Hello brothers and sisters,
I am not trying to start a argument, just want to ask.
What is your view regarding salvation, faith and good works?
Hello,
The issue is that good works can be done for reasons other than trying to earn our salvation, especially because that was never the purpose for which God commanded good works, so verses that speak against earning our salvation by our works should not be mistaken as speaking against our salvation requiring us to choose to do good works for some other reason, such as faith.
What we believe is expressed through our actions, which is why James 2:17-18 says that faith without works is dead and that he would show his faith by his works, so good works in obedience to God are what faith looks like. Likewise, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Mosaic Law. In John 3:36, believing in Jesus is equated with obeying him. In Revelation 14:12, those who have faith in Jesus are the same as those who obey God's commandments. Every example of faith listed in Hebrews 11 is also an example of works. So only those who have faith in God to guide us will obey the Mosaic Law and will be justified by the same faith, which is why Paul said in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, but denied in Romans 4:4-5 that we can earn our justification by being doers of the law.
While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was justified, it is also true that he believed God, so he obeyed God's command to offer Isaac, so he did not earn his justification by his obedience, but rather the same faith by which he was justified was also expressed as obedience. In James 2:21-22, Abraham was justified by his works, his faith was active along with his works, and his faith completed his works, so Abraham was justified by his works insofar as his works were an expression of his faith, but he was not justified by his works insofar as they were done to earn his justification.
In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, which is essentially what the Mosaic Law was given to instruct how to do, so our salvation necessarily involves choosing to do good works through faith, and God graciously teaching us to obey the Mosaic Law is itself part of the content of His gift of salvation. Our salvation is from sin and sin is the transgression of the Mosaic Law (1 John 3:4), so being trained by grace to live in obedience to the Mosaic Law through faith is what Jesus saving us from living in transgression of the Mosaic Law looks like. Again, in Romans 2:13, our obedience to the Mosaic Law is a requirement for salvation. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of obeying the Mosaic Law is to know Christ, and knowing Christ is a requirement for salvation.