Faith or Law?

[Soyeong]

I am glad to see that you do not believe we are saved by works, but rather we are saved unto good works. But I till do not understand the "or else" part of your argument. Is salvation lost when the things that are required of a person who has been saved are not fulfilled (i.e., when he does not choose to break the law or does an ungodly act)?

Jesus saves us from our sin and sin is the transgression of the Law of God, so there is a direct connection between our salvation and being a doer of the Law of God and the key is to correctly understand what that connection is and is not. I do not like the phrase "saved by works" because it does not bring clarity to what that connection is or is not. If I affirm that we are saved by works, then I am not taking the position that we are required to have first done enough works in order to earn our salvation as the result, but if I deny that we are saved by works, then I am not taking the position that there is no connection our salvation and being a doer of the Law of God.

We do not lose or regain our salvation every time we sin or repent, but whether someone can lose their salvation if they deliberately turn their back on God is another issue. 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 if someone is participating in that training in obedience to the Law of God, then they are intrinsically being saved from not participating in that training, but if they then deliberately rejects the content of their gift of salvation by doing what is ungodly and renouncing doing what is godly, righteous, and good, then they are no longer being saved from not participating in that training. Someone who is participating in being trained to experience doing something does not always perfectly do that, but they are heading in the right direction through faith, and repentance is about heading in the right direction, not about perfection.

You indicated before that forgiveness comes into play in these circumstances. But you also indicated that God does not require saved people to be perfect. You also argued that a character trait can be a flawed character trait and still be counted as good. And you have also argued that wanting to do good but not doing dood is not the character trait of saved people. But it seems like these four things are in conflict with each other because forgiveness is not necessary if a flawed character trait is counted as good or imperfect people can be counted as righteous and being a doer of the law (with the right intentions) does not align with not doing the law on occasion and feeling bad about it.

If we needed to have perfect obedience in order to become saved, then the forgiveness of our sins would have no value, but rather forgiveness is why we are not required to have perfect obedience. Repentance is more than just feeling bad about something, but about rectifying it and redirecting our lives towards heading in a different direction. If we needed to perfectly embody a character trait in order to have it, then no one would have any character traits, but rather someone having a character trait means that it characterizes what they believe about the way they should act. There is a spectrum between someone just feels bad about not doing something and them perfectly doing it throughout their entire life.

 

[NewLifeInChrist]

If its true that works come from faith then atheists couldn't do good works. That's silly. Works done by atheists arent salvific but works done in faith are. That's why James says faith is completed by works and why faith alone is not sufficient for salvation. If faith was it wouldn't need completion. You have to know what sufficient means.

Yeah, I'm not sure where you get the idea that a person's actions are not reflective of what he believes. James says, "I will show you my faith by my works" (Jas 2:18). What a person believes is invisible to everyone else besides himself and God. But his works makes visible the invisible. Why? Becauce people don't generally act contrary to their own bliefs.

A person says they trust this rickety bridge. But they drive 5 miles out of the way twice a day to avoid it. Their actions demonstrate that their faith in that bridge is dead.

Another person says he trusts in Jesus for the salvation of his soul. As a result, he no longer works for his own salvation, but rests from his works. This person's rest from his works demonstrates to the outside world the veracity of his stated trust in Christ.

And the new lives we live is also a life of faith. We walk by faith. Jesus leads, guides, directs, corrects, and comforts us from the intimacy of our own hearts. When we walk in lock step with Him (Gal 5:25), we are trusting Him and acting accordingly. We are walking by faith. Faith and works cannot be divorced.

 

[NewLifeInChrist]

Jesus saves us from our sin and sin is the transgression of the Law of God, so there is a direct connection between our salvation and being a doer of the Law of God and the key is to correctly understand what that connection is and is not. I do not like the phrase "saved by works" because it does not bring clarity to what that connection is or is not. If I affirm that we are saved by works, then I am not taking the position that we are required to have first done enough works in order to earn our salvation as the result, but if I deny that we are saved by works, then I am not taking the position that there is no connection our salvation and being a doer of the Law of God.

We do not lose or regain our salvation every time we sin or repent, but whether someone can lose their salvation if they deliberately turn their back on God is another issue. 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 if someone is participating in that training in obedience to the Law of God, then they are intrinsically being saved from not participating in that training, but if they then deliberately rejects the content of their gift of salvation by doing what is ungodly and renouncing doing what is godly, righteous, and good, then they are no longer being saved from not participating in that training. Someone who is participating in being trained to experience doing something does not always perfectly do that, but they are heading in the right direction through faith, and repentance is about heading in the right direction, not about perfection.

If we needed to have perfect obedience in order to become saved, then the forgiveness of our sins would have no value, but rather forgiveness is why we are not required to have perfect obedience. Repentance is more than just feeling bad about something, but about rectifying it and redirecting our lives towards heading in a different direction. If we needed to perfectly embody a character trait in order to have it, then no one would have any character traits, but rather someone having a character trait means that it characterizes what they believe about the way they should act. There is a spectrum between someone just feels bad about not doing something and them perfectly doing it throughout their entire life.

I see capitulation on the point that being doers the law is required and at the same time I see it being insisted upon.

Is being a doer of the law fulfilled by a repeated lawbreaker as long as he doesn't deliberately turn his back on God? I think that's what you're saying.

It seems like the character trait of the one who fulfills the requirements of the law is that when he breaks the law, he readily receives the forgiveness of Christ, so that his confidence is not in his obedience to the law but in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice for his sins. As I asked before, why not lead the discussion with the suficiency of Christ, since this is the central concept of Christianity and the only path available to man for reconciliation with God?

 

[Soyeong]

I see capitulation on the point that being doers the law is required and at the same time I see it being insisted upon.

Is being a doer of the law fulfilled by a repeated lawbreaker as long as he doesn't deliberately turn his back on God? I think that's what you're saying.

It seems like the character trait of the one who fulfills the requirements of the law is that when he breaks the law, he readily receives the forgiveness of Christ, so that his confidence is not in his obedience to the law but in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice for his sins. As I asked before, why not lead the discussion with the suficiency of Christ, since this is the central concept of Christianity and the only path available to man for reconciliation with God?

No, I've been consistently saying that being a doer of the law is more than just wanting to obey it and less than perfect obedience. Someone being courageous is more than just wanting to be courageous, but it does not require them to have been perfectly courageous throughout their entire life. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what he accomplished through the cross is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Law of God (1 John 3:4). Someone who is zealous for doing good works is more than just wanting to do them but they have been redeemed from their lawlessness, so they have not had perfect obedience either.

 

[Toknow]

Yeah, I'm not sure where you get the idea that a person's actions are not reflective of what he believes. James says, "I will show you my faith by my works" (Jas 2:18). What a person believes is invisible to everyone else besides himself and God. But his works makes visible the invisible. Why? Becauce people don't generally act contrary to their own bliefs.

A person says they trust this rickety bridge. But they drive 5 miles out of the way twice a day to avoid it. Their actions demonstrate that their faith in that bridge is dead.

Another person says he trusts in Jesus for the salvation of his soul. As a result, he no longer works for his own salvation, but rests from his works. This person's rest from his works demonstrates to the outside world the veracity of his stated trust in Christ.

What are you saying?
Are you saying that a person that does not obey God by doing good works....
is demonstrating to teh outside world that he trust in Christ?

If I tell my neighbor I'm Christian..
and then offer no help at a time of need....
this is the veracity of my faith??

And the new lives we live is also a life of faith. We walk by faith. Jesus leads, guides, directs, corrects, and comforts us from the intimacy of our own hearts. When we walk in lock step with Him (Gal 5:25), we are trusting Him and acting accordingly. We are walking by faith. Faith and works cannot be divorced.

How are you acting accordingly to what Jesus wants if you do not obey Him??

 

[Dino246]

If I tell my neighbor I'm Christian..
and then offer no help at a time of need....
this is the veracity of my faith??

If the need is something you can legitimately meet, without endangering or impoverishing yourself, then God may want you to meet it.

Or He may not.

He may want someone else to meet that need. He may know that the person requesting is a scammer. He is God, and He knows best. That's why it is wise to seek His guidance in each situation.

 

[Toknow]

If the need is something you can legitimately meet, without endangering or impoverishing yourself, then God may want you to meet it.

Or He may not.

He may want someone else to meet that need. He may know that the person requesting is a scammer. He is God, and He knows best. That's why it is wise to seek His guidance in each situation.

How is your reply answering my question?

If someone is in need.....
You stop to ask GOD if you should help?

Should the priest and Levite have stopped to help the beaten up man on his way to Jericho?

 

[TMS]

Faith and works go hand in hand with each other.

You can't have unchrist like works or evil works and say you are a faithful Christian.

Jas 2:17-18
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
Gal 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

 

[Inquisitor]

Matthew 25:41-46
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;

43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’

44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [e]take care of You?’

45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Are those verses above speaking about spiritually helping those who are really sick and in need?

After all Jesus was the bread that came down from heaven.

The water that Jesus gives springs up to eternal life.

In the N.T it always concerns the spiritual.

 

[Inquisitor]

There is a difference between these two positions:

1.) Our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God.

2.) Our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God in order to earn it as the result.

The Bible affirms 1 white denying 2 and the problem is people commonly use verses that deny 2 in order to argue against 1. For example, in Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in contrast with saying that he would tell those who are workers of lawless to depart from him because he never knew them, so there is a reason why our entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to choose to be workers of lawfulness, but the reason is not in order to work for it. So I also totally reject the idea that we must work for our salvation because that was never the for reason why our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God.

Jesus said to treat others the way you wanted to be treated. For that is the law and the prophets.

Simple stuff.

 

[Adstar]

I disagree with those who promote rigid observance of Law in order to be righteous. I do not say such things in isolation.
Galatians 3: 1-5
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh? Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing? Does God lavish His Spirit on you and work miracles among you because you practice the law, or because you hear and believe?

This was written by one of the foremost scholars of the Law. We do well to take him seriously.

Being Rightious means being right with God.. No one can achieve the status of being right with God through doing the Law because all people fall short of doing the Law in one way or the other.. We are made rightious by believing Jesus and trusting in the Atonement He secured by His death on the cross that pays the penalty for our sins..

 

[GWH]

God-given moral conscience (Gen. 3:22) convicted by application of the Golden Rule (Gen. 3:7) enables discernment of moral values
among Levitical rules in the OT Torah (Exo. 20:12-17, Matt. 19:18-19), wisdom literature (Psa. 7, 9, 11, 14, etc.) and prophetic books (Isa. 65, etc.) that God intends to lead sinners to depend on Christ's atonement for salvation (Gal. 3:23-26).

 

[Dino246]

How is your reply answering my question?

If someone is in need.....
You stop to ask GOD if you should help?

Should the priest and Levite have stopped to help the beaten up man on his way to Jericho?

Yes, I stop to ask God about it.

 

[Gideon300]

There is a difference between these two positions:

1.) Our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God.

2.) Our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God in order to earn it as the result.

The Bible affirms 1 white denying 2 and the problem is people commonly use verses that deny 2 in order to argue against 1. For example, in Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in contrast with saying that he would tell those who are workers of lawless to depart from him because he never knew them, so there is a reason why our entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to choose to be workers of lawfulness, but the reason is not in order to work for it. So I also totally reject the idea that we must work for our salvation because that was never the for reason why our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the Law of God.

Our salvation has nothing whatever to do with us. The only good decision we can make is to believe Jesus who is our salvation. We can do nothing to add to our salvation and we can do nothing to take away from it.

What part of "new birth" is so hard to understand? It is impossible of course, but suppose a dog died and somehow came back to life as a cat. Would it have to try to be a cat? No. It is a cat by nature. Do Christians have to try to be Christian? No, it is a consequence of the new birth.

This is exactly where people such as yourself get it wrong. You cannot make a cat more cat like. Even if you train it to behave like a dog, it will still be a cat. You cannot become more Christlike by anything that you do or say. Get that right and then you can talk about behaviour. I can assure you that obeying the law is way less demanding than the obedience that God requires. God's standard is so high that only one person has ever met it. His name is Jesus.

If you are born again then you died and your life is hidden in Christ with God. Jesus lives in us to be all that God requires us to be. Jesus is the Life of every believer. God expects so little of us that He decided to terminate us. God knows that we cannot change ourselves. So through the cross, we die. And through the resurrection, we live forever.

The choice is not between lawlessness and obedience to the Law. The choice is between death and life. Jesus did not say that He came to help us to obey the Law. He said that He came that we might have "zoe", the uncreated life of God Himself.

 

[NewLifeInChrist]

No, I've been consistently saying that being a doer of the law is more than just wanting to obey it and less than perfect obedience. Someone being courageous is more than just wanting to be courageous, but it does not require them to have been perfectly courageous throughout their entire life. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what he accomplished through the cross is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Law of God (1 John 3:4). Someone who is zealous for doing good works is more than just wanting to do them but they have been redeemed from their lawlessness, so they have not had perfect obedience either.

A courageous person is not courageous when he is a coward. And a sinner is not righteous when he sins. And the punishment for being a coward is not eternal death. But the punishment for committing sin is eternal death. And being zealous for good works does not stop the punishment for the many sins that were committed while not being zealous for good works. So, to me, the character trait, as you call it, doesn't save people from the punishment they deserve for their sins. It is forgiveness that saves them. But we repeat ourselves.

 

[Gideon300]

Are those verses above speaking about spiritually helping those who are really sick and in need?

After all Jesus was the bread that came down from heaven.

The water that Jesus gives springs up to eternal life.

In the N.T it always concerns the spiritual.

I realise what you are trying to say, but it is also true that we should be helping those with material needs also, especially the brethren. (Galatians 2:10)

 

[Soyeong]

Jesus said to treat others the way you wanted to be treated. For that is the law and the prophets.

Simple stuff.

Everything in the Law of Moses is either in regard to how to love God or our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so the position that we should obey the greatest two commandments is also the position that we should obey the commandment that hang on them.

 

[Soyeong]

Being Rightious means being right with God.. No one can achieve the status of being right with God through doing the Law because all people fall short of doing the Law in one way or the other.. We are made rightious by believing Jesus and trusting in the Atonement He secured by His death on the cross that pays the penalty for our sins..

We can’t earn our righteousness even as the result of having perfect obedience to the Law of God (Romans 4:1-5), so the reason why we can’t earn our righteousness is not because we fall short but because the Law of God was never given as a way of earning our righteousness in the first place. In Romans 3:21-22, it doesn’t say that the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through perfect obedience, but rather the only to become righteous that is testified about in the Law and the Prophets is through faith in Christ for all who believe. The Law of God was given to describe the life of a righteous person as it describes the life of Christ, so it is what we get to become a doer of by being given the gift of the righteousness of God through faith (1 John 3:4-7). In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in Jesus and in what he accomplished through the cross is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to Law of God (Acts 21:20).

 

[Toknow]

Jesus said to treat others the way you wanted to be treated. For that is the law and the prophets.

Simple stuff.

No time now.
Just read your post to me no. 749

So if YOU were hungry....
I shouldn't feed you because Jesus meant it in a spiritual way?

Later....

 

[Toknow]

Yes, I stop to ask God about it.

OK

I would just have helped him get off the ground and maybe call an ambualance or maybe drive him to a hospital.

I hope if I'm laying on the ground hurt...

it's not YOU that shows up.

Maybe someone that would automatically know that God would want the person to help me.