Salvation Not Possible Without Works

[Elin]

It is totally Biblical for a person to be against obedience to God as the source of the gift of salvation (Eph 2:8-9).
It is not Biblical to be against obedience as the result of the gift of saving faith, in the process of sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, those in the New Covenant are not under the OT Mosaic regulations, which were abolished on the cross.
They are under the New Covenant Law of Christ (Mt 22:37-40; 1Co 9:20-21; Gal 6:2;
Jas 2:8; Ro 13: 8, 9, 10).

It seems you are still equating obedience to God's law as being under the law. Of course you are ignoring what I have already shared with you from the Word. We are children of obedience. this does not translate as our being under the law, rather we obey God because of the love and gratitude which accompanied the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

If you continue believing the law is obsolet you are, as you say to other so frequently, rejecting Christ.

The Mosaic regulations are more than obsolete. . .they are abolished.

The Mosaic regulations, which caused the enmity between Jew and Gentile, were abolished on the cross
in the flesh of Christ (Eph 2:11-16).

To continue to reject Eph 2:11-16 is to reject the words spoke by the Son in these last days (Heb 1:1-2)
through the NT writers.

The NT calls that unbelief of the NT word of God written.

I do not believe you wish to do this, so I will continue to pray for you, as you pray for me.

My sentiments, exactly. . .

 

[SeaBass]

Faith is also a GIFT....and..I see nobody mentioning the full extent of our faith when the Holy Spirit is allowed to fully engulf us, take over our mind, body and soul and be baptised in the Holy Spirit! Oops..I just broke all prodical by inserting something that most churches and Christians ignore or have very little to do with. Yet, it is also a part of our Christian heritage. I like the idea of GOD coming down to man, infusing HIS spirit within us, making us more responsive, giving us joy that makes our feet start dancing, makes our bodies more alive and vibrant, our hearts united in one accord. Yes, this is just a sign and verification that GOD imparts freely and playfully, like a real Father who plays with his children. Who cares if we kneel, cry, laugh, fall down or jump? Even in a crowd, God deals one on one...and he knows each of our personalities to be a perfect gentleman, causing no confusion. When we leave a worship and praise service where the Hoy Spirit was invited to be part of ...our batteries are charged up and our joy that goes beyond our understanding is 'over the top'...what a natural high we get! Who says that CHRISTIANS are to be dullards?

What bible verse(s) teach what you say here?

 

[SeaBass]

Salvation is by grace and not the faith or merits of man.

How can one who is evil do good works? Luke 11:13

Who are you to judge?

The Holy Spirit is the worker of good works in the Christian.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

So faith has nothing at all to do with salvation?

 

[SeaBass]

You still are teaching Salvation BY Works SeaBass.

That is because salvation is by works, obedient works in doing God's will therefore James says by WORKS a man is justified. James 2:24

Jesus Himself said to WORK for the meat that endures unto everlasting life jn 6:27.

Show me the Works that the Thief did on the cross to earn Salvation SeaBass. All the Thief did was believed that Jesus Christ IS God and confess with his mouth that Jesus Christ was God.

These are ONE time events. We do not need to keep doing these over and over again.

Also where in the Scriptures did the Thief get off the cross to be Baptized SeaBass? If Baptism was mandatory like you teach then why did Jesus Christ say the Thief would be with Him?

Through our Love for Jesus Christ we do works of Love because we Love Jesus Christ.

You SeaBass through your PRIDE do works that you teach are mandatory because you are still under the Law. Doing works that are mandatory is still trying to keep the Law that Paul proved is a waste of time SeaBass.

If you are NOT doing works through Love then you are wasting your time SeaBass.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8
[SUP]1 [/SUP] Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
[SUP]2 [/SUP] And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
[SUP]3 [/SUP] And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
[SUP]4 [/SUP] Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
[SUP]5 [/SUP] does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
[SUP]6 [/SUP] does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
[SUP]7 [/SUP] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[SUP]8 [/SUP] Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.


Without Love SeaBass you are nothing. You are teaching works are mandatory because you have no Love Seabass. If you do works because its demanded and mandatory then you are not doing works in Love. God does NOT want us to do works because you demand we do works SeaBass. God wants us to do works because we Love God, not because its demanded.

Without Love SeaBass you are nothing. Everything you teach is without Love SeaBass. Everything you do is without Love SeaBass. Its your Pride in your works and not Love for God that you demand everybody has to follow your teachings SeaBass.

I do not see you exhorting people into doing "Works" in Love. All i see is your Pride insisting Christians do it your way and not God's way SeaBass. You can say all you want about Works being Mandatory. But if Works are done BECAUSE they are mandatory then these Works are NOT done in Love, and without Love you are nothing more than a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

The thief is NOT an example of NT salvation, he was was promised salvation under the OT law and was not accountable to MK 16:16; Acts 2:38. NT examples of salvation that DO apply to us today would includes Peter's hearers in Acts 2; the eunuch, Simon, the Samaritans all of which were baptized for Mk 16;16; Acts 2:38 did apply to them and us today.

CAn one be saved and not love Christ? No

How does one love Christ? Jn 14:15 if ye love Me, keep my commandments. Not only can one saved without obedient works in keeping Christ's commandments, one does not love Christ without those obedient works nor can one call Jesus his Lord without do those obedient works, Lk 6:46.

So where does "no works" leave one? No love for Christ, Christ is NOT his Lord, no salvation.

 

[SeaBass]

Seabass, you have need to go back and learn what Jesus Chrisst teaches about faith, then what Paul teaches. Faith in Jesus Christ is works. Faith cannot be without works. Study the New Testament at least, and you will be calmed on the qustion. God bless you.

I agree that faith is works. Faith without works is dead, James 2. It is others here, not me, that is saying faith is not a work and that one can be saved by a dead, lifeless faith only.

 

[SeaBass]

yes if he comes to faith on his deathbed like the dying thief.

The thief is not an example of NT gospel salvation. Nor does the gospel teach "deathbed' salvation.

 

[JaumeJ]

Please bear in mind Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness which is also woks Jesus points out the faith of Abraham as being the faith we should seek being adoptive children of Abraham. Something interesting about the name Abraham. I have heard it translated as "honored father of a multitude." So oft times when we hear the name, Abraham, we may be taken to think of our Heavenly Father. I think this beautiful. I hope you like it too.

I agree that faith is works. Faith without works is dead, James 2. It is others here, not me, that is saying faith is not a work and that one can be saved by a dead, lifeless faith only.

 

[SeaBass]

No one can save himself. Salvation is the work of Christ and of Him alone. We can 'work out our salvation' but only because He is 'working within us to will and do of His good pleasure.(Phil 2.1-23).'

Acts 2:40 save yourselves
1 Tim 4:16 save thyself
2 Cor 7:1 let us cleanse ourselves
1 Pet 1:22 ye have purified your souls
2 Tim 2:21 if a man therefore purge himself
Phil 2:12 work out your own salvation

The bible does teach can save himself thereby giving man a role in his own salvation for God does not determine against the will of men which men will be saved and which ones will be lost.

God is working in those that have chosen to do His will. God does not randomly chose certain men, work in those men so they can then work out their salvation. Men must first choose to do God's will, then God is working in them. God is not working in those that are not working out His will.

 

[SeaBass]

You cannot grasp John 3:18-21.

God does not allow men to have faith. God created man to have faith. God created man with a need to depend upon God. God continues to supply in great abundance all that man needs to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Yet many turn away preferring the darkness because their deeds are evil. The truth is only hidden from those who refuse to see it.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

What verse in Jn 3 says "God does not allow men to have faith"?

God did not create men with faith, but created men with the ability to choose to have faith.
God did not have to save men but God, because of His grace, made faith available to men to have to be saved. God does allow men to choose to have faith.
Having faith is not something God chooses for man against the will of man. Men are commanded to have faith, the command implying the ability and responsibility is upon man to choose to have faith..and God will allow them. Faith therefore is a gift God has allowed man to have in order to be saved.

 

[SeaBass]

Keeping in mind that it is not the works which save. . .

By works a man is justified.
The bible also says God saves.
Who does God save? The ones that obediently obey His will. Therefore James can say works justify for God said those that do His will will be justified.

 

[SeaBass]

Oh, that's rich. . .a gift is not a gift. . .not according to the NT.

That's a new angle in wrestling the word of God to one's own destruction (2Pe 3:16).


God not determining who has faith does not solve the "moral culpability of God" problem.

For God determines to create those whom he knows will choose to go to hell.
What about the "moral culpability" of that decision, according to your reasoning.

It is your faulty thinking, not the sovereignty of God, which creates your "moral culpability of God" problem.

Faith is a gift, it is a gift in the sense God has allowed men to have faith and be saved when God did not have to.

Faith is NOT a gift in the sense God alone determines, against the will of men, which men will or will not have faith. That idea put moral culpability upon God.

 

[SeaBass]

as i've pointed out to you before,

Christ died before this thief did.

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
(John 19:31-33)
​

that makes him dying in a temporal sense after Jesus gave Himself as an atonement for sin. after the temple veil was torn. at the beginning of the dispensation of grace, after the dispensation of law. (this is setting aside the point that Christ had already for a few years been going around proclaiming that the kingdom was at hand)

if you say this thief died under the law of Moses, then he was still an unjustified sinner unworthy of entering the kingdom, and you make Christ either a liar or an unjust judge when He told this man that he would be with Him in paradise - which reward He promised him purely on the basis of His confessed faith, not in any wise on the basis of a righteousness pertaining to law and works.
but you gotta have it that way in order to justify your works/water-reward based religion, doncha?
see where it gets you? blasphemy.

It has been pointed out that it does not matter that Christ died before the thief did, the thief was promised paradise while BOTH he and Christ were still alive under the OT law.

Heb 9:16,17 the NT law could not come into effect until some point AFTER Christ died and did not come into effect immediately at His death, Lk 24:47 > ACts 2:38

 

[Elin]

By works a man is justified.
The bible also says God saves.
Who does God save? The ones that obediently obey His will. Therefore James can say works justify for God said those that do His will will be justified.

Setting the word of God against itself ipso facto proves one does not understand it.

 

[notuptome]

What verse in Jn 3 says "God does not allow men to have faith"?

God did not create men with faith, but created men with the ability to choose to have faith.
God did not have to save men but God, because of His grace, made faith available to men to have to be saved. God does allow men to choose to have faith.
Having faith is not something God chooses for man against the will of man. Men are commanded to have faith, the command implying the ability and responsibility is upon man to choose to have faith..and God will allow them. Faith therefore is a gift God has allowed man to have in order to be saved.

You poor man. You will not to see what God has written. You go about to establish your own righteousness all the while denying the righteousness of God in Christ.

Though you should bray a man in a pestle with a mortar with wheat yet his foolishness will not depart from him. Proverbs 27:22

God has concluded all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

 

[SeaBass]

is Romans 4:5 scripture, yes or no?

how many hundreds of times does it have to be quoted to you before you hear it?

mercy is the Lord's prerogative, not SeaBass's. why can't you take Him at His word?

Rom 4:5 is scripture.

Now how many times has "worketh not" been pulled of that context and isolated from ALL other bible verses and then wrongly proclaimed "works do not save"? Too many times just here on this forum.

When "worketh not" is left in context and examined in consideration of what other bible verses say, then one knows that "worketh not" refers to the Jews working to keep the OT law perfectly to try and merit their salvation so their reward is fo debt and not of grace (verse 4) and "worketh not" therefore does NOT refer to obedient works as Abraham had, Heb 11:8,17.

Paul says in Rom 6 one obeys from the heart THEN is freed from sin/justified. Paul does not contradict himself by saying in one passage obeying does justify/frees from sin and then contradicts that in Rom 4:4.

 

[Elin]

Faith is a gift, it is a gift in the sense God has allowed men to have faith and be saved when God did not have to.

Uh huh. . .like my paycheck is a gift because my employer allows me to have it.

 

[SeaBass]

"Whosoever shall" is not "whosoever must. . .in order to be saved".

You're confusing your baloney with the words of Christ and Paul.

Shall is indicative mood, a statement of fact. Therefore those that as a matter of fact confess Christ, then Christ will confess them. Those that as a matter of fact will not confess Christ will be denied before God.

Still trying to find a way to get one saved who will not profess Christ, will not profess Christ being God's only begotten Son and will not profess the facts of the gospel/death, burial and resurrection?

 

[Elin]

"Whosoever shall" is not "whosoever must. . .in order to be saved".

You're confusing your baloney with the words of Christ and Paul.

Shall is indicative mood, a statement of fact. T

Therefore those that as a matter of fact confess Christ, then Christ will confess them.[/

A matter of fact is not a matter of requirement or cause.

 

[mwc68]

Repentance is a work, belief is a work

 

[Elin]

Repentance is a work, belief is a work

Not in the NT meaning of "works" as regards salvation.