If you say you love your wife, but do nothing for her, but only talk about it, then you don't love her. Your love must be lived out to be true. Now that doesn't mean there aren't seasons in which you drift closer or even further apart.
No living faith without works
- Thread starter ATG
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I learned this from an Orthodox Priest, all your good works on your own amount to a "0."
So no amount of good works on their own means anything, 0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0 will always =0.
Once you accept Christ, he becomes a 1 in front of all your 0's.
now I have 1,000,000,000,000,00000 so keep stacking the good works and your rewards in Heaven.
You almost had it. Works don't save us but to say they have no participation in salvation is either the result of blindness of Scripture or ignorance.
No, I actually had it. You can try to work your way there and hope in the end you get there. I have the confidence that I'm going there.
No you have the sin of presumption.
If works complete faith as James teaches then by definition so with alone is insufficient. It would help you if you knew what sufficient meant
Thats not what sufficient means. Something seems to happen to people when they come to believe. It's as if rot memorization takes the place of thinking in some of them.
That was to you. It means I'm moving on from this fruitless discussion. I guess I could've said, "have a nice day."
Was I not nice? I was just acknowledging my understanding of why you would move on. If you know what sufficient means then you won't claim faith alone saves if Scripture says faith is completed through works. You don't want to face the incongruence in your position. I get it.
False.
2 pet 1:4
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:6Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Works added to faith in Christ, is necessary to produce fruit with Christ, and ensures salvation by Christ unto the end of this life.
True. Paul preaches against having works with faith, called dead works. James preaches against having faith without works, called dead faith. Neither faith nor works saves and justifies a person, without the other.
There is no living faith that saves, that is without works. There is no living works that justify, that is without faith.
It's a connection proposition.
If you have Faith in God then you will help to fulfill the Great Commission through works.
These works ((do not)) save you but rather Testify to Who you are doing the works for, the One who did save you.
And you only do works for the One who did save you. It's typically referred to as being grateful for your Salvation.
If you have Faith in God then you will help to fulfill the Great Commission through works.
These works ((do not)) save you but rather Testify to Who you are doing the works for, the One who did save you.
And you only do works for the One who did save you. It's typically referred to as being grateful for your Salvation.
ATG Said,
It's not possible to have any living faith without works, even as it's not possible to have a living body without breathing.
I don't see in your argument, showing anything missing with the life of faith being works, even as the life of the body is the work of breathing. Even as a dead body is not breathing, so is dead faith without working.
If you are saying there is an element of life before breathing, then what is it?
If you are saying that works are not the breath of living faith, then how can there be spiritual faith in the heart, without spiritual works of the heart? Are you saying the only works of man are by the body, and not first in the heart?
Quote the Scripture, that says we receive God's living faith, before producing good works. There is no Scripture saying that faith without/before works saves any man.
In Scripture, the only faith without works produced, is seed alone on the wayside:
Mar 4:15
And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
Wayside faith is faith alone before works. That faith does not produce any fruit, because it's immediately taken away by Satan. Jesus never speaks of sowing any faith preceding works, other than on the wayside. Otherwise, it's faith with works produced.
In the sower of the seed, any faith alone preceding works is taken away. That faith cannot become any faith producing works.
The ideology of having faith alone preceding and then producing works, is not any seed of the Sower. There is no salvation by wayside faith, that is taken away before producing any fruit.
Indeed, with natural seed, it is sown alone before producing fruit. However, the parable comparison is not all natural. The seed of the word of God, is the faith of Christ, which is spiritual faith, not natural seed. And the Spirit is quick and powerful to produce, and never without works:
Heb 4:12
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
There is no faith of Christ alone before works, even as there is no Spirit of Christ without works:
Jhn 8:29
And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
Believing that the Spirit's seed must be sown alone before producing works, is to carry the natural parable too far, as though the Sower's seed is natural faith of man, who can have faith alone, without and before doing any works. Which is dead by nature of sinful man.
Once again, this is trying to apply a natural parable to the spiritual things of God: God has no living seed before works, nor any living horse before a cart.
Rev 19:11
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
Jesus only has a horse, not a cart. The Rider and the horse are one. Neither He nor His brethren are hauling around a cartload of works.
Once again, there is no Scripture of any faith of God, that is before works, nor is there any cart pulled by His horse. The Rider is the word of faith, and the horse is His works.
Rev 14:13
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
Our works on earth follow us to judgment, with resurrection of our dead bodies. The Scripture is not speaking having our faith alone, and going before our works.
Once again, show any Scripture where works are a 'sign' of faith. Which today is called virtue-signaling.
Works are actions, not signs. Signs of faith are words without works.
1Jo 3:18
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Good works are not a sign of faith and love, but are the faith and love working together, that justify the man with God.
James{2:21}
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
Abraham was not justified by his faith alone. Scripture does not call his, nor any man's works, a sign. But rather works are our faith being made complete, by doing the commandment of God, in offering up his only son to God.
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
The Scripture of counting Abraham righteous by faith, was not fulfilled, until he did the work of faith, and so was called the Friend of God. No man is a friend of God by faith alone, with words of love, and signs of friendship. But friendship with God is only by doing His commandments with faith.
Jhn 15:14
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Rev 14:12
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Since there's no horse of Christ with a cart, then having any cart before or after the horse, is only the work of man. It;s the cart of works that man can boast of. See my cart of works?
There is no saving faith without works, nor justifying works without faith: The Rider and the horse are one, working together for the good: The rider has faith, the horse does the work. As a fisherman without fishing, so is a rider without a horse.
At least you acknowledge confession with the mouth is a work, but since it contradicts your Faith Alone ideology, it also must be excluded from your own salvation and personal Christianity.
Rom 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
This is a clear example of how Faith Alone justification is nothing more than believing what people want. Since they believe they are justified by their own faith alone, then whatever they believe must be true, and whatever they say must be the words of God.
So, if they believe and say something enough times, with enough agreement among themselves, then anyone disagreeing must be to them a heretick, including the Scripture of Jesus Christ.
This was the same case with Jewish priesthood and teachers after hundreds of years, that they condemned the Scriptures' promised Messiah Himself. Why? For preaching against their own justification by Law Alone.
Have you ever asked another person what they mean by "faith alone"?
Or, as I am almost certain, have you just made up your own definition and spent untold hours composing rants against your self-invented misinterpretation?
I tried several times to explain what I believe, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Lots of people seem to know what I believe better than I do. It's quite odd.