No, that was never the goal of why we should obey it. Character traits in general are not produced by our works, but rather the only way to attain a character trait is through faith that we ought to be doers of that trait, through becoming someone who has a character trait means becoming someone who is a doer of that trait. For example, it is not the case that we produce courageousness as the result of having first done a certain amount of courageous works, but rather the only way to become courageous is through faith that we ouch to be a doer of courageous works, becoming someone who is courageous means become someone who is a doer of courageous works, and the same is true of righteousness, and other character traits. Believing that we ought to be a doer of the character traits of God is what it means to believe in Him.
by Grace and through faith
- Thread starter Pilgrimshope
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Teaching us is a world of difference to commanding us.
We are saved and then we learn how to live before the Lord. But we walk before the Lord either obediently or disobediently ...
you don't like that, so what? this is God's business and you are intruding upon it.
We encourage, we exhort, we may rebuke, crucially we teach good wholesome doctrine. We may even expel from our fellowship but still those who have been saved by grace through faith are in God's hands.
We are saved and then we learn how to live before the Lord. But we walk before the Lord either obediently or disobediently ...
you don't like that, so what? this is God's business and you are intruding upon it.
We encourage, we exhort, we may rebuke, crucially we teach good wholesome doctrine. We may even expel from our fellowship but still those who have been saved by grace through faith are in God's hands.
-
1
- Show all
God is sovereign, so we are all under His law and obligated to refrain from sin.
In Genesis 18:19, God knew Avraham that he would teach his children and those of his household to walk in His way by doing righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to him all that He has promised. In Genesis 26:4-5, God will multiply Abraham's children as the stars in the heaven, to his children He will give all of these lands, and through his children all of the nations of the earth will be blessed because he heard God's voice and guarded His statutes, commandments, and laws. In Deuteronomy 30:16, if the children of Abraham will love God with all of their heart by walking in His ways in obedience to His commandments, statutes, and laws, then they will live and multiply and God will bless them in the land that they go to possess. So while Abraham is the Father of our faith in regard to having faith in the promise, the promise was made to him and brought about because walked in God's way in obedience to His law, he taught his children and those of his household to do that in accordance with spreading the Gospel, and because they did that.
In Titus 2:11-13, it doesn't say that we are saved first and then we are trained to do those works, but rather it describes the content of God's gift of salvation as being trained by grace to do those works.
In Genesis 18:19, God knew Avraham that he would teach his children and those of his household to walk in His way by doing righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to him all that He has promised. In Genesis 26:4-5, God will multiply Abraham's children as the stars in the heaven, to his children He will give all of these lands, and through his children all of the nations of the earth will be blessed because he heard God's voice and guarded His statutes, commandments, and laws. In Deuteronomy 30:16, if the children of Abraham will love God with all of their heart by walking in His ways in obedience to His commandments, statutes, and laws, then they will live and multiply and God will bless them in the land that they go to possess. So while Abraham is the Father of our faith in regard to having faith in the promise, the promise was made to him and brought about because walked in God's way in obedience to His law, he taught his children and those of his household to do that in accordance with spreading the Gospel, and because they did that.
In Titus 2:11-13, it doesn't say that we are saved first and then we are trained to do those works, but rather it describes the content of God's gift of salvation as being trained by grace to do those works.
That would depend on the type of work you are referring to.
There is a work that will keep you from God's grace and there is a work that will put you in the grace of God.
Works of the flesh and works of the law will keep you from being in the grace of God. However, works of faith will put you in the grace of God. The Bible is not referring to works works of faith as, going to church, reading the Bible, giving to the poor and the like. Those are good works, but they are works of the law. A work of faith, in most cases, is a single physical act corresponding to your faith, which causes you to be placed in God's grace, and at the same time, causing God's hand to move in the situation.
This kind of work is what James talks about, and is not the same as that which is mentioned in Ephesians 2:9. Verse 9 is referring to works of the law, not works of faith.
There is a work that will keep you from God's grace and there is a work that will put you in the grace of God.
Works of the flesh and works of the law will keep you from being in the grace of God. However, works of faith will put you in the grace of God. The Bible is not referring to works works of faith as, going to church, reading the Bible, giving to the poor and the like. Those are good works, but they are works of the law. A work of faith, in most cases, is a single physical act corresponding to your faith, which causes you to be placed in God's grace, and at the same time, causing God's hand to move in the situation.
This kind of work is what James talks about, and is not the same as that which is mentioned in Ephesians 2:9. Verse 9 is referring to works of the law, not works of faith.
In Acts 5:32, the Spirit has been given to those who obey God, so obedience to God is part of the way to receive the Spirit, however, Galatians 3:1-3 denies that “works of the law” are part of the way to receive the Spirit, therefore that phrase does not refer to obedience to God. In Romans 3:27-31, Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so works of the law are of works he said that our faith upholds God’s law, so it is of faith, and a law that our faith upholds can’t be referring to the same law as the works of the law that are not of faith in Galatians 3:10-12. Furthermore, Galatians 3:10-12 associates a quote from Habakkuk 2:4 saying that the righteous shall live by faith with a quote from Leviticus 18:5 that the one who obeys God’s law will attain life by it, so the righteous who are living by faith does not refer to a manner of living that is not in obedience to God’s law. Likewise, in Isaiah 51:7, the righteous are those on whose heart is God’s law, and in 1 John 3:7, whoever does what is righteous in obedience to it is righteous. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.
Someone who is trying to save themselves is not relying on anyone else, so it is contradictory to think that someone is trying to save themselves by obediently relying on God’s instructions. God’s law was not given as instructions for how to save ourselves, but rather God graciously teaching us to live in obedience to it is the way that He saves us from not living in obedience to it (Titus 2:11-13).
That is true concerning works of the law and of the flesh as well as moral works, but you failed to mention or acknowledge works of faith, which is contrary to the above mentioned works.
For example, a person who verbally says what he believes in his heart, is an act of Faith, also known as a work of faith.
Failure to act on what you believe in your heart will give you zero results, as in, no change to the current status quo.
In other words, God does not act on what you believe until you act on what you believe, and speaking what you believe is a simple form of a work done in faith.
Paul calls that, the word of faith.
Once that is accomplished, you have just entered into God's kingdom and his grace thereby moving the hand of God in that which you are believing for.
Just as we are not constantly forgiven automatically without the believer's repentance, I believe, neither are we constantly and automatically in the Kingdom of God and in his grace and favor. Even as we are not constantly walking in faith or in the Spirit.
Works of The flesh and of the law, you can do without God's help or helping hand in the situation, but works of Faith, only God can perform, after you act on it. Such as one receiving salvation, or healing, or Deliverance, or answered prayers. And God will perform that which we believe in our heart, if we act on what we believe, as Abraham did with Isaac.
For example, a person who verbally says what he believes in his heart, is an act of Faith, also known as a work of faith.
Failure to act on what you believe in your heart will give you zero results, as in, no change to the current status quo.
In other words, God does not act on what you believe until you act on what you believe, and speaking what you believe is a simple form of a work done in faith.
Paul calls that, the word of faith.
Once that is accomplished, you have just entered into God's kingdom and his grace thereby moving the hand of God in that which you are believing for.
Just as we are not constantly forgiven automatically without the believer's repentance, I believe, neither are we constantly and automatically in the Kingdom of God and in his grace and favor. Even as we are not constantly walking in faith or in the Spirit.
Works of The flesh and of the law, you can do without God's help or helping hand in the situation, but works of Faith, only God can perform, after you act on it. Such as one receiving salvation, or healing, or Deliverance, or answered prayers. And God will perform that which we believe in our heart, if we act on what we believe, as Abraham did with Isaac.
That's the whole point. The law showed us our need for a Savior!
Galatians 3:
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
-
1
- Show all
He wasn't under the gospel either.
Heb. 11:39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
We are saved by the gospel and we must obey the gospel.
2 Thess. 1: when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Heb. 11:39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
We are saved by the gospel and we must obey the gospel.
2 Thess. 1: when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
In Titus 2:11-13, it doesn't say that we save ourselves. by doing those works, but rather it describes our salvation as God be gracious to us by teaching us to do those works. If you don't accept the truth of those verses, then you should be straightforward about it.
Works can be done for any number of reasons other than in order to earn a wage that are compatible with gifts. For example, the content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it in order to have that experience, but where doing that work has nothing to do with earning the opportunity to drive it as a wage. Similarly, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how that have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23), not for how to earn eternal life as a wage.
Works can be done for any number of reasons other than in order to earn a wage that are compatible with gifts. For example, the content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it in order to have that experience, but where doing that work has nothing to do with earning the opportunity to drive it as a wage. Similarly, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how that have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23), not for how to earn eternal life as a wage.