This really doesn't quite make sense to me. You're saying that, even if you do a work prepared for you in advance that you'll probably run out and boast about it? Those works are compelled by compassion, love-and love doesn't boast (1 Cor 13). It doesn't boast when it gives, when it forgives, when it is patient, when it consoles, when it does the right thing. Are the Pharisees, praying in public so all can see, motivated by the same reason as those who pray in private, Matt 6:5-15?
You are assuming that I am referring to the works that God prepared in advance for us to do. I even asked you if you knew what those were but you did not respond to that.
You're putting the cart ahead of the horse. Those who are working out their salvation have the ability to do so by virtue of their vital connection with God. They may or may not persevere in that endeavor.
Actually I am not putting the cart in from of the horse. The verses are clear that we are saved by the grace of God through faith. It speaks nothing of adding works to this formula. The verses speak of us bring a workmanship and doing the works that God prepared in advance. This verse and the ones that follow are not part of the salvation formula of verse 8. They will persevere in their endeavor because they are already saged. My brother you might not like what these verses teach but you cant ignore them in leu of your belief of faith plus works. It simply does not work.
An unncessary distinction- without a difference. Jesus came so that we may be with God.
It is a necessary distinction. Man did not go to God, God came to man. The word became flesh. This is an intrinsic part of orthodox theology. Man, in their dead state, could not have come to God. One free will that man does not have is to choose not to sin.
"If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." John 15:5
Finish reading.
“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.”
John 15:15-17 NASB2020
No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You d
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So: "...apart from Me you can do nothing": As per my quote about our coming to be with God, Jesus tells us about this vital connection to the Vine that we must enter into- and remain in-or be without life.
"If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off." Rom 11:17-22
Do you know who the root is? What tree are the gentiles drafted onto?
Paul is speaking above to believers, whose destiny is still potentially in question.
In Romans 11 he is referring to gentiles being grafted into the tree which is Israel. We are given the chance to be saved just as the remnant will be.
You want salvation to be a one-time permanent event because you've believed. But faith, itself, is something that can be "made shipwreck" of.
Only for those that are not that claim faith but are not justified because their heart has not changed.
We must pick up our cross and follow daily, doing God's will to the best of our ability with the grace we're given throughout our lives. God gave man freedom so that he might use it rightly. Adam used it wrongly at the beginning, abusing that freedom instead. God's been all about patiently steering man back to right use of his freedom, for his own highest good, and the first step in that is faith, which then opens the door to the life of grace, the life of God in us. If we remain in Him we will produce much fruit. If we don't, if we fail to continue to use our freedom well even as it's now affected and influenced and drawn by grace, then we're dead already, no better than the heathens, and sin, bad fruit, will follow, incidentally; we end up being poor soil. The idea that a believer can live a life not pleasing to God and just loose some reward things in heaven is to seriuosly misread Scripture.
The rest of this is nothing but works salvation. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves otherwise Jesus sacrificed was for nothing and we are still subjected to the law. Those that are justified are His sheep that listen to his voice and will follow Him. Those that are His will always bear fruit and will do the works that Good prepared for them to do.
You missed the beginning of Ephesians as Paul tells us who it is that he is speaking to.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
Ephesians 1:3-14 NASB2020
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world
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“In him we have obtained an inheritance” past tense not future. The rest of this verse talk about how we ARE in Christ not how we will be in Christ. You have to ignore these verses and many others to believe in works salvation.
