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None of your verses speak to what I said. Jesus’ sacrifice was NOT a work of the law.
Well...it's pretty simple as I see it, and as the church has understood it for centuries. His sacrifice reconciles me with God, to the extent that I even care, to the extent that I turn to Him in faith, accepting Him as my God now (Jer 31:33), something that Adam effectively failed to do. That engrafts me into the Vine, IOW, where His life now flows to me, as it was always meant to do. That means I'm pliable clay in His hands, no longer pridefully alienated from Him with my own moral authority, as my own "god"; He can put His law in my mind and write it on my heart (Jer 31:33 also). This is the power of the Holy Spirit at work in me, and a process, stubborn as I am.
So, Jesus’ sacrifice reconciles you to God enough that you can then cleanse yourself from sin and save yourself?
Reconcilation with God means I'm now united with the only means to be clean, the only Source of authentic righteousness, the righteousness that the law and prophets could attest to but could never deliver, accomplish. And I must cooperate in that work, which is what many of the verses I cited are implying. I can resist grace, IOW; I can say "no" at any point in time. Or, I can work out my salvation together with He who works in me, producing good fruit by virtue of union with Him (John 15:5).
That's to not answer the call, to not open the door, or to close it later, after tasting of the heavenly gift, after having escaped the pollution of the world. It's the prodigal returning to the pigsty, or the wicked and lazy servant being kicked out of the kingdom in Matt 25 for burying his talents .
But grace is a free gift given by God through faith. So if I have faith then I also have the grace of God. We can say no to faith but not to grace. Do you agree?
Faith is the result of grace. It's a gift. And like any gift it can be rejected. It's God beckoning us. "Come to me, all you who are weary......", while also enabling us to believe and come. In fact, it's impossible to believe most of the truths posited by the gospel apart from grace.
So if a person is saved by the grace of God through faith (Eph 2:8) and it is a free gift (including both faith and grace) and both have been accepted then how do we work out our salvation if it was already given?
Well, we take all of Scripture into account, and don't discount the historic understanding of the churches and ECFS as well. Salvation is spoken of in past, present, and future tenses in Scripture. We don't presume to be saved in the absolute sense. We can compromise our state of justice, by living unjustly. We can turn back away from God, and to the flesh. To put it another way, until we're perfected in love- of God and neighbor- we may still choose against love, we can still fail to choose good over evil. Salvation isn't some carte blanche irrevocable gift regardless of how we live our lives. God desires none to perish, but some will. Etc.
I hear you but I don’t think that it is that hard. Paul teaches that by one sacrifice all men are justified (Romans 5:18) and justification means made righteous by God while still in a state of sin although Christ died for our sins. The sacrifice is only one and for all. Then Paul teaches that those that are justified are saved by grace through faith and not by works. So by the grace of God through faith we accept the justification that Christ died for so He paid for our sins. So once we are saved by the grace of God through faith then we work along with God for our sanctification which Paul calls glorification in Romans 8:30. We work from salvation not for salvation.BTW- perseverance is a work and no one was ever saved by their own works.
Justification means to be made righteous.
Yep. Now the main teaching in Roman 5-7 is about living under the law vs living by the Spirit so we do have to take things in context.
Who is we? What evidence of good fruit? Is anyone on earth a judge of your fruit? I will posit to you that most Christians will have good fruit simply because of the grace received. I will also posit to you that the fruit (works) that we do are not the works that allows us to boast.
God wants our participation from the moment of justification. Justification is not a life long work. James does not disagree with Paul. James expands on faith in the same sense as Jesus told false teachers that He did not know them. People can profess faith but never change their heart. These are not justified so faith without works is indeed dead because it was never born to begin with. Their works were inconsistent with a changed heart. Paul speaks of justification while James talks of sanctification. If we have to work for salvation then grace is not free which is why we work from salvation not for it.
Justification means to be declared "not guilty," a sentence of acquittal, a pronouncement of sinlessness by God.
And both by imputation. . .of Adam's sin (Ro 5:17, 14-16, 18-19) and of Christ's righteousness (Ro 5:18-19).
Yes? As long as that's properly understood-in context. The Spirit will cause obedience-without our even hearing the law.
Those who turn to God in faith.
Well, first of all Jesus isn't going to tell us we must have good fruit without giving us some idea of what that means-and Scripture does just that. Putting to the death the deeds of the flesh, washing one's robes, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking care of one's neighbor, obeying the commandments, healing the sick, being holy, forgiving each other, visiting those in prison, preaching and spreading the good news, loving God and neighbor, etc.
Yes, they will, and they must or else they aren't really His to begin with-or haven't remained in Him. Here's an example:
Of course, the real thing is done in humility, not pride. That person wouldn't think of boasting about it.
We have to participate in God's work of santfiiction. Love is the real product there; that's what true holiness is. And love, necessarily, is a choice, a choice to receive that gift, and act upon it. Likewise with the gifts of faith and hope. We have to participate from the beginning, in fact, even as grace necessarily precedes that participation as it first prompts and moves and draws us to respond. Again, God has never been looking to produce automatons. He could've just done that at the beginning. Christians, IOW, can fall away.
We agree on most everything except the sticky points of faith alone vs faith plus works. The works that you cite here are great works, however, all of them lend themselves to boasting. The old “look what I can do” problem. You see it in your church and I see it in mine. God is the only one that can see into our hearts so we, as Christians, can‘t make the determination of who has good works and who doesn’t. This is why Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 (you knew this was coming):
In light of your comment here that Christians can fall away, how would you interpret the following verses.
Why??? Does simply doing what one is supposed to do anyway somehow equate to boasting? Or ensure that the person will boast? There's no reason whatsoever to presume that.
Man does not forfeit or lose his freedom at justification. And this means that he can still refuse to do the will of God at any point. If man remains in submssion to Him, he will produce much fruit. So we can easily reconcile such verses as the following with Eph 2:8-10:
Those who hear HIs words and persevere in putting them into practice (Matt 7) will end up being His sheep. And then, in the end, is when we'll know with perfect certainty if we were among that number He spoke of.
Human nature. As I stated you see it in your church and I see it in mine. People just like to boast. Also, Paul tells us that the works we are supposed to to do are those prepared beforehand by God so that we could walk in them. Do you know what works are those?
There is no reason to reconcile Eph. 2:8-10 unless you simply don’t believe it. According to Paul we, those that have been given eternal life by the grace of God through faith, are created in Christ for good works. This subset of people, the believers, the sheep that no one will snatch from His hand, will do good works because it is natural. There is no forfeit or loss of freedom. God can soften or harden the hearts of the people according to His plan.
Totally agree.
Actually is God coming to be with us as He sent His only Son to become man and die for our sins.
Right. All In context.
I Paul expands the teaching in Mat. 7 to explain the following:
