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When I need to know the definition of a Greek word I will ask a Greek priest.
Be sure to ask him if we are made right with God but our works.
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When I need to know the definition of a Greek word I will ask a Greek priest.
Salvation is by faith alone. Good works/fruit are produced as God grows your spirit. Everything that is good is generated by God and we cooperate, we practice, we're obedient in doing what has been prepared for us to do. BUT WE ARE BORN AGAIN FROM ABOVE. WE DONT START DOING GOOD WORKS UNTIL WE ARE BORN AGAIN. That birth is sealed by the Holy Spirit. We were elected, chosen, predestined, called, justified according to His foreknowledge, His will and so salvation is a GIFT. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is not based on human works. In other words, your works are not a prerequisite for God's Love, for His gift.And I was making the point we must have works, be good/do good in order to get into heaven. If they aren't a "result", we darned well better do it, if for no other reason, because we don't want to go to hell.
Why do you feel it necessary to be so rude and impolite? I see this in many of your posts.
Salvation is by faith alone. Good works/fruit are produced as God grows your spirit. Everything that is good is generated by God and we cooperate, we practice, we're obedient in doing what has been prepared for us to do. BUT WE ARE BORN AGAIN FROM ABOVE. WE DONT START DOING GOOD WORKS UNTIL WE ARE BORN AGAIN. That birth is sealed by the Holy Spirit. We were elected, chosen, predestined, called, justified according to His foreknowledge, His will and so salvation is a GIFT. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is not based on human works. In other words, your works are not a prerequisite for God's Love, for His gift.
Our branch bares fruit. The Lord is the vine, we are the branches.
Gee. I just came upon your post by accident.Sometimes that's what it takes. For example, you are telling me something I know to not be true. And I've heard it before. Far too many times. It has from the beginning been the teaching of Christianity that we are to cooperate with the grace of God through our good works to attain salvation at the end. But then someone comes along well over one thousand years later with some other idea, claiming they got the idea from the bible, but the bible plainly and in no uncertain language refutes their ideas, so they then engage in a marathon of verbal Twister to try to support it anyway. It gets tiresome.
Now, if you can find someone, anyone, within the first one thousand years of Christian history who agrees with you I am willing to listen. But when one more layman tells me that I need to examine the definition of a Greek word in order to upend two thousand years of Christian teaching, honestly, I'm a little offended by it.
Sometimes that's what it takes. For example, you are telling me something I know to not be true. And I've heard it before. Far too many times. It has from the beginning been the teaching of Christianity that we are to cooperate with the grace of God through our good works to attain salvation at the end. But then someone comes along well over one thousand years later with some other idea, claiming they got the idea from the bible, but the bible plainly and in no uncertain language refutes their ideas, so they then engage in a marathon of verbal Twister to try to support it anyway. It gets tiresome.
Now, if you can find someone, anyone, within the first one thousand years of Christian history who agrees with you I am willing to listen. But when one more layman tells me that I need to examine the definition of a Greek word in order to upend two thousand years of Christian teaching, honestly, I'm a little offended by it.
I usually agree with you ---The early church never actually taught that works can actually earn salvation that’s just a misconception. The church taught that if a person has faith they will do good works and that if a person doesn’t do good works it is evidence that they don’t have faith. James 2:14-26 is often used to support this but I believe John 15:1-10 is probably the strongest evidence to support this teaching.
“"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.”
JOHN 15:1-10 NASB
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifer of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." - Romans 3:21-28
I usually agree with you ---
BUT
The early church DID teach works for continued salvation.
Faith ALONE was NEVER taught until these modern times, and especially about the last 50 years or so.
"Accepting" Jesus is a foreign idea also. (in the way we mean it today).
Christianity is being watered down and it really does need to stop.
Gee. I just came upon your post by accident.
And I happen to agree with you.
If I hear the aorist tense, which most probably no one here even understands, just one more time...I think I'll just scream.
But, tell me, WHAT are you looking for from the ECFs??
Thanks for saving me reading pages...
They taught that works are necessary for salvation but not that we are saved by works. There’s a huge difference.
Great post.Nothing here that says we are saved by “faith alone”.
Faith alone, all by itself is dead, and can not save.
Paul mentions the law of faith, in verse 27.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Romans 3:27
Faith must have the corresponding “work” or action of obedience, or it remains dormant or dead and incomplete, unable to function to produce the intended divine result.
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? James 2:21-22
Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
- The “work” mentioned here refers to obedience.
Not the works f the law, which Paul was contrasting in Romans.
Not the work that earns a wage.
Not good works.
- But the work of obedience.
The way we receive faith is by hearing God; Faith comes to us when God speaks to us, and in Abraham’s case God said to Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering.
Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Genesis 22:1-2
As soon as God spoke to Abraham to offer his son, Abraham had faith.
However, it wasn’t until Abraham actually raised the knife to kill his son, in obedience, that his faith was made activated, or made alive, and complete to produce the intended divine result of justification.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. James 2:26
Can I show you other examples in the Bible of this principle of law of faith?
JLB
I'm looking for something, anything at all, saying "you will attain salvation in the end based on faith alone".
Have you ever had success using the impolite method? It doesn’t seem to be working in this thread? Exactly what church teaches that salvation is the result of works?
I see.I'm looking for something, anything at all, saying "you will attain salvation in the end based on faith alone". Not "you entered in to the grace of God through faith" or "you did nothing in the past to earn or merit the grace of God" or "we are not justified by the works of the law". I already know all about that.
I see.
Well, you're right. No one will be able to find anything like that unless they quote a gnostic from the early church and which the early church proclaimed a heresy.
All the ECFs knew that they were saved by faith in Jesus; but they also understood that they had to MAINTAIN that salvation - and the way to maintain it was exactly how the N.T. writers said it would be:
through good works.
Some like to say that works are the RESULT of salvation...great: as long as we do them, because if we don't, we will not continue to be saved.
Simple...but not accepted.
Great post.
Two comments:
1. Can we not say that Abraham showed his faith in God BEFORE Isaac? I believe Abraham showed his faith when God told him to leave his home and go to Caanan, and Abraham obeyed God.
2. Romans 1:5 speaks of the Obedience of Faith.
Paul is stating that he is going to tell people all over the world of the kindness of God through Jesus, on us, undeserving sinners, so that THEY TOO will
BELIEVE and OBEY. (God).
Obedience to God is spoken of throughout the entire N.T.
Apparently obedience must be central to salvation.
Huh??They taught that works are necessary for salvation but not that we are saved by works. There’s a huge difference.
OK. That sounds like obedience to me.Amen God called to us in our fallen state and by our answering His call and turning to Him we received justification. We were made right with God. Now that we are children of God He expects us to adhere to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our love and respect for Him and for others.
Can we not say that Abraham showed his faith in God BEFORE Isaac? I believe Abraham showed his faith when God told him to leave his home and go to Caanan, and Abraham obeyed God.