Posted on 01/12/2015 6:31:41 AM PST by Gamecock
To utterly despair of oneself is infinitely more difficult for a man than to invent some kind of good works.generated self-salvation project. Human beings irresistibly gravitate toward a works or karma-based system because it gives man the false hope that his redemption is within his own reach. But a salvation that is all of grace, a gift earned by Someone else, is so utterly offensive to human nature, so humbling to our pride, that only a supernatural work of grace will bring a person to yield to it.
Contrary to popular and cultural concepts of God, the Bible declares that trusting (even partly) in our goodness, merit or works for salvation is one of the the greatest causes of man's damnation. Instead the Bible teaches that God came into the world as a flesh human being to satisfy the righteous requirements of the law and absorb the penalty we deserve for sin on Himself in order to redeem all who, by the grace of God, come to Jesus Christ in faith. And when Jesus died on the cross he actually nailed the ordinances of the law that stood against us to the cross; in the second chapter of Colossians we read that he blotted them out (Colossians 2:14). Yes Jesus actually fulfilled the law and satisfied the penalty of sin from our side. He didn't come to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). This means he did for us what we were unable to do for ourselves. We can do nothing to achieve salvation or add to His work (partly or fully).
This means that when we trust in following the rules, even if we are zealous for God in order that God would save us, we spurn God and His only means of forgiveness for us. It is to declare independence from God's way and establish ones own righteousness (Rom 10:1-4). But the salvation of God is based solely upon His accepting us in His Son Jesus Christ. It is not that God does not want us to be moral. No, He does. But He does not want us to make a savior our of morality. It is because of Him that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 1:29, 30). Therefore when a person trusts in Jesus Christ they cannot boast in anything: not their faith, and not their works.... because He accepts them by grace because of the work of Jesus unto faith and good works. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." In other words, God accepts us by grace alone that He might mold and create children who, by His Spirit, walk after Him.
To those who are in Christ, our record of our wrongs have been nailed to the cross and He has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the Saints. Now we can walk without fear of condemnation and can behold the face of Jesus and gaze into His beauty, knowing that one day, because of Him, we will be like Him.
"Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains." John 9:41
Good solid Lutheran doctrine!
Btw, a book entitled “Christianity in an age of Terrorism” provides an excellent discussion of how “self righteousness”—based on one’s strict adherence to a moral code—motivates the Islamic extremists. The author is Gene Edward Veith.
Marked for Bible study this evening...thanks!
This is a very nice presentation, and helps to reconcile the supposed differences between Paul and James.
This author puts it in such a way that one can see that there is actually no contradiction.
Love Veith!
While I agree with every thing said it seems to me if we are going to walk with Jesus we are going to do or try to do a few of the thing he said.
I will not go into what he told us to do because it is all in his words.
But James puts it pretty simple. James 2, 14 through 26
Faith is supposed to bring about something besides religion,
those little things Jesus told us to do which James calls works.
There is an old saying, don’t confuse your justification with your sanctification.
IOW, all we bring to the table is our own sin. Once we are saved we grow and over a lifetime become more Chirstlike. But no matter how much we move in that direction it isn’t enough. That isn’t what saves/d us. It is all Jesus.
Gamecock, I love your posts and agree with virtually everything you say. However “synergism” is God’s plan in the work of regeneration. God is “no respecter of persons”, “tasted death for every man”, and calls “all men everywhere to repent”. ;-)
That's exactly the point: once you surrender your life to Christ in gratitude for the gift He gave, Christlike behaviors will start to become more natural to you, and will be evidence of your surrender; but not the cause of it.
We have responsibilities to follow Christ and do God's will:
1. Baptism is necessary for our salvation. (Jn3:5). Baptism will forgive original and actual sins and provide God's grace to avoid sin and follow God's will.
Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
2. Confession/ Reconciliation God will provide forgiveness of our sins and the grace to grow closer to God.(Jn 20:19-23).
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
3. Eucharist (The Body and Blood) is our food for eternal life. (Jn 6:51-55).
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”a
52 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54 Whoever eats* my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.b
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” 59These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
There is an old saying, don’t confuse your justification with your sanctification.
IOW, all we bring to the table is our own sin.
But it has been proven that there is a division between the work crowd and the faith crowd and mostly one side go to far in one direction while the other side goes to far in the other, and both sides make it into a religion.
Jesus did not even mention religion, he just spoke facts.
Matthew 7
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Matthew 25:31-46
Shows we will be judged by what we do according to our faith as James said in James 2, 14 through 26.
It is plain that James was referring to what Jesus said.
While you may understand Paul as Peter did in 2 Peter 3:15 and 16
Many people or could it be most people may not understand.
I believe these things need to be qualified.
Christlike behaviors will start to become more natural to you, and will be evidence of your surrender; but not the cause of it.
Why would Jesus have told us if we were supposed to automatically know , not disagreeing but only adding my thoughts on the matter.
Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
And yet there are those who teach we should have to earn or merit grace!!!
And look how many folks are so quick to fast forward to what is required of the Christian life, without relishing what God has done for us!
Baptism, the sacrament of confession, eating Jesus.....
Nice list of works there but they are still works.
The whole gist of the article is that there is NOTHING that we can do to earn, merit, or keep our salvation.
Saying that those things are necessary for salvation is doing the very thing that we can’t do: depending on them to make us right with God.
It’s an affront to God because it tells Him that the work of Jesus on the cross, that was HIS plan for salvation for mankind, is not good enough.
That our puny works, which pale by comparison to the suffering of Jesus who died in our place, can make any kind of difference.
A child might as well draw on the Mona Lisa with crayons to improve it. And the child might think he did. But did he really?
Exactly!
The two are so closely connected, I wouldn’t know how to separate them. Often, in Paul’s letters, he spoke of “walking worthily” - or, conducting our lives in accord with what God through Christ has done for us, to make our lives fit what He has done. Our walk ought to fit our high calling, our exalted position.
To not respond in such a way would be to “walk unworthily”, to live in discord to that wondrous grace, in a way that just doesn’t fit our calling. Believe it or not, there are some who teach that we need not respond to God’s grace with such a “worthy walk”.
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