If men are justified by faith alone (Sola Fide)...?

FireDragon76 said:

I agree with Albion, mostly.

It's incoherent to say that salvation is an unearned gift that comes with conditions. What other gifts can you think of that come with those terms, except sales pitches, marketting scams, and things that aren't really free? My pastor spent a whole half hour months ago explaining to me that Lutherans do not believe this. Justification is completely unconditional, there are no "yes... but" terms.

That's what makes grace so amazing. Everybody else wants their pound of flesh out of you, your penance and sacrifice to prove that you are one of the tribe. They resent somebody, somewhere, getting something for free.

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It's not incoherent but a common fact. A common fact that faith only advocates have to purposely not understand.

Free Gifts Come With Conditions....

Above is a link to a thread I started last July giving several biblical examples free gifts that came with conditions.

In my own personal life, most free gifts I have received came with conditions. For example, awhile back someone gave me a coupon for a free one topping pizza. In order to get that free pizza, I had to meet the necessary conditions of calling and placing the order and then going to pick the pizza up. Without these necessary works in meeting the conditions I would have NEVER gotten the free pizza and therefore remain hungry. Yet these works could not in anyway earn me the free pizza.

Faith only, that is no works in placing the order and going to get the pizza, would have left me hungry. Faith only with me doing NO WORKS would never make the pizza magically appear out of thin air. Just like God made it to rain down manna by His grace to feed Israel in the wilderness but God told them to gather the manna to eat it. Gathering the manna was a work but did not merit the manna. Yet not doing the work of gather would left Israel hungry.

There was nothing incoherent about God, by His grace, causing it to rain manna and telling Israel to gather it.

I can't tell if anyone is interested in what Martin Luther actually believed or not - it seems like poor old Martin's name is catching quite a bit of ill use in this thread - but I think this passage from Luther's introduction to the Book of Romans goes a long way in putting to rest any misinformed ideas about whether he thought good works were important in the life of the Christian.


Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. “Faith is not enough,” they say, “You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.” They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, “I believe.” That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn’t come from this `faith,’ either.

Instead, faith is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.

Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they’re smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.

An excerpt from “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” Luther’s German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546

Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith from DR. MARTIN LUTHER’S VERMISCHTE DEUTSCHESCHRIFTEN. Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp.124-125.

TheSeabass said:

It's not incoherent but a common fact. A common fact that faith only advocates have to purposely not understand.

Free Gifts Come With Conditions....

Above is a link to a thread I started last July giving several biblical examples free gifts that came with conditions.

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A saving faith does not exclude good works, it just is not established on them. It's established on the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not merely die so that we could potentially be saved. He died to truly save us.

In my own personal life, most free gifts I have received came with conditions. For example, awhile back someone gave me a coupon for a free one topping pizza. In order to get that free pizza, I had to meet the necessary conditions of calling and placing the order and then going to pick the pizza up.

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Sad that you think that's an example of a free gift. That pizza is going to cost you gas money, at the very least, as well as the danger of being on the road in the first place. It's not really free at all. It's a marketting tool. God loves us more than that.

Without these necessary works in meeting the conditions I would have NEVER gotten the free pizza and therefore remain hungry. Yet these works could not in anyway earn me the free pizza.

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No, a real free gift would be if you get a phone call from a stranger telling you that you've won a pizza and he comes to your door and hands it to you and leaves. The pizza is yours... it's up to you if you eat it or you let it sit on the stove and spoil. But it's still your pizza without any conditions attached to it, and you didn't earn it.

Faith only, that is no works in placing the order and going to get the pizza, would have left me hungry. Faith only with me doing NO WORKS would never make the pizza magically appear out of thin air.

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God is more amazing than Dominos Pizza. He can make the pizza magically appear.

Albion said:

No one tells you "I have faith only."


Excludes in what sense? That's what you're not getting, despite my explanations.


No, it doesn't. But again, no one says that they have "faith only." The term refers to WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR OUR SALVATION--Faith or good deeds or a combination of the two. That's the whole thing.


One would hope.

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You do not seem to understand that 'faith" and 'faith alone" are not the same things.

If a recipe for a cake called for the following ingredients:
milk
eggs
flour
baking soda
salt
sugar

Yet you tell me "eggs alone" is all that is needed for a cake, then I would never have a cake. Since the word "alone" is exclusionary you are telling me I can have a cake with just eggs to the EXCLUSION of all the other ingredients. I would never have anything but eggs. It takes ALL the ingredients to have to cake in the recipe.

Likewise, the "recipe" Christ gave for salvation is:
believe John 8:24
repent Luke 13:3
confess Matthew 10:32-33
baptism Mark 16:16

Yet if you tell me 'belief only"saves then you are ignoring most of the ingredients. If you tell me I can be saved by "belief ALONE" then you are telling me I can be saved by just belief to the EXCLUSION of repentance, confession and baptism. Yet all the belief only in the world can NEVER save an impenitent person. It takes ALL the ingredients to be saved for any of them alone, any one of them to the exclusion of the others cannot save.

FireDragon76 said:

God is not obliged by anything external to himself. He is not obliged to give anyone faith. He does so freely according to his mercy and grace, which he has promised to all who believe.

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If it is God's desire for men to have faith and be saved, yet having faith is out of man's control, then there is an onus upon God to give men faith. Yet since men have the ability to develop faith in their own heart upon hearing the word (Romans 10:17) then the onus is upon man to develop that faith within his heart and not upon God to supernaturally give men faith apart from His word.

Tangible said:

They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, “I believe.” That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn’t come from this `faith,’ either.

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Can a faith that is VOID of the obedient works in repenting Luke 13:3 confessing Matthew 10:32-33 and submitting to baptism Mark 16:16 save? No. Repentance confession and baptism are as much a part of the gospel as belief and belief void of repentance confession and baptism is a dead belief.

Therefore obedient works in doing the will of the Lord in believing repenting confessing and being baptized BRINGS one to a saved state and then one must continue in good works to REMAIN in that saved state Ephesians 2:10. It takes works to get to a saved state and remain in that saved state therefore salvation is impossible without works.

TheSeabass said:

If it is God's desire for men to have faith and be saved, yet having faith is out of man's control, then there is an onus upon God to give men faith.

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That's true.

Yet since men have the ability to develop faith in their own heart upon hearing the word (Romans 10:17) then the onus is upon man to develop that faith within his heart and not upon God to supernaturally give men faith apart from His word.

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You are confusing faith with a work itself, which it is not. If faith were some kind of work that God is obliged to reward, then our situation is hopeless and we would all be better off resigning ourselves to an eternity of hell, because we would have no hope of meriting God's grace.

Now, on the topic of what is necessary, I think you are missing some points:

Jesus saved the thief on the cross. The thief was never baptized, but the Lord received his confession of faith. Lutherans do not believe baptism is an absolute necessity. Neither do Catholics, for that matter. Saving faith for a Catholic would at least produce the desire to be baptized. But it's still not an absolute necessity given extenuating circumstances.

Likewise, a mute man or a mentally incapacitated person who cannot even confess Jesus as Lord, is still capable of being saved. Again, faith is a miracle not the result of our natural fallen capabilities.

Repentance is frequently misunderstood by evangelicals. It is not something we do, it is something that happens when the Holy Spirit gives us faith. It is not some kind of holiness code we must fulfill to be saved.

FireDragon76 said:

A saving faith does not exclude good works, it just is not established on them. It's established on the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not merely die so that we could potentially be saved. He died to truly save us.

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One who is ALREADY a Christian MUST do good works Ephesians 2:10 for if he does not continue in good works he will become lost.

If an atheist, upon hearing the word of God, desires to be saved then he must do OBEDIENT works of repenting, confessing and be baptized to gain initial salvation. Then as a Christian he must continue in good works to remain in that saved state.

FIreDragon76 said:

Sad that you think that's an example of a free gift. That pizza is going to cost you gas money, at the very least, as well as the danger of being on the road in the first place. It's not really free at all. It's a marketting tool. God loves us more than that.

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Of course it cost me something in time and gas to get the pizza but it was still free...they did not charge me one red cent. It cost Israelites their time to go and gather the manna but it was still free. There is a cost in being a Christian (see what it cost Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:24-28) but salvation is still a free gift.

FireDragon76 said:

No, a real free gift would be if you get a phone call from a stranger telling you that you've won a pizza and he comes to your door and hands it to you and leaves. The pizza is yours... it's up to you if you eat it or you let it sit on the stove and spoil. But it's still your pizza without any conditions attached to it, and you didn't earn it.



God is more amazing than Dominos Pizza. He can make the pizza magically appear.

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The receiver of the gift (me) does not to get to set the conditions. The giver of the gift (pizza store) sets the conditions and the conditions of the pizza coupon is that I call and place the order and pick up the pizza, they have no delivery.

God, being the Giver of the free gift of salvation, has the right to put conditions upon His free gift and He did:
belief
repentance
confession
baptism

Man does not have a right to change the conditions to 'belief only'. No man can put demands on the Gift Giver about His conditions and try and change the conditions to 'belief only'. No verse anywhere says God makes salvation "magically appear" while man sits and does nothing.

Free gifts come with conditions all the time and simply denying that does not do away with it.

FireDragon76 said:

I agree with Albion, mostly.

It's incoherent to say that salvation is an unearned gift that comes with conditions. What other gifts can you think of that come with those terms, except sales pitches, marketting scams, and things that aren't really free? My pastor spent a whole half hour months ago explaining to me that Lutherans do not believe this. Justification by faith is completely unconditional, there are no "yes... but" terms.

That's what makes grace so amazing. Everybody else wants their pound of flesh out of you, your penance and sacrifice to prove that you are one of the tribe. They resent somebody, somewhere, getting something for free. The moralist and legalist want you to strive to prove you are worthy of mercy. But God, thankfully, is no moralist.

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Where does Scripture say that salvation is an unearned gift?What you've said here is arbitrary, an opinion. What free gift comes with conditions? If someone gives you a puppy there are conditions. If you don't feed it you won't have it long.

The problem is that many Protestants have been erroneously taught that all they have to do is believe. What James has written is really clear, yet many refuse to believe what he wrote, favoring instead the arguments of the Reformers.

TheSeabass said:

Can a faith that is VOID of the obedient works in repenting Luke 13:3 confessing Matthew 10:32-33 and submitting to baptism Mark 16:16 save? No. Repentance confession and baptism are as much a part of the gospel as belief and belief void of repentance confession and baptism is a dead belief.

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Repentance, confession of faith in Christ and baptism are indeed works, but whose works are they?

2 Timothy 2 ... God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth
Acts 11 ... Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.

1 Corinthians 12 ... no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6 ... But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Ephesians 5 ... as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word
Titus 3 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Repentance and confession of faith, like faith in Christ itself, is clearly a work of God, not of man. Baptism is not a work we do but a work that God does to us, to wash away our sins and immerse us in the Holy Spirit with all the gifts he brings. We can no more claim any credit for repenting, confessing and being baptized than we can for believing in Christ alone for our salvation.

Therefore obedient works in doing the will of the Lord in believing repenting confessing and being baptized BRINGS one to a saved state and then one must continue in good works to REMAIN in that saved state Ephesians 2:10. It takes works to get to a saved state and remain in that saved state therefore salvation is impossible without works.

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I'm sure not even the Roman Catholics would espouse this level of works righteousness. How great and marvelous you must be to not only perform saving works initially, but to also keep doing saving works in order to maintain your salvation.

You are completely confusing Law and Gospel. God's salvation is a gift given to sinners like you and me who are incapable of doing anything with any merit or worthiness in God's eyes. That is why God must act to save us, first by saving us through the sacrificial atonement of the Cross of Jesus Christ, and secondly by delivering to us individually the benefits of that salvation through his means of grace: The word proclaimed, the word in and with water, the word along with his body and blood in the bread and wine.

God's work saves us. God's work maintains and builds our faith. It is certainly by works we are saved, but they are God's works, not ours.

No, God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does!

Butch5 said:

Where does Scripture say that salvation is an unearned gift?What you've said here is arbitrary, an opinion

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The word grace itself implies "unearned gift". In fact that was the meaning in the Roman and Greek social context in which it was used. The patron gave gifts, and those who received them were socially obligated to be devoted to the patron and honor him, but they didn't necessarily have to pay him back in a legal sense. It was not a loan.

Love and devotion to God, and the people and things he loves (our neighbors), are the normal response to his gift. But that doesn't mean Christians are legally obligated to give God anything in return.

Tangible said:

No, God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does!

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That's where the humanistic side of Luther comes through, the side of Luther that was tired of the oppressive spirit and bone crushing nature of religion of his day that actually took away from the human ability to do real good in the world by fleecing the flock. We have been talking a lot about St. James at times and how suppossedly what James says is at odds with the evangelical theology, but I think Luther and St. James would be on the same page here, that "true religion that is pleasing to God the Father is to care for the orphan and widow in their distress".

Luther's theology was not inspired by the desire to make lazy Christians, but Christians that did real, God-pleasing works. That's what the 95 These were all about. His initial concerns as a theologian were misplaced devotion and spiritual hucksterism.

Albion said:

It isn't us having the faith that Jesus had, but us having Faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

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Lets look at the passage

Galations 2;16

States: that we may be justified by the "faith of Christ"


16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
....................

John 6;40

40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Looks like a simple misunderstanding of the meaning of what you're reading. The passage from Galatians is translated "IN Christ," not "OF," in almost every translation other than the KJV. But since you cited John 6:40, you can see that this resolves any ambiguity. It's faith in Christ as Savior that is what's meant by "Faith."

Faith and works.

Faith without works is dead.

It's scriptural.

Kenny'sID said:

Faith and works.

Faith without works is dead.

It's scriptural.

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How about Faith with Works? Are both equal in obtaining salvation for us? How many Works, and which ones would that be?

FWIW, the post wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I sometimes just like to drop reminders in, as people seem to tend to choose to overlook certain things that are fact.

Al, personally I haven't tried to make any more out of the verses than they are, no reason to over think them, they are pretty straightforward, but they can be turned into anything.

How do you see it? I mean how would you answer the questions you posed to me?

Albion said:

How about Faith with Works?

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Or Faith that produces Works?

Are both equal in obtaining salvation for us?

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Oh, it's about 80/20.

How many Works, and which ones would that be?

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In other words, what should I do to inherit eternal life?

The Law says "Do this", and it is never done. Grace says, "believe in this" and everything is done already.

Tangible said:

The Law says "Do this", and it is never done. Grace says, "believe in this" and everything is done already.

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It's an interesting point. Those who say we're saved by our works, at least in part, have no answer when the most obvious question is then asked--how many works and which kind count for how much?

Yet without an answer to that, they are left--whether they ever think of it or not--having no idea of their eternal destiny as they live out their lives and no clear idea of what to do about it. That's not at all the case with those who trust that Christ has paid the price for sin and that it's our place to accept that by Faith.