The tension between works and faith

zoidar said:

I guess I was a fence sitter for a while as well, but I have never questioned the truth of the cross.

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We all have our moments I think, there's a tension yes, and sometimes we need to determine to be obedient - conscious effort - and other times it's purely natural.

Just because we have times we need that conscious effort doesn't mean we aren't saved, it just means your having to fight against a fleshly temptation...

When we resist a temptation, eventually it stops being an issue... as Jesus said "resist the devil and he will flee from you".. very practical advice.

This is how it works. Paul says believers have Christ's imputed righteousness just as they once had Adam's sin. So we cannot perish. Salvation is out of your hands. But Paul teaches that we have our own wood, hay, stubble works that can merit reward in the resurrection. Or be burnt up leaving us with no righteousness of our own. But he says if that is the case, we are still saved because of Christ's (God's) very own righteousness. This is the true presentation of OSAS.

zoidar said:

By radical, I mean taking the words of the sermon on the mount seriously, and live by them.

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That's a great start. So what do you make of the Messiah's word in that sermon in Matt 5:19?

TzephanYahu said:

That's a great start. So what do you make of the Messiah's word in that sermon in Matt 5:19?

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Not forgetting to whom that sermon was spoken... There were no Christians in the audience!

zoidar said:

I don't know. What do you make of it?

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Seems to me that Messiah was saying to keep th commandments. Albeit not to achieve salvation but because of it.

Nevertheless this is something I can convince you neither can another. It must come by revelation.

You're on the right path. I'd say continue on your way and don't get shy of being radical and breaking the norm of modernity.

May the Most High guide you, by His Spirit and in the name of our Lord, for His glory.

Peace

zoidar said:

I have thought about this quite much. What is needed to be saved, faith only, faith and works?

The conclusion I have come to is that there is a tension between faith and works. The idea is that we are saved purely by faith, but if we don't have works/obedience in our life, our faith is not saving faith.

So like the sermon on the mount is a call for us to be obedient, living for Christ, and at the same time we know it's not our works but faith that saves us. Therefore the tension, if we don't have obedience/works we are not to feel secure by our faith. But if we have obedience, we can trust our faith saves us.

I think obedience is to be radical, the sermon on the mount is radical, yet we are also human beings that are imperfect, but we are to strive towards living in uthermost obedience.

Thoughts?

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Perhaps it’s not the works at all but the motivation behind those works that is taken into consideration. Consider 1 Corinthians 13.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:1-3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

From this we can conclude that faith without love is worthless and we can also conclude that works without love is equally worthless. Perhaps the right combination is faith with love, because these two together will produce works.

pescador said:

Not forgetting to whom that sermon was spoken... There were no Christians in the audience!

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It would seem that within a number of months, because of His crucifixion, there would be future Christians within the audience.

Jesus is my Superhero said:

It would seem that within a number of months, because of His crucifixion, there would be future Christians within the audience.

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“And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.” Mark 15:39 (KJV 1900)

zoidar said:

I have thought about this quite much. What is needed to be saved, faith only, faith and works?

The conclusion I have come to is that there is a tension between faith and works. The idea is that we are saved purely by faith, but if we don't have works/obedience in our life, our faith is not saving faith.

So like the sermon on the mount is a call for us to be obedient, living for Christ, and at the same time we know it's not our works but faith that saves us. Therefore the tension, if we don't have obedience/works we are not to feel secure by our faith. But if we have obedience, we can trust our faith saves us.

I think obedience is to be radical, the sermon on the mount is radical, yet we are also human beings that are imperfect, but we are to strive towards living in uthermost obedience.

Thoughts?

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There is only a tension between being justified through faith and trying to earn our justification by our works, however, there can be reasons for doing good works other than trying to earn our justification, so verses that speak against that should not be mistaken as speaking against our justification requiring our works for some other reason, such as faith. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law, and there are many others verses that associate our faith with our obedience to God, such as with all of the example of faith listed in Hebrews 11, so only those who have faith will obey God's law and will be justified by the same faith, which is why Paul could say in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the law will be justified while also using Abraham's example to deny that we can earn our justification as wage (Romans 4:4-5). 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 the same faith by which he was justified was also expressed as obedience to God, but he did not earn his justification by his obedience as though it were a wage. In James 2:21-23, Abraham was justified by his works when he offered Isaac, his faith was active along with his works, and his faith completed his works, so he was justified by his works insofar as they were an expression of his faith, but was not justified by his works insofar as they were earning a wage.

zoidar said:

I have read "True stories of Padre Pio part I". One part of the book was probably true stories, the other part seemed more like legends, like Pio appearing at two places at one and the same time. The stories of saints are to be taken with a grain of salt, as far as I see it.

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A number of the saints bilocated, and not just Padre Pio.

SAINT MIRACLES: SAINTS - BILOCATION

The reason Padre Pio first came into the eye of the Western media was that he levitated and stopped allied bombers from bombing his village. He did this on a number of occasions, and the sceptical Italian (!) general in charge of the aircrew was an eyewitness the second time. He went up in an aircraft to check it out for himself.

St. Padre Pio the Flying Saints and the American Comrades

Bob Crowley said:

He did this twice on a number of occasions

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"twice on a number of occasions"? Ok.

(jus' pickin')

zoidar said:

I was born again 2010, since then I have had periods of living in disobedience and sin, and periods of obedience. What does than mean?

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Your performance is yours to work on, to seriously consider and improve, but the meaning is God's to judge. You are incapable of passing true judgement on yourself.

Yet we have the principles in Scripture, that if we walk in the flesh we are none of his. And if we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

So walk in the Spirit.

Mark Quayle said:

"twice on a number of occasions"? Ok.

(jus' pickin')

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Jus' pickin' indeed.

I originally had "twice" as I thought that was the number of times he had diverted the bombers. But on checking the source it appeared to be on a number of occasions. So I went back and changed it but forgot to remove the "twice".

It's called a typo. It's not my first and it won't be my last.

Bob Crowley said:

Jus' pickin' indeed.

I originally had "twice" as I thought that was the number of times he had diverted the bombers. But on checking the source it appeared to be on a number of occasions. So I went back and changed it but forgot to remove the "twice".

It's called a typo. It's not my first and it won't be my last.

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I did one not long ago, where I had completely rewritten a missing partial paragraph, and somehow both ended up in the post. Maybe I'm just getting old, lol.

zoidar said:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
— Matthew 23:23

I'm quite certain the weighter matters of the Law Jesus is refering to, is not faith. Faith is not part of the Law.

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Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law, so I don't see how you can say that the law he was referring to is not of faith.

Obedience to any set of instructions is about putting our faith in the one who gave them to rightly guide us, which again is why Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of God's law and why there are many verses that associate our faith with our obedience to God or associate breaking faith with disobedience to him. 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 doing good works is what faith looks like. In Hebrews 11, every example of faith is an example of someone doing works. In John 3:36, believing in Christ is equated with obeying him. In Revelation 14:12, those who kept God's commandments are the same as those who kept faith in Jesus. In John 6:40, those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life, in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus, and in Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying the commandments, so obedience to the commandments is what it looks like to believe in Jesus and to know him. In Habakkuk 2:4, the righteous shall live by faith, and in Isaiah 51:7, the righteous are those on whose heart is God's law, so living by faith does not refer to a manner of living that is not in obedience to God's law. In Romans 1:5, we have received grace in order to bring about the obedience of faith, in Romans 16:25-26, Paul's Gospel and the preaching of Christ was to bring about the obedience of faith. In Deuteronomy 28:1, it speaks about faithfully obeying the voice of the Lord. In Romans 3:31, our faith upholds God's law. God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (2 Samuel 7:28, Nehemiah 9:13, Psalms 19:7, 18:30, 33:4, 111:7, 119:30, 42, 75, 86, 99, 138, 142, 151, 160) and a law that isn't trustworthy can't come from a God who is trustworthy, so to put our faith in the Mosaic Law is to put our faith in the Lawgiver, while to deny that faith is part of it is to deny the faithfulness of the Lawgiver.

In Deuteronomy 32:51, Moses broke faith with God because he did not obey what God commanded him to do. In Numbers 5:6, disobedience to God's law is referred to as breaking faith. In Joshua 7:1 and 1 Chronicles 2:7, Israel broke faith by not doing what God commanded. In 1 Chronicles 10:13, Saul broke faith because he did not keep the command of the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 33:19, sin is equated with faithlessness. In Jeremiah 3:6-14, Israel was faithless because they did not obey God. In Ezekiel 14:13, sin is equated with acting faithlessly. In Psalms 119:158, David said that he looked at the faithless with disgust because they did not keep God's commands. In Romans 1:29-32 and Revelation 21:8, being faithless is associated with actions that are in disobedience to God. In 2 Timothy 3:8, those who oppose Moses also oppose the truth, being corrupted of mind and disqualified in regard to the faith. In Psalms 119:29-30, Jesus wanted to put false ways far form Him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Mosaic Law, and to choose the way of faithfulness, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

Mark Quayle said:

I did one not long ago, where I had completely rewritten a missing partial paragraph, and somehow both ended up in the post. Maybe I'm just getting old, lol.

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At least on the forum we can go back and edit our posts (which I do quite regularly eg. right now).

If we send an email to someone, no-go. Which can be a bit embarrassing if we've put in something we later thought twice about.