Is believing/faith a work ?

[Brightfame52]

Now understand, . If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the work of man, or the productions of natural man’s own efforts, then his salvation is the fruit of his own labour , his work,

However If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the gifts of God of His grace, then it is absurd, to consider them as conditions on the part of man and then his salvation is of grace. 25

 

[Brightfame52]

Acts 16:30-32

30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.

What the answer the jailer received simply shows is, the saved believe. He was not told to ‘Believe, and then you will be saved or get saved’. He was not told that his act of believing is what his salvation is reliant upon. He was merely told that the saved believe, and the rest of Scripture shows that this believing is a gift from God, and not something which can be self-induced by man. Salvation does not wait upon your believing, but on the grace of God. All a man can be told is believe and you will be saved. However, far from implying that salvation is conditioned on a man’s believing, all these words are saying is that only the man who believes will be saved. The man who has eternal life is the man who believes. The gift of eternal life is present only in the man who believes. The gift comes first, then the believing. Salvation is not by works, it is not by your belief, it is by the grace of God through the gift of faith. Grace gives faith to the man who has been chosen by God to believe. Believing is not a ‘Do this and you will then be/get saved’ proposition, for believing is a gift from God to the one He has chosen to save. Faith is given before belief, so that one will believe. One cannot savingly believe before grace gives the gift of faith. One cannot believe without the gift of faith being given first, just as one cannot be saved without grace. By Grace Alone (22) | godsonlygospel

 

[Brightfame52]

Is making a decision a work ?

Yes, to make a decision is a work, no not a physical activity you do with say your hands, arms, legs or body muscles and mass, but a mental work, labor. Let's take for instance a person who may be on a sodium restriction, and they're in a grocery store about to buy a can of soup. They observe many different soup labels on the shelf, so they began to read the nutrition contents as it pertains to sodium. They see a can with the label reading 110 mg sodium, a can reading 220 mg sodium, and one reading 550 mg sodium, which can of soup should they purchase? To say the least a decision has to be made. How is that decision derived? You must think, consider, weigh the pros and cons, which all are mental activities of the mind, its mental work, it takes mental exertion effort to do this. Now so it is when its being taught that a person, in order to get saved, they must make a decision for Christ!

 

[Brightfame52]

Is making a decision a work ? 2

The Arminian freewiller gospel gives us a camouflage gospel of works parading as salvation by grace through faith. It provides the natural man room to boast in their supposed salvation, yet in their mind they deny such, but affirm that they ascribe their salvation to their freewill decision for Christ. However this is a deception, its a cloak for boasting , its still teaching that salvation is conditioned on man, on his works, will, or decision, his mental effort at the least. He can even boast and say he is saved because of his wisdom or making a wise choice. The true believer however has been God given Faith to realize that they have been saved by Grace alone, and what God only by Grace has done, that none of their salvation was conditioned on them. Eph 2:8-9

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works or[my decision], lest any man should boast.

 

[Brightfame52]

Robert Harbach wrote:

If faith is a condition unto my salvation which I must fulfill, if faith must originate with me, then my salvation is by works — and that excludes me — for all my works are filthy rags! Faith must be the gift of God so that I can believe! If I may believe through grace, then, praise God, my deliverance is His work from beginning to end! This is Calvinism. It is unpopular, but it is right. It is despised but glorious. It alone can say, Sola Dei Gloria!

Calvinism Unpopular But Right​

This article first appeared in the December 1966 issue of the Standard Bearer, vol.43, Issue 5. The religious and doctrinal outlook of this now beyond middle age twentieth century is not that of Calvinism or that of the Reformed Faith. It is rather that of an inclusivistic or syncretistic and...
www.prca.org 25

 

[Brightfame52]

If one is supposedly saved or justified after some action of theirs, like making a decision or what have you, that is salvation or justification by works and not grace. Whenever salvation is conditioned on a person doing is works !

 

[Clare73]

If one is supposedly saved or justified after some action of theirs, like making a decision or what have you, that is salvation or justification by works and not grace. Whenever salvation is conditioned on a person doing is works !

Making a decision is not a physical performance (work).

You misunderstand the NT usage of "works." It refers to law-keeping (sacrifices, cleansings, observance of feasts, etc.) which are physical performance.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Making a decision is not a physical performance (work).

You misunderstand the NT usage of "works." It refers to law-keeping (sacrifices, cleansings, observance of feasts, etc.) which are physical performance.

Can a person be saved who has not made a decision to believe in Jesus Christ?

 

[Clare73]

Can a person be saved who has not made a decision to believe in Jesus Christ?

1) A decision is not a "work" in the NT sense of physical performance; i.e., of the law.

2) Infants cannot make decisions.

3) Salvation is by faith, not by works (Eph 2:8-9).

4) The NT does not address the sovereign regeneration/salvation by faith of infants.

If pressed to give an answer regarding infants, or die, I would conjecture,
according to the principles presented in the NT; i.e.,
1) regeneration is by sovereign election,
2) faith is by regeneration,
3) salvation is by faith.
election-->regeneration-->faith-->salvation,
that an infant's incapacity to faith would not thwart God's election, any more than it would any other mentally deficient person.

 

[bbbbbbb]

1) A decision is not a "work" in the NT sense of physical performance; i.e., of the law.

2) Infants cannot make decisions.

3) Salvation is by faith, not by works (Eph 2:8-9).

4) The NT does not address the sovereign regeneration/salvation by faith of infants.

If pressed to give an answer regarding infants, or die, I would conjecture,
according to the principles presented in the NT; i.e.,
1) regeneration is by sovereign election,
2) faith is by regeneration,
3) salvation is by faith.
election-->regeneration-->faith-->salvation,
that an infant's incapacity to faith would not thwart God's election, any more than it would any other mentally deficient person.

Thanks. I actually didn't have infants and morons in mind. I was thinking more on the lines of the hundreds of millions of people on earth who will never even hear the name of Jesus Christ, much less make a decision to put their faith in Him. What do you think?

 

[Clare73]

Thanks. I actually didn't have infants and morons in mind. I was thinking more on the lines of the hundreds of millions of people on earth who will never even hear the name of Jesus Christ, much less make a decision to put their faith in Him. What do you think?

I suspect Ro 2:14-16 regarding the Gentiles will apply; i.e., they will be judged by the light they had; i.e., their conscience.

 

[John Mullally]

If one is supposedly saved or justified after some action of theirs, like making a decision or what have you, that is salvation or justification by works and not grace. Whenever salvation is conditioned on a person doing is works !

We are not saved by a merit (or a works) based system. One of the most significant aspects to the nature of works and faith is this: “Works” speak to your own merits, while “faith” in someone else speaks of the merits of the other person in whom you are placing your trust. So, while “works” speak of your value, faith speaks of someone else’s value. That’s a key distinction, and perhaps is why the apostle Paul in Romans 4:4-5 spoke of the works of the Law and faith as being mutually exclusive. Faith in Christ points to someone else’s merits, who saves us solely by His choice to show grace toward anyone who puts their trust in Him.

Calvinists conflate Faith with Works: From the Calvinistic perspective, any religion that teaches that salvation comes about by anything other than an “Irresistible Grace,” necessarily makes salvation into a works-based process, because (as it is reasoned) once you incorporate any act of the human will—what is left is some element of human contribution in the process. So, when Calvinists say that “salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9), what they really mean is that God does everything in salvation, including the act of faith, on behalf of the elect-person, by overcoming their resistance through an irresistible gift of pre-faith regeneration. In other words, Calvinists believe that faith becomes a “work” whenever we come to think of faith as something that we do ourselves, absent of an Irresistible Grace. This means that in Calvinism, faith without Irresistible Grace = works. As such, Calvinists insist that if God had not chosen some—namely Calvinism’s elect—then no one would have freely chosen to love God. Calvinists also deny that God coerces any person to believe or that God believes on behalf of the elect, even though Calvinists admit that they believe that God unilaterally regenerates the unregenerate-elect against their totally depraved will, unsolicited, simply because they happen to be “elect.”

 

[Brightfame52]

Making a decision is not a physical performance (work).

You misunderstand the NT usage of "works." It refers to law-keeping (sacrifices, cleansings, observance of feasts, etc.) which are physical performance.

Believing is a work, something done, an act. So if you say that God saved you because you believed, an action, thats works. You may as well try to keep the law to get saved because you have forsaken the way of Grace.

 

[Brightfame52]

We are not saved by a merit (or a works) based system. One of the most significant aspects to the nature of works and faith is this: “Works” speak to your own merits, while “faith” in someone else speaks of the merits of the other person in whom you are placing your trust. So, while “works” speak of your value, faith speaks of someone else’s value. That’s a key distinction, and perhaps is why the apostle Paul in Romans 4:4-5 spoke of the works of the Law and faith as being mutually exclusive. Faith in Christ points to someone else’s merits, who saves us solely by His choice to show grace toward anyone who puts their trust in Him.

Calvinists conflate Faith with Works: From the Calvinistic perspective, any religion that teaches that salvation comes about by anything other than an “Irresistible Grace,” necessarily makes salvation into a works-based process, because (as it is reasoned) once you incorporate any act of the human will—what is left is some element of human contribution in the process. So, when Calvinists say that “salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9), what they really mean is that God does everything in salvation, including the act of faith, on behalf of the elect-person, by overcoming their resistance through an irresistible gift of pre-faith regeneration. In other words, Calvinists believe that faith becomes a “work” whenever we come to think of faith as something that we do ourselves, absent of an Irresistible Grace. This means that in Calvinism, faith without Irresistible Grace = works. As such, Calvinists insist that if God had not chosen some—namely Calvinism’s elect—then no one would have freely chosen to love God. Calvinists also deny that God coerces any person to believe or that God believes on behalf of the elect, even though Calvinists admit that they believe that God unilaterally regenerates the unregenerate-elect against their totally depraved will, unsolicited, simply because they happen to be “elect.”

Yet if you say God saved you because of your faith or belief, then that defaults to a merit system of works reward.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I suspect Ro 2:14-16 regarding the Gentiles will apply; i.e., they will be judged by the light they had; i.e., their conscience.

Then, of course, they are condemned from birth, having never had any light, except that of natural revelation, which is salvifically insufficient.

 

[sawdust]

Yet if you say God saved you because of your faith or belief, then that defaults to a merit system of works reward.

I think what you are missing is the fact that God has determined to save believers so it is not our believing that saves us but God's will that saves us.

 

[Clare73]

We are not saved by a merit (or a works) based system. One of the most significant aspects to the nature of works and faith is this: “Works” speak to your own merits, while “faith” in someone else speaks of the merits of the other person in whom you are placing your trust. So, while “works” speak of your value, faith speaks of someone else’s value. That’s a key distinction, and perhaps is why the apostle Paul in Romans 4:4-5 spoke of the works of the Law and faith as being mutually exclusive. Faith in Christ points to someone else’s merits, who saves us solely by His choice to show grace toward anyone who puts their trust in Him.

Calvinists conflate Faith with Works: From the Calvinistic perspective, any religion that teaches that salvation comes about by anything other than an “Irresistible Grace,” necessarily makes salvation into a works-based process, because (as it is reasoned) once you incorporate any act of the human will—what is left is some element of human contribution in the process.

Are you sure about that? Sounds like a misrepresentation to me.

Works is about physical performance (of the law; i.e., circumcision, sacrifices, food laws, etc.), not about spiritual assent and trust.

So, when Calvinists say that “salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9), what they really mean is that God does everything in salvation, including the act of faith,

More misrepresentation? Does God believe for me in my place?

Keeping in mind that faith is a gift (Php1:29, Ac 13:48, Ac 18:27, 2 Pe 1:1, Ro 12:3), not the effect of one's own doing.

on behalf of the elect-person, by overcoming their resistance through an irresistible gift of pre-faith regeneration.

Regeneration/new birth, like election, is a sovereign act of God with which we have absolutely nothing to do (Jn 3:6-8), just as we have absolutely nothing to do with our natural birth. We don't have a say, either acceptance or refusal, in either matter.

In other words, Calvinists believe that faith becomes a “work” whenever we come to think of faith as something that we do ourselves,

Faith is spiritual assent and trust, not a work, which is physical performance. (Eph 2:8-9)

Faith is a choice we freely and willingly make because God has worked in our disposition, giving us to prefer it, and we choose what we prefer.

absent of an Irresistible Grace. This means that in Calvinism, faith without Irresistible Grace = works.

The misrepresentation becomes more grievous.

Saving faith has works, or it is counterfeit faith,
but the works of that true faith do not save, only the faith saves (Eph 2:8-9), while the works are simply a testimony to the faith, which does save.

As such, Calvinists insist that if God had not chosen some—namely Calvinism’s elect—then no one would have freely chosen to love God.

That's pretty much in agreement with 1 Co 2:14, Ro 5:6, Ro 8:6-8, Jn 3:3.

Calvinists also deny that God coerces any person to believe or that God believes on behalf of the elect, even though Calvinists admit that they believe that God unilaterally regenerates the unregenerate-elect against their totally depraved will, unsolicited, simply because they happen to be “elect.”

Pretty much the same as in natural birth, you don't get to either choose or refuse it.

That's the way birth works in God's created order.

 

[Clare73]

Then, of course, they are condemned from birth, having never had any light, except that of natural revelation, which is salvifically insufficient.

Agreed. . .we are all condemned at birth (Ro 5:18), by nature (with which we are born) objects of wrath (Eph 2:3), apart from God's saving grace.

The NT approach to that seems to be salvation is by faith in and trust on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, our job is to present that message to the world, and the rest is God's business, whom we are to trust in the matter.

 

[John Mullally]

Are you sure about that? Sounds like a misrepresentation to me.

Works is about physical performance (of the law; i.e., circumcision, sacrifices, food laws, etc.), not about spiritual assent and trust.


More misrepresentation? Does God believe for me in my place?

Keeping in mind that faith is a gift (Php1:29, Ac 13:48, Ac 18:27, 2 Pe 1:1, Ro 12:3), not the effect of one's own doing.



Regeneration/new birth, like election, is a sovereign act of God with which we have absolutely nothing to do (Jn 3:6-8), just as we have absolutely nothing to do with our natural birth. We don't have a say, either acceptance or refusal, in either matter.



Faith is spiritual assent and trust, not a work, which is physical performance. (Eph 2:8-9)

Faith is a choice we freely and willingly make because God has worked in our disposition, giving us to prefer it, and we choose what we prefer.


The misrepresentation becomes more grievous.

Saving faith has works, or it is counterfeit faith,
but the works of that true faith do not save, only the faith saves (Eph 2:8-9), while the works are simply a testimony to the faith, which does save.


That's pretty much in agreement with 1 Co 2:14, Ro 5:6, Ro 8:6-8, Jn 3:3.



Pretty much the same as in natural birth, you don't get to either choose or refuse it.

That's the way birth works in God's created order.

There

Are you sure about that? Sounds like a misrepresentation to me.

Works is about physical performance (of the law; i.e., circumcision, sacrifices, food laws, etc.), not about spiritual assent and trust.


More misrepresentation? Does God believe for me in my place?

Keeping in mind that faith is a gift (Php1:29, Ac 13:48, Ac 18:27, 2 Pe 1:1, Ro 12:3), not the effect of one's own doing.



Regeneration/new birth, like election, is a sovereign act of God with which we have absolutely nothing to do (Jn 3:6-8), just as we have absolutely nothing to do with our natural birth. We don't have a say, either acceptance or refusal, in either matter.



Faith is spiritual assent and trust, not a work, which is physical performance. (Eph 2:8-9)

Faith is a choice we freely and willingly make because God has worked in our disposition, giving us to prefer it, and we choose what we prefer.


The misrepresentation becomes more grievous.

Saving faith has works, or it is counterfeit faith,
but the works of that true faith do not save, only the faith saves (Eph 2:8-9), while the works are simply a testimony to the faith, which does save.


That's pretty much in agreement with 1 Co 2:14, Ro 5:6, Ro 8:6-8, Jn 3:3.



Pretty much the same as in natural birth, you don't get to either choose or refuse it.

That's the way birth works in God's created order.

Many Calvinist. like the OP, see repenting before God in order to receive salvation as being a work.

 

[Clare73]

The answer is absolutely yes. If we agree with the overall definition of work according to the greek word for work ergon:

The overall definition of work according to the Greek word for work is not the NT usage of "works."
It relates to law-keeping only.

See strongs # 2041:

1. business, employment, that which any one is occupied
1. that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking
2. any product whatever, any thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind
3. an act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is emphasised in opp. to that which is less than work

A work is anything done, accomplished by #1 hand, #2 art, #3 industry, #4 or MIND
The mind is :
(in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.
Psychology. the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities.
So believing something via the mental activity and process of reasoning is work. The process of decision making is a activity, work of the mind.

In terms of salvation/justification, works in the NT is physical performance, as in obedience to the law (circumcision, sacrifices, cleansings, food laws, feasts, etc.). It is not the operation of the mind.

Now for instance, the sin of hatred Gal 5:19-20
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

That is an operation of sin, not the "works" of the law which the NT relates to salvation/justification.

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
How is that sin committed ? It starts in the mind or heart ! Yet in Vs 19 its stated as an work of the flesh
So activity in and with the mind/heart is a work, this cannot be denied..
Now believing is either a work of the flesh [unregenerate] or of the Spirit [ regenerated]
But now Salvation is not by works, Neither by works of the flesh or works of the Spirit.