Him)

There are so many people who try to justify their hatred of God (disobedience) through complex explanations. The word is simple, If you love me, you obey me, if you hate me you disobey me.

The Gospel has everything to do with obedience.

 

[Soyeong]

I think the main reason you cannot be saved by works... is that we do not have any. Even our own works of righteousness are as filthy rags. Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

See what those righteous rags are filthy with:


Philippians 3:8 KJV
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

The reason why we can't be saved as the result of our works is because God's law was never given as a means of resulting in our salvation even through perfect obedience. God does not command filthy rags, but rather the righteous deeds of the saints are like fine white linen (Revelation 19:8). In Matthew 7:21-23, Christ said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in contrast with saying that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so knowing Christ is the goal of the law, which does not leave room to interpret Philippians 3:8 as saying that God's instructions are dung and that we just need to know Christ instead, but rather Paul had been going through the motions of obeying God's law without being focused on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the law and that is what he counted as dung. If you think that God's instructions are dung, then you also have an equally poor view of God for giving those instructions.

 

[Leah Daniels]

It says that He gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32) And that we are saved FOR good works (Eph 2:10)

The rich young ruler said what must I DO to have eternal life, and the response was, "Just believe, you can't DO anything." Right? No the response was, keep the commandments..... But teacher I've done all those things...... "One think you lack....... Just believe! There is nothing you can do." No..... One thing you lack, sell all you have, give to the poor, come and follow me. Those were all actions that were commanded of a man seeking eternal life. Was the Son of God preaching works salvation? No, because the only thing that saves you is His grace. But what does He give grace for? He gives grace to the humble, so that they can obey Him. Grace is for obedience. And only those who love Him obey Him (Jn 14:15)

So then, the man (rich young ruler) went away sad when he realized how much he was going to have to do to follow Him. He was sad because he was disobeient and had his own will for his own life. John 12:25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. He gives His precious Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32). Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we DO?” 38Then Peter said to them, “Repent!"
Even the command to repent requires obedience.

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (Next)16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever. (That is sequential)

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (Sequential)

24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. (He wanted them to know that if they didn't like what he was saying, then they had a problem with the one who sent Him)

There are so many people who try to justify their hatred of God (disobedience) through complex explanations. The word is simple, If you love me, you obey me, if you hate me you disobey me.

The Gospel has everything to do with obedience.

"And that we are saved FOR good works" - That is true, and anyone not living that way doesn't even know God the way they should.

All I'm saying is you can never do it yourself. You can only trust God to do it all for you, everything. That way He gets the glory. He performs all obedience Himself. You just believe and ask and trust Him to do it all for you. Even you believing and being able to ask and trust Him to do it for you is a gift from Him He alone gets the honor and glory for. And you will never be like Him at all, the way He wants, if you don't let Him do it for you. We don't have His character or desire for obedience or righteousness at all on our own. We have to trust Him and ask Him for all of it. And - what He is after is your heart. Not you obeying a lot of rules. He wants you to love Him so much you gladly and happily do His will all the time. He wants you to learn how much He loves you, then you will love doing His will. You just have to let Him do it all for you.

 

[Leah Daniels]

I think the main reason you cannot be saved by works... is that we do not have any. Even our own works of righteousness are as filthy rags. Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

See what those righteous rags are filthy with:


Philippians 3:8 KJV
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Please do not try to offer these to God as some imagined "good works."

If God Himself is going accept any of our good works He has to do them Himself, for us and through us, He can only accept the kind of works He expects in us if He does them all Himself, which can only be done through faith in Him and asking Him to do them. That's why we have to trust Him to do them for us, they don't count as acceptable unless He does them all Himself.

 

[Shemiyah]

"And that we are saved FOR good works" - That is true, and anyone not living that way doesn't even know God the way they should.

All I'm saying is you can never do it yourself. You can only trust God to do it all for you, everything. That way He gets the glory. He performs all obedience Himself. You just believe and ask and trust Him to do it all for you. Even you believing and being able to ask and trust Him to do it for you is a gift from Him He alone gets the honor and glory for. And you will never be like Him at all, the way He wants, if you don't let Him do it for you. We don't have His character or desire for obedience or righteousness at all on our own. We have to trust Him and ask Him for all of it. And - what He is after is your heart. Not you obeying a lot of rules. He wants you to love Him so much you gladly and happily do His will all the time. He wants you to learn how much He loves you, then you will love doing His will. You just have to let Him do it all for you.

So what do you think He meant in John 8:51, and John 14:21. Did he want you to do that, or Him? If you did keep His word, would it be Him keeping His word and not you? Would it be Him loving, and not you? Would it be His obedience, and not yours? What then of Acts 5:32? Do they obey Him after recieving the Holy Spirit or before? Why would He say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Why would He praise you for obedience?

The human will is able to obey, or He would not have commanded us to. "Come and follow me." He says....... Should we wait for the Holy Spirit to obey Him, or are you saying we can't just obey Him out of love? Are we able, by His grace, to obey? How does one receive grace? He gives grace to the humble. So if we hear His commands, and we don't count them as tyranny in our heart, and we are humble with what He asks of us, we can obey Him by His grace. He doesn't bypass our human will to make us do His will. We surrender to His will.

 

[Leah Daniels]

John 8:51 - "Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."

- The only way you keep His Word is if He keeps it for you because of you trusting Him to do it, by faith alone. Jesus is describing the kind of person you must be to have eternal life. He keeps it for us though. You don't have to earn anything from Him by obeying. You only allow Him to do it for you. Because you love Him deeply and have learned how much He loves you. Then you will do anything He says. Your love for Him will cause you to die to yourself and obey Him.

John 14:21 - "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

Jesus is describing the kind of person who truly does love Him. When you know how much He loves you, you will love doing His will. You learn to love Him by knowing how much He loves you. He is describing the kind of person that actually knows Him, that kind of person obeys Him. He still has to do it all for us.

--

1 John 4:17-19 - 17 - Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us.

God loves on you and accepts you when you confess your sins to Him and cleanses you from all of it, through faith you receive this and learn to receive forgiveness every time you sin, and He turns you into someone new who loves Him and obeys Him. You know how much He loves you, and how much He loved you by dying on the cross for you, you find out how valuable you are to Him, and therefore you know how much God loves all people, and you learn to love Him first, and be willing to do anything He could ask you to do, and agree with Him about everything that counts as sin towards others, and you love others because you know how valuable they are to Him, and you stay out of sin, which is love your neighbor as yourself. Also, God wants you to obey Him no matter what because He wants a fiery love relationship with you. When it is difficult to forgive, or do what's right, you are showing Him you love Him very, very much by doing what you should instead of being selfish and pleasing yourself. You even keep your thoughts and love for God in your heart as what He Himself wants you to think of it, and all possible sins the way He wants you to think of them (Romans 12:2 - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God) - everything needs to be exactly as what God Himself wants you thinking about any kind of sin there is. You talk to Him about how you feel about those sins, whether you really love them or not, and ask Him to turn you away from anything that would hurt Him. It's like being married - any kind of sin you could do affects God in a similar way that it would if you cheated on your spouse. He wants a deep love relationship and He only wants you to think of Him all the time and what is best for Him, even in your head all the time, He knows your desires and what you really think, of Him and the people He created, who are all very, very precious to Him. He watches very closely all of it and knows all of it, He is obsessed with all of it. He just wants to know how much you really do love Him. Just be honest with Him about all your sins and how much you love your sin, and everything you think about all sin, and trust Him to wash you clean and deliver you from loving them so much. Ask Him for the gift of repentance. He performs all the work needed for you to be the kind of person who truly does love people and helps them and takes care of them and doesn't sin against them and always say you're wrong when you're wrong in the way you treat others.

1 John 5:2-5 - 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

The only way you will obey God is if you have faith that He will do it for you and through you Himself.

Hebrews 12:2 - looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith

--

Acts 5:32 - "And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him."

He gives His Holy Spirit to those who do what He wants, but we can only do what He wants if He does it all for us.

Romans 8:9 - But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

You are filled with the Holy Spirit when you believe. The Holy Spirit gives you the desires you should have and convicts you of your sin, and works salvation into you by your faith, which is also a gift you can never earn. You can only obey God by God Himself doing it all for you.

Romans 1:17 - For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

Because we can only be truly holy if we believe God Himself who alone is holy to be that for us through our faith, constantly.

All of this is meant to see if we really do love God a lot, the way He wants. He wants to see if you really do want to be with Him in heaven forever. He doesn't want to be with anyone who doesn't desperately love Him. He is intense Love Himself. He wants you to love Him so much you would do anything for Him. He sees what you think and feel and wants all of that to change as He does the work in you that He alone can do the right way to make you just like Him in sincerity, to bring Himself glory and honor, the reason we were created.