Someone implied you could be saved by your own righteousness. I was curious as to whether there were others that believed this.
Can you be saved by your own goodness/(righteousness)?
- Thread starter tttallison
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Any righteousness that anyone may have is imputed by God and not by one's own efforts. This alone does not save but rather the death of Jesus dying on the cross for contritely confessed sins and inviting the Holy Spirit is one's heart to comfort and guide in the life-long repentance process.
Isaiah 64
6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
I'm a recovered cathaholic.
I was raised Roman Catholic and went to a number of protestant churches who explained the Lord to me. However, they made Him out to be insufficient and sacrifice ineffectual. They put works, like giving your life to Christ, sacraments, giving up self and sins as what was necessary to add. .
What I found out is that they were all wrong. The addition of works would be like tossing my dirty dish rag of righteousness at the cross while The sinless Sacrifice Jesus Christ was crucified.
Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Ephesians 5:2
No Christians, because that is the exact opposite of the God's requirement for salvation per the NT Gospel.
all of your good works on their own are a 0 in front of God the father. 0 +0+0+0+0+0 will always be 0
Accept the Son and he comes a 1 in front of your good works. 1 in front of your zero is a 10.
Accept the Son and he comes a 1 in front of your good works. 1 in front of your zero is a 10.
Christ gave us the answer -- "there is not one good - no not one"
and at I approach my 9th decade I can confirm that fact -- there is not one good
That is so awesome that you have experienced so much history!
There may have been more changes in that time than any other century in history.
I was just reading Leviticus 19 yesterday, parked it right here and nodded my head.
32Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
We can never measure up to righteousness in completion because in the flesh dwells no good thing.
The Bible says a Spirit led person will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Only by the Spirit can we be righteous.
2Ti 3:4 lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
2Ti 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
2Ti 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
To deny being led of the Spirit is a sin.
God did not give His law as a way of establishing our own goodness or righteousness. We can’t rely on ourselves by obediently relying on God’s instructions, but rather we can only rely on ourselves by doing things that are completely independent of God’s instructions. By doing good works in obedience to the Law of God we are testifying about God’s goodness, not establishing our own, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16).
Jesus saves us from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of the Law of God (1 John 2:6), so there there is a direct connection between our gift of salvation and our gift of getting to experience being a doer of the Law of God and to key is to correctly understand what that connection is and is not. However, affirming or denying whether we are saved by works does not bring clarify to what that connection is. We can't earn our righteousness or salvation even as the result of having perfect obedience to the Law of God (Romans 4:1-5), so that is not the connection. We can do works that embody our faith, such as with James 2:18 saying that he would show his faith through his works, so that is the connection, and it is by that faith alone apart from works done in order to earn it as the result that we are declared righteous and are being saved. Jesus graciously teaching us to experience being a doer of the Law of God is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being a doer of it.
The content of a gift can be the experience of getting to do something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari, where the gift intrinsically requires them to do the work of driving it in order to experience driving it, but where doing that work contributes nothing towards earning the opportunity to drive it. In Titus 2:11-13, the content of our gift of salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so we are not extrinsically required to have first done those works in obedience to the Law of God in order to earn our salvation as the result and we are not extrinsically required to do those works as the result of having first been saved, but rather we are intrinsically required to be a doer of those works because God graciously teaching us to experience being a doer of them is part of the content of His gift of salvation. The content of the gift of righteousness is the getting to experience being a doer of righteous works in obedience to the Law of God.
There's lots here who do not believe what the Bible says in this regard. "There are none righteous."
Good question, and here is the answer I have gleaned from GW:
“What is GRFS for those who have never heard of Jesus?” (which includes everyone living B.C. and millions of people who have lived A.D.) If God loves the world (John 3:16) and wants everyone to be saved (2Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11), then He must provide an opportunity. God’s just judgment is illustrated by Jesus in the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-29), which indicates that God will judge souls on the basis of the truth (Word = Christ per John 1:1f.) they have received.
There are two main ways God/Christ is encountered:
1. General revelation, which includes meditating on the natural world or God’s supernatural work and moral conscience. Paul said men are without excuse, both because God’s eternal power and divine nature (love) are manifested by creation (Rom. 1:20), and because a proto-gospel has been proclaimed to everyone under heaven implicitly or in pre-NT foreshadowings (Acts 14:16-17, 17:26-27&30, Rom. 1:18-20, Rom. 10:13-18, Col. 1:23, Gal. 3:8, 1Pet. 1:10-12, cf. the Parable of the Talents in Matt. 25:14-30).
Paul also taught that all normal humans have an inner conscience or “common” sense (Rom. 2:14-16), which manifests morality or a moral Authority in every culture (the Golden Rule). Thus, sinners have no excuse for not seeking God’s salvation or being truthseekers (Matthew 7:7, Hebrews 11:6). Like Noah and all humanity, we have physical background radiation that testifies to creation,
and spiritual background revelation that testifies to the Creator.
2. Special revelation (1Pet. 1:8-12), which refers mainly to divinely inspired NT teaching regarding God’s history of salvation. Again, the Parable of the Talents indicates that souls are saved via faith in God/ Christ as revealed (cf. 1Cor. 10:1-5). Truthseekers around the world in all times are pilgrims at various places along the road of life, and all true roads eventually lead to the Way to eternal life in heaven (John 14:6, Acts 24:14, Phil. 2:10-11). All truth leads to One Way.
Regarding the second mode of revelation (NT), the kerygma or GRFS can be stated in various ways, which may cause confusion. Some statements (e.g. Acts 16:31, quoted previously, & Eph. 2:8-9) are in terms of believing right, and others (e.g. Matt. 7:21, “only he who does the will of my Father will enter heaven”, cf. Gal. 6:7-9 & Eph. 2:10) are in terms of behaving right. This prompts the question: Is salvation obtained by believing God’s words or by doing God’s works?
The answer is indicated by John 6:29: “The work of God is to believe in the one [Messiah/Christ] He has sent.” As Jesus stated (in John 14:6): “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And saving belief in Christ is connected with or manifested by love for humanity (1John 3:23-24, John 14:15, 23 & 15:9-12).
The mind of Jesus is truth incarnate (John 1:14), and all truth manifests the Spirit of Christ or God (1John 5:6). The work of God (GRFS) is to seek and believe the truth, and part of the truth is that no one comes to know God as Father except through faith in God’s truth embodied as God the Son. And the full Gospel is that salvation is followed by sanctification or spiritual growth toward moral perfection (Phil. 3:12-19) that reflects the love of Christ (Eph. 3:16-19).
For those of Israel law keeping obtained a degree of righteousness
Rom_10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
If kept until death these could anticipate a resurrection unto life.
Eze 18:27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
However, now by grace we can have the righteousness of Christ as a gift and no longer need the law.
Rom_10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Rom_10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
If kept until death these could anticipate a resurrection unto life.
Eze 18:27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
However, now by grace we can have the righteousness of Christ as a gift and no longer need the law.
Rom_10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
What would the point of God calling for repentance all throughout the Bible if God counts it as 0?
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact likeness of his character (Hebrews 1:3), which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Law of God, so it would be contradictory to think that we should accept him instead of accepting his example.
The NT teaches that no one follows Christ's example perfectly (Rom. 3:23) and therefore everyone is a sinner in need of following God (Rom. 6:23) by accepting His Messiah (John 6:29) as our atonement (Rom. 3:21-5:1, etc.). I urge you to do so before it is too late.
Repentance restores relationship with God. It does not earn His favor, nor does it atone for sin.