Not By Works

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Dec 12, 2013
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By his stated doctrine lost.........and he keeps going on and on and on about Southern Baptists......of the which I am not and have stated like at least twice I disagree with probably 90-95% of what they hold to.....mental I guess!
 
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why does Jesus say this, then?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
(John 14:10-11)

is He contrasting a worthless faith with a worthwhile one here?
or a faith that is small but sufficient, as He is faithful when we are faithless, in comparison to an even greater faith?
A childlike faith......that is all that is required....like the size of a mustard seed....

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
 

Bladerunner

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2016
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There is only one proof of faith, action. Without action there is no faith, and a faith that produces
action will always produce action, so inaction proves no faith.

so then you have works before faith......it is suppose to be the other way around......
 

mailmandan

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2014
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Confession is a work. Is is something a person is to DO, which indeed is a Work.
Confession is not a work that merits our salvation after we believe the gospel and are saved.

Confessing is something that a person DOES (Works) regardless if it is out loud, or in prayer to ones self. It is something a person DOES.
Yet it's not something we do AFTER we have been saved through faith in order to become saved. That is when it would become a work for salvation.

Again, you are assuming things, and not understanding what i have said. i never said water baptized, that is something you have assumed that i was meaning. Please click HERE to see an article concerning which baptism i was actually talking about.
I agree there is more than one baptism. Water baptism and Spirit baptism are two distinct baptisms.

Many verses teach Faith to be Saved. These are all True.
Yet someone who believes that we must accomplish a check list of works after we place our faith in Christ for salvation would not agree with verses to teach saved through faith.

Many verses teach Other things to be Saved. These are likewise all TRUE. Such as repenting, confessing, obeying Jesus, Loving One Another, Forgiving One Another.
Repenting and confessing that we are sinners in need of a Savior precedes salvation through faith. Multiple acts of obedience which follow having been saved through faith include love for one another and forgiving one another. Love and forgiveness is the mark of a genuine Christian. We must not confuse descriptive passages of Scripture with prescriptive passages of Scripture.

You have have all the Faith in the world, but if you fail to forgive someone, then the Father in Heaven will NOT forgive you, and it doesn't matter how much FAITH a person claims to have.
Continuously, refusing to forgive others demonstrates what about someone's claim of faith?

Many verses teach Faith to be Saved. These are all TRUE, but that does not negate, or make void, the rest of Scriptures. If a person is picking and choosing which verses they will believe and which ones they have to interpret away, then the TRUTH does not reside in a person that does that.
Verses that teach salvation is through faith negate and make void the assumption that other verses teach we must accomplish a list of works "afterwards" in order to become saved. Repentance and confession of sin precedes saving faith in Christ.

lol, this is what i have been teaching from the start, which you have adamantly bucked against me.
You are not always clear in your explanations and sometimes it even appears that you are playing word games.

Faith - Works = Dead. This is exactly what is bolded above by your own statement, you say this. What do you think i have been talking about all along? Many claim to have Faith. How can you tell if they have an empty profession of Faith (as you call it)? By their lack of works, EXACTLY as you say above.
That is the key word in James 2:14. "Says" or "claims" to have faith but has no works. Where is the evidence? We show our faith by our works and if someone merely claims to have faith but has no works at all to back up their claim, then it demonstrates that person has an empty profession of faith.

How then do you disagree with

Faith + Works = Full/complete profession of Faith, which SAVES.

if Faith - Works = Empty profession of Faith then it is most logical to say
Faith + Works = FULL profession of Faith.
When you say faith + works it comes across as both faith and works are what save us. We are saved by faith at it's origin and not at some time later, after we accomplish a list of works.

What do you think i have been teaching all along?
It's not always easy to tell what you are teaching because your explanations are all over the place.

Faith Saves a person, but if they do not have works, EXACTLY like you say above, they have a empty profession of Faith, which does NOT Save a person. Therefore Faith without works is Dead. So likewise it is also True that
Faith with Works is ALIVE. As i have been teaching all along
Yet it's authentic faith in Jesus that saves and not the works. Faith is the root of salvation and works are the fruit. No fruit at all would demonstrate there is no root.

Faith ONLY is not enough, even you yourself testifies that if a person has Faith only without any works is a empty profession of Faith. So then we are in agreement then?
Faith ONLY according to James = empty profession of faith, not to be confused with salvation through faith (rightly understood) in Christ alone. We are in agreement on this matter as long as you believe that Christ saves us through faith based on the merits of His finished work of redemption "alone" and not on the merits of our works. It is through faith "in Christ alone" (and not by the merits of our works) that we are justified on account of Christ (Romans 3:24; 5:1; 5:9); yet the faith that justifies is never alone (solitary, unfruitful, barren) if it is genuine (James 2:14-24).

Agreed, if it does not have Works with it, i agree 100%

Again, i 100% agree with this statement. Nobody can be Saved by Works ONLY and that live a sinless life 100% of the time. This statement is True, nor have i said or believe otherwise.
In other posts you have disagreed with me when discussing these issues but now you are saying you agree with me here. Don't mind me while I scratch my head... lol
 
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Confession is not a work that merits our salvation after we believe the gospel and are saved.

Yet it's not something we do AFTER we have been saved through faith in order to become saved. That is when it would become a work for salvation.

I agree there is more than one baptism. Water baptism and Spirit baptism are two distinct baptisms.

Yet someone who believes that we must accomplish a check list of works after we place our faith in Christ for salvation would not agree with verses to teach saved through faith.

Repenting and confessing that we are sinners in need of a Savior precedes salvation through faith. Multiple acts of obedience which follow having been saved through faith include love for one another and forgiving one another. Love and forgiveness is the mark of a genuine Christian. We must not confuse descriptive passages of Scripture with prescriptive passages of Scripture.

Continuously, refusing to forgive others demonstrates what about someone's claim of faith?

Verses that teach salvation is through faith negate and make void the assumption that other verses teach we must accomplish a list of works "afterwards" in order to become saved. Repentance and confession of sin precedes saving faith in Christ.

You are not always clear in your explanations and sometimes it even appears that you are playing word games.

That is the key word in James 2:14. "Says" or "claims" to have faith but has no works. Where is the evidence? We show our faith by our works and if someone merely claims to have faith but has no works at all to back up their claim, then it demonstrates that person has an empty profession of faith.

When you say faith + works it comes across as both faith and works are what save us. We are saved by faith at it's origin and not at some time later, after we accomplish a list of works.

It's not always easy to tell what you are teaching because your explanations are all over the place.

Yet it's authentic faith in Jesus that saves and not the works. Faith is the root of salvation and works are the fruit. No fruit at all would demonstrate there is no root.

Faith ONLY according to James = empty profession of faith, not to be confused with salvation through faith (rightly understood) in Christ alone. We are in agreement on this matter as long as you believe that Christ saves us through faith based on the merits of His finished work of redemption "alone" and not on the merits of our works. It is through faith "in Christ alone" (and not by the merits of our works) that we are justified on account of Christ (Romans 3:24; 5:1; 5:9); yet the faith that justifies is never alone (solitary, unfruitful, barren) if it is genuine (James 2:14-24).

In other posts you have disagreed with me when discussing these issues but now you are saying you agree with me here. Don't mind me while I scratch my head... lol
Good luck with that bro......
 

mailmandan

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2014
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Good luck with that bro......
Is it just me brother or is having a Biblical discussion on doctrine with DiscipleDave a very complicated matter? In one post he may disagree with you on a particular topic, then in a different post discussing the same topic that he previously disagreed with you on, he suddenly agrees with you. :confused:
 
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wsblind

Guest
In other posts you have disagreed with me when discussing these issues but now you are saying you agree with me here. Don't mind me while I scratch my head... lol
I know why Dan. Because James isn't talking about unsaved people. James is talking about saved people who are doing NO works.

James is basically saying........How can you Glorify the Lord if you are not working for the Lord? He isn't saying if we have no works we are not really saved.

We can have no works and be saved. It is just a dead faith that will not Glorify the Lord. But He gets His Glory for saving that worthless/useless believer.
 

mailmandan

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2014
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I know why Dan. Because James isn't talking about unsaved people. James is talking about saved people who are doing NO works.

James is basically saying........How can you Glorify the Lord if you are not working for the Lord? He isn't saying if we have no works we are not really saved.

We can have no works and be saved. It is just a dead faith that will not Glorify the Lord. But He gets His Glory for saving that worthless/useless believer.
The problem with that conclusion is that James said this hypothetical person says or claims to have faith but has no works...can that faith save him. Does that sound like saved to you?
 
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wsblind

Guest
The problem with that conclusion is that James said this hypothetical person says or claims to have faith but has no works...can that faith save him. Does that sound like saved to you?
Just a quick question then.

It is faith+works= salvation then? If we fail to have works then works is the factor that sends us to The LoF?
 

Oncefallen

Idiot in Chief
Staff member
Jan 15, 2011
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So ill explain this in a diffrent way... there you are at the end of every week counting your losses... from no profit... due to the fact of being lazy.. bone idle... cant be **edited**

Spoke to staff like **edited** when times where hard... instead of spearing them on...encoraging them..
Do us all a favor and expand your vocabulary to lose the profanity
 
Dec 12, 2013
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Just a quick question then.

It is faith+works= salvation then? If we fail to have works then works is the factor that sends us to The LoF?
I think many miss the fact that believers produce two types of works....

a. Gold, silver and precious stones
b. Wood, hay and stubble

One obviously is spiritual, godly and edifies Christ while showing the faith that saves

The other is worldly, lacks edification of Jesus and does not show the faith that saves

The bible has examples of both from genuine believers......
 
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wsblind

Guest
I think many miss the fact that believers produce two types of works....

a. Gold, silver and precious stones
b. Wood, hay and stubble

One obviously is spiritual, godly and edifies Christ while showing the faith that saves

The other is worldly, lacks edification of Jesus and does not show the faith that saves

The bible has examples of both from genuine believers......
And I believe that is what James is pointing out.


Can that faith save him? Is a temporal saving,situational saving. If we don't have doctrine in our soul or have grown in His Grace and knowledge after Eternal salvation , then our faith can't save us from coming in from the rain in our daily lives.
 
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And I believe that is what James is pointing out.


Can that faith save him? Is a temporal saving,situational saving. If we don't have doctrine in our soul or have grown in His Grace and knowledge after Eternal salvation , then our faith can't save us from coming in from the rain in our daily lives.
The whole key, denied and rejected by those who push a works based pseudo salvation are the words "SHOW ME YOUR FAITH"

JAMES is clearly speaking to a man being able to see your saving faith by the works or fruit that you produce......the flip side is Paul's version which is clearly showing that before GOD a man is justified by faith...

There is no contradiction as the two together give evidence to the complete story....

FAITH alone saves and justifies before GOD....the same faith that saves and justifies one before GOD (which is invisible) can be seen BY MEN based upon our actions, deeds and works.......!

BUT make no mistake....the works do not save, keep save and or facilitate salvation, but rather are a result of the salvation one already possesses....!
 

mailmandan

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2014
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Just a quick question then.

It is faith+works= salvation then? If we fail to have works then works is the factor that sends us to The LoF?
It's not faith + works = salvation. We show our faith by our works, but we are not saved by works. All genuine believers are fruitful, but not all are equally fruitful. Believers do not accomplish good works in order to become saved, but because they have been saved through faith in Christ.
 
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wsblind

Guest
The whole key, denied and rejected by those who push a works based pseudo salvation are the words "SHOW ME YOUR FAITH"

JAMES is clearly speaking to a man being able to see your saving faith by the works or fruit that you produce......the flip side is Paul's version which is clearly showing that before GOD a man is justified by faith...

There is no contradiction as the two together give evidence to the complete story....

FAITH alone saves and justifies before GOD....the same faith that saves and justifies one before GOD (which is invisible) can be seen BY MEN based upon our actions, deeds and works.......!

BUT make no mistake....the works do not save, keep save and or facilitate salvation, but rather are a result of the salvation one already possesses....!
And only a saved person can do this. So James is not talking about unbelievers or questioning salvation.
 
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wsblind

Guest
All genuine believers are fruitful
That is where Discipledave is going to get ya. And is where it seems to him you are agreeing.

All Genuine believers SHOULD be fruitful. Many are not.
 

slave

Senior Member
Mar 20, 2015
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Faith first- yes! When we forget the fact it says faith without works is dead, however, we call out God to be a liar if we use Scripture to try and reallocate God's Truth.. The thing is we have two subjects here:

Redemption
- What has God redeemed? Everything that Sin and Satan have touched and blighted, God has redeemed, thru Christ on a Cross; Redemption, then, is complete. We are not working FOR the redemption of the world, we are working ON the redemption, which is a very different thing.

The second subject ; Salvation - I see many taking Salvation much too cheaply. Jesus Christ does not add one burden to the lives of men; He imparts the power to live up to what we know we ought; that is the meaning of His Salvation. But that is as real a conclusion as it gets, because it is Jesus who backs it up! The separation from the slavery of Sin and the world system, to the opportunity in Christ to live a pure and properly-aligned relationship with God, thru Jesus Christ has been availed to us thru Jesus, and, I get it, many are still learning that Salvation is God's grace to sinful men, and it takes a lifetime to say the word properly. The next thing we have to learn by contact with Jesus Christ is this, that if the whole human race - everybody, good, bad, and indifferent - is lost, we must have the boundless confidence of Jesus Christ Himself about us; that is, we must know that He can save (finishing His Workmanship in us) anybody and everybody.

God doesn't make us Holy, any more than He created Adam Holy. He created Adam innocent, without self-consciousness (as we understand the word) before God; the one thing Adam was conscious of was God and only of himself in relation to the Being Whose commands he was to fulfill; the main trend of his Spirit was toward God. Adam was intended by God to take part in his own development by a series of moral choices whereby he would transform innocence into holiness. Adam failed to do this, Jesus Christ came on the same platform as Adam and did not fail. The natural life is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral; it is the principle within (which Spirit owns our soul now) that makes it good or bad, moral or immoral.

"There Jesus grew up, maturing in physical strength and increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God rested on Him." Luke 2:40.

The innocence of Jesus was not the innocence of a babe born into our order of things, it was the innocence of Adam as God created him, the innocence of an untried possibility of holiness. Innocence is never safe, it is simply full of possibility. The holiness of God is absolute, not progressive; that is, it knows no development by antagonism. Man's holiness must be progressive. The holiness of Jesus developed thru antagonism because He revealed what a Holy man should be.

God, thru Jesus on a Cross dealt with Sin, and with it our contract to him thru the sins of Adam. But God has given us the 'realness' of holiness, in a transformed life, in Christ Jesus that produces His fruit in us, to conquer sins in living in righteousness by faith, being abandoned to God, thru obedience to God's ways over our own, which will always result in good works because Jesus wills it in us! The fruit of a sanctified life, is good works. That's different than good works bear the Righteousness of man.

"God, give us all wisdom, (Understanding this will only be found thru the Holy Spirit) which translates to understanding Your truths over our own, empower us to fulfill Your good works to show Your glory and serve Your purposes and intentions. AMEN!"