“We are saved by faith alone.”
The Bible doesn’t say it. In fact, the Bible rejects it.
It was not part of Christian belief for the first 1,500 years of Christianity.
Even today, only about one-fifth of Christians belong to churches that teach it.
And yet, the minority of Christians who do believe in it think it’s the most important, essential teaching of Christianity.
“Justification by faith alone” is the Protestant doctrine that the one and only thing that saves us is believing that Jesus Christ died for us on the cross. Our “works,” meaning what we do and how we live, do not contribute anything to our salvation. If we believe that Jesus died for us, we will go to heaven. If we do not believe that Jesus died for us, we will go to hell.
I have been told that I am going to hell because I am unwilling to say and believe that faith alone saves.
Now that could be a problem!
The numbers don’t look good
Let’s do a little math.
Approximately 20% of Christians belong to churches that teach that faith alone saves. Approximately 32% of the world’s population identifies as Christian. This means that approximately 6.4% of the world’s population belongs to churches that teach that faith alone saves.
The current world population is 7.3 billion.
This means that by the most optimistic estimates (if all of the people who belong to churches that teach faith alone actually believe the way they are supposed to), of all the people alive today:
- 467 million people are saved and will go to heaven.
- 6.8 billion people will be damned and go to hell.
Or put another way, over 93% of the world’s population is going to hell.
Is God incompetent?
So I have a question for you:
Is God incompetent?
If you worked in an automobile design studio, and one day you rushed into your boss’s office and said, “Look! I’ve designed a car that works 6.4% of the time!” how would your boss react? I’ll tell you how: “Back to the drawing board!”
Supposedly God loves all of the people whom God has created. And yet, if the only thing that saves us is faith in Jesus Christ, and the belief that we are saved by that faith alone, then over 93% of the people God supposedly loves are going to hell.
I would call that an epic fail.
Even if we broaden the definition, and say that everyone who believes in Jesus can be saved, you’re still talking a success rate of only 32% at best—and that assumes that everyone who self-identifies as a Christian truly believes in Jesus Christ.
Even a 32% success rate would still be a major fail on God’s part.
Yet according to the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, that is the best success rate God could possibly have in the population of the world today.
Is God really such a bad designer that somewhere between 67% and 93% of the human beings on earth end out in the scrap heap with “REJECT” stamped on them in big, red letters?
Yes, but what about the Bible?
The churches and preachers who teach salvation by faith alone know about these numbers. Their general response is, “Yes, it sounds harsh. But we must believe it because that’s what the Bible teaches.”
So here’s a little quiz:
Question: How many times does “faith alone” appear in the Bible?
Answer: Once.
Here it is:
You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)
That’s right. In the one and only place in the entire Bible that “faith alone” appears, it is specifically rejected as saving!
Christians who believe in faith alone think that Paul teaches it.
But Paul never even says “faith alone” in any of his letters. (He also doesn’t say “grace alone.”) And Paul was articulate enough that if he had wanted to say that faith alone saves, he certainly had the vocabulary and the ability to do so.
But he never did.
What Paul did say is that we are saved by faith apart from the works of the Law (Romans 3:28). And that is one of the most misunderstood verses in the entire Bible.
Paul was not saying that we don’t have to do good deeds in order to be saved. Just one chapter earlier, he had said:
God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:6–11)
So it’s crystal clear that Paul, like every other writer in the Bible, taught that we must do good works in order to be saved, and that if we don’t, we will be condemned.
“Faith apart from the works of the Law”
When Paul said that we are saved by faith apart from the works of the Law, he was talking about the Law of Moses.
He was arguing, against the main group of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, that it was not necessary for Christians to obey the ritual laws of sacrifice, diet, circumcision, and so on prescribed in the ancient Jewish ritual code found in the Torah, or Law, which is the first five books of the Bible. Paul, an “apostle to the Gentiles” (see Romans 11:13), did not want to saddle pagan converts with the ritual laws of Judaism. Further, he believed that faith in Jesus made it unnecessary to follow those ritual laws.
For observant Jews, strictly following these laws was a matter of great pride. See, for example, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9–14:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
That’s why Paul said in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” Here “works” like the “circumcision” that he talks about in the next few verses, is shorthand for “the works of the Law”—meaning the ritual laws given by Moses in the Torah.
Paul even says in the very next verse, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10, italics added).
Yes, Paul was big on faith. He’s always talking about faith. But he never taught faith alone. Just like the other Bible writers, he insisted that we must do good works as commanded by the Lord if we wish to be saved and go to heaven.
Where did faith alone come from?
If the Bible never says that faith alone saves, how did it become the distinguishing doctrine of Protestantism?
Martin Luther
The answer is simple. The doctrine of salvation by faith alone did not come from the Bible. It came from Martin Luther (1483–1546).
Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest in Germany who, in time, rejected Catholicism and became the leading founder of Protestantism.
As part of his doctrinal break from Rome, he promulgated the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. This doctrine became the primary doctrine distinguishing Protestantism from Roman Catholicism, and the key doctrine of Protestantism as a whole.
John Calvin
John Calvin (1509–1564), a French theologian who became another primary figure in the Protestant Reformation, founding the Reformed or Calvinist branch of Protestantism, adopted the doctrine of salvation by faith alone from Luther.
Philip Melanchthon
These two theologians, along with Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), who systematized Lutheran theology, established salvation by faith alone as the fundamental doctrine of Protestantism. This is the doctrine that distinguishes it from Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and all other Christian churches. It is only Protestants who say, over and over again, that we are saved by faith alone.
Protestants—especially the Evangelical and Fundamentalist variety—believe and claim that the doctrine of salvation by faith alone comes from the Bible. But the reality is that it comes from Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon.
The Bible itself never says that faith alone saves. Instead, as I pointed out earlier, the Bible specifically denies that we are saved by faith alone. Martin Luther actually wanted to remove the book of James from the Bible because it contradicted his distinctive doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
So what?
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
So what?
What does it matter whether the doctrine of salvation by faith alone is true or false? Isn’t it just another one of those endless and useless doctrinal debates that those old Christian theologians are always having with each other?
Well . . . first of all, if we were truly saved by faith alone, it would mean that somewhere between two-thirds and nineteen-twentieths of the world’s population will spend eternity being tortured in hell mostly because they just happened to be born into the wrong culture and religion.
I don’t know about you, but the idea that a loving God would design the world so that most people end out in hell really bothers me.
What is our life for, anyway?
But let me ask you a more practical question.
What do you spend more of your time at: believing things or doing things?
Don’t get me wrong, faith is very important. If we don’t believe in God, or at least in some higher power and morality than ourselves, about all that’s left is for us to live for the pleasure of today, and hope for more pleasure tomorrow. And that’s not much of a life.
However, for most of us, believing things takes up only a small part of our time and energy. The reality is that we’ve got work to do.
Most of us spend most of our days, and most of our lives, getting up in the morning and going about our daily tasks, going to our day job, taking care of our families and other people that we’re responsible for, and getting things done around the house and around the community.
The main problem with faith alone is not that it isn’t taught by the Bible—as bad as that is. The main problem with faith alone is that if it were true, it would mean that almost everything we do during our lifetime here on earth is irrelevant to our eternal life.
Our daily work matters
Why would God put us on this earth and give us bodies, and work to do with them, if all that matters is what we believe? If all that matters is faith, why didn’t God just give us a brain, and a thinking mind, and leave it at that?
The reality is that everything we do all day—all of our work, all of our struggle, all of our blood, sweat, and tears—does matter in eternity. God did not put us on earth merely to believe and have faith. God put us here on earth to act on our faith, and live by our beliefs. That’s why the Apostle James said:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:14–17)
The Bible everywhere, and in many different ways, tells us that faith by itself is useless. Everywhere, the Bible tells us that if we wish to be saved, we must love our neighbor, care for our neighbor, and engage in active service to our neighbor. Jesus himself tells us that only those who tend to the needs of others will go to heaven (see Matthew 25:31–46).
Our daily labor, our daily job, our daily service to our fellow human beings is the crucible in which our eternal life is forged.
God gave us the Ten Commandments, and all the other laws of life in the Bible, for a reason. Only by following God’s commandments, only by living with integrity toward our fellow human beings, only by serving other people day in and day out with love and humility, can God build in us the depth of spiritual character required to spend eternity as angels in heaven.
God did not make a mistake putting us here on earth and making it a requirement that we spend much of our life, and much of our day, engaged in useful services of one sort or another. Quite the contrary. God knew that it is only through active service to others that we can develop as spiritual and heavenly beings.
The doctrine of salvation by faith alone fails miserably not only because it is contrary to the teachings of the Bible, but also because it would make most of our life, most of our labor, most of what we spend our days doing totally irrelevant.
But I’m here to tell you that what you do all day does matter. What you do with your life does matter. Because little by little, with each task done and with each service rendered to your fellow human beings, you are building the spiritual character you need for God to bless you with eternal life and joy in the vast community of service that is heaven.
For further reading:
- Faith Alone Is Not Faith
- Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
- The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 1
- God is Love . . . And That Makes All the Difference in the World
- What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Again?
- Did Jesus Really Die to Pay the Penalty for our Sins?!?
- Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on Earth
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
John 3:16… no mention of good deeds. The thief on the cross didn’t lead a life of good deeds yet he was saved. Faith saves.
Hi Hrfs,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
In response, while faith is certainly a key part of salvation, nowhere in the Bible does it say that faith alone saves. In fact, as covered in this and related articles, the Bible specifically denies this. So yes, faith saves. But only when it is together with love, good works, and the other things the Bible says are required for salvation.
John 3:16 says:
It does not say everyone who merely or only believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. That belief must be accompanied by action to even qualify as “belief” or “faith,” biblically speaking. See the article, “Faith Alone Is Not Faith.”
The thief on the cross, also, is not an example of faith alone saving someone. That thief repented and did a good work (testifying to his fellow thief) as well as having faith in Jesus. His faith was not alone, but was accompanied by repentance and good works. That’s why his faith saved him: because he acted on his faith. For more on this, see my article: “Are We Saved in an Instant? How was the Thief on the Cross Saved?”
Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say that faith alone saves nor is there a single example in the Bible of faith alone saving someone. This is a pure human fiction, invented by Martin Luther 1,500 years after the Bible was written. Faith alone accomplishes absolutely nothing.
It’s a very good article but you didn’t mention the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation.
Rom. 8:9,11,14,16,26-27
Titus 3:5
John 3:5
Matt. 3:11
Mark 3:28-29
2 Cor. 1:22
Eph. 4:30
Gal. 5:22-23
John 14:16-17, 26
Rom. 5:5
Hi ZauAwn,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. Yes, as you say, this particular article doesn’t deal with the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation. However, you might be interested in these two articles:
Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
Wow! great work. Thanks for figuring out the number and I agree with the statement
“Or put another way, over 93% of the world’s population is going to hell”.
Because you can see flood in the old testament save only one family so as our time 99.9% of your figure 7% can be in heaven of less because you see the Christian life today yourself and the Bible?
Sorry, no hurt feeling. This just my view seeing the World of Christians today but not according to Biblical or doctrine. God bless you all. Thank you.
Hi M Chawang,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying. Do you believe that most of the world’s population is going to hell? Do you believe that all non-Christians are going to hell?
About the Flood, I do not think that story was ever meant to be taken literally. See: “Noah’s Ark: A Sea Change in the Human Mind.”
You’re right that faith alone does not save. Faith without works is dead.
Just keep in mind however that only Jesus can save. If you lived a perfect life – no one has – but even if you did, without Christ, there is no salvation. But, even if you accept Christ, but live an ungodly life, then you cannot get to heaven.
But you are wrong that God is somehow “incompetent” because almost the entire world is going to hell. God made it our choice, and most people choose to reject God and His ways. The Bible says that even many Christians will be rejected on that day of judgement, where God will say, “I never knew you, depart from me, evildoers.”
Is it terrible and tragic that tens of billions of people over generations are all going to hell? Yes. It is God’s fault? No. If God made us with no freedom of choice and created us to go to hell from birth, then it would be God’s fault. But God did not do that. God gave us the ability to choose Him and to choose whether to live godly or ungodly lives. Therefore the burden of responsibility to whether someone goes to heaven or hell is on each individual. If someone goes to hell, it is the person’s fault, not God’s.
The Bible says “the way is narrow” and “only a few will find it” Matthew 7:13-14. Only a few suggests that most won’t find it – most people will go to hell.
The only thing we can do is to teach truth and try to help people live holy lives and accept Jesus as savior; but don’t try to teach that many people will go to heaven, that just isn’t true. Most people, probably, will go to hell. And it’s the people’s fault, not God’s.
Hi James,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Of course, I agree with you that faith alone does not save, and that we must do good works as well. That’s what the article is all about.
However, the rest of your statement seems to contain an error that is common among traditional Christians: that people who don’t happen to be, or become, Christians by believing in Jesus are therefore “rejecting God and his ways.”
There are many good people in other religions who do not reject God and his ways at all. In fact, they faithfully believe in God and live according to God’s ways as their religion teaches them to do. Many of them live far better lives of devotion to God and of love and service to their neighbor than your average Christian does.
Will God reject these people who believe in God and live according to God’s commandments as their religion teaches them to do?
In a word: No.
Both Paul (in Romans 2:1–16) and Jesus Christ himself (in Matthew 25:31–46) teach us that people of all nations, including Jews, “Greeks” (pagan polytheists) and Gentiles in general, will be given eternal life if they do good deeds according to their conscience and live a good life of love and service to their fellow human beings in need.
And about Jesus’ words on the narrow way, consider that in his day spiritual truth was almost gone from human life. Few people could find that way because their teachers were not teaching them about it. Now that Jesus has taught us about that narrow way, more people are able to find it because the truth has been released into the world once again. And I believe the truth that Jesus taught has had a powerful effect upon the entire world, not just upon Christians.
As for exactly how many people go to heaven, we don’t know that for sure. But I believe that God is far more powerful than we give him credit for, and that his power in this world increased exponentially when he came to earth as Jesus Christ. So I believe that since that time, God is able to bring many more people into heaven from all around the world than was possible at the low ebb of humanity 2,000 years ago, when things had become so bad here spiritually that God had to come personally to show us the way out of hell and into heaven.
You asked for verses that declare faith plus nothing?
Acts 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Acts 26:17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Romans 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Hebrews 11
Lee, let me encourage you to take time to study what the scriptures actually say. Faith alone is embedded in the scriptures everywhere. This is only a very small sampling of what is available.
Hi Ron,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and the Bible verses you have quoted.
First, let me point out the obvious: None of these passages actually says what you say they do.
You said, “You asked for verses that declare faith plus nothing?” But none of the verses you quote actually says “faith plus nothing,” or anything of the sort.
You said, “Faith alone is embedded in the scriptures everywhere.” But none of the verses you quote actually says “faith alone.” There is one, and only one, verse in the entire Bible that says “faith alone.” Here it is:
Yes, that is correct. In the one and only verse in the entire Bible that speaks of faith alone, it is specifically rejected as justifying, or saving a person.
So right off the bat, you are simply mistaken. Not a single verse in the Bible says that we are saved or justified by “faith plus nothing.” Not a single verse in the Bible says that we are saved or justified by “faith alone.” The phrase “faith plus nothing” appears nowhere in the Bible. It is a Protestant invention. And the phrase “faith alone” appears once in the Bible, and is specifically rejected in that one place.
So you are very badly mistaken, because you are substituting Protestant slogans for the words and teachings of the Bible.
But let’s look more carefully at the verses that you quote.
It is highly ironic that you start your list of verses with a quote from Acts 15.
Why?
Because Acts 15 is the key chapter in the entire New Testament that shows how utterly mistaken and wrong Protestants are in their reading of Paul.
Acts 15 recounts “The Council at Jerusalem” in which the key debate that Paul, Peter, and other apostles who were evangelizing in Gentile lands were having with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The issue was whether Gentile converts to the way of Jesus Christ were required to be circumcised and follow the ritual and sacrificial Law of Moses that Jews were required to observe. In other words, the issue was whether Gentile converts to Christianity were required to become observant Jews.
As reported in Acts 15:5 speaking of Gentile converts:
Then Peter, Barnabas, and Paul stood up and gave their testimonies about the conversion of Gentiles to Christianity (though the word “Christian” was not yet in common use.)
After hearing this testimony, James, a leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, gave his judgment that Gentiles are not to be required to keep the Law of Moses that is binding upon Jews, though they were still to be forbidden from eating food offered to idols, from engaging in sexual immorality, and from eating the meat of strangled animals as well as eating blood.
By this decision, which was then written in a letter and circulated to the believers in Gentile areas, it was established that for those who are believers, meaning those who have faith in Jesus Christ, it is not necessary to be circumcised and be an observant Jew.
This is what Paul is talking about throughout his letters when he says that we are saved by faith without the works of the Law, or, in short form, without “works.” He does not mean we are saved by faith without good works. He means we are saved by faith without being circumcised and being observant Jews. The sacrificial and ritual requirements of the Law of Moses that are binding upon Jews are not binding upon Christians, because Jesus Christ has fulfilled that law.
Protestants are very wrong when they read Paul as saying that we are saved by faith without good works. That is not what Paul is saying at all, as you will discover for yourself if you read Romans 2:1–16, where Paul says that we will be judged according to our deeds, and that Jews, “Greeks” (pagan polytheists) and Gentiles in general will be saved by Jesus Christ if they live good lives of good deeds for their fellow human beings according to their conscience, which is God’s law written on their heart.
Acts 15, then, shows just how wrong Protestants are in thinking that Paul preached “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing.” That is a complete misreading and misunderstanding of Paul’s message.
Next, you turn to Acts 26:17–18, in which Paul says, as part of his testimony to King Agrippa:
First, once again, Paul does not say “by faith alone” or “by faith plus nothing.” He says “by faith in me” (meaning in Jesus Christ). And all you have to do to be assured that Paul absolutely does not mean “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing” is to keep reading his testimony to King Agrippa in the next few verses:
If Paul had meant “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing,” then why did he preach to the Gentiles that they should repent and do deeds consistent with repentance?
Paul did not preach “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing.” He preached faith together with repentance, turning to God, and doing good deeds.
So Paul’s testimony in Acts 26, too, shows that you and your fellow Protestants are very wrong in saying and teaching that Paul preached “faith alone” and “faith plus nothing.”
If Paul had wanted to preach “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing,” he had the words to do so. But he never did. He preached faith without the works of the Law, meaning without the need to be circumcised and be an observant Jew. And he preached faith together with repentance, turning to God, and doing good deeds consistent with repentance.
That is the plain teaching of the Bible.
You next turn to Romans 3:22–28, claiming that Paul here teaches faith alone.
But he teaches no such thing. He teaches faith without needing to be an observant Jew.
How do we know that?
First, he had just finished saying in the previous chapter that God will judge everyone according to their deeds. And he had just finished saying that Jesus Christ will save or condemn all people, Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles alike, according to whether or not they live in accordance with their conscience. So Paul couldn’t possibly turn around in the next chapter and contradict everything he has just told us in the previous chapter.
We also know this, once again, simply by reading the next few verses after the part you have quoted:
This makes it plain as day that when Paul speaks of being saved by faith without the works of the Law, he means that we are saved by faith in Jesus without having to be circumcised, and be observant Jews. God, Paul says, will justify both circumcised, observant Jews and uncircumcised Gentiles who do not do “the works of the Law” of Moses, by the same faith in Jesus Christ.
But nowhere does Paul say that this faith in Jesus Christ is “alone” or is “plus nothing.” In fact, if you continue reading the rest of Romans, you will see that most of it is all about how Christians must live. It is therefore ridiculous to claim that Paul preached “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing.” Like James, Peter, Barnabas, and Jesus Christ himself, Paul preached faith together with repentance from sin and doing good deeds of love for our fellow human beings.
That is the plain teaching of the Bible.
In Ephesians 2, Paul is preaching and teaching the very same message: that faith together with good works is what saves us, but that we are not required to do the “works” of the Jewish ritual law. But I have written an entire article on this, which I will refer you to instead of repeating myself here:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
Paul’s message is the same in Phillipians, where he also spends considerable time telling his readers and listeners to live good and loving lives of repentance from sin and good deeds for the neighbor, just as Jesus taught.
And Hebrews 11 is all about how people in the Old Testament through faith—or as it really should be translated, faithfulness—obeyed God and lived righteous lives. Not a single person in Hebrews 11 was engaged in faith alone, or faith plus nothing. The whole chapter is about faith in action. It is about “living by faith” (Hebrews 11:13).
In short, Ron, every single one of the passages you quote not only does not say anything about “faith alone” or “faith plus nothing,” but actually teaches the very opposite of faith alone or faith plus nothing.
Every single passage you have quoted is about not needing to be circumcised and be observant Jews, but about instead practicing a faithfulness to Jesus Christ by living according to Jesus Christ’s teachings and commandments.
The first of those teachings, which John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ Apostles all preached to the people, was repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And then all of them, including Paul, preached that instead of our former sinful life we must live a good life of love and kindness to our fellow human beings, and that if we do not, we cannot be saved.
Paul and everyone else in the Bible preached the exact opposite of “faith alone” and “faith plus nothing.” Every single one of them preached faith together with repentance and doing good works of love and kindness for the neighbor.
This is the plain teaching of the entire Bible.
I would ask and urge you then, Ron, to pay attention not only to what Paul teaches us in Romans 2:1–16, but to what Jesus Christ teaches us about who will go to eternal life and who will go to eternal punishment:
This is the plain teaching of Jesus Christ himself.
Hello Lee. So, in the spirit of simplicity; Can you tell me, specifically, where I can find a chart, listing, examples, directions, etc of exactly how and when I have done enough through my good deeds here on earth, in quantity or quality, to achieve the requirement of perfection, which is the requirement to enter Heaven? I can answer that for anyone: No, there is no possible way to know when I have done “enough”. The EXACT reason why Jesus did it ALL.
Perfection is required to enter Heaven but no human is perfect and no human has the ability to achieve that perfection regardless of how “good” he tries to be, as “good” is not “perfect”.
Upon human death of a born again Christian, God sees only the persons perfection because he is clothed in Christs perfection, not his own lack thereof.
The above is only my human way of explaining what the Bible say over and over again.
Should you think that you are participating in ANY way in the earning of your own Salvation, it’s simple: You must first believe that the shed blood at Calvary must have fallen short in some way, and you are here to save the day and finish the job. I notice that in much of your responses to those who write in, you are using your own personal logic system to make sense of this topic, a method that will produce the result of nothing more than what is logical to YOU. May God Bless you.
Hi Dave,
In fact, you are the one using the faulty human logic system of a false Protestant doctrine to support teachings that the Bible never states. It is a method that is bound to produce one falsity piled on top of another.
All of these ideas are pure human inventions, stated nowhere in the Bible. I invite you to search the Scriptures and see if you can find these things stated there. And if you do not find them there, then I challenge you to reject these teachings because they are not the teachings of God in the Bible.
You have been greatly misled by your Protestant teachers, who are the blind leading the blind because they have ignored the Bible’s plain teachings and substituted the inventions of human theologians such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and John Calvin.
About good works, the Bible commands us to repent from our sins and do good works instead. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples all preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the Bible everywhere says that if we wish to be saved, we must obey God’s commandments. Jesus tells us very plainly in Matthew 25:31–46 that those who do good works for their fellow human beings in need will go to eternal life, while those who do not will go to eternal punishment. Paul tells us in Romans 2:1–16 that God will repay each person according to that person’s deeds. James tells us plainly:
Doing a certain quantity or quality of good works is irrelevant. Nowhere does the Bible specify exactly how many or how good the deeds must be. It simply tells us that we must cease doing evil works and do good works because that is what God commands us to do, because it is the right thing to do, and because that is how we love the Lord and the neighbor. The idea that God would require a certain quantity or quality of good deeds to get to heaven is a pure human invention that has no support whatsoever in the Bible.
And the idea that perfection is required to enter heaven is directly refuted in the Bible:
How could perfection be a requirement to enter heaven if heaven itself is not clean in God’s sight?
The whole idea that God requires perfection for entry into heaven is completely unscriptural, and flatly contradicts the plain words of Scripture. There is not a single passage anywhere in the Bible that says that God requires humans to be perfect before they can enter heaven. So your Protestant teachers are also very wrong about this, and have misled you badly.
I could keep going, but unless you can show me passages from the Bible that actually state any of these things you have claimed, it is not even worth my while to refute them. They are contrary to everything taught in the Bible. They are pure human inventions, which Protestant theologians have substituted for the commandments of God. They are therefore not worthy of trust or belief.
Once again, I would urge you to open your eyes, search the Scriptures, and notice that none of these things are taught in the Bible. You have been badly misled by your teachers.
1. The book of James was written to believers only.
2. The Bible contains hundreds upon hundreds of references to support my submission and i’ll bet that you are well aware of that.
3. Heaven is free from all Sin.
4. To this day I have found nowhere in my Bible that states that the Blood Substitute had fallen short and I must fill in because Christ fell short in his death and resurrection.
Hi Dave,
I notice that you didn’t quote any Bible verses. Why not? If there are hundreds upon hundreds of them, surely you can quote at least, say, half a dozen for me?
For two decades now I’ve been asking Protestants to quote me the Bible passages that say these things. So far none has been able to do so. Can you?
Further, nowhere does the Bible say that the book of James was written to believers only, any more than it says that Paul’s letters were written to believers only, or that the Gospels themselves were written to believers only. This is just a Protestant attempt to avoid the plain fact that “faith alone” is mentioned only once in the entire Bible (in James 2:24), and in that one passage it is specifically rejected as justifying a person.
Your Protestant teachers have misled you about justification by faith alone. They have ignored the plain teaching of the Bible on this subject. They have substituted human traditions and doctrines for the commandments of God.
And where does the Bible say that heaven is free from all sin? I just quoted you a passage (Job 15:15) saying that heaven is not clean in God’s sight. Does the Bible somewhere contradict this?
And where does the Bible speak of a “blood substitute”?
You claim that these things are in the Bible, but you have so far not shown me a single verse or passage where the Bible states any of them.
You have still not told us specifically what exact standards we must meet and how to meet those standards.
Hi Dave,
According to the Bible, we must repent from our sins, and love the Lord and the neighbor by doing good deeds of love and service to the neighbor.
I have already referred you to Matthew 25:31–46 and Romans 2:1–16. These say that those who do good deeds for the neighbor are doing them for the Lord, and will receive eternal life, and that those who do not will receive eternal punishment; and that God will repay us according to what we have done.
John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples all preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. See, for example, Mark 1:4; Luke 17:1–4; 24:44–48; Acts 2:38; 5:29–32.
The idea that there are exact standards we must meet is a human idea. It is not a biblical idea.
The Bible tells us simply to repent from our sins and do good works of love and kindness for our neighbor. To those who do this, God will give eternal life; those who do not God will send to eternal punishment.
This is the plain teaching of the Bible.
Why are you stuck on exact standards when the Bible doesn’t talk about exact standards?
And why have you still not quoted a single passage or verse from the Bible that says any of the things you are claiming the Bible teaches? Is it because you cannot do so? (I know that the answer to that second question is “yes.”)
Yes. I am in the middle of major change on this.. I was Catholic for many years but simply because my parents were. Nothing less and nothing more. I went to church out of obligation and all that but barely took in the Bible. I got sick and met an evangelical woman in the hospital. We became friends and she took me to my first church like that. I was blown away with the singing and the lack of uptight attitude and the actual teachings of the Bible the Catholic church seemed to purposely lack. I liked it and became “evangelical.”
Fast forward years later. I left the Non Denominational Evangelical Church I went to after years. Why? I got bored and I found the pastor a bit controlling. There basically could be no debating about things like alcohol or very little about it. Certainly no debates about faith alone. I got bored of the routine and left but kept watching various churches on streaming video and reading any Christian material I could. Also in the back of my mind I found some major contradictions from Paul and JESUS and how the church would simply ignore it. The church would quote Paul right away on something they liked but said zippo about women wearing head coverings and basically being like a church mouse while there. I got the book ” JESUS Words Only” by Doug Del Tondo. A big read but it read like a breeze because it explained things so well. I told a now former good friend from that church about it but his reaction was basically one of not wanting to know it. Our friendship has died out. Evangelical types love to think they know it all and are fast to do away with you if you disagree on something. Rather sad and arrogant but I was like that too so I can relate.
The way they explain things away is rather bizarre. A social media friend of mine said something long winded like not wanting to deal with the contradictions on some things with Paul and JESUS. He said the Bible does not seem contradictory at times? Seriously? These kinds of Christians hate to admit it but they put Paul on the same level as JESUS…. sometimes more. Perhaps as Mr. Del Tondo says, it simply has to do with where Paul is placed in Bible- right after the Gospels. So kind of like a book you remember the ending parts more. Also let us face it. It is far easier to accept just faith alone instead of having to do things. I find it so frustrating to read JESUS saying to do something and so many Christians just kind of blow it off. Yes, many do good things as a result of following CHRIST but they ignore the actual commands as being from another time. I never got a good vibe off that concept of “well JESUS said to do this, yes, but that was from another time and now we follow more what Paul said.” As you mention various parables CHRIST said and things like following the commandments and doing the will of the Father. I mean how can they say that is not works based?? LOL
Also Paul at times comes totally in line with works but then floats away from it again. At times seeming totally in line with JESUS but then pulling away at other times. You tell these Evangelicals that and it is like you cursed out their mothers. lol.. I mean it says it right there in the Bible!!
Sometimes I find the whole thing utterly exhausting but if CHRIST in the head coach shall we say. then why are people kind of blowing HIS words off? I have been hurt big time by Christians who are know it alls and then if you question or are not on auto pilot with religion all the time they dump you. Questioning Paul is considered a major no no. As I said a once very good friend of mine dumped me because of it..
I am wondering what kind of churches are most similar to go to that focus mostly on CHRIST? Thanks!
Hi Bill,
Thanks for stopping by, and for telling your story.
It’s going to be tough to find an evangelical-style church that doesn’t focus more on Paul than on Jesus for their beliefs. They give lip service to Jesus, but as you say, in practice they give far more weight to Paul’s words than to Jesus’ words. I’ve encountered the same strange brushing off of Jesus’ teachings in my conversations with evangelicals. I’ll quote Jesus’ words to them, and it’s as if I’ve said nothing at all. It’s odd that they call themselves Christians, but then ignore Christ’s teachings. Some of them explicitly believe and say that Jesus’ teachings were for the Old Covenant, whereas Paul’s teachings are for the New Covenant. Others don’t come right out and say this, but their heavy focus on Paul and their general ignoring of Jesus tell the whole story about whom they consider to be the greater teacher.
And the irony is that Paul doesn’t actually teach the things they believe. Paul never says that faith alone justifies or saves a person. Paul never says that only Christians are saved. Paul never says that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. None of the key teachings of Protestant evangelicalism are actually found in Paul—or anywhere else in the Bible, for that matter. That’s what I find so ironic about their Bible-thumping. The Bible they are loudly thumping doesn’t actually teach the things they believe. Not Paul, not Jesus, not anyone else in the Bible.
I’ve been challenging Protestants for years to point to even one verse in the Bible that teaches any of these things. So far not a single one has been able to do so. Oh, they quote lots of verses from the Bible—mostly from Paul. But none of those verses actually say what these Protestants claim they say. I read the verses and say to them, “It doesn’t actually say that.” “But that’s what it means,” they reply. And yet, the Bible doesn’t actually say the things they claim it does. And I don’t think God is so incompetent as not to be able to tell us in plain words in God’s own book what we are supposed to believe and how we are supposed to live in order to be saved and go to heaven.
For more on all of this, see “‘Christian Beliefs’ that the Bible Doesn’t Teach,” and the articles linked from it.
As for finding a church that focuses mostly on Christ, I wish I could list some for you. But realistically, you’ll just have to try out the various churches in your area and see if any of them work for you. Meanwhile, I invite you to read some of the related articles on this blog. And of course, you’re very welcome to ask any questions you may have along the way.
Thank you for answering.. It is a great thing you do that. I have been on Christian sites where the person you are writing to does not answer.. LOL. Talk about utterly defeating. The more folks engage the more interested in CHRIST they become. For me it does not have to be an Evangelical style church any longer. It had its purpose for a while and I met some good people while others throw you overboard if you dare to question too much. But yes, if you want to get some of these folks mad just question some things Paul said. I did not come to this reality easily.. I kind of always knew it but simply my continued love for reading all things Christian including Church history led me to it. One Evangelical guy said I am tinkering with hell because I mention works.. I am simply mentioning what CHRIST said!! I mean yeah of course it is easier to just say faith alone.. Of course. But there just seems to be glaring contradictions with the various parables and the speaking of doing the commandments and all.. I mean a 7 year old could see it.
I also think we could be radically better Christians with JESUS words because it pushes us that much more instead of being lazy.. It pushes me to give that extra money to a certain cause where before I might not do it. Because sometimes the way I read the Bible to put in football terms is the Head coach( CHRIST) gets a bit overridden by the Assistant(Paul) and it causes some bizarre twisting and turning to correct it.
As you say there is no doubt faith in CHRIST is very important and nothing we can do can earn Heaven without HIM but if GOD is wanting us to do certain things it seems rather simple to do them. Really the whole issue goes to Evangelicals saying CHRIST did things from a different time and then Paul comes in and says just believe in JESUS or have faith in HIM.. We all do but at the same time this following other things like the Commandments is mentioned but that is where the divide comes from. But as you say Paul in many passages mentions works but then to me at least and many others kind of backs off it..That is often where the issues come in.. Obviously the thief on the Cross as well..But there are just so many other passages where CHRIST speaks of works. Perhaps the thief on the Cross was simply showing how sorry he was for the life he led and was showing true repentance right there but obviously he did not exactly have a lot of time in life to do good works on the cross yet he went to Eternal Life. Then of course we get James mentioning many times about works going with faith which seems kind of logical if say, some guy was freezing his butt and a person kind of just says, hey man, be faithful in GOD but now I am going to my warm place while you freeze.. LOL.. Very bizarre.. Thank you again for answering.. It means much!
Hi Bill,
You’re welcome. I enjoy responding to comments and questions here. Even for readers who disagree with me, as long as they’re reasonably polite and aren’t just here to tell me I’m going straight to hell in a handbasket, I’ll approve their comments and respond. Sometimes I even learn something new. 😀
About Paul, yes, he heavily leaned toward faith. But I think he had a Hebrew conception of faith. For Paul, faith was not something you do in your head, but something you do with your life. It was faithfulness to Jesus that he was talking about, not “belief” in Jesus as is commonly preached today. On the biblical meaning of faith, see the follow-up article:
Faith Alone Is Not Faith
When Paul speaks of being saved by faith without the works of the Law, or the shorthand “not from works,” which is a reference to the works of the Law, he is not talking about doing good works, but about not being an observant Jew. He makes it very clear in Romans 2:1–16 that we will be judged for salvation or damnation by our works, and that this applies to everyone, not just to Christians.
Paul simply didn’t teach faith without good works. He taught faithfulness to Jesus without the need to be circumcised and be an observant Jew, following the ritual and ceremonial laws of Moses.
Properly understood, Paul does not contradict James, nor does he contradict Jesus. It’s just that in Protestantism especially, and in Catholicism to a lesser extent, Paul is simply not understood properly. They attribute things to him that he never said, and didn’t mean. He was talking about something completely different. He was arguing that it was not necessary to be an observant Jew to be saved.
And yes, believing in what Jesus (and James, and Paul) actually taught does lead us to a much more Christian life than believing in the false, non-biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. You might also be interested in the series that starts with this article:
The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 1: God is a Trinity of Persons?
I am not really willing to argue much about the things you wrote on this article, because in the end of the day, only the Holy Spirit can convict one of the truth of God revealed through Jesus Christ.
If one believes that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is the One that is in action on earth when Jesus went to the Father, one truly understands that one is justified by faith alone in the finished work of Christ. There is nothing one can add to the finished work on the cross to be saved. James always dealt with Jews, not Gentiles. The Jews that James were referring to were believers in Christ! James was challenging the Jewish believers. Those believers trusted in Christ, therefore they were saved. What James was saying was (my simple words): “Now that you have received salvation which is by grace, not works, what are you going to do with it?” If a person is in need, can my faith save that person? In other words, if I only have faith but do not do anything to help the one who is in need, how can my faith save that person? I have faith and I am saved already. I have to do something physically, psychologically, emotionally, etc in order to help the needy one in whatever he/she might need at a specific circumstance.
You are justified by faith, therefore you are saved. Justification is NOT a process. It is done ONCE you put your trust in Christ. Same with Salvation – you are saved because you are justified. Sanctification is a process, not Salvation.
James was not referring to the one who has got faith, but to the person in need!
“Faith without works is dead”. In Greek, the word “dead” James was referring to is “useless”. He was not talking about eternal death!
There will be a judgment day, when all of us are going to give account of what we did with the salvation He gave us by grace. However, the sentence of eternal life or eternal death is going to be given in the basis of trusting in His Only Son Jesus Christ. And, whatever we built on this foundation it is related to the rewards, “for those who do not believe in Jesus is already condemned”.
If you really believe you are saved by works and Christ’s blood isn’t enough to save you. There are two questions for you:
1) What works?
2) How much work you think you need to accomplish to be saved?
Do you understand my point?
Hi Eliane,
Thanks for stopping by, and for you comment. Though I agree with a few of the things you say, about most of it I have two problems:
The Holy Spirit does not contradict the Bible, even if Martin Luther felt free to do so when he invented the doctrine of justification by faith alone. “Faith alone” occurs only once in the Bible, and in that one place it is specifically rejected:
That’s why Martin Luther tried (unsuccessfully) to remove James and three other books from the Bible. They didn’t support his newly invented doctrine of justification by faith alone. But it’s not the Bible’s job to support our human doctrines. It’s our job to make sure that we believe in and live by what the Bible says.
And if anyone claims that the Holy Spirit has told them something that the Bible rejects as false, that person does not have the Holy Spirit, but a deceiving spirit within them.
James was not speaking to Jews. He was speaking to his “brothers,” who were Christians, even if they were converted Jews. And the Christian message is the same whether it is addressed to Jews, Greeks, or Gentiles. See Romans 2:1–16. Protestants have a fine way of rejecting the Bible by explaining away anything that doesn’t square with their teachings by saying that it was “for the Jews.” What blasphemous nonsense!
The Bible does not say that there is nothing left for us to do because of the “finished work of Christ on the Cross” (a human phrase that the Bible never uses). Nor does it say that salvation is an instantaneous process. What you’re thinking of is the moment of conversion. But that is only the beginning of the process of salvation. The Bible says to:
That would make no sense whatsoever if Jesus did it all for us on the Cross, and there’s nothing left for us to do except believe in him.
I could continue on your other points, but I’ve already covered most of them in many articles here. In addition to the above article, which shows very clearly where the false doctrine of justification by faith alone came from, please see:
About your final two questions:
What works?
The good deeds of love, kindness, and service that you do for your fellow human beings (“the neighbor,” in biblical terms) because the Lord commands you to do them, instead of the former sinful and selfish works that you used to do.
How much work you think you need to accomplish to be saved?
As much as the Lord puts in front of you to do each day. It’s not a matter of doing some magic quantity of good works to outweigh your evil works. It’s a matter of repenting from your sins each day, and doing the good works of love and service for your neighbor that the Lord gives you to do each day. Those who do this will be saved. Those who do not will be condemned. The Lord Jesus Christ himself teaches this in Matthew 25:31–46, which I commend to your reading.
Your teachers and preachers have misled you by teaching you things that not only are never said in the Bible, but that flatly contradict and reject the plain teachings of the Bible. I hope you will throw away their false teachings and read the Bible’s own plain words, especially those of Jesus Christ our Lord, who has the words of eternal life.
Hi, I thank you for writing such an important article. I am not sure why this morning, it just wouldn’t leave me and
I kept on thinking something about this. It was probably about an article I read somewhere. Anyway, I am in a better
position to “keep on thinking” now knowing about the new knowledge I got from your piece. Yet, there is something
that I want to say, probably just because I just can’t shake it off, “Faith by the grace of the Holy Spirit, is given to you or is gifted to you, and is a seed planted in you, and that faith produces fruits, which is good works, works approved by the Holy Spirit and as long as you pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you, you will keep on doing works which are good according to God’s “standard”, so “works” is the fruit of true,genuine,working faith from the Holy Spirit.” I can’t say anything else other than this as I do not yet fully understand. Thank you and God bless you.
Hi Usemeso,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I’m glad this article gave you some new food for thought!
Though it is a common saying that good works are the fruits of faith, I have not been able to find any place in the Bible that actually says this. What it does say is:
In other words, our good works are the fruits, not of faith, but of Jesus Christ living within us. Our faith guides us to Jesus and keeps our mind focused on Jesus Jesus and growing in spiritual knowledge and understanding, meaning that our faith also guides us to express our good works in ways that show true, constructive love and service to our fellow human beings.
The good works themselves, though, are the fruits of the love of the Lord God Jesus Christ flowing into our heart and out through our hands.
Thanks again for stopping by. Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
I have come around to a faith and obedience belief after years within the faith alone community. My conversion came about through intense Bible study associated with the writing of a book focused on prophecy. (I assume BJ is part of the same serial discussion group bloggers that could no longer answer my questions and after numerous personal attacks had me kicked out of a “PROPHECY” discussion group because I did not believe in faith alone – but that is another issue and I understand that you may remove this at your discretion). The unintended result of the book was me rejecting their/my false beliefs. You said in one the original posts that only a few churches believe and teach it, but I think the number is higher. Anyway, after being married several years and not going to church, I brought my wife out of the Catholic church. She grew up in it and having a baby put increased internal pressure to return to that environment. I went along with her at first, but could not stand attending the services (I was born into a Catholic family, then as a young child my mother was ‘born again’ and we were primarily Methodist/Presbyterian until I stopped attending church in my late teens). After attending a large “modern” church, I dragged my wife there the following week. The music captured her and she shocked me when she agreed to return again. I think the pastor I spoke with called themselves 7th wave or something like that? Anyway, lots of great amenities and my wife was no longer Catholic – so, happy days, right!? After a few years I became suddenly infatuated with prophecy. A few years of continuous study of everything I could get my hands on led to the eventual question to the church – “Why don’t they ever talk much about prophecy?” The greatest shock to me was when a senior pastor told me that 99% of the leadership holds to Amillennialism. After posting my own version of “99 theses” in their suggestion box, we left and ended up in a small country church with only about a dozen people. Personal relationships grew and strong bonds between the pastor’s wife and our kids would make leaving it extremely difficult. On top of that, we also dragged my wife’s cousin and her three kids in with us. Yes, they preach faith alone. You see my conundrum I’m sure. I brought all of them into this church and they have formed strong bonds, but now I am an outcast, the untouchable, the person that causes the pastor and elder to cringe and shutter whenever I approach them or begin to open my mouth. The book was published in late 2014, and only the pastor was given a copy. Of course, he never approved it, but has spent many a sermon since then regurgitating the numerous false teachings you are combating here as well as the false prophecy outlines taught in pre-mil churches everywhere. Almost four years, and I must keep my mouth shut on Sundays. Even my wife has yet to read my book. I can’t leave… where would I go? Everywhere I go, the theology or church doctrine seems to overrule any question or discussion about the Bible and interpreting it.
Finding a few places like this on the web has encouraged me. Thanks
Hi John,
Thanks for stopping by and telling your story. I’m glad the articles here on faith alone have given you some help and encouragement.
My statement at the beginning of this article that only about one-fifth of Christians belong to churches that teach faith alone is a rough estimate based on the number of Christians who are not Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, or Anglican/Episcopalian. Those last two, though commonly associated with Protestantism, have distinct origins, and either don’t teach faith alone at all or put very little emphasis on it. However, the one-fifth of Christianity within Protestantism that does put faith alone front and center is very vocal, and has many, many churches split among many sects. So it looks bigger than it actually is.
Further, even though their doctrine is flatly rejected in the Bible, the churches that teach faith alone are most likely to present themselves as “Bible-based” churches. This gives many people the mistaken impression that their teachings are real biblical and Christian teachings in comparison to the teachings of other, less Bible-thumping churches.
Meanwhile, the clergy and doctrinally-oriented laypeople within those Protestant churches have the idea that faith alone is the core teaching of the Bible so firmly welded into their brain that they cannot even read and understand the plain words of the Bible. No matter what they read in the Bible, all they see is “faith alone.” Attempting to discuss with them what the Bible actually says is an exercise in futility. No amount of quoting plain statements in the Bible that reject their doctrine will put a dent in their Luther-derived belief. So it is probably just as well for you to “keep your mouth shut,” as you say, in your relations with the leaders of the church you attend.
It is unfortunate that due to ties of friendship and family, you’re now stuck in that church. On the bright side, even faith-alone churches generally do teach their people to obey the Ten Commandments and so on. So it’s not a total loss.
About prophecy, I should mention that I am also “amillenial” in that I don’t believe that the prophecies in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled literally. Biblical literalism is, I believe, a result of physical-minded and materialistic thinking, leading to an inability to understand the spiritual message of the Bible. It is getting stuck on the letter that kills while missing the spirit that gives life. This article summarizes my views on the second coming:
Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?
Even if you can’t accept my views on the end times, I’m glad the articles here on the non-biblical doctrine of faith alone have been helpful to you.
Hi Lee,
It seems no matter how many times I read and go over this idea and the content on it as presented on your blog, I still can’t quite seem to get a grip on how Swedenborg’s idea of salvation is, philosophically, different from the notion of ‘faith alone,’ which necessitates that I remain open to the possibility that, ultimately, it’s not. So I want to try and tread this ground once more in careful but simple language so as to ensure I’m communicating my line of thinking properly.
In everyday terms, you have a seed, and you have the fruits of that seed. This analogy works for virtually every decision we make. Everything comes from somewhere; everything is grounded in something. In spiritual terms, faith would be the seed, and works would be the fruit. Works *attest* to the types of seeds from where they come. Works have a certain DNA to them, and we can trace them back to their seeds. Again, in more spiritual terms, works attest to the presence (or absence) of faith. If I understand Swedenborg correctly, he might use the term ‘dominant love’ in place of faith, but the dynamic is the same. People who perform loving acts of charity bear the nourishing fruit of good seeds, and people who perform self-centered acts of hatefulness bear the rotted fruit of evil seeds. And if we’re (self)-judged by our seeds and not the fruits (if that’s correct?), then you’ve got a doctrine of salvation by faith alone, and the ‘alone’ part would seem to correctly affirm that, at the end of the day, there’s nothing but the seed (faith) from which your works flow. It’s where everything comes from, it’s what everything comes back to- the kernel that guides everything you do, and that kernel sits alone.
That’s why I suggested a couple of years back that, upon reflecting on the difference between Swedenborg and Luther, Swedenborg is really just positing the same mechanisms of Sola Fide, only he’s using a different, and much more inclusive set of terms, a set of terms that opens the path of salvation for non-Christians and even atheists.
Now I think it’s important to properly represent the viewpoint of adherents to Sola Fide. I don’t think there’s a (respected) theologian alive who uses the term to mean mere intellectual ascent, as in simply believing that certain things are true. It seems clear to me that they’re referring to a *living* faith, and I’m sure Swedenborg would agree.
In any case, if it’s correct to say- from the Christian to the atheist- that all of our works flow from faith, then not only would Sola Fide seem to be correct, but it would seem to be an inescapable spiritual reality: the human heart simply does not function in any other way; our spiritual lives cannot be lived out in any other way.
So that’s where I’m hung up on whether it’s possible to examine the relationship between what we do and what we most deeply believe and not arrive at Sola Fide, because it seems like you get the same thing even in secular psychological terms when looking at belief and action. Now, at one point in our discussion you introduced the idea of Grace, which I remember being the element of the equation that ultimately undermined for you the argument that Luther and Swedenborg are essentially describing the same spiritual reality in different ways. I’m sorry to ask you to do this again, but can you flesh that out for me here? I’ll see if I can find the blog post again. Looking forward to your answer.
Hi Rami,
Let’s start with the analogy of the seed and the fruit.
Biblically, the strongest meaning of seed is not faith, but the word of God, as taught by Jesus in his explanation of the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:11). Yes, Jesus does speak of faith the size of a mustard seed, but he does not say that the mustard seed is faith, as he says the seed is the word of God in the Parable of the Sower. Rather, he uses the tiny size of the mustard seed as an analogy for a tiny amount of faith. Still, for the sake of the analogy, we’ll think of the seed as faith, and the fruit as good works. After all, in reality faith is truth, and the word of God is truth, so although faith is a weaker word than truth, we can make the substitution without violating the letter and the spirit of the Word of God.
And the first thing to understand is that the seed comes from the fruit just as much as the fruit comes from the seed. This is a classic chicken-and-egg issue. It is true that the plant grows from the seed, and the fruit grows from the plant. But the seed is formed within the fruit, and comes from the fruit. Without the fruit, there is no seed. So we could just as much say that faith comes from good works as we can say that good works come from faith. And in fact, only people who do good works have faith, because faith does come from good works just as much as good works come from faith. The two are part of a cycle of life in nature, and they are part of a cycle of rebirth and salvation in the human spirit. One simply cannot exist without the other. As I say in the follow-up article to this one, faith alone is not faith.
Second, at no time is the seed ever alone. It is initiated and nourished by the plant, and forms as a fully viable seed within the womb of the fruit. When the fruit falls to the ground, both the fruit and the ground provide the seed with the moisture and nourishment it needs to germinate, sprout, and grow. And as soon as it starts growing, it is connected to the shoot of the new plant until it ceases to exist as a seed. In nature, there is no such thing as a seed that is “alone.” Or if there is, it is a dead seed. A bare seed sitting on a bare rock could in a sense be said to be “alone,” since it is without the other elements required for it to grow. And that seed will not grow, precisely because it is “alone.” If it remains alone, before long it will disintegrate and cease to be a seed. A seed alone is not a viable seed, but a dead seed, just as faith alone is not a viable faith, but a dead faith.
Third, Jesus is very clear that we are judged by our fruits, not by our seeds:
And:
And:
And:
There are many more passages like these in the Gospels and elsewhere in the Bible.
And as for salvation, both Jesus and Paul also say in explicit, not just metaphorical, language that we will be judged, not according to our faith, but according to what we do—which is the same as the above passages saying that a tree will live or die according to its fruit or lack thereof. I’ve quoted these passages so many times in the course of these discussions that I’ll simply provide you the references here: Matthew 25:31–46; Romans 2:1–16.
In short, at every point the analogy of seeds and fruit negates and denies the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as well as the ideas that support and accompany it.
I would also point out that though it’s a commonplace among Protestants, the Bible never says that good works are the fruits of faith. Search the Scriptures for yourself. You will not find it there. The entire doctrine of justification by faith alone is founded on ideas invented by human beings. There is not a single book, chapter, sentence, or word in the Word of God that supports it.
Hi Rami,
You say:
So let’s take up the mechanisms of Sola Fide.
Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a larger theological system, and it has a specific function within that system.
Though it is somewhat unclear whether penal substitution was a key part of Luther’s doctrine, it does appear that he was moving in that direction from the more general satisfaction theory that he inherited from his former life as a priest and monk in the Catholic Church. And post-Luther, the Protestant Church definitely adopted penal substitution as its primary, essential theory of atonement and salvation. And since faith alone is held to only within Protestantism, it will be easiest to take it up in its connection with penal substitution.
Penal substitution posits that God the Father was angry and wrathful at the human race due to sin. However, humans, being fallen, have no ability to satisfy God’s wrath at human sin. Therefore humans were all condemned to eternal hell due to sin. In order to solve this untenable situation, God the Son came to earth and was crucified, thus taking the guilt and the punishment of human sin upon himself. All that is necessary for us to be saved, then, is for us to accept (“have faith”) that Jesus died instead of us, paying the penalty for our sin. When we have this faith, the merit of Christ is imputed to us, such that when God the Father looks at a human sinner, instead of seeing the blackness of sin and condemning it, God the Father sees the merit of Christ with which the sinner has been clothed through faith in Jesus.
That is how faith alone saves people according to Protestant theology. Or to use your words, that is the mechanism of Sola Fide.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is an utterly unbiblical and false doctrine. For a point-by-point demonstration of exactly why and how it is unbiblical and false, please see my eight-part article on “The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone” starting with:
The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 1: God is a Trinity of Persons?
This mechanism of faith alone is also diametrically opposed to everything Swedenborg teaches about God, faith, and salvation.
Swedenborg teaches that God is pure love, and has nothing but love for the entire human race, including the worst sinners. The anger and wrath of God, Swedenborg says, are “appearances of truth,” and not the reality of how God feels toward us. For more on this, see:
What is the Wrath of God? Why was the Old Testament God so Angry, yet Jesus was so Peaceful?
So right off the bat, the whole reason we are in need of salvation, according to Sola Fide doctrine, is a falsehood. God is not wrathful with us due to sin. God continues to love us regardless.
A corollary to this is that according to Swedenborg, God does not send anyone to hell. This, he says, is also an “appearance of truth,” and not the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is that God is continually striving to pull everyone out of hell, and the only reason anyone at all is in hell is because the people there refuse to allow God to do so. See:
Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?
So the whole idea, held to under Sola Fide theology, that God sends people to hell because God is angry at them for their sins is completely and utterly wrong and false according to Swedenborg.
This leads to the third point: Swedenborg completely rejects the entire satisfaction theory of atonement in all of its forms, both Catholic and Protestant as unbiblical and false. And in fact, the Bible never says that Christ made satisfaction for our sins, or any such language. But more than that, if God is not wrathful with us (in the Protestant version), and God’s justice doesn’t require that we all go to hell due to our sins (the Catholic version as developed by Aquinas), and if God’s honor is not wounded by human sin (the Anselmian version), then the entire theory of atonement on which faith alone depends is false. There is no requirement whatsoever for the mechanism of salvation that faith alone provides.
Swedenborg also explicitly and emphatically rejects the idea that Christ’s merit is imputed to us through faith. This, he says, is entirely impossible, because as long as evil and sin are still the dominant part of our nature, the goodness and truth of Christ cannot enter into us. So the whole idea that God the Father will accept human sinners into heaven because they are clothed in the merit of Christ, thus blocking out their sinful nature, is completely false, according to Swedenborg.
Swedenborg’s theory of atonement and salvation has an entirely different basis, and is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Sola Fide and penal substitution. I do plan to write an article at some point about the true meaning of salvation. Meanwhile, here is a short version:
Christ saved us, not from God’s wrath, but from the power of “the Devil” (meaning hell) in our world and in our individual lives. Hell had become so strong in its influence that it was becoming impossible for even good-hearted people to resist it. And so, Christ fought and overcame the Devil and hell, rebalanced the scales of good and evil, and in this way restored our spiritual freedom. This means that anyone who wishes to choose good over evil is now able to do so, thanks to Christ’s power working in their lives. For more on this, start reading at the section titled “What is Redemption?” in the article:
Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?
And of course, in Swedenborg’s theology, Christ, the Son, is not a separate “person,” but is God himself coming to us as a human being. So one more aspect of Sola Fide theology that Swedenborg rejects is the entire concept of the Trinity of Persons on which Sola Fide theology rests.
For our part, what is necessary for us to be saved is not merely to believe in Christ in the Protestant sense of believing that Christ died for us and paid the penalty for our sins, but to have true faith in Christ, which means living according to his commandments. And his first commandment to the people was to repent for the forgiveness of sins. He also taught that we must be reborn. Repentance is the beginning of that rebirth.
True repentance is not just being sorry for our sins, but ceasing to commit them. If we are still sinning, we have not repented. So repentance means no longer lying, stealing, committing adultery, and so on—whatever our particular sins happen to be. And when we have repented from sin, we must begin living a new life according to the Lord’s teachings of faith and kindness. For more on the mechanism of salvation on our part in Swedenborg’s theology, please see:
What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Again?
I could go on. But the short version is that on every single point of Sola Fide theology, Swedenborg utterly rejects that theology, and teaches an entirely different, and polar opposite, theology.
Really, there is no similarity whatsoever between the two. The only way anyone could possibly think they are similar is to have no real understanding of one or both of those theologies.
Hi Rami,
You said:
I also take up the meaning and role of grace in this article:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
Lee, you missed a very key 2 verses
Ephesians 2:8-9 King James Version (KJV)
8
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Works are an outpouring of ones faith and faith is by Gods Grace as we are dead in our sins.
Also, path to destruction is wide and most will go that way, narrow is path to salvation few will find it Matt. 7:13-14
Ur % therefore reflect what God tells us
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
In fact, I quoted Ephesians 2:8–9 in the article, so I certainly didn’t miss those verses. And there is an entire article on this blog specifically about those verses, which I invite you to read:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
About the wide path to destruction and the narrow path to salvation, that was certainly the case when Jesus spoke those words. But the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming to us was to widen the path to salvation for all of humanity. And that is exactly what he did.
This is sad to me. There are so many holes in your theory that even I, a new Christian, can clearly see. We do works out of our love for Christ because of what He did for us on the cross. What happens to the quadriplegic that couldn’t possibly do any good works because he has no arms or legs to do good works? if he is a Christian are you telling me he goes to hell just because he can’t do good works? Works come out of love and thankfulness which does nothing for our salvation. Please do yourself a favor and study your Bible better and I mean no offense when I say that, I just truly care for your salvation.
Hi Carrie,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I do appreciate your concern.
But I also suggest that you read the Bible more carefully, without the “faith alone” blinders that your religious teachers have already put on you. Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, John, and every other teacher in the Bible all tell us very clearly that if we wish to be saved, we must repent from our sins and follow God’s commandments. “Faith alone” appears only once in the Bible (in James 2:24), and it is specifically rejected. It is a false doctrine, diametrically opposed to everything that the Bible teaches.
Please read the whole Bible for yourself, and you will see that it is not just what we believe, but how we live that determines whether or not we are saved and where we will live to eternity. Start with Jesus’ own teaching in Matthew 25:31–46 about who will be saved and who will not. Then read Romans 2:1–16, where Paul tells us how non-Christians are saved through Jesus Christ if they do what is good and live according to their conscience. Then read the rest of the Bible. Don’t just read a few verses popular with Protestants that are quoted out of context and completely misunderstood. Don’t allow yourself to be misled by teachers who do not understand the Bible and who ignore the plain teachings of Jesus Christ about salvation and eternal life.
I would also encourage you to broaden your horizons on all of the things handicapped people can do with their bodies and their minds. Especially in this technological age, many paraplegics and quadriplegics are living very good, useful, and satisfying lives. Here is just one of thousands of articles available online: “6 Surprising Things You Can Still Do After Paralysis.” God has some good for every one of us to do each day, even if it may only be giving a smile and a positive word to brighten someone else’s day.
Though you are concerned about my salvation, I am not concerned about yours. Even though you have already been taught many unbiblical and false things about Christian faith and life, I believe you will live as Jesus Christ taught us to live, so that he can welcome you to his kingdom with open arms.
https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/qa-archives/question/is-the-article-faith-alone-does-not-save-accurate/
What do you have to say about this, Mr. Woofenden?
Hi Robert B.,
Thanks for the link. I am writing a response to that article, which I will post here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life when it is ready.
Hi Robert B.,
I have now written and posted a lengthy response to the article you linked for me:
Response to a Calvinist Critique of my article “Faith Alone Does Not Save”
Feel free to ask any further questions you may have in the comments section of that article.
I checked this link out. It does not appear that that site allows comments. I wonder why.
While I’m still in the process of researching for myself whether faith alone is truly Biblical, I must say you make one major mistake. God did not give “us” as in general humanity the 10 commandments. He gave them to the Jews alone as with the other 600 or so commandments, and Paul is clear that law has served it’s purpose. So I am curious which laws you think we should follow out of obedience? Oh and let’s not forget James also said ” If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Do you know anyone who does not stumble at even the smallest point of “love thy neighbor as yourself”? By your own reasoning, since the number of people being damned is somehow a judge of soteriology, I’d say one that damns all but one person is a pretty bad soteriology.
Hi brandon,
Thanks for your comment and questions. This is a big subject, and I can’t do justice to it here in the comments.
However, the error that traditional, and especially Protestant, Christianity makes on these points is in not understanding that “the law” in the Bible is used in different ways as shown by the context. Here are some of its meanings:
Because they have failed to make these distinctions in the Bible’s use of “the law,” traditional Christians have misunderstood James’s teaching in James 2:8–11:
Notice that James doesn’t say “the smallest point of the law” as some Christian preachers wrongly attribute to him, but “one point of the law.” And the examples he gives make it clear that he is talking about keeping one of the Ten Commandments, but breaking another one of the Ten Commandments.
The idea that James is teaching that anyone who breaks some minor point of the Law of Moses, such as mating different kind of animals, planting fields with two different kinds of seed, or wearing clothing made of two different materials (Leviticus 19:19) is just as guilty as someone who murders or commits adultery, is not only silly, but has no basis whatsoever in the Bible. Jesus himself says that people will be judged harshly or lightly according to their level of knowledge and responsibility:
And in Mark 12:38–40 Jesus says that the teachers of the Law will be punished “most severely” due to the severe and hypocritical nature of their crimes.
The idea that every smallest sin will be punished the same as the most severe sin is contrary to principles articulated over and over again both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Those so-called “Christian” preachers who say that we will be sent to hell for every little sin err greatly because they understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
It is true that the Ten Commandments were given specifically to the Jews. But God also told the Jews that they were to be a light to all the nations. For example:
Unlike the ritual and ceremonial Law of Moses, which applies only to Jews, the Ten Commandments were not meant to apply exclusively to Jews, but to be broadcast throughout the entire world, so that Jews and Gentiles alike could partake in the salvation of God. And indeed, there is no decent religion on the face of the earth that doesn’t have some version of the laws of the Ten Commandments embedded in their religion and their sacred scriptures. People of all religions who keep these commandments as a matter of conscience will be saved by Jesus Christ, as Paul teaches in Romans 2:1–16.
My friend, the very next verse and chapter say the exact opposite of your teaching.
Will you please reflect for me on Romans 3 and 4, helping me to understand what Paul means by the justification by faith apart from works? Then would you also consider responding to Galatians 3, about how Paul strongly condemns the one who is ‘bewitching’ believers in Jesus to sway people away from their faith in him into a justification by works?
No one can be righteous by doing good deeds and rendering them to God unless they hear and believe the Gospel, that Jesus Himself is the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection and the life.
“Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” Galatians 3:10-14
“What shall we conclude then? Do we [the Jews] have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’ “. Romans 3:9-10
Aside from Cornelius, whom God used not an angel but -believers- to proclaim the gospel to, please consider also Acts 17, where Paul goes before the educated, ‘moral,’ philosophically-elite Greeks and demands that they repent from their ignorance of Jesus Christ, whom God will “judge the world in righteousness” through, “having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 1:47 AM Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life wrote:
> Lee commented: “Hi brandon, Thanks for your comment and questions. This is > a big subject, and I can’t do justice to it here in the comments. However, > the error that traditional, and especially Protestant, Christianity makes > on these points is in not understanding that ” >
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your reply. However, it is based on another error of traditional Christianity, especially Protestantism, in not recognizing that Paul uses the word “works” in different ways depending upon the context. In Romans 3 and 4, he uses “works” mostly to mean “the works of the Law of Moses,” particularly the ritual and ceremonial Law of Moses. That’s why he continually talks about “circumcision” whenever he talks about being saved by faith without the works of the Law.
In other words, Paul was arguing, against the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, that it was not necessary for Christians to be observant Jews in order to be saved. Paul never said that we are not saved by our good works. In fact, in Romans 2 he makes it crystal clear that we are saved or damned according to whether we do good works or evil works. Protestants are very much mistaken on these points because they do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God.
This is all covered in more detail in the above article, which I recommend to your reading. See also these two articles, which provide additional detail on these points:
Thank you, Lee. I read your article ‘faith alone is not faith’ and, although it chafed with me that someone was arguing that faith alone doesn’t save, I honestly I do not see anywhere that we disagree, if I understand your primary stance in that article is that faith in Jesus alone opens one up to God in a way that allows His love to work through them to do the things that are of salvation, primarily, good works which he created in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10). In other articles you have written, you even reference that a ‘good work’ can be confession of faith in Jesus, and witnessing (i.e. the thief on the cross), which I also agree on.
However your other articles that make some universalist-like claims, including the one this thread is in, I think that they possibly detract from the glory of God and even deter others from being truly saved.
Might sound harsh, but I think here’s two logic statements I hear you presenting:
1) If God is God, then he is everywhere, in every religion, and every religious text. Therefore, everyone has access to the same true God.
2) As long as people do things in the true God’s name (character, likeness, attributes), they are really doing it for Jesus. Therefore, everyone who does good will be saved because they are expressing faith in Jesus.
I believe that both of these conclusions are ultimately wrong. Scripturally, I point again to the necessity of preaching the specific gospel of Jesus Christ to God-fearing gentiles, in acts 10 and acts 17 and pretty much the whole missionary commission given by Jesus himself. If doing good deeds (not ‘Jewish works of ceremonial law’, but morally upright deeds) were enough to save someone, then the gospel would not have to be delivered to them by human communication. Another proof of this: Jesus appears to people in dreams in other faiths calling them to him. If people of other religions were ‘saved’ merely by abiding by the tenants of the faith that their religions or social contexts present them, Christ would not need to ‘enlighten’ then by revealing Himself to them specifically as Jesus Christ, typically associated with ‘the West’ by most muslims.
Not everyone has access to the same God. God -is- omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I don’t know how he will handle others who have already died apart from having the opportunity to hear the gospel. But I do know that many, many protestants (and obviously many others reaching all the way back to Paul and every first-hand disciple of Jesus himself) GAVE THEIR LIVES to spread the very specific message of the Gospel: That Jesus Christ alone is the salvation of the world. They ran the race and fought the good fight in the sense of preaching the unadulterated message of Jesus, who in the very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but came as a servant and made himself obedient to death, even death on a cross, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess for the glory of God that Jesus Christ is Lord.
I can tell you why, too: because in no other religion is there conceivably-possible such an amazing, beautiful, overwhelming, unhinging display of love in all of existence for the love of God as Father for his children through the sacrifice of His very Son. In no other religion is humanity rightly placed both as perfectly dependent upon God Himself to save in such a beautiful way, with such wide and open doors of His acceptance, that it allows every single human being into community and fellowship together with Him, united under the same act of grace that destroys every wall of hostility.
In no other religion can God be fully -known- other than through the message of the Gospel of Jesus. John 17:3 makes the most sense in this light, in my opinion.
You cannot tell me that Native American legends, ‘prophetic revelations’ from Muhammed, mythological Greek epics, philosophical Chinese wisdom, ritualistic ceremonies that appease various pagan gods handed down from various traditions and cultures, could even come CLOSE to the glory, beauty, wonder, and substance that is in Jesus and the story of God’s relationship to humankind as specifically revealed in the Bible. I may be biased, but I also come from having gone through a religious moratorium and existential depression at the truth claims of atheism to the point of suicide, until God had to literally shake me out of it. I honestly think many people are -trapped- in their religion (including ‘Christians’!) until they hear the specific Good News that Jesus loves them, and all that entails.
When looked at from this perspective, it’s easy to see why people would wholly and boldly give their lives for testifying that ‘Jesus is Lord’ when put to the sword to recant, when reaching remote villages, when traveling the seas to new lands, and why even now missionaries continually push back against a postmodern culture where reality is breaking apart at the seams with the constant, singular message: Jesus is Lord.
– Ben
On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 11:48 AM Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life wrote:
> Lee commented: “Hi Ben, Thanks for your reply. However, it is based on > another error of traditional Christianity, especially Protestantism, in not > recognizing that Paul uses the word “works” in different ways depending > upon the context. In Romans 3 and 4, he uses “works” >
Hi Ben,
Thanks for reading the articles, and for your thoughtful response. Rather than posting a detailed reply here, I will refer you to another article that takes up some of these points, and explains my position on this more fully:
If Non-Christians can Go to Heaven, Why should Christians Evangelize?
Short version: Though according to the Bible (see Matthew 25:31–46; Romans 2:1–16) salvation through Jesus Christ is available not just to Christians, but to all people who show active love to their neighbor and who live conscientiously, of all the religions on earth Christianity has the power to give us the closest and deepest relationship with God because Christianity teaches us that God came to us personally as Jesus Christ, and that God continues to come personally into the lives of those who believe that Jesus Christ is “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
That is why, though I believe, as the Bible teaches, that the salvation of Jesus Christ is extended to all the nations, not just to Christians, I personally am a Christian, not a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Jew.
If, after reading the linked article, you wish to continue the conversation, I would be very happy to do so.
Lee,
Thank you for the invitation and I’m glad for your openness to continue the dialogue. I agree with many aspects on your article regarding evangelism. You give acknowledgement to the target audience most effectively being the hurting, sick, and interested (seekers), that the motive of evangelists ought not to be their personal responsibility to ensure someone’s avoidance of hell, and that Christianity is the clearest depiction of God’s love through the Gospel and the historical objective reality of Jesus’ existence, death, and resurrection.
Our target audience, I agree, is most receptively found in those who are seeking and willing to accept the Good News. However, this should not be because ‘the rest are well,’ which is the assumption I hear you making based on Romans 2:1-16. Anecdotally, aside from my own experience of being saved out of a religious moratorium and existential crisis, Lee Strobel comes to mind–an atheist who, in his life as a journalist, would have said that he was ‘just fine’ with his life living according to conscience and with no explicit belief in God. He would politely but firmly reject invitations to hear the Gospel further until his wife came to Christ, and he decided to commit to understanding the objective evidence of whether Jesus Christ and what the Bible said were true. In his honest search, he found the evidence -overwhelming- for the objective historical reality of Jesus’ existence, death and resurrection, thereby forcing him to -make a choice- on whether or not he would accept Jesus’ words as they are read in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.” Rather than viewing this scripture as an expression of where salvation -ultimately- lies when and how someone comes God (‘all roads lead to Jesus’), what Lee Strobel–and many many others who preach the Gospel ‘to the nations’–understand this to mean was the exclusivity as Jesus, as witnessed in the first-hand account of the Gospel narratives, is the -only- method of salvation (the ‘way’), the only objective reality (‘truth’), and the only source of existence (‘life’). This may seem like splitting hairs, but I believe it plays a major role in whether someone is content to ‘let lie’ what shouldn’t be given ground, mainly, that any other religion, method, claim on truth, come before the One True God’s method and claim on truth. The glory is His, after all, and should not be given to another.
Where I get hung up in other religions is that not ‘all is well’ within them. The very fact that people convert -from them- and have personal testimonies of their bondage within a demonic religious system of oppression should raise one’s eyebrow at the least at the claim that ‘all the major religions of the world are basically the same.’ They are not! Why would most of the epistles be written with a major portion of their content focused on breaking down false teachings? Paul exclaims very fiercely in Galatians that should anyone preach ‘another Jesus’, let that person be eternally condemned. In that same letter, he also goes into detail of his own dramatic conversion despite his blamelessness as a pharisee, thinking that Christianity was a dangerous sect. God -delivered- Paul from ‘darkness into light’ when he was given a direct revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. That doesn’t sound like ‘light to brighter light’ to me, but a black and white picture of where the truth is and where it is not. Paul himself states that food offered to idols is not in actuality being offered to Jesus, at the end of the day, but to demons (1 Cor 10:20). Where Christians have freedom is in their belief that Jesus is the only true God, but not in acknowledging that the other peoples’ gods are Jesus too.
The Holy Spirit will draw people to Himself through our clear and unwavering witness. When we refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is the only way, we are minimizing the potential of the conversation to bear weight on the person’s conscience that this is true. Consider why Paul would say believers ought to not eat food in the presence of an unbeliever when they make clear it is offered in sacrifice (1 Cor 10:29). This belief may be offensive to some, but again, if it is -true-, then the offense is worth the risk. Although I wasn’t seeking it and was doing ‘just fine’ morally (in my mind), I’m so glad that people shared the Gospel with me. I didn’t receive it, but when I heard it, I -knew- it was true because it weighed on my conscience. I felt the Holy Spirit convicting me when I heard the message, even though I rejected it multiple times before finally turning and believing in Jesus. If those who shared the gospel with me didn’t believe in its exclusivity, there would have been no motivation to reach me with it, and no reason to pray for me fervently, which I attribute both to my salvation when I was dramatically converted on an airplane through an experience of feeling God’s Spirit and hearing his voice telling me to turn to my cousin and tell her I want to become a Christian. (Thank you, Jesus!)
I believe that this exclusivity on truth is what’s substantiated by scripture. Beliefs are not innocuous and benign. Jesus says to his disciples that ‘a little yeast works through the whole dough’ regarding the teaching of the pharisees. If the teaching of the pharisees is like yeast that can destroy the whole product, the same is true about other religious teachings: just being ‘slightly off’ can cause major devastation in one’s understanding of and life with God. A moral buddhist who goes around teaching others ‘Jesus is essentially the same as Buddha, and when you die, you’ll be born again,’ is a heresy: This hypothetical individual would be equating Siddhartha Gautama, who pursued understanding through asceticism, with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit, dying on the cross as propitiation for the sins of the world, being resurrected as proof, written by first hand accounts and stored within the most well-preserved document of antiquity in all of human existence! No teachings can compare to the very Word of God coming in the flesh. Teachings that run contrary to the Gospel message of the exclusivity of Christ alone being the only hope of salvation are teachings taught by demons (1 Tim 4:1)
If the early church leaders fought so hard to protect against various and insidious teachings, we have to be on guard against the same, especially when it’s clearly indicated that in the latter days (which I think we’re in) there will be many.
– Ben
On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 10:43 PM Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life wrote:
> Lee commented: “Hi Ben, Thanks for reading the articles, and for your > thoughtful response. Rather than posting a detailed reply here, I will > refer you to another article that takes up some of these points, and > explains my position on this more fully: If Non-Christians c” >
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your reply.
First, I have no desire or intention to take away from your conversion experience, or that of anyone else. I am a Christian. I rejoice when people become Christians, because I believe that Jesus Christ is indeed “God with us.”
Also, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the exclusive path to salvation. It’s just that I don’t believe this path is exclusive to Christians. Since I believe that Jesus Christ is the one God of heaven and earth, in whom is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I believe that everyone who is saved, no matter what their religion, is saved by Jesus Christ. For more on this, please see:
Is Jesus Christ the Only Way to Heaven?
It is important to pay attention to exactly what the Bible does and doesn’t say, and not to add words to it nor subtract words from it. John 14:6 does not say, “No one comes to the Father except through believing in me.” It says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Though elsewhere the Bible does indeed tell us that we can be saved by believing in Jesus, and I believe that is true, the “exclusivity” of which many traditional Christians speak simply isn’t articulated in the Bible as they claim it is. What Jesus is saying in John 14:6 is not that believing in him is the only way to salvation, but that he is the only way to the Father, which also means he is the only path to salvation.
That is why Paul, in Romans 2:1–16, says that Jews, Greeks (pagan polytheists), and Gentiles generally are judged (and saved or damned) through Jesus Christ. Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles are not Christians, nor do they believe that Jesus Christ is God, or the Son of God. Yet Paul tells us:
And once again, Matthew 25:31–46 says that the Son of Man will judge the people of all the nations for eternal life or eternal punishment based on whether they do, or do not, do good deeds of kindness for “the least of my brothers.”
So yes, salvation is exclusively through Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is the one God of heaven and earth. There is no other god by which we may be saved. But Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), not only some of it. This means Christ’s power to save is not limited to saving Christians, but extends to saving the people of all the nations, just as he himself tells us in words as plain as day.
As for other religions being corrupt and wrong, they certainly are to some extent, just as the human institution of Christianity itself is corrupt and wrong to some extent. But God is not dependent upon human organizations to save people. God looks at the human heart. And God saves or condemns us based on what God sees in our heart, not based on whether we belong to a pure or a corrupt religious institution, and not based on whether our beliefs are correct or faulty.
If believing the correct thing were the critical issue, we would all be in serious trouble. Consider that there thousands of Christian sects, each holding to different doctrines, and each insisting that their doctrine is the correct way to salvation. Since these doctrines commonly contradict one another, they cannot all be right. And my own view is that almost all of them are wrong. (See: “Today’s Christianity: Vastly Void of Truth.”) Yet it is not churches nor their doctrines that save people. It is Jesus Christ who saves people. And he saves people who are willing to accept him into their lives, not as some abstract intellectual belief in a literal “name of Jesus Christ,” but according to whether they accept him in spirit, which means in their hearts, lives, and actions.
That is why Jesus tells us that people who do good deeds for their neighbor in need will be saved, whereas those who do not will be damned. If intellectual belief in Jesus Christ were what saves us, he would never have said that. But Matthew 25:31–46 contains not a word about faith, and it is Jesus’ own clearest statement about who will be saved and who will be damned.
Did Jesus Christ not understand his own doctrine of salvation? Was he wrong in what he taught in Matthew 25? It would be blasphemy to say so. Yet he said in words that cannot be mistaken that people of all the nations who do good will be saved, whereas those who do not will be damned. This is not dependent upon religious affiliation, nor is it dependent upon correct doctrine. It is dependent upon whether people let God into their hearts, and live from the love for the neighbor that God puts there for those who receive him. Remember, Jesus himself told us that the most important commandments in the entire Bible are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
About the early Christians’ prohibition on eating food sacrificed to idols, we must understand that the vast bulk of the early converts to Christianity were pagan polytheists. They had been raised with pagan rites of sacrifices to various gods, and they could easily slip back into their old ways if they were allowed to participate in those rites. The early Christian leaders had to forbid them to engage in such practices to avoid mass numbers of them slipping away from their faith in Jesus and back into pagan beliefs and practices.
Once again, I believe Christianity (in its true form, not in its present-day corrupted form) is the truest and most powerful religion on earth. Other religions simply don’t have what Christianity has, which is the knowledge that God has become human, and is with us in person, lifting us up and saving us. Once a person has found Christianity, it is best for that person not to slip back into his or her old beliefs. That is why the early Christian leaders prohibited the eating of meat sacrificed to idols.
If you or I were to knowingly or unknowingly eat meat sacrificed to idols, we would be in no danger of falling into pagan polytheism, because such beliefs and practices are not “in our blood.” Not that I’m advocating doing so, but today, when most Christians were brought up Christian, there simply isn’t the danger that the early pagan converts to Christianity faced, of slipping back into pagan ways. I have personally participated in non-Christian rituals occasionally during my lifetime—particularly Jewish ones, since I grew up in a predominantly Jewish town—and it has had no effect whatsoever on my Christian faith and life, which continues to grow stronger every day.
In short, it is important to understand why various rules were given in the Bible. Some of them, such as the commandments against killing, committing adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness, are universal laws meant for everyone, in all times, to obey. Others, such as the Jewish law of circumcision and sacrifice, are given for particular people in particular cultures at particular times. That’s why no Christian observes all of the laws given in the Bible. Many of those laws no longer apply to Christians, because we no longer live in the ancient cultures in which those laws were given, and because we now have Jesus Christ as our savior. For the early Christians, the temptation to return to pagan rites and practices would be strong. For most Christians today, it is a non-issue.
Yes, true teachings are important. Without them we wander and get lost. Unfortunately, many of the teachings of present-day “Christianity,” such as the teaching that all non-Christians will go to hell, are false and contrary to the plain teachings of the Bible. So it is not just non-Christians, but Christians as well who wander around in false teachings.
Fortunately, it is not our beliefs, but the way we live pursuant to our beliefs, that brings us to salvation. The idea that we are saved by faith alone is just plain false. That’s why in the only place in the Bible that actually mentions faith alone (James 2:24), it is specifically rejected. Christians today who subscribe to salvation by faith alone are ignoring and rejecting the plain teachings of the Bible, and substituting for it the teachings of a human being, Martin Luther, who attempted to remove four books from the Bible, including James, because they didn’t support his human-invented doctrine of justification by faith alone.
As for me, if Luther contradicts the plain teachings of the Bible, I will follow the Bible, not Luther.
I could go on, but for now I will recommend one more article for you, which deals with the importance of correct doctrine:
Does Doctrine Matter? Why is it Important to Believe the Right Thing?
Once again, I have no desire to take anything away from your conversion experience. I believe it is genuine, and I believe that you are on the path to heaven. Unfortunately, while accepting Jesus Christ, you have been waylaid by various doctrines that neither Jesus nor anyone else in the Bible ever taught. These doctrines were invented by human beings hundreds or even a thousand or more years after the Bible was written. While I rejoice in your salvation, I lament that you have been taught to believe as “Christian truth” things that the Bible simply does not teach.
What you wish to believe is up to you. As for me, I will follow the Bible’s plain teachings regardless of any doctrines of human beings that are now being taught as “Christian truth.” The Bible simply doesn’t say that we are saved or justified by faith alone. In fact, it explicitly rejects that doctrine. And so do I. And the Bible never says that only Christians are saved. Instead, it clearly teaches that people of all nations, both Christians and non-Christians, are saved by Jesus Christ according to whether they do or do not do good works of love and kindness for their fellow human beings. And I will accept the teachings of Jesus Christ over the teachings of Luther and Calvin any day, and forever.
Meanwhile, it is up to you whether you wish to accept the plain teachings of the Bible, or to accept instead the teachings that various human teachers have substituted for the teachings of the Bible.
Lee. Grateful for your conviction and desire to remain steadfast to Christ, His teachings, and your understanding of the Bible. I do believe I have grasped and appreciate your position, which is the universality of Christ’s saving power for the entire world, regardless of a specific confession of faith, which is primarily based upon Romans 2:1-16 and Jesus’ explanations of the end of the age where he separates the good from the bad based on good works.
I attempted today to walk forward in holding this position and good works as a necessity for salvation personally for myself. I admit that, possibly because of where I’ve come from, I came away feeling utterly depressed and demoralized. Previously I lived with my worth and value being completely based upon what Christ had done for me, which filled my heart with peace and joy, put me in a continued state of gratitude, and a conviction that Christ can save -anyone-, including myself, merely by His own love and faithfulness. In practicality, as I walked forward with the scriptural idea that good works necessitate salvation, I began to feel the weight of the scales shift into my personal responsibility to ‘do the works God has required’. This in no short time propelled me into a self-based orientation, ironically: Although I knew intellectually that Christ is the Savior, my own fear of being able to do the works required sends my mind into crazy interpretation of what ‘good works’ means, whether I can procure them, and the need to live based on my own justification of my salvation. (After reading the rest of this, You Say by Lauren Daigle is a good depiction of what I and many experience internally regarding theological/psychological pressures and their remedy in Christ).
Since we cannot see the heart, there is no other observable measure that we can recognize the genuineness of someone else’s faith other than the fruit of their lives. But when I monitor the fruit of my own life, I tend to be in a constant place of comparison and personal measurement–whether the ‘good’ I do outweighs the ‘bad.’ I experience very viscerally that, unless I remain completely rooted in Jesus being the only One who is good, I lean away from a place of worshipful gratitude that propels me to be able to do the things God wants me to do (like love people, give grace, and desire others to experience the kind of joy I have in walking in God’s loving care and provision daily). In practicality, I find it a lot like my relationship with my young son: often I tell him to put on his shoes. I love it when he obeys the first time and take great joy in it. But often he gets distracted, often he belabors the process, and sometimes he outright rejects my command, throwing the shoes across the floor. If I left it up to him, continually saying ‘put on your shoes NOW,’ it only makes it worse. I sometimes (regrettably) threaten to revoke a privilege in order to get him to comply–this does not place him in a position of loving compliance, but fear-based position in relationship to me, often harboring hidden resentment and possibly even questioning my character (am I ‘good’ or ‘bad’?). As his dad, I see it as my responsibility to teach him to obey. But if I teach him to obey at the expense of a loving relationship, I’ll have lost my son and his willingness to obey my command out of love for me. Who cannot see the difference in a dad who commands respect from his son vs one with a loving relationship? (A great non-biblical example that comes to mind is one of my favorite Disney movies, ‘A Goofy Movie’ 😛 ).
Perfect love casts out all fear. Only the love of God can put someone in such a place where good works just -flow- from them, in relationship with others. If I have to drudge myself up (whether from fear or complacency) to do good works in a place of making sure my salvation is secure, I’m -working to justify- myself. I am not resting in what’s already been accomplished for me or given to me freely. I believe this is what’s meant by ‘faith alone saves,’ because no amount of working on my part could earn my salvation, and often if I am not growing in my faith (growing in goodness, knowledge, self control, brotherly kindness, etc), it’s likely due to forgetting that God loves me so much that He’s the one who forgave me first (2 Peter 1). It’s two sides of the same coin: You literally -cannot- have faith without works. However, you assuredly can have ‘works’ without faith (i.e., both pharisees), but they may not be the works God requires.
In the same chapter where people ask Jesus “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” and Jesus answers them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent,” He also says that all those who come to him 1) will never hunger or thirst again, 2) He never lose what has been given him, 3) He will raise up on the last day because the will of the Father is that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6).
So I gratefully, but with a new appreciation for it, return to my position that ‘faith alone’ ultimately saves, not in negligence or dismissal of good works, but because there is only One who is good who, as a loving Father, promises to save me based on what He has done for me through Jesus (grace). To me, belief in Jesus is the initiation, the means, and the end of everything required for salvation, which includes good works as a natural consequence of understanding and belief in the Gospel.
– Ben
On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 12:28 PM Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life wrote:
> Lee commented: “Hi Ben, Thanks for your reply. First, I have no desire or > intention to take away from your conversion experience, or that of anyone > else. I am a Christian. I rejoice when people become Christians, because I > believe that Jesus Christ is indeed “God with ” >
Hi Ben,
If Martin Luther’s unbiblical and anti-biblical schema of justification by faith alone has been confirmed in you mind as helping you to feel secure in your salvation, then it’s likely that nothing I say will bring you to accept what the Bible actually teaches about justification and salvation.
However, being a rather foolish person, I’ll take a stab at it anyway.
A key error in the Protestant view of good works is that doing good works earns or merits salvation. However, if we do good works in order to earn or merit salvation, then ironically, those works contribute nothing at all to our salvation. There are three basic reasons to do good works that have nothing to do with meriting salvation:
These are the biblical reasons for doing good works. It has nothing to do with piling up enough good works to earn salvation. This, once again, is a Protestant fallacy based on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of good works that contribute to salvation.
Further, just as we can take no credit for our faith, since it is Christ that gave it to us, so we can take no credit for our good works, because these, too, are given to us by Christ, as he himself teaches:
If there is any merit in good works, it is Christ’s merit, not ours. So there is no basis for us to get all puffed up because we have done this or that good work. Without Christ in us, we could do no good works at all. All of the credit belongs to him, not to us, just as all credit for our faith belongs to him, not to us.
So please put out of your mind the idea that we can earn salvation by our good works, and that if we don’t do enough good works, or don’t do good works that are of high enough quality, our salvation will be in danger. Unfortunately, your mind has been poisoned by Protestant fallacies about good works, which are necessary in order to support the unbiblical teaching of justification by faith alone. A sound understanding of the role of good works in salvation takes away the depression and demoralization that those Protestant fallacies have induced upon your mind. The Bible teaches, not just in the two passages I mentioned, but hundreds of times from Genesis to Revelation, that if we wish to be saved we must repent from our sins (i.e., stop doing evil works), and do good works of love and kindness for our neighbor instead.
You sound very sincere in your reasons for believing what you do. Unfortunately, most of what you cite as support for justification by faith alone consists of Protestant slogans that sound sort of biblical, but are never actually taught in the Bible.
For example, it’s a Protestant commonplace that good works are the fruits of faith. The only problem is that the Bible never actually says this. It sounds sort of biblical, but the Bible simply doesn’t teach it. Good works are the fruits of Jesus Christ. Faith is merely a conduit, because it opens us up to receiving from Christ the power to do good works.
Another example is the common Protestant phrase “the finished work of Christ.” This phrase sounds sort of biblical, but it doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible say that the only thing necessary for salvation is Jesus’ death on the cross. The idea that Jesus’ death is salvation is a major non-biblical Protestant fallacy that’s all tied in with the utterly anti-biblical doctrine of penal substitution, whose underlying principle the Bible rejects many times. See: “The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 5: Jesus Paid the Penalty For Our Sins?”
Over and over again when Protestants give the reasons for their unshakable conviction in Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, they use phrases that sound sort of biblical, but that don’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible. That’s because neither Luther’s doctrine nor the various points used to justify it are taught anywhere in the Bible. I would encourage you to search the scriptures for the various points that you have been bringing forward to support your belief in Luther’s doctrine. You will find, if you look carefully, and don’t add or subtract words to and from the Bible’s statements, that these things simply aren’t taught anywhere in the Bible. They sound sort of biblical, but they are not biblical.
Yes, in one place Jesus speaks of believing in him as a good work. But that is not the only good work he speaks of. When the rich young man asked him what good thing he must do to receive eternal life, Jesus named several of the Ten Commandments. When the man said that he had kept these from his youth, did Jesus say, “Then all you need to do is believe in me?” No. Jesus never said any such thing. Rather, he gave the man another good work to do: sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. This would have been a golden opportunity for Jesus to teach faith alone. But he completely failed to do so. In fact, faith alone is never even mentioned in the Bible, except in James 2:24, where it is specifically rejected.
Either Martin Luther is mistaken, or Jesus and the entire Bible are mistaken.
I’ll go with Jesus and the Bible.
You can go with Martin Luther if it helps you to feel secure in your salvation. But don’t deceive yourself into thinking that this is what the Bible teaches. The very desire to feel secure in our own salvation is just a little bit self-centered. If we believe in the Lord and are faithful to him in following his commandments, then we can leave our security and our salvation to him, and focus on doing the work of loving our neighbor that he has put in front of us.
I don’t worry too much about my salvation precisely because I know that the Lord is gracious, merciful, and loving, and deeply desires to bring me to heaven, if only I will listen to him and live by his teachings as best I can. God knows that we will always fall short of perfection. But God is not a perfectionist, and gladly accepts even our feeble attempts to follow his will. That is the great grace of God, who loved us even when we were sinners, and who will bring us to heaven if he can find in us any receptivity at all to his love, truth, and power.
Lee,
This is how Grace works Every thought you have for doing a good deed comes from God. This is the reason you cannot boast. “For by Grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
What so many don’t understand is that God gives you the idea to do a good work. If you do it than God gives you a reward. which is more Grace. If you don’t do it, than you lost an opportunity to get closer to Jesus. If you do the work that God suggested than you gain virtue, which is a gift from God, and you want to do more good works. But if you have not faith, than the good work you did will not help you get closer to God, improve spiritually and gain virtue. It does not help you spiritually without faith. You cannot be saved without belief in God. You can be saved by wrong belief with faith, but not correct belief without faith. There is a big difference between faith and belief.
So you see, by not doing the good work, you are rejecting God’s Grace. Your good works don’t save you because God gave you the idea in the first place. You cannot take credit for anything good you did, because God was the reason you did it. God even puts things in your path in life to be able to do the good deed. To take any credit for a good deed is to take credit away from God. But, you can cooperate with his Grace and do it, or reject his Grace an not. This is the truth. For more information about this thought read Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica.”
Matthew
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your good thoughts. Though I would express a few things a little differently, I think you and I believe similarly on these subjects.
Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
There are a few logical problems I have with this writing. Although I do not disagree that it is good to have high moral standards, and to live by those standards, I must say that if such a percentage of earths population will go to hell for not believing in Jesus, wouldn’t an even higher percentage go to Hell if works are a requirement also? And then there is the matter of going to hell for sin. Maybe there is one out of a billion people who has gotten to the point of never sinning, but wait a minute. Then the numbers are even worse! Then maybe 10 or 20 people out of all people who have ever lived will make it to heaven. I think the best way to handle this is as such: if you believe in Jesus, you will be saved. If you truly believe in Jesus you will surely be saved. And works will be the fruit of the tree that has been made good
One more thing… you are forgetting about heavenly rewards. At the judgement seat of Christ, who judges the believers, our good works that are wrought by the Spirit are gold, silver, and precious stone that endure eternally, and our inferior works wrought by our flesh is wood, hay, and stubble, and are burned up by fire. And if that is all we have, we suffer loss, though we ourselves are spared. I don’t know where that verse is but I know it is there and worded similarly but differently also. So our good works are not “irrelevant”, even if we are saved by faith alone.
God bless you, you are doing a good thing. We all need encouragement to clean ourselves up and pay attention to the bad things we do, and to work to change them into good things.
1 Corinthians 3:15
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comments.
About 1 Corinthians 3:15, it specifically says that even those who build with straw will be saved, even if they suffer loss. There is no support here whatsoever for the idea that our good works must be perfect for us to be saved. In fact, it says just the opposite.
The whole idea that God requires absolute perfection in us, and that if we do the slightest thing wrong God will condemn us to eternal hell, is a smear and a blasphemy on the love, mercy, compassion, and good name of God. If any human court prescribed the death penalty for every single offense, even rolling through a stop sign, that court would be seen, not as a fount of justice, but as an enforcer of insane tyranny. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God will condemn us to hell for the least little sin. This is a pure invention of Protestants who are attempting to support their unbiblical and false doctrine of justification by faith alone.
For more on this, please see:
The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 4: God Condemns Us to Hell Because We’re Not Perfect?
Further, if God required perfection in our good works, wouldn’t the same God also require perfection in our faith? And yet, which one of us has perfect faith?
No, my friend, God is merciful, and does not condemn us for the least little fault. God looks on the heart, and if God sees there a genuine desire to love God and love the neighbor, God will excuse all manner of faults and minor sins. When our life as a whole is devoted to God’s work, the fact that we are fallible and make mistakes and slip-ups now and then does not turn away the love, mercy, and salvation of God.
[…] dry abstract philosophy being incorporated into Christianity especially in the form of the ‘salvation through faith alone’ doctrines coming out of the churches around his time. Such doctrines were wholly concerned […]
Hi, interesting thoughts. I disagree with you. For example, I view it this way. I ask this question. At what point was King David going to hell for his sins? I’m sure most know about David’s not so perfect life, but we’re in the same boat. How many good works, make up for just one sin? Cause that’s all it takes is do one sin and you’re headed written off to hell. If one Law is broken, then you have broken them all. I believe that’s what a scripture states. Most don’t view sin the right way. That a little white lie is still punished by death. To think one can get into heaven by works or anything other than faith, is to believe that enough works will at some point, cancel out at least one sin. The only thing that can remove sin is faith. Works are a result of faith. Not separate from faith. Every good deed you do in life is because you believe in something before hand. You don’t treat people fair or be fair before you decide to believe in being a fair person. You believe in being fair first, which by doing so it shows in your actions. We sin, we do good, we sin, we do good. Not one person can guarantee not to sin again. Most people look believe people in the old testament got into heaven by their good works. I mean, if you’re new to studying and you read in the new testament that Jesus says no one enter heaven except thru me and so on. Well I guess they got in by sacrificing animals? I hope I’m not shortening this up too much that others can’t follow me, but I’m gonna get to the end. In order to get to heaven one most be righteous. To be righteous, one most be perfect under the Law. There is only one that was perfect under the Law (Jesus). But there is another way and it is the same way by which we get into heaven today. The same as old testament saints. By faith. Abraham faith made him righteous before God. There a scripture that says it. It never was any works, but his faith. Same with David. See no matter what sin or good works we do, we’re never going to heaven one minute then going to hell the next, and on and on and on. The reason is because when you are a true believer, your faith is unwavering. That’s why new testament body says, “You shall be saved, or you are saved.” Because God doesn’t know one minute you going to make it and the next minute He do sent know. God knows that if your faith is unwavering, able to stand the tests of time, “You shall be saved”
So basically I believe good works are just the fruits of faith. I hope I explained it okay. Will be happy to hear some feedback. Thx
Hi Kenyon,
My reply is just below (here). A system glitch prevented it from being posted in reply to your comment.
Hi Kenyon,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I have only one problem: None of this is what the Bible says.
It is what Protestant theologians say. Human beings such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon, and so on. But none of it is stated in the Bible. It is all human doctrine that has been substituted for the teachings of the Bible.
To take up some of your points roughly in the order you make them:
There are more that I could cover, but these are enough to show that whoever is teaching you these things simply doesn’t know the Bible. I strongly urge you to abandon your current teachers and preachers, and find some who will give you true teaching from the Bible, not false teaching from human beings like Martin Luther and John Calvin.
Meanwhile, here are several more articles showing just how mistaken and biblically illiterate your current teachers and preachers are:
Please read and learn what the Bible really says.
Hi Lee,
Would you disagree, though, that ones works attest to, and demonstrate, the presence of a living faith within the person who does them? Because that seems to be much of the thrust behind the Protestant handling when it comes to James’ discussions of works in the scheme of salvation. And you get the impression that’s what’s James is referring to in an earlier passage when he says:
But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
It seems he’s talking about what shows faith, which is works, and if that’s true, wouldn’t that contextualize all his other references to the relationship of faith and works in that same light? That works don’t add anything to our salvation, but just attest to the saving faith from which those works flow, as opposed to faith in the sense of mere intellectual ascent?
I’m not an adherent of sola fide, but I can absolutely see how these verses can be interpreted to support that, though I’m beginning to wonder if: faith *is* works, and works *is* faith. How else would you be able to a account for the salvation of atheists, who possess no intellectual faith in God, yet perform good works as part of a faith in that larger moral principle you referees to in this article?
Hi Rami,
The error in this line of thinking is the Protestant commonplace that “good works are the fruits of faith.” It sounds good. However, the Bible never actually says that good works are the fruits of faith, nor anything similar to it. It is a slogan made up by Protestants to support their doctrine of justification by faith alone. It sounds sort of biblical, but it isn’t actually in the Bible. Look for yourself.
The general Protestant argument in favor of good works being the fruits of faith assumes that their main premise, that salvation is by faith alone, is true. If salvation is the result of faith alone, and good works flow from the hands of a saved person, then, the argument goes, good works are the fruits of faith.
The fatal flaw is that the Bible never says that salvation is by faith alone. Once again, the one and only mention of faith alone in the Bible is in the sequence in James that you mention:
No matter how hard Protestants try to wriggle out of it, James’s statement is quite plain. Justification is by works, and not by faith alone.
As for where good works come from, Jesus himself tells us:
In other words, good works come from the Lord flowing into us.
Further, notice that though Paul says we are saved by faith without the works of the Law, and sometimes without works, he never says that we are saved by faith without good works. If he had wanted to say that, he could have. But he didn’t.
Every formula that Protestants have invented to support justification by faith alone sounds sort of biblical, but isn’t actually in the Bible.
As for faith being works, I wouldn’t say that, though Swedenborg does say something awfully close to it. As James explains, faith and works must be together, or they are nothing. However, it is true that in the Bible’s usage of the word “faith,” primarily in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament also by derivation from the Old Testament, the meaning of the word for “faith” is closer to “faithfulness.” And faithfulness does require living according to one’s faith. On this, please see the follow-up article:
Faith Alone Is Not Faith
Yes, good works do attest to a living faith. But that doesn’t mean salvation is by faith alone. And it doesn’t mean that the works flow from the faith. Really, good works flow from love, and they flow through faith. And the love that the good works flow from comes from the Lord’s love dwelling within us.
Not only is the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone contrary to the plain statements of the Bible, and not only does the Bible not contain any of the slogans that Protestants use to support it, but the idea that we are saved only by our faith betrays a complete lack of understanding of how the human heart, mind, and spirit work, and of our relationship with the Lord God Jesus Christ. It is fallacious from top to bottom. The Bible doesn’t say it. And it is false.
Hi Lee,
In our exchanges, I’ve noticed that your most basic criteria used to scrutinize doctrine is if it contradicts the plain statements of the Bible, and whether it’s supported by any plain statements of the Bible. The former I’m certainly on board with, but the latter I’ve never quite been able to get my head around.
Because, how much key doctrine *is* based on and derived from plain statements? It doesn’t seem often in which the Bible lays out basic bullet points that spell out doctrine or provide that kind of crystal clear premise from which doctrine is formed. It seems much more often than not we conclude doctrine from the takeaway of any given text; reading and trying to determine what it is the text is saying- in the same way that we derive the moral lesson of parables- and ensuring it’s consistent with the takeaways from other parts of the Bible. If so, then why does doctrine have to be plainly stated in the text for it to be valid? And why would a slogan only be true for that same reason, especially since slogans are invented for our own benefit and don’t presume to somehow be within the text itself?
I also know that your follow up to this criteria- often in response to this objection- is that if something were so key, so essential to our salvation, then the Bible wound say so in plain terms, leaving no opportunity for error. And I would agree wiry this. However, I don’t necessarily see Protestant theology and suggesting that having some kind of belief in Sola Fide is essential to ones salvation, as Sola Fide describes the way in which salvation works. What *is* essential for salvation is something that is much more simple and basic that precedes the doctrine of Sola Fide, and *is* plainly spelled out: to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. To do so, according to Protestants, instills the believer with a saving faith that thus lends itself to good works. Whether that person accepts or even understands Sola Fide is irrelevant to the way salvation works itself out in the life of the person who first accepts that basic belief in Christ. That’s what they mean by ‘mere Christianity.’
Returning to James, I sometimes just don’t know how to read it. Sometimes I read it as: ‘as you can see, a person is Justified by works, and not by faith alone,’ as if the author was laboring to point out how it’s faith and works that saves us. Other times: ‘you can see a person is Justified by their works, and not by faith alone,’ as if the author is answering the question ‘how can we tell if a person is Justified,’ and James replied: by their works, and is then referring to ‘faith alone’ as the mere mental acceptance of something. And from the preceding verses, that interpretation seems to have some credibility, doesn’t it?
Finally, about atonement theories…yeah, I know you’re not a fan of any of the substitutionary ones, but is the way you’ve described God’s attitude toward humanity in these theories accurate? Does God hate His creation and want them in hell in penal and satisfaction theories? Because one thing that’s repeatedly mentioned by mainline Christians witnessing to non-Christians is: ‘God loves you,’ despite the fact that we are separated from God on account of our corrupted nature- not by how we were created- and need to accept Christ so as to be reconciled back to God.
Hi Rami,
Part of my reason for insisting that the Bible must state the essentials of Christian faith in its own words is that Protestants insist that their doctrine is taught in the Bible, and that the Bible is the sole source of Christian doctrine. That’s sola scriptura. If their doctrine is not based on what the Bible says, then it is false according to their own principles.
And the fact of the matter is that almost everything they teach is not taught in the Bible, plainly or otherwise. Believing it requires rejecting plain statements made throughout the Bible, and accepting ideas that are never stated in the Bible.
Swedenborg’s most basic statement on this issue is:
He does, however, also say:
So yes, it is possible to derive false doctrine from the literal sense of the Bible. But doing so is damaging if we become insistent that these false doctrines are true. Further, in other places he says that people derive false doctrine either because they are unenlightened or because they are evil at heart. People who are enlightened by the Lord because they are sincerely seeking to love and serve God and the neighbor can see the truth in the Bible, including in its plain statements.
My own principle that the basics of Christian doctrine with regard to salvation should be, and are, stated plainly in the Bible is not, to my knowledge, stated as such in Swedenborg’s writings. But it seems to be a minimum necessary condition for the Bible to be regarded as God’s Word.
If God is so bad at communicating what we need to know and do in order to be saved that it requires human theologians to “interpret” it for the common people, then we have to question both God’s wisdom and God’s love, and ultimately we will have to reject the Bible as the primary authority on Christian faith and life. If we say that the Bible cannot be understood without interpretation on this very basic and essential matter—our eternal salvation—then we are saying that humans, not God, are the final authority on Christian doctrine.
That is something I cannot accept.
I believe that God has indeed provided the basics of salvation in the plain words of the Bible, without the need of any interpretation beyond the ability to read and understand written language.
As for some of the more arcane and less essential doctrines of Christianity, yes, those require interpretation and understanding by someone who is trained and enlightened in spiritual truth. But our salvation does not depend upon any of these less essential doctrines.
Hi Rami,
You say:
It is true that Protestants generally don’t claim that a person has to understand and accept the doctrine of justification by faith alone in order to be saved.
However, even what you say they do say is essential for salvation isn’t actually stated in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t actually say, “In order to be saved you must accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” It says some things that sort of sound like that, or that could be interpreted to mean that. But it doesn’t actually say that.
This is yet another example of a Protestant slogan that sounds sort of biblical, but isn’t actually stated in the Bible.
In fact, in many places in the Old Testament, and several places in the New Testament, the Bible tells us how people who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are saved.
In Old Testament times, it was not possible to accept Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior, because Jesus Christ had not yet been born. Yet there are dozens, if not hundreds, of passages in the Old Testament stating how people could be saved. Before Jesus Christ was born, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people lived on this earth, and many of them were saved and are now living in heaven, all without a single one of them accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
In the New Testament, to cite two of the clearest examples: Jesus himself says in Matthew 25:31–46 how people of all nations (not only Christian nations) will be saved if they do good deeds of love and kindness for people who are in need. And Paul states in Romans 2:1–16 how Jews, “Greeks” (pagan polytheists), and Gentiles—none of whom accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior—are saved based on their good works and on their living according to their own conscience. There are many other passages in the New Testament saying that those who repent and do good works will be saved, while those who do not will be condemned.
In other words, if Protestants say that in order to be saved, people must accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and that anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will be condemned to hell, they are flatly contradicting the plain teaching of Jesus Christ himself, and the plain teaching of the Apostle Paul, as stated plainly in the plain literal sense of the Bible.
Can a person be saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Yes, of course. But is that a necessary condition for salvation, as Protestants say it is? According to the plain statements of the Bible itself, no it is not.
For a related article, please see:
Did Jesus ever actually say, “If you don’t believe in me you will go to hell”?
Once again, if a person claims to be Christian, and especially if a person claims that his or her faith is based on the Bible, then it is important to pay attention to what the Bible actually does and doesn’t say. You can’t just say, “Well, that’s what the Bible means,” when the Bible never actually says it, and when the Bible does say things that flatly contradict it. The Bible says definite things. We can’t just make it say whatever we want it to say, and call it “biblical.”
Once again, is God really so incompetent and so bad at communicating as to be unable to state in plain words what is necessary for us to believe and do in order to be saved?
Hi Rami,
You say:
Unfortunately, it seems that your mind is still clouded by Protestant fallacies and falsities.
Until we clear falsities from our mind, we cannot see the truth clearly, if at all. Further, as long as falsities cloud our mind, we cannot even read and understand the most basic statements in the Bible.
James’s statements are really quite clear. The only reason they are unclear in the minds of so many people is that they have accepted, or have had their minds tainted by, traditional “Christian” teachings that contradict the plain teachings of the Bible—primarily Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone.
If a person can read the statement, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” and still believe that we are justified by faith alone as Protestantism teaches, then it is quite clear that this person simply cannot read and understand the plain meaning of the Bible’s words.
This truly boggles my mind. How can someone read in the Bible, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” and still believe that we are justified by faith alone, and not by works? How can someone believe the exact opposite of what the Bible says in words as plain as day, and still think that their belief is what the Bible teaches?
I could try to elucidate James 2 for you. But my primary counsel for you is that you rid you mind of the last remnants the Protestant sola fide falsity. Once you have done that, you will be able to read and understand James’s letter for yourself, without your current doubt and confusion about its meaning.
Hi Rami,
And you say:
A couple of points:
Further, even mainline Christians who do know the fundamental doctrines of their church will commonly omit or soft-pedal those doctrines because they are aware that these doctrines will be objectionable to the average good-hearted and thinking person. They use the “good stuff” to hook people in, figuring that new converts can learn and accept the “hard stuff” later.
If they were to actually state in plain terms the fundamental doctrines of their church to potential converts, most would recoil in disgust at those doctrines, and the “Christian” missionary would “lose the sale.
I encourage you to look into satisfaction theory in depth, and come to a real understanding of what it means, apart from the sometimes flowery and often fuzzy language used by its apologists to support it. Put it into plain, ordinary English words. Then decide for yourself whether you think it is worthy of belief.
It is quite clear in satisfaction theory that God cannot abide people tainted by sin, and turns his back on them. There is a good-cop, bad-cop routine in which God the Father plays the bad cop, and God the Son (who is not exactly Jesus, in trinitarian theology) plays the good cop. I could go on and on about how wrong, false, and disgusting this doctrine is. But I doubt you will accept any of it unless you look into it for yourself, and discern its true nature.
Hi Lee,
I appreciate you being willing to offer up enough detail so as to break it up into several replies. As for the specific topics we’re discussing, I’d like to focus mostly on the passage of James in question.
If no one had advanced the Protestant interpretation of James 2:24- that deeds only attest to the presence of a living faith- than, yes, I in all likelihood would have simply read that passage as face value. But now that I’ve heard this interpretation, and see the admittedly plausible- if not necessarily correct- lines of reasoning that lead to it, I simply cannot *un*-see the Protestant interpretation when I read it. More specifically, it’s in the wording ‘you see that a person is justified…’
On the one hand, that particular wording sounds like that which one would use when concluding an argument, i.e: ‘so as you can see,’ ‘in conclusion,’ etc, and it’s in that sense that’s totally consistent with interpretation that James is repudiating the doctrine of justification by faith in the simplest, most straightforward way possible. On the other, ‘you see that a person is justified…’ can also be consistent with James speaking to the effect of ‘here’s how you can tell if a person is justified,’ which is most consistent with the attestation interpretation held by Protestants. I know you see the fact that I find a certain level of ambiguity in this passage to be merely the product of allowing Protestant theology affect my worldview, and perhaps this is to some extent true, but taken alone and apart from this, I think the issues I’ve raised about whether this passage so simply, clearly supports one position or the other has merit.
But that’s just if we’re looking solely at James 2:24. If I had to reach any final conclusions, it would certainly be on the whole of James 2, and I actually think the surrounding the context of the passage does more to repudiate Sola Fide than the single sentence of 2:24, specifically when James asks ” “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can [that] faith save him?” Protestant thinkers argue that James, in James 2, is essentially distinguishing between ‘dead faith’- which is merely intellectual ascent- and a ‘living faith,’ which saves and produces good works, but it seems apparent in the above verse that James is talking about someone who simply *has* faith, and not distinguishing between a saving and non-saving faith. “What good is it?” “Can that faith save him?” It seems more plausible to interpret this as James just talking about the mere notion of belief, and not a dead, non-saving faith that fails to yield works. Feel free to correct me if I have the right idea for the wrong reasons.
And as much as I know you reject most things associated with Catholic theology, Catholic apologists have indeed put in a lot of labor in refuting the Protestant interpretation of James 2 in particular, and Sole Fide in general.
Hi Rami,
I agree that the entire passage in James 2 is a stronger repudiation of sola fide than James 2:24 alone. I would say that James 2:24 is a summation of the argument presented in the entire passage.
As for the interpretation that James is speaking to the effect of, “Here’s how you can tell if a person is justified,” this would twist and strain the original Greek beyond all reasonable bounds.
The Greek word for “by” in both instances in James 2:24 (“You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”) is ἐκ. This is “a primary preposition denoting origin (the point whence action or motion proceeds)” You can read the full definition and usages at the link. In Young’s Literal Translation the verse reads:
In short, the only reasonable way to read the Greek is that works, not faith alone, is the source from which justification flows.
Notice also that Young uses “declared righteous” instead of “justified.” That’s because in ordinary language, the original Greek word means “to be righteous,” or “to be declared righteous.” It is not some technical theological term, as the Latin-derived “justification” suggests. Rather, it simply refers to a righteous person, who is declared righteous because he or she is righteous. (God does not lie and deceive by declaring people righteous when they are not, in fact, righteous.)
Putting the Bible’s statements into ordinary, non-technical language makes it much easier to understand what they mean.
And yes, Catholic theologians have heavily refuted Protestant faith-alone interpretations not just of James 2, but of many other passages in the Bible that Protestants claim support their doctrine of justification by faith alone. And for that I do give them credit. However, it was within Catholicism that the satisfaction theory of atonement originated and was developed. And as I pointed out in a previous reply, satisfaction theory is the foundation upon which the doctrine of justification by faith alone is built.
In short, the Catholic Church provided the false theology that was required for Martin Luther to invent the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
The Catholic Church may consider Protestantism to be a wayward child, but Protestantism is the child of Catholicism, and its theology depends entirely upon Catholic doctrine, especially including the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons and the satisfaction theory of atonement.
Hi Lee,
Another issue I wanted to raised: I don’t fully understand your objection to the idea that faith necessarily yields the fruit of good works. You at least do so in the context of salvation, and while you’ve accused Protestants of demonstrating a profound ignorance of the way the human mind and heart and spirit work, the idea of action flowing from conviction seems like a fairly intuitive and only natural process within the human experience.
If I truly believe in something- some cause to be upheld, or some goal to be reached- it would only make sense that action will follow. If I truly believe the reason I’m enrolled in university, then the work required to graduate will naturally follow. If I truly believe in the goal of losing weight, then diet and exercise will follow. Granted, that’s just a simplified version of the cause and effect relationship between belief and action, and does not always flow so seamlessly, but this also describes the reason for, when one fails to follow through with their goals, the most commonly cited explanation is “you just didn’t want it badly enough.”
We’ve sort of touched on this before, where I mentioned that I cannot envision any dynamic in which our actions don’t ultimately flow from some type of conviction, and serve to attest to that conviction. It seems intuitively true in so many areas of life, and in the context of salvation, it would seem that our belief in God or some larger moral principal is the basis for which our hearts become receptive to God working through us, for none of our good deeds are our own.
Am I missing something?
Hi Rami,
It does seem on the surface as if our actions flow from our beliefs. But in fact, our actions flow from our motives which are a matter of love, not of belief. Belief is a matter of truth or understanding. The word “conviction” does have an element of motive in it, which is why using that word can make it sound like we are acting from belief, understanding, and faith, when in fact we are acting from love and motivation.
Your reference to not following through with goals because “you just didn’t want it badly enough” gets closer to the truth. It is what we want that we do. And what we want is a matter of love.
Aside from evidence, a successful conviction for murder requires the prosecutors to establish a motive for the murder. People don’t murder because they have a belief in killing. They murder because there is something they want, and killing someone is a means to get what they want. Usually the motive involves acquiring money or power, though another common motive is revenge, and yet another common motive is jealousy, which involves protecting a relationship that one values.
The wanting involved in the motive is a matter of loving the thing that is wanted—money, power, relationships, and so on.
To use your examples:
People commonly believe that actions flow from beliefs because beliefs are easy to express and easy to see, whereas loves and motives are more hidden, harder to express, and harder to see. But the reality is that actions do not flow from belief, or faith; rather, they flow from love, or motive, through belief or faith.
This is why the famous passage in Ephesians says:
The original Greek word for “grace” is one of Greek’s rich bounty of words for various kinds of love—in this case, lovingkindness and favor. The passage, then, says that we are saved by (God’s) love, and that this happens through or by means of, faith. God’s love is what saves us. Faith is a means by which God accomplishes this. And the good works that we do from our love through our faith are what “justify” us, or in ordinary language, make us good and righteous people, and therefore saved people.
Clarification to my first post: I mean to say, it seems implausible that James 2 is ultimately talking about a dead faith and a living faith when he uses the word faith and talking about it in relation to works. ‘Faith,’ in the way that he’s using it, seems to be just as it reads: belief.
Clarification to my earlier post: I mean to say that, it seems implausible that James 2 is ultimately talking about a dead faith and a living faith in relation to ‘faith’ in the absence of works. ‘Faith’ seems to read just as it appears.
Hi Rami,
It is also necessary to understand that the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone is inextricably connected to the satisfaction theory of atonement, in which Jesus’ death is necessary to satisfy the requirements of God’s justice (the Catholic version), or to assuage God’s wrath through paying the penalty of our sins (the Protestant version). (And no, the Bible never says any of this.)
In plain terms, satisfaction theory says that God turns his back on us because of our sin, and requires Jesus’ suffering and death in order to look favorably upon us again.
It is a horrible, blasphemous doctrine. It makes God out to be a bloodthirsty tyrant who requires the death of his own son in order to look upon humans with love. What would we think of a human king who passed a death sentence upon all of his subjects because they failed to perfectly obey every single law right down to the letter, and relented only when he witnessed his only son dying in their place? It is an unspeakably insane and vile doctrine. It came out of darkened minds in a darkened age of humanity.
Justification by faith alone is inextricably connected to satisfaction theory because it is (supposedly) only by our having faith that Jesus satisfied God’s justice and wrath, and (in the Protestant version) paid the penalty for our sins, that God the Father will cease to condemn us and be wrathful against us, and allow us into heaven instead of sending us to eternal torture in hell.
As the doctrine goes, when we believe that Jesus died instead of us, Jesus’ merit is imputed to us, so that although we remain sinners, God the Father sees only Jesus’ merit covering us like a garment. In other words, God looks at our clothing, and not at our heart—flatly contradicting of the Bible, which says that God looks at the heart, and not at the outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7). In satisfaction theory, Jesus fakes out God the Father by making us look pure and spotless when we are really terrible sinners.
In Protestant theory, we never stop being sinners, because all of our good works are “like filthy rags.” The “filthy rags” part is in the Bible (Isaiah 64:6), but it is speaking of when we have become corrupt, so that our “good deeds” are not really good, but are just done for show, and for our own benefit. The Bible never says that we are incapable of doing good works. In fact, the Bible continually says that we must repent from our evil deeds, and do good deeds instead. If this were not possible, as Protestants claim, then most of the Bible means absolutely nothing.
In fact, Protestant atonement and salvation theory rejects everything the Bible teaches. Every element of satisfaction theory, including the Protestant penal substitution variety, contradicts the plain teachings of the Bible.
And in fact, in satisfaction theory, in both the Catholic and Protestant version, we are being saved, not from evil, sin, and hell, as the Bible says, but from God.
Once again, it is an unspeakably vile, horrible, and blasphemous doctrine. It holds that God’s love is conditional. That God loves us only if we are perfect—and yet God has made us so that we are incapable of being perfect. This means that our damnation is God’s fault, not ours. This doctrine holds that because of the flawed way in which God himself created us, instead of loving us, God hates us and is angry and wrathful at us, turns his back on us, and wants us to be eternally tortured in hell. So God hates us because of the way God made us.
I just don’t have words sufficient to say how horrific and blasphemous this doctrine is. And this is the doctrine that lies behind the horribly false and unbiblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Without satisfaction theory, justification by faith alone falls to the ground.
Meanwhile, Jesus showed us the true nature of God’s constant, unconditional love for both saints and sinners alike when he said:
God never stops loving us, no matter what we have done. God never turns God’s back on us, no matter how terrible a person we may be. God came to us as Jesus, not to satisfy God’s justice or wrath, but to fight a victorious battle against the power of evil, sin, and hell that was dragging us down to destruction. It was out of pure love that God came to earth and saved us from our own evil and sin. Jesus is God with us, saving us out of God’s infinite and tender love for every human being, no matter how fallen and sinful we may be. See:
The Logic of Love: Why God became Jesus
Hi Lee,
The etymological side of the textual debate is generally well over my pay grade, and is a discipline that some academics have devoted much if their careers to mastering.
The specific argument that I brought up about the preceding verses in James is one advanced by some Catholic apologists, where they argue that, if the text is essentially distinguishing between two types of faith- a saving and non-saving faith- then try replacing the word ‘faith’ with ‘non-saving faith,’ read it back, and see if it sounds sensical to you.
At the same time, I can also see the verses, as a whole- not in terms of the individual words being used- describing the idea of a non-saving faith. When it asks what good a faith without works is, it’s in that total description that we might see a reference to a non-saving faith, and not in the word, itself. So I suppose I find myself going back and forth.
I try to put myself in a receptive position where I’m reading something in the way the author intended it to be read, with the plain meaning made simply apparent, without the distraction of layered human theologizing, if that’s what’s happening.
At the same time, while I don’t wish to over complicate things, I don’t wish to oversimplify either, and to give the text the justice due to the complexity surrounding so much of what’s been hotly discussed for centuries by people far, far more learned than myself.
Hi Rami,
Theologians can argue until the cows come home about this or that interpretation. I like to look at what the text actually says, and make that primary in my understanding of what it means.
And the simple fact of the matter is that James doesn’t say “a non-saving faith” or “a faith that doesn’t save.” He simply says “faith.” If James had wanted to distinguish between saving and non-saving faith, he had the words available to do that. But he didn’t do that.
All of these fancy “interpretations” are just putting words into James’s mouth to make him say something that he could very well have said if he had wanted to, but that he didn’t say.
Very few people get it. You do. There is a huge difference between “works of the law” and “good works”. How difficult is that to understand? Paul emphasizes the importance of good works throughout his writings, even going so far as to say we were created for good works (Eph. 2:10). With this simple understanding of the difference between works and good works, anyone reading the Bible can conclude we are not saved (justified) by faith alone.
Hi gwmeier,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughts.
Yes, if Paul had wanted to say that we are not saved or justified by good works, he could have done so. As we know from Ephesians 2:10 and a number of other places in Paul’s letters, he did have the vocabulary to say “good works.” But he never says that we are not saved or justified by good works. Every time Protestants say this, they are saying something that the Bible just doesn’t say.
You are not understanding what Paul meant by Works or Deeds of the Law. He was saying trying to earn salvation outside of faith, in the flesh, by keeping God’s law is unrighteousness, is sin, and will never save anyone. He was not saying that we aren’t under the law of God. Telling people that is dangerous. Good works, obedience of faith, is what James was talking about. You are making it sound like Christians aren’t under the law of God and that is not true. We are not under sin, the law of sin, the condemnation of the law. We are under the reign of God, under his will, his law and if not we are living in sin and not saved. Read Romans 8 and see who will not be subject to, or under, the law of God. Col 2, Cor, and Heb show what carnal ordinances were abolished. What you can eat, drink, holy days, rituals, cereomonies, and the earthly fleshly animal sacrifices. They are gone for good because they are not Holy and Spiritual and eternal. First the flesh and then the spirit. Earthly to heavenly. Worship in Jerusalem on earth replaced completely by the Jerusalem, God’s Zion, Holy Mountain, the church of the living God above.
Hi Terrance,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. However, I have to wonder if you actually read the article. What you’re objecting to is not anything I said in the article. Of course we are under the law of God. The entire universe is under the law of God.
I invite you to read the article, or read it more carefully. Then please feel free to discuss its contents.
Meanwhile, Godspeed on your spiritual journey.
See https://www.christianity.com/bible/apologetics/the-biggest-contradiction-in-the-bible.html and https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/does-james-contradict-paul
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Thanks for the links. However, I stopped reading both articles when they claimed that Paul teaches faith alone, without works. As the above article points out, Paul said no such thing. Therefore the arguments of these articles are unbiblical and false. It was not Paul, but Martin Luther who said that we are saved by faith alone, without works.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Incidentally, the second article, written by John Piper, is not the only place where Piper has said things that have no basis in the Bible. See, for example:
Marriage in Heaven: A Response to Randy Alcorn and John Piper
What about the pope? Should we accept the authority of the pope as Catholics do and Protestants don’t? I think I submitted that spiritual conundrum. I also submitted one about the Five Points of Calvinism. Which of the five points do you agree with, and which do you disagree with?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Unless you happen to be Catholic, there’s no reason to accept the pope’s authority. The idea that the pope is the successor to Christ is based on a completely wrong understanding of Jesus’ words to Peter about the founding of his church. Jesus was not talking about founding his church upon Peter himself, but upon what Peter had just said, that he (Jesus) is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
As for the five points of Calvinism, every single one of them is unbiblical and false. Calvin completed the job, which took so many thousands of so-called Christians so many centuries, of utterly destroying Christian doctrine and belief, until there was nothing left in it of what Jesus Christ and the Bible teach. See:
The Christian Church is Not Christian
So, the Bible should be the sole authority of the Church, as Protestants say?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Protestants say that the Bible should be the sole authority of the Church, but in practice they give more weight to Christian creeds and theologians than they do to the Bible. So it’s an empty saying.
None of the key tenets of Protestantism are taught anywhere in the Bible. Some of the major ones, such as justification by faith alone, are specifically rejected in the Bible. It’s all well and good to claim the Bible as the sole authority. But if you’re going to make such a claim, your doctrines must actually be taught in the Bible, and not flatly contradicted by it. See:
The Christian Church is Not Christian
The “Three Pillars of Catholicism” are scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium (meaning the Pope and the Bishops of the Catholic Church).
In the Anglican / Episcopal Church—which, of course, does not recognize the authority of the Catholic Magisterium—the three pillars are scripture, tradition, and reason.
Protestant churches commonly claim to have only one pillar: scripture. But in practice they continue to rely on Christian tradition, and on the authority of their theologians, such as Martin Luther in the Lutheran Church, and John Calvin in the Reformed churches, including Presbyterianism.
Swedenborg had a different set of pillars that he relied upon—without, to my knowledge, stating explicitly that these were to be pillars of faith. His “three pillars” (he never called them that) are the Word (the Bible), reason, and experience.
What’s notable about this is that Swedenborg sidelines church tradition and authority, and replaces them with reason and experience, retaining the Bible as the anchor of the other two.
Being a Swedenborgian myself, I think Swedenborg’s pillars are better than the traditional Christian ones. I don’t put much stock in church tradition and authority, because most of it is wrong, as covered in various articles here. But I do think that for us to accept something as true and make it part of our faith, it not only has to be in accord with the Bible, but it also has to make sense to us (reason), and it has to prove trustworthy in the crucible of our day-to-day experience in the world, and within our spirit.
But back to the Bible, Swedenborg did say:
Note that he says the church’s doctrine is to be drawn from the literal sense of the Bible. In practice, almost all the key teachings of Swedenborg and the New Church are stated very clearly in the plain words of the Bible. It does get a little fuzzy when it comes to the Trinity, because the Bible never articulates any doctrine of the Trinity. But when it comes to what a person must believe and do in order to be saved, everything Swedenborg teaches is exactly what the Bible teaches. For example: the necessity of repenting from our sins by no longer engaging in them, the necessity for Christians to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, meaning a divine being, and the necessity of doing good deeds for our fellow human beings.
The same cannot be said for key Protestant teachings, such as the Trinity of Persons, justification by faith alone, and penal substitution. None of these are taught anywhere in the Bible, and the second and third are specifically rejected in the Bible.
Do you believe in purgatory? That’s a Catholic idea. Protestants and baptists reject it.
Hi WorldQuestioner.
There is no need for purgatory. That idea is based on the satisfaction theory of atonement, a Catholic doctrine originated by Anselm in the 11th century, which is the basis of the Protestant doctrine of penal substitution. In satisfaction theory, God is offended by our sins, and rejects us because of them, such that all sins must be atoned for before God will accept us into heaven. Purgatory is where we supposedly do that.
But God is not offended by our sins, and certainly does not reject us because of them. We may turn our back on God, but God never turns God’s back on us. God continues to love us no matter how sinful we are, just as Jesus said:
People who have repented from their sins and lived a good and faithful life here on earth are not required to pay for any sins in the afterlife before going to heaven. This principle is also stated plainly in the Bible:
And by the same principles, Swedenborg tells us that in the afterlife, no one, whether they are good or evil, is punished for anything they did on earth. Only for things they continue to do in the spiritual world. Good people do not continue to do wrong things in the spiritual world, so they are not punished at all. But evil people continue to live according to their evil desires, and they are punished for their evil deeds, not by God or the angels, but by other evil spirits.
Therefore the idea of purgatory is not only unbiblical, but contrary to biblical principles, just as the entire satisfaction theory of atonement is unbiblical and false.
What about worship of Mary? That’s what Catholics do but Protestants and Baptists reject. Is it wrong to worship Mary? Is worship of Mary a sin?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Worshiping anyone or anything besides God is not a Christian thing to do. As recorded in the Book of Revelation, twice John made to worship the angel who was speaking to him. Both times, the angel forbade him to do it:
The same principle applies to worship of Catholic saints, including Mary. It is not something Christians are supposed to do.
What about the Day of the Dead, All Souls’ Day, and All Saints’ Day? Doesn’t that violate Deuteronomy 18:9-13 or whatever else?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Most of the Christian holidays were originally based on pagan festivals that were Christianized by the early leaders of the church as it expanded into pagan lands. This doesn’t necessarily make them evil. But they are not particularly Christian, either.
It seems that if the stats you posted are accurate, as well as the statement Jesus made about the narrow path, it poses a better argument for the idea that Jesus saves without any contribution from us, except to accept His gift (because the opposite idea is more-widely accepted, if I read that correctly?) Wide is that (well-trodden) path that leads to destruction.
The people that Jesus commands to depart from Him also testify to doing great works in His name and helping the poor, etc. They put their confidence in what they had done, and not what He had done. He did not know them.
So who does? His sheep. (John 10:14) And He gives His sheep eternal life, and NO ONE can snatch them away from Him. (John 10:28). I believe my Savior when He exclaims, “It is finished!” And I’m happy to obey His instructions for life to the best of my ability. But my obedience, when I fail, God doesn’t withdraw His grace. The Holy Spirit doesn’t remove His seal. If He did, despite opposing views, it seems that would be what really makes grace “cheap.”
Yes, we then live for Him because we love Him, and hopefully we submit to allow the Spirit to increase in us daily as we walk with Him.
Hi Stanley,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I’ve covered all of these things so thoroughly in the above article, and others on this blog, that I won’t belabor them here. I will point out only one thing in response:
The Bible never says that Jesus saves us without any contribution from us. This is human doctrine and tradition. It is not the Word of God.
So, we have to do good works by faith do be saved. We can’t simply do good works, we have to do them BY FAITH. We need to both accept Christ as our savior AND do good works BY FAITH.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
What, exactly, do you mean by doing good works by faith?
Sounds like both good works AND faith are required for salvation.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Yes. That is what the Bible teaches.
Have you ever read from the baptism of the dead? We can, and we still baptizing the dead in several churches today. So your theory that most Christians would be condemned by saved by grace out of faith is nonsense. And even If you would not believe in baptizm of the dead (even its legitimated in scripture! 1. Corinthians 15:29) then there is Romans 10:5, where you can read that also Christians Like you who strictly rely on the Law(works!)can be saved when they fulfill all laws!
So, mainly youre wrong, thinking you could save by any works. Gods Plan was saving by Grace through faith. You interpret some Verses like you believe(f.e.the one with the works, where you said that IT means the jewish laws. But that is nowhere stated in the Bible that the writer means this. Its only your personal opinion, which you interpret into scripture. Thats Dangerous!). But as you can see, also for Christians like you, who Just dont want believe in Jesus finished work and His grace towards us, is a big hope in three ways (baptize of the dead, keeping ALL laws, and in my opinion the biggest is just Gods Grace itself! This means, in the end he only decides who is saved or not saved!)
Hi Sascha,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
I am curious what church you belong to that does baptism of the dead. As far as I know, none of the Protestant churches that teach Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone practice baptism of the dead.
Christians have been arguing about the meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:29 ever since the early days of the church. It is not at all clear what Paul was referring to or who practiced it. The basic meaning of Greek word βαπτίζω (baptizō) used in that verse is “to immerse” or “to cleanse.” It doesn’t always refer to the ritual of baptism.
Beyond that, I don’t see what baptism of the dead has to do with salvation by faith alone. Perhaps you can explain to me the connection that you see? Thanks.
Moving on, I did not say that “most Christians would be condemned by saved by grace out of faith.” I said that faith alone does not save people. I also said that people who believe in faith alone but also live by the Lord’s commandments will be saved regardless of their false and unbiblical belief in Luther’s doctrine.
Ephesians 2:8 says that we are saved “by grace,” “through faith.” It does not say that we are saved by grace alone, nor does it say we are saved by faith alone. The Bible never speaks of “grace alone.” And the only place it speaks of “faith alone” it specifically rejects it:
Ephesians 2:8 does not teach Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Greek word χάρις (charis) used in the New Testament means, in this context, “good will, loving-kindness, favor.” In other words, Ephesians 2:8 says that we are saved by God’s lovingkindness toward us, through our faith. It is not by faith alone. And it is God’s love that saves us, not our faith. But there’s no need for me to say any more about this passage here. I have written a whole article about its true meaning, which I invite you to read:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
You are not quoting Romans 10:5 correctly. It says:
A few translations incorrectly insert the word “all,” but it is not in the original Greek. It simply says that under the dispensation of Moses, the person who does what the Law sais will live. And contrary to Protestant teachings, we know that this is possible because the Gospels give an example of two people who did fully follow the Law:
But all of this is irrelevant to what the above article says, because I never said that I “strictly rely on the Law (works!)” I believe, with James and the rest of the Apostles, and with Jesus Christ himself, that salvation requires us both to have faith and to do good works. Paul himself teaches this in Romans 2:
And in Matthew 25:31–46 Jesus Christ himself teaches that on the day of judgement, the Son of Man will judge all people for eternal life or eternal punishment based on their good works or lack thereof. He does not say that this will be only for people who have faith. In fact, he doesn’t even mention faith in the entire passage—which is the clearest teaching of Jesus Christ in the entire New Testament about who will be saved and who will be damned on the day of judgment.
The Bible neither teaches nor supports Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. In fact, it flatly rejects it. According to the Bible, it is God’s love that saves us, and we are saved if we both have faith and do good works of kindness for our neighbor. You are very much in error, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.
The above article, and the linked article on Ephesians 2:8–9, fully discuss what Paul means by “works.” There is no need to repeat it here. The short version is whenever Paul speaks about justification by faith without the works of the Law, he always talks about circumcision vs. uncircumcision and Jew vs. Gentile, making it clear that in these places, by “works” he means the ritual practices commanded in the Law of Moses, which all Jews must observe, but which are not required of Christians.
As for Christ’s “finished work,” this is based on John 17:4, which reads, in the King James Version:
This verse simply says that Christ finished the work that God gave him to do. It doesn’t say that this means we now have no work of our own to do. Christ finished the work of redeeming us from the power of the Devil. It is up to us to accept that redemption by believing in him and following his commandments.
If Christ did everything, and there were nothing left for us to do, then even having faith would be something we did, and would be unnecessary. Everyone would be automatically saved, whether or not they had faith.
The Protestant teaching about “the finished work of Christ” is completely unbiblical and false. Jesus and all of his apostles clearly teach that we must repent from our sins if we wish to be saved. They also teach that we must have faith in the Lord if we wish to be saved. And they teach that we must do good works if we wish to be saved. All of these are covered in the above articles, and in other articles on this site. See also:
It is you, my friend, who has substituted your own opinions, and the opinions of Martin Luther, for what Jesus and his Apostles teach in the Bible. None of the things you are saying here are taught anywhere in Scripture.
I urge you to take off the blinders of Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, which he invented 1,500 years after the last books of the Bible were written, and read the Bible for yourself. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
2 Corinthians 3:14-16 still applies, friend, as the ‘truth’ of scripture requires the power of the Holy Spirit to change a heart to produce the works God desires. Not dead works, but alive, from a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone, which attempting to obey the law creates.
“But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed. And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.…”
The reason the veil is taken away I think is because it clearly paints God as loving and gracious like the father in the prodigal son. Knowledge of Jesus Christ and God the father IS eternal life (John 17:3) and hence why Jesus, and the preaching of the Gospel, is required for salvation. (i.e. Cornelius. although devout and doing many good works, wasn’t saved until the gospel message was delivered to him by Peter for him to believe in and upon Jesus).
Justification is by ‘grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone’ as a package deal. You are right in that you cannot separate them, one is not saved simply through having and expressing faith generally, or just merely God’s lovingkindness (which is given to everyone on earth in general revelation). But when it’s specific object becomes God’s love through the atonement and resurrection of Christ, a new heart, hope, life is given because the law that Paul talks about, the one that brought him death because it made him ‘alive’ to (or aware of) sin and his inability to measure up, is now destroyed by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ. “Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord!”
You cannot separate them, and the ‘invented’ doctrine of Luther is a theological amalgamation of the experience of conversion–one cannot earn salvation, so it is by grace. But there is a door that God has made for the sake of His own glory, and it is through believing in Jesus. And through this belief (faith), we receive from God a new life, the Holy Spirit, who not only seals us for salvation, but his indwelling empowers Christians to do the ‘good works’ that God has prepared for them to do, namely, bringing other people to faith in Jesus (i.e. the great commission of preaching the gospel and creating Jesus-centered communities, which were Jesus’ last words before ascending and primarily what the entire book of Acts is devoted to), along with acts of mercy, generosity, charity/love, etc.
When people use ‘grace alone through faith alone by Christ alone’ to justify a heartless loveless relationship with God and others, they are missing out on the amazing life God desires. Which includes the testifying of a changed heart and the message of Jesus because the Gospel is the power of salvation for all who believe (Rom 1:16) because the above.
Hi Ben,
Good to hear from you again. I hope life is going well for you in the new year.
If you would just remove the word “alone,” I would agree with much of what you say here. It was in adding the word “alone” that Luther, and the Protestants that followed him, fell into error. The Bible never adds the word “alone” to grace, or faith, or Christ, except in one instance, which you know very well:
Luther should have listened to James instead of trying to remove him from the Bible. Protestants ever since have strayed away from the Bible by continually and repeatedly adding the word “alone” to everything Paul says. They have therefore completely misunderstood and missed the point and the power of what Paul preached.
But that is all covered in the above article.
Please, please, I beg of you: remove that unbiblical “alone” from your mind. Then you will finally begin to understand the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the meaning of Paul’s preaching of that Gospel. Salvation does not come “by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone,” as the Protestants teach, but “by grace through faith in Christ,” as the Bible teaches.
Thank you, Lee, we are well. God is always doing a new thing, which I’m grateful for in another year!
There’s a lot that goes into that alone, I agree. I see it as an ultimate, as in, ‘ultimately salvation is found by grace through faith in Christ (alone)’ because at the end of the day, even our good works are God’s grace working in and through us. Even Paul acknowledges this, as he seems to always fall back on: Paul’s obedience to the Lord’s commands IS God’s grace working in him:
“For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them— yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” 1 Cor 15:9-10
Paul has a very keen awareness of his own and everyone’s inability to be saved apart from God’s grace, and ultimately for him it serves God’s greater glory, because all have been bound to disobedience apart from God’s grace and mercy (alone) that no one may boast and only God, ultimately, gets the glory:
“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” Romans 11:32
And then follows Paul’s Doxology in v33-36:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Eph 2:9 is often quoted, but in the next chapter, 3:7-11 highlights Paul’s ‘grace alone’ position again:
“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord…”
in v. 12 He ends with the message of what Luther captures in the ‘alone’ doctrine: “… In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
That is the essence of what I believe Luther is relaying through the wording of ‘alone,’ that when it comes down to it, our only freedom and confidence before God is through the blood of Christ. Alone. If I ever attempt to justify myself internally or before God based on what I have done, I have failed to let Christ wash my feet.
THIS is the profoundness of the Gospel, I think: That unless we completely rely upon Jesus Christ, His doing, His work, His love, His mercy, we will never effectively be prepared for service to God:
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
The reason Jesus forced this as an entrance into the ministry to which he was calling all his disciples in John 13 was because ‘no servant is greater than his master’ (v. 16) and His humility in effect binds all Christians to humble service because of His example. But you are right, we need to DO the good works to be blessed (v. 17). But where does the power to do what Jesus does come from? Judas obviously did not follow Christ’s example despite being graciously washed. I would like to think that maybe Judas never really believed that Jesus was the Messiah. If this is the case, despite receiving God’s grace toward him, the act of mercy, and the gospel message, was not met with faith/belief (Hebrews 4:2).
Works merely evidences and confirms for us and others our calling and election (2 Peter 1:10) and Christians who aren’t evidencing these things do not need to ‘work harder’ to obey the commandments, but according to this verse, need to remember, rest in, and glory in that our sins have been washed –by Jesus (alone)– (v. 9). Again, this is why God’s grace, through faith in Christ, alone, is our salvation–it is the empowerment of the vehicle–our heart–by which we are justified. Even the works that the Lord looks for in us as he separates the sheep from the goats at the end of the age, they come from His doing a work in our hearts, and His empowering of us, and His provision of the good works prepared in advance for us to do. It’s all Him. Even with that, I’m still growing in my ability to rest in Him!
I think maybe that’s what Luther was hitting on after struggling through his fear-struck growing up years and his repulsion of seeing people caught in bondage from not knowing what the Bible actually taught. Remember in history that he lived in a season where buying ‘indulgences’ from the church were a means of [false] escape from hell, so Luther’s doctrine came when a doctrine of license was supposedly widespread. It is ironic to think that His doctrine creates more license when, in honest, a deep understanding of God’s love and grace is what brings true freedom. Again, I think Les Miserables is a great example of this works/grace heart change dynamic.
I’d still be happy to send you a copy 😛 Blessings, – Ben
Hi Ben,
Yes, we could analyze the psychology of Luther that led him to add the word “alone” to the Bible. He even added it to his translation into German where it is not in the original Greek.
Certainly the Catholic Church was very corrupt. Luther saw this, and rebelled against it. Unfortunately, due to all of that personal experience and psychology, even as he sought to reassert the Bible’s and Christ’s authority in the church against the corrupt authority of the Catholic Magisterium, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire doctrinally. That human psychology of Luther has been misleading Protestants ever since.
Paul has no “grace alone position.”
Do every search you like. You will not find a single place in any of Paul’s letters in which he uses the word “alone” in connection with faith or grace.
There is one and only one place in the Bible in which the word “alone” is used in connection with faith. You know it very well:
This is the Bible’s position on faith alone. It is crystal clear. All Christians accepted it until Luther came along, 1,500 years after it was written.
If there were some other place where the Bible spoke of faith alone positively, then we would have to think about it. But there isn’t.
The Bible’s teaching about faith alone is clear. We can either accept it or reject it. Luther rejected it. And his followers have been rejecting it ever since.
Paul never speaks of faith alone. Luther added to Paul’s words. He did not let Paul speak for himself. It was wrong. I suspect that Luther knew it was wrong, but went ahead and did it anyway in his zeal to create a doctrinal rift with the Catholic Church against which he was rebelling.
I could go over all the passages you mention. You are not reading them rightly. But as long as you keep adding Luther’s “alone” to the Bible, you will never understand what those passages mean. That “alone” will be a distorting prism in front of your eyes, rendering you unable to understand what you are reading.
For many years I have attempted to explain to Protestants what various passages in the Bible mean in their own context. But they never understand. They keep reverting back to Luther’s “alone.” They cling doggedly to “grace alone” and “faith alone” just as the rebellious Israelites of the northern kingdom clung to their idols at Dan and Beersheba, departing farther and farther from the Lord.
We know the end of that story.
Luther set up the idol of sola fide as the article on which the church stands or falls, replacing Christ as the cornerstone of the Church. This can lead only to the ultimate destruction of Protestantism as it departs farther and farther from the Lord. That destruction is already well underway. The world is rapidly leaving Protestantism and the rest of the false Christian Church behind.
Occasionally a Protestant who comes here is, at length, through much internal struggle, able to let go of the idol that Luther set up. Then the floodgates of truth open. Then we can explore the Bible in its own words, by its own light.
Until you release your grip on that idol, you will not have ears to hear the truth of the Bible. Everything will be distorted in your mind by the worship of the golden calf that Luther set up.
Just one point for now:
Of course all of our good works are from the Lord, not from us. Jesus teaches this plainly in John 15:4–5:
If we think we can buy our way into heaven through good works, we are very much mistaken. Jesus taught us this in Luke 17:7–10:
We can take no credit whatsoever for any of the good works we do. Apart from the Lord, we can do nothing. Every good work we do is simply what we were created by God to do.
Not understanding how this works has led Protestants astray. They see that doing good works acquires no merit for the people doing them. But they don’t see that good works are just as essential to our salvation as faith because they are from the Lord, not from ourselves just as our faith is from the Lord, not from ourselves. Protestants make a false distinction between faith and works, as if the works came from ourselves while the faith comes from the Lord. Because of this fundamental error, they cannot read and understand anything the Bible says about faith and works.
I suspect you will not be able to see this either. Your mind may initially assent to it. But then it will be distorted by the faith alone idol that Luther set up. You will revert back to the false doctrines that wait upon that idol, such as the unbiblical and false idea that Christ paid the penalty for our sins.
Whenever you are able to let go of the idol that Luther set up for his followers, then we will have much to talk about. Then we can explore together all of the Bible passages whose meaning is now opaque to you.
I would be interested to hear more points from you on the scriptures I reference that (I think) serve to support that Paul and the Bible does infact have a ‘grace alone’ position, despite never having included the word ‘alone.’
A quick search of ‘grace’ in the new testament continually shows that whenever good works were being done, it was by God’s grace.
Acts 4:33: And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all
Acts 11:23: When [Barnabas] arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad…
Acts 14:3: So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.
Acts 15:11: “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Acts 18:11: “he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.”
Acts 20:24: “my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”
This was written by Luke. I dare not list the 80 other times Paul uses it in his epistles, because it is all too clear that Paul believes it is by grace that he a) was saved, b) continues to be saved, c) does God’s works, d) other people respond to the preaching and are saved. But to highlight maybe the most well known point that Paul is of a ‘grace alone’ position is that Jesus Himself responds to Paul’s prayer of asking for deliverance and desiring to not struggle with something that made him less effective in doing good works:
“But [Jesus] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 1 Corinthians 12:9
Much like the doctrine of the Trinity that scripture clearly supports without ever actually defining the word, I don’t think Paul has to say ‘alone’ to clarify his position. The word alone as Luther uses it is like a capstone, a finality, which is why I said I see it as an ‘ultimate.’ Alone or ‘monon’ in scripture, is used as a form of isolation, having no companion next to it. I think you’re right in that we do well to not separate works from faith, because they go together, as James says. However the initiating force in doing the good works that God requires is not as I see you saying it, which is a way of communicating the Gospel, which is where I get hung up on. The entire book of Galatians is about this very fact, that the Gospel is all too easily added to and even if through a vision or even an angel of light comes to tweak, add or proclaim another gospel, let that angel and that vision be damned, literally (Gal 1:8).
The Gospel itself has the power to change the heart from dead works to life. An act of love itself can be a ‘dead work’ when done from a heart of stone. We may say ‘I love you,’ to our wife, hand a homeless person a snack, pray for a friend, and they can become rote acts of ‘piety’ in our current culture much like ceremonial commandments and traditions were to the Jews in the time of Christ. Jesus raises the ante in the sermon on the mount not because the 10 commandments weren’t enough, but heart of them had become misconstrued and had become checkboxes for the religious and bars to measure up to for the not.
This is where I think we keep getting tangled in our discussions. Preaching the law alone (not the ceremonial law, but the moral law) does not bring freedom to anyone, Christians or Unbelievers, Jew or Gentile. And that’s what I see being done when I hear that God’s grace by faith in Christ is not what brings salvation. It indeed does, because we see over and over and over again that God takes the worst sinners (Paul being principle example by his own admonition in 1 Timothy 1:15, charging us to consider ourselves the same) and changes their hearts. This is why I am saved. This, too, likely, is why you, Lee, are saved–you recognize that God has done a work in your heart. As you share that with others, it is a testimony, and a witness, to Jesus’ complete sufficiency of your salvation, because while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you and saved you. This is the Good News and this is evangelism. The Roy Comfort method uses the law to bring people in post-modern cultures face to face with absolute truth and their sinfulness in order for them to gain an awareness of the need for a Savior. But it is always followed with the Good News that Jesus loves them and can give them a new heart! That’s the Gospel!
Gospel of grace in faith through Christ FIRST, THEN heart change and faith expressed through works follows. James highlights the fact that faith without works is dead, for sure. Dead, but not -nonexistent-. The faith needs to be fanned into flame or even reignited, and biblically, to do this it is often not to ‘obey the commandments’ but rather for “our hearts to be ‘strengthened by grace” (Hebrews 13:9).
Again, what do you make of 2 Peter 1:5-11?
Grace and peace to you.
Hi Ben,
First a few quick points:
Now, before we can even get to any Bible passages, we need to understand what the word “grace” means.
Unfortunately, the KJV and most other translations almost always opted to use the English word “grace” to translate the Greek word χάρις (charis). Yes, “grace” is the first dictionary definition of that word, due probably to the root word from which it derives. But in most instances when it is applied to God, Christ, etc., it should be translated using its second definition: “good will, loving-kindness, favor.”
Fundamentally, being saved “by grace” means that we are saved by God’s love. The word χάρις is used to emphasize the particular type of divine love that saves us, which is God’s lovingkindness, good will, and favor toward us.
This is precisely what Swedenborg says throughout his theological writings. He says, with John, that “God is love.” And he takes this, not as some throwaway line, but as a fundamental statement about the nature of God: That God actually consists of love. That love is the substance of God. That everything God does comes from love and is powered by love.
This means that there is nothing else that we could be saved by. When Paul says that we are “saved by χάρις,” he is making a fundamental statement about the nature of God and salvation. But it really should be translated “saved by love,” or at least “saved by kindness,” or we just won’t grasp the meaning and force of his statement. (For a taste of what it does mean, please see my article, “The Logic of Love: Why God became Jesus.”)
The word “grace” in ordinary English mostly means “gracefulness.” Used in the context of “saved by χάρις,” for English readers of Scripture it obscures rather than elucidates Paul’s words. Christians who repeat over and over again that we are “saved by grace” have only a vague notion of what that word means. This allows all sorts of odd ideas to be plugged in, which wouldn’t be possible if it were translated into English that better reflects what Paul wrote.
Fundamentally, we are saved by God’s love.
But it is in no way “love alone.” We are also saved by God’s truth (which, really, is the fundamental meaning of “faith”). And we are saved by God’s power.
Nothing in God is “alone.” And nothing in salvation is “alone.” “Alone” reflects a complete misunderstanding of both God and salvation. Adding it to Scripture’s words here, there, and everywhere is bound to cause confusion and misunderstanding. That’s because it reflects false human doctrines.
You must drop the unbiblical and false “alone,” or you will never understand Paul, nor will you ever understand the salvation that Christ offers us.
As an example of this, you write:
This sounds sort of biblical, but it is not actually what the Bible says. The relevant verse says:
Or in the New Revised Standard Version:
Paul then goes on to talk about justification and salvation. But adding “and saved us” to the statement in verse 8 is a seemingly subtle error that has a big background in false doctrine.
It is very common for Protestants and Catholics alike to subtly misquote Scripture because of the false doctrines that are in their minds. They read things into Scripture that aren’t there, based on human doctrines that are not in the Bible. And so when they refer to Scripture, they don’t state it as Scripture itself states it. I have seen this phenomenon over and over in my discussions with Protestants, especially.
Behind that seemingly subtle misquotation of Scripture is the Catholic and Protestant satisfaction theory of atonement, which, in essence, says that Christ’s death was salvation. This is an error, and a very serious one.
I have not yet written an article for the blog devoted specifically to satisfaction theory. It is not an easy subject to write about for a popular audience, which is what this blog aims to do. But you can get the short version in the section titled “The Idea that Jesus’ Death Satisfied God the Father is Not Christian” in this article (and see also the three other articles linked from that section):
The Christian Church is Not Christian
Satisfaction theory leads to the false and unbiblical idea that Christ’s death was what saved us, by satisfying God’s justice (in the Catholic version) or God’s wrath (in the Protestant version). So it is natural for Protestants and Catholics to misquote Scripture in the way that you did.
It is important to pay attention to the exact words of Scripture, and not add words to it. Adding “and saved us” to Romans 5:8 both embodies and gives a wrong idea of what Paul is saying in that verse. Similarly, adding “alone” whenever Paul uses the words “grace” and “faith” both embodies and gives a wrong idea of what Paul is saying in his disquisitions about faith and works.
I don’t mind going through various passages of Scripture with you. But as long as you keep adding words to Scripture, we will never get anywhere. You will continually misunderstand Scripture in accordance with the false doctrines that cause you to add those words to Scripture.
Mind you, I’m not saying that you are intentionally misquoting Scripture. It’s just something that happens when people who have had false doctrines ingrained in their minds allude to and quote Scripture from memory. It happens unconsciously, generally without the person realizing that he or she is saying something that Scripture doesn’t actually say.
This misquoting is not random. The specific unbiblical words used are telltale signs of specific false doctrines in the mind of the person who is misquoting Scripture. I have seen it over and over again in my conversations with Protestants and Catholics alike.
If we are to have any fruitful discussion of Scripture passages, then, it must be based on the actual words of Scripture, and not on the common misquoting of Scripture that includes such things as adding “alone” to Paul’s words, and adding “and saved us” to Romans 5:8.
Hello Lee.
I added ‘saved you’ because I truly believe that Christ’s work is what saved (saves) you. I wasn’t quoting Romans 5:8 explicitly. A comma would have been appropriate to delineate the thought. And I know that the Bible doesn’t say ‘alone.’ I add it as a means of emphasizing the thought, hence the parentheses.
Grace, to me, and most people that I know, means ‘unmerited favor.’ As in, the parable of the king who forgives the servant’s debts. Mercy is not dishing out a deserved punishment. Grace is above and beyond, adding undeserved favor. The King not only doesn’t punish the servant for being unable to reconcile his debt, but relieves him of ALL debt–he is free. This is the kind of grace I believe the Bible and the Gospel illustrates over and over and over and over again. (My wife says ‘add a few more overs.’ She laughs, but I’m kinda pissed.) That’s the reason why forgiveness is such a BIG deal to Jesus.
Grace is grace. Jesus knows what grace is. Paul knows what grace is. Peter knows what grace is. All believes ought to know what grace is because their experience of God’s lovingkindness is one of grace toward them, as sinners, deserving death. That is the root of salvation, in my (and dare I say the Bible’s, and more importantly, God’s?) opinion. Anything less doesn’t produce the kind of life that God wants to exist eternally–one of eternally joyous gratitude that is holistically congruent–emotionally, psychologically, and experientially–what I think Jesus refers to as worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth.
If you are going to attempt to reduce the work of the Son of God’s death on the cross, you are in essense tearing apart God’s entire method of expiation from the beginning to the end of the Bible. Adam and Eve required their shame to be covered through the death of an animal as God clothed their physical nakedness. Abel brought the first fruits of his flock as an offering which God accepted. Abraham offers his son in obedience and a ram is given in Isaac’s stead because on the mountain, the same one Jerusalem would be built upon and Jesus Christ would die on the cross, God will provide (Jireh). If you haven’t yet done your study on Hebrews, much of the book is devoted to showing how Christ is a better mediator of a new covenant and better priest through his bodily sacrifice (ch 8, 9) and that it is and has always been by blood that there is forgiveness of sins (9:22).
Forgive me for quoting nearly an entire chapter, but I think it’s poignant to address exactly what Christ bought for us through His blood, or death on the cross:
“But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
Again, a third time, what do you make of 2 Peter 1:5-11? I still love that verse as it captures so well the Christian’s power is in remembering our sins are indeed forgiven, something God has already done! God’s grace (unmerited favor) empowers us to grow in all the ways God desires us to grow. This I think is what Jesus means by abiding in Him (John 15:1-5). Not abiding in Jesus and what He has done is to attempt to make our own righteousness and so become alienated from Christ and righteousness of God (Gal 5:4, 2 Cor 5:21).
Paul ends his letters with ‘grace and peace to you in Jesus Christ’ poignantly.
Hi Ben,
Whether or not you intended to quote Romans 5:8, that’s what your mind was doing. And it was adding “and saved” due to your acceptance of (the Protestant version of the) satisfaction theory of atonement, which was originated by Anselm of Canterbury a thousand years after the New Testament was written. Once again, I have seen this phenomenon over and over, in which traditional Christians unconsciously add words to Scripture, or change the words of Scripture, in conformance with their particular doctrines.
In this case, it is an error because although Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection completed his work of redeeming humankind from the power of the devil, and thus making salvation possible, it did not actually save us individually. That happens only when Christ enters our heart and changes us from the inside out. And that happens through faith in Christ, in that if we do not have faith in Christ, he cannot enter our heart and save us. The faith itself does not save us. Rather, the faith is the opened door by which Christ enters to save us.
In my previous reply, I forgot to add the link to the word χάρις (charis), commonly translated “grace.” If you follow the link and read the various definitions, you will see that “unmerited favor” is not one of them. It is true that most Christians think of “grace” as “unmerited favor.” This is one of those things I alluded to in my previous reply that traditional Christians add in because they have only a vague notion of what the English word “grace” means. So they fill it in with elements of satisfaction theory that have been inculcated into their minds by their preachers.
“Unmerited favor” entirely fails to capture the richness and power of χάρις. It is not a mere clinical and legalistic “unmerited favor.” It is an infinite, bountiful, overflowing love that can feel nothing but love for the beings it has created.
Satisfaction theory binds us back to the legalistic view of salvation that Paul labored so hard to banish. It is explicitly a legal theory of atonement, in which there is a legal debt that must be paid to God. This is utterly contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the New Testament as a whole, and of Paul’s writings in particular. Paul, I am sure, is rolling in his grave at so-called “Christians” ignoring his passionate argument that we are no longer under the Law, and re-establishing a legalistic theory of atonement.
Study satisfaction theory for yourself. It is also known as “forensic theory,” which is another way of saying “legal theory.” Anselm based it on the European legal systems of his time, and argued for it rationally (not biblically) on that basis. It is a terrible travesty of the beauty and power of Paul’s teaching about being free from the Law through faith in Christ. Paul’s theory of atonement is not based on law, but on faith. Satisfaction theory negates this, and drags us right back into the legalism that Paul fought so hard to abolish.
Really, I doubt you and I are going to get anywhere. Your mind has been too heavily ingrained with the legalisms of satisfaction theory. I doubt you will be able to break free of it. Very few Western Christians are able to free their mind from its grip without leaving Christianity altogether. In fact, this non-biblical, non-Christian theory of atonement is the major cause of atheism and agnosticism in the Western world today. It is a toxin that infected Western Christianity 1,000 years after Christ founded the Christian Church. It has vitiated the understanding of all Western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, ever since. That is why God is taking the lampstand of present-day Christianity from its place. See:
The Christian Church is Coming to an End
Please read the pieces about satisfaction theory that I linked for you in my previous reply. As long as this theory still has a grip on your mind, you will not understand or accept the truth of the Bible, and you will continue to unconsciously misquote the Bible in support of the non-Christian theory of atonement that has been inculcated into you. Even now that I have pointed it out to you, you continue to add “alone” to the Bible’s words due to Luther’s particular version of that Catholic theory of atonement.
About 2 Peter 1:5-11, of course God has forgiven our sins. God cannot do otherwise than forgive all our sins, because God is pure love.
The Bible speaks of God’s wrath not because there is any actual wrath in God, but because when God’s love impinges upon sinners who are in opposition to God, those sinners experience it as wrath rather than as love. Please read:
What is the Wrath of God? Why was the Old Testament God so Angry, yet Jesus was so Peaceful?
The issue is not whether God will forgive us, as satisfaction theory holds. Satisfaction theory reverses Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” It holds instead that in Christ God was reconciling God the Father to the world, so that instead of condemning us, God the Father could show mercy on us due to Christ having satisfied the Father’s justice, or in the Protestant penal substitution version satisfied the Father’s wrath against us, by his death on the cross.
This is a blasphemous smear on the good name and character of God. And it is a direct repudiation of the teaching of Paul about what God was doing in Christ. God was not reconciling God to the world, but reconciling the world to God.
Please study satisfaction theory. Without an understanding of this theory, you will not understand any of what I am saying. Satisfaction theory undergirds the entire misunderstanding of salvation held to in Catholic and Protestant Christianity. Yet most ordinary Catholics and Protestants have no idea what it is. If the doctrine is mentioned to them, they will draw a blank even though it is the foundation of their beliefs about salvation. This includes Luther’s more recently invented theory of justification by faith alone. After all, Luther was born, bred, and trained as a Catholic, and brought most of his Catholic beliefs with him into Protestantism. If you do not understand satisfaction theory, you cannot understand Protestant doctrine, including Luther’s sola fide doctrine.
There is no need to induce God to forgive us. As you say, God has already forgiven us. Rather, there is need for us to accept God’s forgiveness. And this cannot happen unless we cease being sinners and begin being righteous people instead, through the power of Christ working in our heart and our life.
Satisfaction theory also completely destroys the meaning of sacrifice in the Old Testament. Yes, there was some infection in the Israelite mind of the surrounding pagan belief in sacrifice as some sort of required payment to God. After all, the Israelites came out of polytheistic paganism themselves. It took them many centuries even to become monotheistic rather than henotheistic—as they were throughout most of the Old Testament narrative. But the Old Testament shifts the meaning of sacrifice to something more like what it originally meant: a feast with God to bring humans back into harmony with God’s love and God’s will, and to celebrate that union with God in spirit.
This also explains why God accepted Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s. See:
The Cain and Abel Story: Does God Play Favorites?
The theme of animal sacrifice in the Bible is a subject on which I plan to write a two-part article, one on the meaning of sacrifice in the Old Testament, and one on the meaning of sacrifice in the New Testament specifically as it relates to Christ being the sacrifice for our sin. Unfortunately, those articles are not written yet, so I cannot refer you to them. Suffice it to say that the idea of sacrifice as a penalty paid for sin is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of sacrifice in ancient Hebrew society. This is the fundamental misunderstanding of the Jewish sacrifices upon which the satisfaction theory of atonement is built.
This misunderstanding has even crept into modern translations of the Bible such as the NRSV, which regularly mistranslates the Hebrew word חַטָּאָת (ḥaṭṭā’āṯ) as “penalty for sin” where it should be translated “sin offering.” This same misunderstanding leads Christian translators to mistranslate a key passage in the New Testament, as explained in this article, which I ask you to read:
What about 2 Corinthians 5:21? Didn’t God make Christ to be sin for us?
I’m sorry to say it, but you’re completely wrong. You can perform all the good deeds you like. That won’t get you into heaven. What good deed have you done that Christ hasn’t already done for you? And just how many good deeds will it take you? “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
Hi David,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve completely misunderstood Paul’s teachings. Please read the above article. And here are a few more for you:
Paul does not teach justification by faith alone. Paul never even says “faith alone.” But James does:
This is the only place the Bible even mentions faith alone, and in that one place, the Bible specifically and emphatically rejects faith alone. This is the plain teaching of the Bible about faith alone.
You are completely wrong because you understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
The Bible doesn’t reject faith alone. Eph 2:8 . You’re right in saying it doesn’t say “faith alone”. But what it also doesn’t say is anything after “faith”. No work, prayers, etc. “Faith alone” are Luther’s words from that. We are saved “through faith”. Period. Nothing else. The reason why it’s not through our works is because we cannot come to what Jesus did for us. How do you explain to Jesus that what you did was good. Eph 2:9 “Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Hi David,
I can see that your mind has been infected by Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. All of your statements are talking points of the defenders of that doctrine. But none of them are actually stated in Scripture. This is the hallmark of a false doctrine: It sounds sort of biblical, but the Bible never actually says it.
The Bible does indeed reject faith alone in James 2:24. Once again, this is the only place in the entire Bible that faith alone is even mentioned, and in that one place, the Bible specifically and emphatically rejects faith alone.
Did you know that Luther tried to remove the book of James from the Bible, along with three other books of the New Testament? Look it up, and you will see. He tried to remove those books because he saw that they did not support his newly hatched doctrine of justification by faith alone. Luther was more honest than his followers. He knew very well that James rejects justification by faith alone. Unfortunately, instead of accepting what the Bible teaches, he tried to change the Bible, thereby disrespecting God and God’s Word. Fortunately, he was not successful in his attempt to chop several books out of the Bible.
The Bible is the Word of God. Luther is a mere human being. If the Bible says one thing, and Luther says the opposite, I will go with the Bible every time.
You say:
This is a just a rhetorical talking point of the defenders of Luther’s doctrine. The Bible does indeed say things after “faith.” For example:
The Bible never says “faith alone” except to reject it. But after saying we are saved by faith, it goes on to say that we are created for good works. The Bible rejects faith alone not only in plain terms, but by talking about doing good works along with faith. Once again, James puts it very clearly:
Here the Bible says very much after “faith.” It says that if someone has faith but not works, that faith cannot save, and it is dead. This is exactly the opposite of the false doctrine that Luther invented, and that your Protestant preachers have pounded into your head. This is why Luther tried to remove the book of James from the Bible. He knew that it flatly contradicts his newly invented doctrine of justification by faith alone. I wish his followers were as honest as he was. Instead of accepting what the Bible says, they try to argue that it doesn’t actually say what it does indeed say in words as plain as day, and as clear as water.
Notice also that Paul never says that we are not saved by good works. He says that we are not saved by “works,” which is shorthand for the phrase “the works of the Law” that he uses elsewhere. His point is that Christians no longer have to be observant Jews. This was a big debate among the early Christians. Please read Acts 15. It is all laid out there. Paul’s letters must be read in light of that debate. Otherwise they make no sense at all.
You have missed the entire point of Paul’s letters because your Protestant preachers themselves do not understand what Paul was teaching. Read the above article more carefully. It is all explained there. Please free your mind from the false doctrines you have been taught. You can start by reading this article also:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
When you abandon the human traditions doctrines you are now enslaved to, and accept what the Bible itself teaches, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
You quoted James but you may have not realized that the people James spoke of only had the law and not the Gospel of Christ. They would have had to atone for their sins by works such as sacrifice.
Let’s put it this way: we must do good works by faith to be saved. Doing good works is no good unless it’s BY FAITH.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Yes. Faith and good works must be together, as James says.
Hi David,
This is false.
James was the leader of the Christians in Jerusalem. He was one of Jesus’ own disciples. What he taught was Christian truth that he learned from the lips of the Lord himself.
It is true that in James 1:1 he addresses his letter “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.” But this is after he has opened the letter by proclaiming himself “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” No Jew who has “only had the law and not the Gospel of Christ” would listen to him after that introduction.
You must understand that the earliest Christians who had converted from Judaism considered themselves to be the true Jews, and Jesus to be the Messiah. Those Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah they believed to be false Jews. This is why the Apostle John speaks of “the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9) and “I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but are lying . . . .” (Revelation 3:9).
This didn’t mean they still thought they had to observe the Jewish Law. Once again, read Acts 15, in which James himself gives the order that it is not necessary for Christians who have converted from paganism to be observant Jews.
In short, when James addressed his letter to “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion,” he was not addressing it to the people we think of as Jews, but to the Christian believers in the surrounding lands, whom the Jewish-born Christians in Jerusalem, under their leader James, saw as the true Jews.
This is clear from the first verse of James 2:
James would never say such a thing to unconverted Jews. James was speaking to people who “claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In short, his words in James 2:14–26 are addressed to Christians, not to Jews.
Unfortunately, your Protestant preachers have ignored all this, or are simply ignorant, and have therefore misled you in their efforts to reject James as they follow their leader, who is not Jesus Christ, but Martin Luther.
Sorry if I come on a bit strong. I’m on the spectrum and what ever I say always sounds fine to me until I read it later on.
Hi David,
The strength of your words does not offend me. What offends me is the false teachings that have been inculcated into your mind by your Protestant preachers. Those teachings flatly contradict the plain words of the Bible, which says clearly and unmistakably that we are not justified by faith alone.
It will not go well on the day of judgment for preachers who knowingly and obstinately reject the plain teachings of the Word of God. And if you follow them to believe their falsity even after it has been shown to you that the Bible rejects it, you also will have to answer for that before the throne of God.
I see that you are a person of good heart. Unfortunately, you have been misled by false teachers. Please accept what the Bible teaches now, before it is too late.
It wasn’t whom James was talking to but rather whom he was talking about. Neither Abraham nor Rahab had the Gospel. Only the law. They had to provide something since any sins of theirs called for works such as a sacrifice or even circumcision. We have the forgiveness of sins through the Eucharist, baptism, repentance. Original sin is not mentioned in the Bible. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? Germans aren’t mentioned either. Nor are planets. Or dinosaurs.
As for any works we do, they are not a must. We get baptized. We ask for forgiveness. We follow the laws. We take communion. All of those are works. But as for doing what we think God wants us to do is not called for. Whom would we compare our works to? Other men? Wouldn’t that be prideful and boastful?
Working in the medical field I have often had people that don’t work there tell me that smoking marijuana will cure cancer. My response is how much do you have to smoke to cure your cancer?
If our works is what we have to do to assure Heaven for us, how many works must we do?
Your Friend in Christ,
David
Hi David,
There is a misconception among Protestants who are trying to explain away and nullify the book of James that James was talking about Jews, not about Christians. This is not true.
In Romans 4:1–12, Paul also uses Abraham as an illustration of his teaching in Romans 2–4 that it is not necessary to be an observant Jew (“circumcised”) in order to be saved. Does this mean that Paul is talking to Jews, not to Christians, and that we can ignore anything and everything Paul says? Whenever any Christian preacher uses any illustration from the Old Testament, does this mean the preacher is talking about Jews, not about Christians, so we can just ignore everything the preacher says? The whole idea is ludicrous.
As for the rest of what you say, none of this is taught in Scripture. These are just Protestant talking points—and weak ones—in support of Luther’s false and anti-biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone.
To take up just one of them:
The Bible never says anything about how many good works we must do. It is not a numbers game. But in hundreds, if not thousands of places the Bible tells us that we must not do evil, and that we must do good. To say that “as for doing what we think God wants us to do is not called for” is to thumb your nose at God and at all of God’s commandments throughout the Bible.
It is not prideful and boastful to obey God’s commandments. Doing so shows humility in God’s presence. Not obeying God’s commandments is disrespectful and blasphemous toward God. “Christianity” has reached a very low ebb when the people who claim to be Christians can blithely excuse themselves from obeying God.
[…] “Faith alone does not save… “ (not sure about all of this gentleman’s conclusions, but I think his questions about Protestant use or misuse of Scripture is spot on… and the historical origin of “faith alone”) I love this question he asks “What do you spend more of your time at: believing things or doing things?” […]
So does this mean we should avoid gay people or not let them have marriage?
Hi David,
Does what mean this?
Regardless, from my perspective, the answer is no. There are several articles on that issue here.
OK, so I’m finally back after some work and college.
Let’s dissect your original post one by one.
You state that the Bible rejects “faith alone”.
1. It was not part of Christian belief for 1,500 years. FALSE. Jesus preached in faith alone at the outset of Christianity. (John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.) Paul wrote his letters between 37 AD to 80 AD. So, at the latest, Paul, did in fact preach this message. Why was it left out in later years? More likely to get people to give more to the Catholic church in work and earnings. As this would be a good thing for the church, they outlawed “faith alone” doctrine to keep the money flowing as did Pope Leo. And, preaching it would almost certainly lead to torture and death.
I assume you believe Faith + Works = Sanctification. This means that you do works to achieve Heaven. But you miss out is that trying to work your way into Heaven is not the same as doing good works for the sake of just doing them because you love your fellow man. Thus: Do you want to save that person because it will help you get into Heaven or because you love your neighbor as you love yourself?
For protestants we believe Faith = Sanctification + works. This means that we will have good works through our love because of our faith. Our faith gives us comfort and brings us God’s love. That love makes us love more. And we do good things from our love. Not to gain Heaven points.
2. Is God Incompetent? No. TRUE. You talk about numbers of people and insist that we (we’ll say Lutherans) believe that only those who have faith and don’t do works will go to Heaven. This is not what we believe or teach. You can have faith and do good works and go to Heaven. But it’s the fact that you have faith. But how strong is that faith if you feel that it’s not enough and that you have to do good works as well? This is what Paul was talking about. So, in order to have faith you must know of Jesus and what He did. Otherwise, you can’t have it. Those that are oblivious to Faith from not knowing The Christ are saved as children would be saved as babies that have never been baptized or have known our Savior. So, any Christian religion that preaches Christ and the believers within are saved through grace by their faith.
3. How many times does “Faith Alone” appear in the Bible? You say 1. FALSE. While you look specifically for those two words in conjunction, just the statements of faith by itself are said several times. These do not say “faith and good works”. Jesus, himself, was adamant about faith alone: (John 11:26 “and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”) The key being “Believes” not “believes and does good works”. And through the books, there are more quotes saying such things. And remember, this was the word of Jesus.
4. (referring to Paul) “but he never taught ‘faith alone”. FALSE. You are going back to Eph 2:10 “For we are what He has made us, created in Christ Jesus, for good works… To be our way of life.” This part is true. And if you read it carefully, we weren’t created to achieve by good works. We were created to good works from love, by love, and for love. We are made for good works to our neighbor, whom we should love, not a merit system to atone ourselves of sin and make us clean for Heaven. For Jesus gave Himself for our sins. (Which you know, already.) This is way Faith = Sanctification + Works.
5. So What? Your premise is FALSE. God/Jesus does love us. To no end, I might add. That is why hearing and knowing Him and rejecting Him, will get you in a world of no good. Jesus said you have to “Believe” in Him.
6. Our daily works matter. TRUE. This should be said for everyone, not just Christians. I tell you the truth, my faith has given me the ability to talk about Christ and contribute to others success, even if I didn’t care for the person. I’ve been willing to help them out. Now, doing good things no matter what are good for everyone. But to say to God “Look what I did! I’m worthy of Heaven now!” I say unto you, what can we do that Jesus hasn’t already done for us?
Now, if you want to talk James, remember that James was the half-brother of Jesus. Yes, his book was written first, but he was corrected by Paul and the rest of the New Testament. James spoke of the works of Abraham but didn’t say what those works were. Abraham acted through faith. Including his almost sacrificing his son. Noah acted on Faith and walked with God. Job was “Blameless and Upright” because he feared God, not because he did good deeds.
Now, as for doing the good works. What are good works? How many do you have to do? What if you sin, do you lose what you did and have to do them again? You leave too many questions for your followers.
Do you want your followers to think they are doing good works to get into Heaven or doing these works for love whether it atones for sins and allows them to get into Heaven or not? God is love. Not works.
Hi David,
Welcome back.
You are, of course, free to follow Martin Luther instead of James if you wish, even to the point of trying to remove the book of James from the Bible, as Luther did, because it rejects his doctrine of justification by faith alone.
But the simple fact of the matter remains that in the one place the Bible mentions faith alone, it specifically rejects it as justifying a person:
You say that Paul “corrects” James. In plain words, what you’re saying is that James was wrong. And by extension, you’re saying that God was wrong for allowing the book of James to be included in the Bible. If James was Jesus’ brother, don’t you think he would know Jesus’ teachings at least as well as Paul did, if not better?
Luther apparently believed that if a book of the Bible didn’t agree with his new doctrine, it should be removed from the Bible. He wanted to remove Hebrews, Jude, and the book of Revelation also, because they also did not support his newly invented doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Like Luther, you seem to believe that if a book of the Bible doesn’t support Luther’s doctrine, it should be removed from the Bible, or at least demoted to the status of “needing correction.” You might as well just say, “James was wrong, and God was wrong to allow James to be included in the Bible.”
Is that really what you believe?
Is that how you want to support your so-called Christian faith?
Neither Jesus nor Paul ever even used the term “faith alone,” nor did they teach anything like it. This is all covered in the above article, and in the others linked from the end of this one. I’m not going to waste my time and yours repeating it all. Please re-read the article, and read the linked articles as well.
But I suspect that you are too mesmerized by Lutheranism to accept Christianity.
Paul himself was well aware of the distinction between “works” as he used the term—meaning the “works of the Law,” or being an observant Jew—and “good works,” meaning doing good deeds for other people according to God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s why Paul never says we are saved by faith without good works. He meant no such thing.
Notice that in Ephesians 2:9 Paul says “not the result of works, so that no one may boast,” and then in verse 10 he says “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Why does he say “works” in one verse, and “good works” in the next? Why does he never say that we are saved by faith without good works? If Luther’s doctrine were correct, he should have said that somewhere. But he never does.
That’s because Paul neither believed in nor taught justification by faith alone. It’s all covered in the above article, and in the ones linked at the end of the article. But see especially:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
Lutheranism erases Paul’s distinction between “works” and “good works,” and therefore misunderstands everything Paul taught.
On another subject you raise:
Of course we do not merit heaven through doing good works. The whole idea of merit was brought in by the Catholic parent of Protestant atonement theory. It is a red herring that for the past five hundred years has distracted Protestants from the real function of good works.
Jesus himself taught us via parable that we do not merit salvation by our good works:
God created us for good works. If we do them, we are simply doing what we ought to do. We gain no more merit or credit for that than a car does if you push on the gas pedal and it carries you down the road. That’s simply what the car was created to do.
But if we do not do good works, we are disobeying and rejecting God, and God’s salvation as well. A car that does not carry you down the road when you press on the gas, if it is not repaired or repairable, is destined for the junkyard or the scrap heap. Ditto for humans who do not do what we are created to do, which is good works.
Jesus, like Paul, rejected Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone before Luther ever invented it. Read Matthew 25:31–46. This is where Jesus tells us who will be saved and who will be damned at the time of judgment. He says not a word about what the people believed. Their salvation or damnation is based entirely on what they have done or not done.
Will you also say that Paul corrected Jesus?
Do you agree with the Protestants who, by their twisted theory of “rightly dividing the word of truth” (Timothy 2:15, King James Version) between the Old and New Covenants, consign Jesus’ teaching to the Old Covenant where they can safely ignore it, while assigning Paul to the New Covenant, making Paul greater than Jesus?
Be very careful what you believe. If you believe that Paul is greater than Jesus, and Paul’s teaching greater than Jesus’ teaching, you are blaspheming Jesus Christ, your Lord and your God.
It was Jesus who changed Paul, not Paul who changed Jesus. Paul wasn’t Jesus’ Lord and God. Jesus was Paul’s Lord and God. See:
Jesus Changed Paul’s World
We must read Paul’s teachings in the light of Jesus Christ’s teachings, not the reverse. Otherwise we will misunderstand both Paul and Jesus. Jesus said:
He did not say, “If you consider my teachings to be part of the superseded Old Covenant, and instead abide in Paul’s teachings as you have misunderstood them, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
But that is precisely what you, and your Lutheran friends along with you, have done. Lutheranism in a broad sense, meaning everyone who accepts Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, is contrary to Christianity because it is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles.
You are greatly mistaken, my friend, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition (Mark 7:8).
I urge you to abandon Luther’s false human doctrine, and accept the plain teachings of the Bible, especially the teachings that come from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels. Then you will really be Christ’s disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Neither Jesus nor Paul used the term “Scripture alone”, does that mean Luther was incorrect on that?
Hi David,
Sola Scriptura is really just a slogan. Luther himself inherited most of his doctrine from Catholicism, in which he grew up and served right up to his break with the Roman Catholic Church. He was far from basing his beliefs and teachings on Scripture alone. His signature doctrine, justification by faith alone, is specifically rejected in Scripture, but he made it the cornerstone of Lutheranism anyway.
You keep going back to saying that the Bible rejects faith by itself. But there are many verses that specifically say you just have to have faith. Not faith and good works.
That you also say that man should not marry man is not said by Jesus but by Paul. Would you go against Jesus because of Paul’s doctrine?
Do you believe in dinosaurs? They aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Neither are other planets.
Was James wrong? Was John? Or Luke? Or Paul? Were the Catholics wrong for removing 12 books or more from the original Bible? God put them in there originally.
It seems that you’re consumed by the words “Faith alone” but not “Christ alone” or “scripture alone”, “grace alone”, or “glory to God alone”. Certainly by grace alone would also cause an issue for you because of Eph 2:8-9. Which is another point that it is by God’s grace not our works.
I absolutely agree with you that we are created for good works/deeds. But not for us to enter Heaven. If that were the case then God does have us on a merit system. This is not love. The good works must come from our love not a purpose to achieve something. If you do it as earning an E ticket, then you’re not doing it from love.
This brings to the points which have to be answered: How many works does it take? How do we know that these works are what God wants of us? (He gave his son, so what we would do would really have to be great.) And if we sin during our time, does this take away the works we have done? Would we need to start over again? If we are doing good works to get into Heaven, isn’t this the Right hand knowing what the Left hand is doing?
Jesus is the final word. His word is just faith. He specifically tells us that it is all on our faith.
Am I going to Heaven because of my faith? Yes. How do I know, because my faith in knowing that Christ was sent to redeem me. To take away my sins. “Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Mat 17:20.
Lastly, Luther loved the book of James. He quoted it many times in his writings. He just felt it was a lesser book of the NT because James never mentions the resurrection. Luther never thought of removing it from the Bible.
Hi David,
You say:
This is an example of subtly and unconsciously misquoting and misrepresenting what the Bible says based on false doctrine ingrained in the mind. There are no verses in the Bible that say we have to have faith but not good works.
Whenever Paul speaks of faith without works, he never says faith without good works. It is always faith without works, or without the works of the Law.
This is not because he never says “good works.” You mention Ephesians 2:8–9, in which Paul says that we are not saved as a result of works. In the very next verse, Ephesians 2:10, Paul says that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. Why does he say “works” in verse 9, but “good works” in verse 10? Because they do not mean the same thing. This should be clear not only from these verses, but because once again, Paul never says that we are saved by faith without good works. If that’s what he meant, he would have said it at least once. But he never does.
In these contexts, when Paul speaks of “works” it is short for “the works of the Law.” And by that he means the ritual “works” of the Law of Moses that observant Jews are required to follow.
This is why every time he says this, as part of his argument he speaks of “circumcision vs. uncircumcision” or of “Jew vs. Gentile.” It is very clear from the context that by “works” he means what makes a Jew a Jew, as compared to a Gentile, who does not engage in these “works.” Good Gentiles do good works. But they do not do “the works of the Law,” meaning they are not observant Jews. Being circumcised was a sign that a Jew would observe the works of the Law of Moses. Gentiles were not circumcised, and this represented the fact that they were not observant Jews.
It is these “works of the Law” that are not required of Christians. Christians are not required to get circumcised and follow all the ritual “works” of the Law of Moses, such as ritual sacrifice, ritual cleansings, and so on. The whole argument was engaged in Acts 15, which I recommend that you read. Once you understand the debate that the early Christians were having about whether Gentiles were required to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses, everything Paul says on this subject makes perfect sense.
This is all covered in the above article.
Ephesians 2:8–9 is covered much more fully in this article, which I invite you to read:
Doesn’t Ephesians 2:8-9 Teach Faith Alone?
Hi Lee, hope you and all is well.
Regarding your interpretation of “works of the Law,” Paul seems to make it clear in Galatians 3 that the Law includes the moral rules, where Paul refers to Law as ‘what came to Moses on Mt. Sinai 430 years after Abraham’, which is the 10 Commandments. All the rest of the purity, social and levitical regulations are in addition to the primary Law, the Mt. Sinai 10 commandment tablet moment.
3:17: “This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward…”
Paul goes on to describe how it was not through Abraham’s obedience to any moral or ceremonial list of regulations did not qualify him, or anyone else before or after him, to inherit the promises of God:
3:18: “For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.”
Paul goes on to describe the purpose of the law, which was primarily to guard and to point everyone, everywhere, of their powerlessness to obtain God’s promises by their own work, and their need of redemption from the power of sin and a restored relationship with God:
3:19 “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring [note: Jesus] should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.”
Paul continues with how the law (remember, including obedience to a moral command) indeed cannot bring life, because of the reality of sin:
3:21-22 “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
He goes on to describe how the moral law acted both as a prison and a ‘guardian’ for everyone before Jesus (and before/after the law, including those before Abraham) were living by the same vehicle by which we still live by today, which is by faith, or trust in, banking on, putting hope in, God:
3:23-29 “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Every single living person needs redemption from sin, and every single person has the ability to put their trust in something by which to inherit God’s promises, and so in God’s genius wisdom to save sinful humanity, Jesus becomes the only object of saving trust, or faith.
Romans 11:32-35 “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”
Now where we have differed in the past, Lee, is that you believe (I think?) that all people can be saved through their expressed faith, or rather, any act of charity done unto God, regardless of whether or not they have believed/trusted explicitly upon Jesus as the object of their trust. This cannot be, because it appears according to scripture that God does not receive all devotion equally, or at least knows the hearts of those who are His. Jewish Israelites, for example, who refused to believe Jesus was the Messiah, and that were not Christian (i.e. believers in the historical reality of Jesus’ death and ressurrection and what it means for their sins and their personal state of righteousness), who practiced the observance of the law, were considered unsaved and ‘hardened.’ Paul says as much in Romans 11, the purpose being the hardening of a few for the salvation of untold billions.
For them to be saved, it required the the gospel being preached to them (which it was, some of them from Jesus himself proclaiming that He is the Messiah, the Bread of Life, the suffering servant described in the prophets who would bring redemption) but it was not believed, and therefore they were not saved. Remember, the rich young man who we talked about last time in Mark who Jesus recounts the list of laws to? Jesus specifically uses the Law as a gateway to get him to the end of himself. After being addressed as ‘good teacher,’ Jesus first tells him “No one is good except God alone.” This was to show him that by no means can we inherit eternal life by our goodness, which is what the man was seeking. Jesus then gives him a 5 of the 10 commandments, which the man says “all of these I have kept since I was a child.” Then Jesus ups the anti to the point that he cannot do in his own strength: “Sell all you have and give to the poor, then come and follow me.” The man walks away sadly. But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus says to his disciples: With man, this is impossible, but not with God. With God, all things are possible.” The very act of his obedience to Jesus’ command (which was recorded in Mark 14:52, could that be the rich young ruler?) was likely the man coming to the end of himself and realizing that that he could not live up to God’s standards, and that Jesus was not just a ‘good teacher,’ but indeed The Christ, which empowered him to do what is only possible through God’s power.
Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”
I believe this salvation includes the creation a new heart and spirit in a person, (Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 36:26) which empowers them to live a life with God, not the other way around, where we live to serve a written code.
Romans 7:6:
“But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
2 Corinthians 3:6:
“Our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
Anyone who attempts to live out the moral code apart from faith (trust, belief in) Jesus Christ, even an observant Jew, is not free, and has not received the gift of God’s grace. They are still under the prison of the law, and need to hear the gospel and believe in what Jesus has done for them to inherit the promises.
2 Corinthians 3:14-18:
“But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Remember, the Jews’ sacrificial system was completely destroyed when the temple was destroyed in AD 70 and the Jews were expelled from Rome. “Prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities.” God’s law requires blood sacrifice for forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22), and yet rabbinical Judaism does not follow God’s law but a new tradition. The book of Hebrews goes into great length to describe Jesus’ fulfillment of all things Judiaism for the Christian, and has a whole chapter on faith, which is not the kind of faith I’ve heard you describe when you reference James, but more of a ‘trust in, rely upon, bank upon God’ kind of faith.
However strange this may be, believing Christians are actually living in the fulfillment of God’s law more than strict observant Jews because Jesus himself is the fulfillment of it, and says that the law has not actually been abolished yet (hang with me):
Luke 16:17: “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void,” and
Matthew 5:17-18: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Because Jesus accomplished, fulfilled, the entire law for the Christian believer, (“it is finished”) Christians are under the fulfillment of the law, receiving the promises of God (which includes a new heart and power to love through the indwelling Spirit) through their belief/trust/faith in the Messiah, the promised one all the way from the beginning in Genesis 3:15 to now.
I guess the question for you, Lee, is what Paul asks in Galatians 3:2: Have you received the Holy Spirit, and if you have, did you receive Him from obedience to God’s law, or from hearing and believing the Gospel of Jesus? (And if you are unsure, ask God. The Father gives generously, Luke 11:13)
Blessings,
– Ben
Good afternoon, Ben. You are well versed in the Bible. I would love to be able to speak with you more about it. Would you be able to correspond via email or text?
Thank you for your time.
Cordially,
David Nelson
Hi David,
I’m sorry, but I do not allow readers here to post personal contact information. Please see our comments policy.
Hi Ben,
Good to hear from you again, and thank you for taking the time to present your point of view here.
Unfortunately, your mind has been taken captive by Luther’s doctrine. This has caused you to misread and misunderstand every single Bible passage you have quoted for me.
Sadly, I do not expect that you will ever break free of that mental captivity. Like the northern kingdom of Israel taken captive by the Assyrians, I have found that people whose minds have been captivated by Luther’s false and unbiblical doctrine of justification by faith alone rarely break free from that captivity.
In my experience through many years of talking to former Protestants, and Protestants who are in the process of becoming free, only a severe personal crisis has the power to break some people free from that mental captivity, when their so-called “faith” (which is not faith at all in the biblical sense, see: “Faith Alone Is Not Faith”) proves inadequate to carry them through the stormy waters.
I do not wish such a crisis on you. But without such a crisis, I doubt you will ever be able to unshackle your mind from Luther’s dogma. Its grip on you is too strong. Its tentacles have reached too deeply into your mind. You simply cannot see anything in the Bible that contradicts Luther, even though the Bible, from beginning to end, contradicts and entirely rejects Luther’s dogma. It is a very profound blindness.
That blindness-inducing dogma causes you to misread and misunderstand the entire Bible, and every passage in it. While I do not expect to be able to break those shackles off your mind, as much as I would love to be able to do so, for the sake of my readers who have broken free, or are trying to break free, but are under the Assyrian assault of the falsity you are innocently but very destructively putting forward here, I will give at least some indication of why you, and your rabbi Luther, are so badly mistaken. To detail all of the falsity contained in your comment would require an entire book.
(But if you do ever manage to unshackle your mind and accept the truth that makes you free, no one will rejoice more than I will.)
Contrary to popular belief, the Ten Commandments were not the only Law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
The Ten Commandments rightly take center stage, because they are the enduring law that Jesus himself affirmed we must follow if we wish to attain eternal life, in the passage you mention. That is why the Ten Commandments were given with such a great miracle. The laws it contains are not particularly unusual. Most of them are the same as the laws that every decent nation on the face of the earth imposes as part of its code of laws. If God were simply telling us that these are good laws to follow, their presentation was way over the top. But God gave the Ten Commandments with such miraculous power because God wanted us to understand that these are not merely human laws, made by human beings, but divine laws, commanded to us by God. Breaking them is sinning against God, and against God alone (see Psalm 51:3–4).
But Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights at a time:
During that time on the mountain, God gave Moses the plans and the basic priestly rules and regulations for the Tabernacle, as detailed in the chapters that come next, Exodus 25–31.
In other words, on Mt. Sinai, God established the Covenant of the Law of Moses, built around sacrificial worship in the Tabernacle, which later was practiced in the Temple in Jerusalem. It was on Mt. Sinai that God established the ritual Law of Moses that every observant Jew was required to obey, and that even Jews today are required to obey to the extent that they can given that they can no longer practice the core sacrificial elements of the Law of Moses due to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.
But that destruction took place several years after Paul’s death—a historical fact that we ignore at our peril. During all the time Paul was preaching and writing his letters, the rebuilt Temple still stood in Jerusalem, and the Jews continued to offer all of the prescribed ritual sacrifices and offerings there.
This is “the law, which came 430 years afterward,” that Paul is talking about. It is the code of ritual law that Jews were required to observe from the time the Exodus and Sinai onward. This is the law that Christ has freed us from—not from the Ten Commandments, which Jesus himself affirmed as still in force for those who wish to inherit eternal life.
About the story of the rich young ruler, you misunderstand this story as well, due to the captivity of your mind to Luther’s dogma. Every single time the young man asked Jesus what he must do, Jesus did not say that he must merely have faith, but that he must do something. None of these things were impossible for him to do. The rich young man could have sold everything he had and followed Jesus. Jesus’ own disciples had given up everything to follow him. This was not an impossible thing.
The reason the rich young man did not do this was not because it was impossible, nor was Jesus showing him the impossibility of keeping the Law, as Protestants so wrongly say. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that it is impossible to keep the Law of Moses. Indeed, the Gospels themselves give an example of people who did fully keep the Law of Moses:
You and your Protestant brothers and sisters are greatly mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in the sight of God because they observed all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. The Gospels themselves reject the false Protestant doctrine that it is impossible to fully obey the Law of Moses. Whenever the Bible makes the statements that Protestants misread and misunderstand so badly, it never says that they cannot keep the Law, but that they did not keep the Law. You are badly mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
If the rich young man had done what Jesus told him to do, he would have been justified. But he went away sad, because he had great wealth, and because, as Jesus goes on to speak of in the Mark version, he trusted in riches. People who trust in riches rather than trusting in God will not follow God, but will continue to cling to their riches. Meanwhile, not all of Jesus’ wealthy followers were required to sell all they had in order to follow him. See:
You Cannot Serve both God and Money
Your Protestant doctrine can be supported only by reading selected parts of the Bible, and ignoring the vast bulk of the Bible. Because of that doctrine and its ignoring of the bulk of the Scriptures, even the passages you do quote you completely misunderstand.
A good example of this is your misreading of Galatians 3 to support Luther’s dogma.
If you had read Galatians 2, in which Paul sets the stage for Galatians 3, it would be much harder to make the mistake you have made. (But I have found that people whose minds are held captive to Luther’s dogma simply can’t see anything in the Bible that contradicts Luther. It’s as if it doesn’t even exist in their minds.)
In Galatians 2, Paul sets up his usual contrast between circumcision and uncircumcision, as he does everywhere he talks about being saved by faithfulness apart from the works of the Law—though sometimes he speaks of Jew vs. Gentile instead or in addition. It is the same thing. In Galatians 5 and 6, the last two chapters of the letter, he returns to the same theme. But really, this is what he has been talking about the entire time. It’s just that Luther’s dogma blinds the eyes to seeing and understanding his argument.
“Circumcision” is shorthand for being an observant Jew. Throughout Galatians, Paul is arguing that it is no longer necessary to be an observant Jew, because faithfulness to Christ replaces observance of the ritual Law of Moses. This is what he argues in all of his letters. His use of the example of Abraham has nothing to do with having “faith” without good works, as Protestants argue. It has to do with Abraham being faithful to God while he was still uncircumcised, and therefore symbolically not under the Law of Moses:
Abraham’s “faith” was not mere belief. Paul believed no such thing. It was faithfulness to God, as James (who does not disagree with Paul, nor does Paul disagree with James) pointed out so clearly:
But I know that you will bring out a whole phalanx of ingenious Protestant arguments as to why James did not mean exactly what he said here.
That is because your eyes have been blinded and your mind dulled by Luther’s doctrine, so that you cannot accept the plain teachings of the Bible in its own clear words. You and your Protestant brothers and sisters have nullified the Word of God by your human tradition. It is the tradition of Luther, a human being who believed that the doctrine he invented, justification by faith alone, was superior to the plain words of Scripture rejecting that doctrine.
I will therefore stop here, hoping that my readers will be strengthened against the Assyrian assault so that they can avoid the mental captivity in which you are now being held, and praying that one day you, too, may break free from that captivity, and accept the plain teaching of the Lord and his Apostles.
So men may not brag. Any work that man does to get into Heaven would be construed as “good” works. They are the same. Jesus has only said that you will have life everlasting if you only have faith. You can move mountains if you only have faith. We do not live by bread alone, we also live by faith which will give us everlasting life.
Hi David,
About bragging, this is the sort of thing Paul is referring to:
Paul knew about this bragging very well, because he himself had been a proud Pharisee:
It is the bragging of those Jews who pride themselves in perfect adherence to the ritual Law of Moses. And for non-Jews, the same attitude of pride in one’s own righteousness will cause the same result: they will not go home justified, while those who confess themselves sinners will go home justified—but only if they then repent from their sins, as Jesus and his Apostles teach us many, many times in the Gospels and the Epistles.
In your earlier comment you asked how many good deeds are required to be saved. This is a common Protestant red herring that has nothing to do with anything the Bible says.
Even in the Old Testament, when the Jews were under the Law, there is not a word about how many or how few the good works must be to be saved. This is not a sporting event in which there is a point system, and whoever gets the most points wins. Rather, under the Old Testament dispensation, it is a matter of obedience to the Law—which, for a faithful Jew, means obedience to God.
Under the New Testament dispensation, while obedience to God is still required, it is no longer the center and focus of one’s faithfulness to God. Rather, faithfulness itself (not “faith” as Protestants misunderstand that term) is the center and focus of one’s faithfulness to God. In other words, instead of being prompted by mere external obedience to God’s law, as the ancient Jews were, and as most Jews even today still are, a Christian is prompted by an internal faithfulness to God’s truth and God’s will. This is what Paul meant when he said that we are saved by faithfulness (as it should be translated) apart from the works of the Law.
There are three reasons for which we can and should do good works that have nothing to do with merit or the piling up of credits toward entrance into heaven:
If we do works for boasting, we are not doing them for any of these reasons, but rather to elevate ourselves in our own eyes and make ourselves greater than everyone else. Such works will not justify (a word that means “make righteous”) or save anyone.
But if we do good works out of obedience to God, out of faithfulness to God, and especially out of love for God and the neighbor, then those good works are saving, because it is not we, but God who is doing the works in us. All the merit belongs to Christ, and none to us in the doing of these good works. As Christ himself said:
It’s not that we would do works for boasting, it’s that man will eventually boast about it. As if we are competing against each other in piety. My wife’s friend was sending devotional to another lady who was a non-believer. She told my wife that this will help her get to Heaven. It’s good to want to save someone. But her intentions were wrong. And she was boasting about it.
As for the rich man, he had no faith as the others did.
Even though Luther used the term “sola fide” for faith in Christ. I’ve never seen Him. Heard Him speak. I know that He is the one true God, the son of God, the life eternal. That is faith.
Faith by grace through scripture in the name of Jesus for the glory of God.
While you tackle the issue of Faith Alone it is not alone but walks hand in hand with the other four. It’s like when people in Rome didn’t want to divulge that they were Christians but rather just put a cross above their door. Or use that symbol of the fish. It was everything that went along with it.
I like that you brought up Zechariah. He was following the law. But is he greater than Noah who walked with God? Moses who spoke with God? (Remember that there was no law until after the exodus) Jacob who wrestled with God? Or Abraham who, IMHO, was the most faithful in the OT. Not to exclude Isaac, Joseph, Nimrod, Adam, Lot, Daniel, Ruth, Job and many others. All of them proved their worth through faith. Job and Abraham especially.
When man lost faith, God put the law down. Lack of faith kept the Israelites from entering the land of milk and honey.
The three reasons you gave are great. And very true. But you back at the amount of good works it would take. Though I digress, it is like the question I ask when people tell me that smoking marijuana will cure cancer. How much do you have to smoke? (In no way am I comparing doing good works to smoking pot. I’m just juxtaposing a positional question.) As you said it’s not a point system. If it’s not whether you win or lose, then why keep score? This is exactly what Luther was referring to about good works. That they come from love by way of the Holy Spirit. Lutherans do good works because we love doing them, not as a way of obtaining immortality.
Before his 95 thesis, Luther did good works by praying on the steps that Jesus climbed with his cross. By paying reverence to holy artifacts (which may or may not have been what they were said they were. But that is faith.) By going to confession several times a day (According to several biographies and his own personal letters, Luther would finish a five hour confession only to go back because he felt he was proud of his confessions. He knew that pride was a sin.) He would stay out all night in the cold. He would even flagellate himself (my wife said that some people in the Philippines still do this) as a way of showing penance. All of these were considered good works in his time.
As for Ben, if he agrees, would you allow us to exchange email address though you via PM?
I do appreciate all of your time and energy in reading our letters and taking the extra time to debate. You believe I saw that you have the title of “Minister” but are Protestant? I don’t think the Catholics have ministers. I could be wrong. My wife is Catholic and doesn’t know the answer to that one.
Hi David,
I know plenty of people who are constantly doing good deeds for other people, but never boast about it. They are just good, humble people who love their neighbor as themselves, as Jesus taught us to do. They wouldn’t even think about boasting. It’s just not true that everyone will eventually boast about their good works.
I would suggest that if this is what you think, you look into your own heart and consider whether you yourself would take pride in good works if you believed that they were part of salvation. If so, then the problem is not in the good works, but in the pride in your heart. Better to overcome the pride, and recognize that without the Lord, we can do nothing.
Yes, Luther was a self-absorbed Catholic, always doing “good works” of the same sort that Paul said will not contribute to salvation. Unfortunately, Luther jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Instead of understanding and heeding Paul’s teachings by no longer doing “works of the (Catholic) law” for his own salvation, he threw out works altogether as saving. It would have been better if he had thrown out the pride, but stayed with real good works of love toward the neighbor, recognizing that he as a man gets no credit for them whatsoever because without Christ, he can do nothing.
It is very common for highly religious people to struggle with their pride, ego, and other personal sins, and instead of defeating them through Christ’s power, coming up with an entire heterodox doctrine and theology to extricate themselves from the effort altogether. This is apparently what Luther did. And Augustine before him, I might add. Much of the faulty doctrine endemic in Christianity goes all the way back to Augustine, whose personal life was an absolute mess, and who compensated for this by promulgating all sorts of unbiblical doctrines.
And once again, the quantity of good works is utterly irrelevant. This is a particularly stupid Protestant argument. What matters is whether they come from the heart. Specifically, from a heart that loves the Lord our God above all else, and our neighbor as ourselves. People who have this kind of love in their heart will keep doing good works day after day, week after week, year after year, and will never think to count them up.
I am neither Protestant nor Catholic. Swedenborg, our primary theologian, grew up Lutheran, but rejected all of the key tenets of Nicene Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox). He was a particularly vehement critic of Luther’s unbiblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. “New Church” people, commonly known as “Swedenborgians,” have sometimes been called Protestants under the popular notion of Protestants as “everyone who isn’t Catholic.” But when it comes to beliefs, we reject Catholic and Protestant doctrine alike—starting with the unbiblical doctrine of the Trinity of Persons—so we cannot be considered either Catholic or Protestant, nor are we Eastern / Orthodox.
If Ben indicates that he wants to talk to you, then it would be possible for me to convey your email addresses to each other privately.
Interesting that you don’t believe in the Trinity. Jesus did speak of it when baptizing. I have met another young lady who also doesn’t believe in the Trinity.
You should really get off the Lutheran “no good works” theory. He never said that you shouldn’t do those things. He believed that you will do them when the Holy Spirit comes to you. He doesn’t believe that you doing them because you don’t want to go to hell, will get you into Heaven. To quote Blood, Sweat, and Tears “I swear there ain’t no Heaven but I pray there ain’t no hell.’
Good works without Faith first are just good works and have no baring on reaching Heaven. Since Jesus said “Believe in me and you will have everlasting life.” We must have faith first and foremost.
Now I know you think that the quantity of good works is irrelevant to the story here. I don’t that it is. We need to understand whether or not one sin will undo one good work. If so, we must strive to work harder. Or is the character of the sin more than the character of the work. Say, is murder a much higher cost to pay back than lying?
Since God is perfect (I know you and I agree on that) wouldn’t his standards be higher for good works?
This is why we don’t do good deeds to earn Heaven. Heaven is given to us by the Grace of God though the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord, Christ. Jesus stated that He was the law. And that law died for us to be saved.
Now you previously stated that Faith alone would not get you into Heaven. What about no faith? Or people who, like Muslims, don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ?
Now, Muslims also believe that to get to Heaven that they must do good works. That includes killing Jews, and non-muslims. We may not agree with their form of good works but that is their way.
I just feel that God loves us and because of His son, He puts no stipulations, other than faith, to take from the tree of life.
Or, I have faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And because of this, I do good things for my neighbor out of love, not because it will assure me a seat in Heaven, will I not get into Heaven? Likewise, will a person who feels that they have to do good things to get into Heaven actually get there? Because isn’t doing it that way the wrong way? As I pointed out about my wife’s friend trying to convert people.
By the way, I push the notification button ever time and have never received a notification. Was wondering if you knew this. Maybe the program isn’t working properly. I even checked my spam and have nothing there.
Hi David,
Jesus told his disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). He didn’t say it was a Trinity, and he certainly didn’t say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are “Persons.” Nowhere does the Bible say either of these things.
In fact, when the disciples actually did baptize people, they baptized in the name of Jesus. See Acts 2:38, 8:16, 10:48, 19:5. There is no record in the Acts or the Epistles of the Apostles ever baptizing people literally “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” So either Jesus’ disciples flagrantly disobeyed his direct commandment to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, or the name of Jesus is the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and there is no Trinity of Persons.
Nowhere does the Bible teach that there is a Trinity of Persons. That became Christian dogma only at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, centuries after the last books of the Bible were written, under the watchful eye of the Roman emperor Constantine. See:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Hi David,
You say:
No, no, no. This is completely unbiblical. And the persistence with which Protestants put forth this argument only shows how little they know the Bible.
The Bible never says anything about needing to pile up good works sufficient to counterbalance bad works. Rather, it says that we must repent from our sins and do good works instead, and that if we do, none of the sins we have done in the past will be remembered against us. Read Ezekiel 18. It is all spelled out there as clearly as possible. Jesus and the Apostles teach the same thing: that if we repent from our sins, believe in Jesus, and follow his commandments, we will be saved no matter how many sins we have committed in the past.
Based on the principles laid out in Ezekiel 18, let’s consider two hypothetical examples:
Even in the Old Testament, salvation just didn’t work the way Protestants imagine it did. It was never a matter of piling up sufficient good works to counterbalance the sins we have committed. It was always a matter of repenting from our sins and living a good life in obedience to the Lord’s commandments. This is true in the Old Testament, and it is just as true in the New Testament.
Continuing in this silly argument about needing to do so many good works to counterbalance our sins is only evidence that Protestants know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
Hi David,
In answer to this:
I do see your email address on the list of email-only followers of the blog. However, I have not published any new posts since you signed up, so you would not have received any notifications if you typed your email into the “Follow by Email” box.
If you want to receive email notices of new comments on posts here that you have commented on, when you leave a comment there should be a check box at the end of the comment form to make that happen.
Hi David,
You say:
No, that is not “their way.” It is the way of some fundamentalist Muslims. Unfortunately, these are the Muslims that get all the press. The vast bulk of Muslims around the world are moderate Muslims, who decry the violence of Muslim fundamentalists just as moderate Christians decry the bigotry of fundamentalist Christians.
Good evening, Lee. Although I’m jumping in a bit late from what you and David have already discussed, I wanted to circle back to Paul’s view on the Law not being primarily ritual/ceremonial purity and that when he talks about the Law, he does indeed have in mind the moral law of the 10 commandments, because he references it explicitly in Romans 7, where he talks about sin coming from the Law (moral) itself:
Romans 7:7-8: “I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.”
Paul says ‘law’ and does not say the cultural custom of circumcision or reference to the sacrificial system, but clearly quotes the 10th commandment. This commandment was accessible to him to write about as a ‘blameless’ Pharisee. Zechariah, likewise, may have ‘walked blamelessly’ but ironically was silenced by an angel because he -did not believe/trust- the words that were spoken while Mary was considered ‘highly favored’ and Elizabeth blessed her because she ‘believed/trusted’ the words that were spoken to her.
Back to Paul, he is describing to the Romans the experience of sin because of having a Law, any law, whether moral, cultural, societal, etc–the very fact that there is a rule means that it immediately creates within sinful and broken humanity both pride and shame when we reach or fail to reach it, but more central to Paul’s point here, it creates an awareness of the very fact that sin exists in our hearts now that we are aware of the ‘mark’ God has set.
Romans 7:9-11: “Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.”
Having any law, whether the 10 commandments, or ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ if it is a standard by which we measure our worth or right-standing with God, creates death, because of the reality of sin and our personal awareness of it in our lives. This is what David means, I believe, when he is asking how many good works must we do. Because of the reality of our struggle with sin, only the Gospel can set us free, which Paul recognizes countlessly and even following the scriptures you mentioned earlier:
Philippians 3:7-9: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
Paul considers everything a loss compared to knowing Jesus. Observing and obeying the moral law did not bring him joy or peace, but was willing to throw it all away (literally considering it garbage) compared to the immeasurable blessing of knowing Jesus and having a righteousness that came apart from law observance, but from God.
I love your quote about highly religious people making up ‘heterodox doctrines’ that extricate themselves entirely from the effort altogether, because that is precisely what Paul is doing and describing in his experience with sin. He describes having no power over it, but gives it and the glory for overcoming it entirely to Jesus:
Romans 7:21-25: “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Paul indeed was a very religious man, but Jesus himself calls him His chosen instrument by which he would preach the Gospel to the gentiles. His very conversion is more support for the fact that not all are saved who are ‘observing moral rules unto God’, because Paul as a zealous member of the a strict group of adherent Jews who was trained under wise teaching in a wealthy city and surely was loving others and obeying the Torah as best he could. And yet still he was not saved–and recognizes it wholeheartedly–until he met Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. Which is why he spent his entire life pouring himself out–everything else he knew and had done comparatively was garbage.
Again, Holy Spirit, do what only you can do here. I even pray that you would shut down Lee’s website for a time in order that He might know you, if he doesn’t, as a sign to him.
Hi Ben,
If these theories are correct, why, then, did Paul spend the bulk of his letters telling his readers how to live a good and moral life?
Protestants focus inordinately on those parts of Paul’s letters that talk about faith. They seem to miss the fact that this was not what Paul spent the bulk of his time talking about. The parts where Paul speaks about faith get quoted thousands and millions of times. What about the rest? They get quoted, ironically, when fundamentalist Protestants revert to the pre-Christian covenant (which is where the bulk of so-called “Christians” today really are), and condemn anyone who does not obey the Law as these fundamentalists Protestants understand it.
As for the specific passages you quote, once again, you have entirely misread and misunderstood them due to the vise grip that Luther’s dogma has on your mind. And if you want to pray for the Holy Spirit to give signs, I would suggest that you pray that the Holy Spirit bring you into a state of severe spiritual temptation and crisis so that you may be freed from the Assyrian captivity of the falsity of justification by faith alone, which the Bible specifically and emphatically rejects.
Unfortunately, it is rather easy for misinformed people to misunderstand Paul’s writings, as Peter says:
This is precisely what Luther and his followers have done.
Certainly Paul was converted by Christ to carry out a specific mission. Unfortunately, as Paul himself details in his own letters, including some of the parts you have quoted, his conversion to Christ did not bring about the change in his character that one might expect. He remained quite proud and egotistical about his own place as the Lord’s specially called Apostle. Paul is always talking about himself, whereas the other Apostles rarely talk about themselves.
Does this mean Paul’s letters are no good and should be rejected? No. It means that the Lord used a broken vessel in order to deliver a message that was necessary for the Christian Church to break away from Judaism and become truly Christian.
Unfortunately, it also means that Paul, who thought very highly of himself and his intelligence, commonly wrote things that are “hard to understand,” because he wrote them fancily, with all sorts of rhetorical flourishes. None of the other Apostles write that way. Their writings are very easy to understand. But Paul, because he was not personally reformed by his conversion, but merely redirected his pride and ego toward preaching the Christian message instead of attacking Christians, did write in fancy, hard-to-understand ways. That’s why heresy, including the Protestant heresy, almost always relies primarily on Paul for its support.
And yet, Paul also was a highly intelligent man, and very passionate and effective in his preaching. That’s why the Lord chose him to do this work. The Lord needed someone who could deliver a more complex message than the other Apostles were capable of, even though that message was very likely to be misunderstood and twisted by many so-called Christians to support doctrines that neither Paul nor anyone else in the Bible ever believed or taught.
This, in a nutshell, is why Protestant sermons and tracts rely so heavily on Paul. In the process, they mostly sideline the teachings of the Lord himself in the Gospels. Some Protestants even blatantly disregard Jesus’ teaching, claiming that if we “rightly divide the word of truth” (a poor KJV translation of 2 Timothy 2:15), we will consider Paul’s teaching to be for the New Covenant, and Jesus’ teaching for the Old Covenant.
I cannot think of anything more blasphemous than “Christians” claiming that it is perfectly acceptable for them to reject and ignore Christ’s own teaching. Such “Christians” pass judgment on themselves that they are not Christian at all. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Such “Christians” neither love Jesus nor believe in his teachings. They believe that Paul’s teachings are greater than Jesus’ teachings. And because of this belief, they do not even understand Paul, but hatch heresy after heresy, twisting Paul to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.
Paul did not correct Jesus. Jesus called and corrected Paul. And the message Paul preached, if understood in the light of Jesus’ teachings rather than as replacing Jesus’ teachings, is indeed a transformative message. See:
Jesus Changed Paul’s World
Unfortunately, you too, like your Protestant brothers and sisters, spend most of your time quoting Paul, and ignoring or explaining away anything that James, John, Peter, and Jesus himself say that doesn’t agree with your doctrine—which you get, not from Paul, and not from the Bible, but from your rabbi and master, Martin Luther.
The bottom line is that in the one place in the entire Bible that mentions faith alone, it is specifically rejected, in words that could not be plainer:
God, who knows the future just as well as past, knew that Luther would come along when Christianity was in its dying days, and set up justification by faith alone as the cornerstone of his church. That is why two thousand years ago God made sure that the Bible included a specific rejection of that false doctrine.
Protestants can ignore and explain away God’s rejection of their doctrine. They have spilled millions, if not billions of words explaining away James 2:24.
But there it is in the Bible, in words as plain as day. These are words that any true Christian can read, and know with certainty that God is right and Luther is wrong.
As long as Luther’s false doctrine continues to hold your mind in the chains of captivity, you will never be able to read, understand, and accept the teachings of the Bible, and you will misunderstand everything Paul says. But once again, for the sake of my readers, I will address your human misunderstanding of Paul and his message, recognizing that once again, it would take an entire volume to do it justice.
Since this comment is getting long, I’ll continue in a new comment. Paul was indeed saying some deep and hard-to-understand things that are important for true Christians to understand. But Luther, due to his Catholic upbringing, completely missed Paul’s point.
I hope and pray that you will be able to see the truth of the Bible. But I fear that Luther’s hold is too strong on your mind.
Hi Ben,
First, a quick comment on this statement of yours:
This still doesn’t do away with Luke 1:6, which says, once again:
It still says that they both lived blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord—which, according to the Protestant heresy, is not possible.
Luther’s heresy can be supported only by rejecting and explaining away verse after verse, chapter after chapter, and book after book of the Bible.
Hi Ben,
Now to provide a proper response to your comment, noting once again that it would take an entire book to fully expose the errors in the interpretations that you have inherited from Luther and your other Protestant teachers. For those of my readers whose eyes are opened, or are beginning to open, I hope this will be helpful in resisting and rising above the flood of falsity that continually flows from Protestantism, twisting and destroying all the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles.
I have been focusing on the error that in Paul’s writings “works” and “the works of the Law” means good works, and not its real meaning, which is the observance of the ritual law of Moses. That’s because this is the most blatant and obvious error that Protestants, and even some Catholics, make. Paul clearly means the ritual law wherever he speaks about being saved by faith without works (which is a short form of the works of the Law) because in those arguments he always talks about “circumcision vs. uncircumcision,” and/or of “Jew vs. Gentile.”
If the Protestant misreading of Paul’s words were correct, all that talk about circumcision vs. uncircumcision and of Jew vs. Gentile would be irrelevant—as would be almost everything the Bible says. Indeed, Protestants must ignore and sideline virtually the entire Bible, including the Lord’s own teachings in the Gospels, in order to support their misunderstanding of a very few verses in Paul due to their worship of Luther’s doctrine.
However, there are other themes in Paul’s letters, some of which are greater than his most commonly misunderstood argument that it is not necessary for Christians to be observant Jews.
Perhaps the greatest of those themes is that whereas the Old Covenant was a covenant of behavioral obedience to external laws, the New Covenant is a covenant of internal assent to spiritual understanding, leading to living a good life from an entirely different motivation.
There are three basic levels of living a life that leads to salvation and heaven:
Perhaps the largest theme of Paul’s letters is the transition from obedience to understanding, which he calls “faith.” (Paul also affirms that the greatest thing, even greater than faith, is love: 1 Corinthians 13:13.)
Paul had to engage in the argument about whether Gentile converts to Christianity must be circumcised and follow the ritual Law of Moses. His mission was to the Gentiles. It was easy enough for the Christian converts from Judaism in Jerusalem to say that followers of Christ must also be followers of Moses. But in Gentile lands, that was completely impractical. If the “certain individuals [who] came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1) had won the argument, Christianity would have remained a niche sect of Jews, similar to today’s Messianic Jews. It would never have become the largest religion in the world. The vast bulk of Gentiles would have been forever outside the Christian fold.
Paul therefore had to engage in that debate—a debate that today’s Christians mostly miss when reading his letters because that issue was settled nearly two thousand years ago, thanks largely to Paul’s efforts. Reading Paul’s letters outside of their historical context leads to all sorts of ridiculous interpretations of them, including Luther’s huge error about justification by faith alone. Such an idea never entered Paul’s mind. That’s why he never said that we are justified by faith alone. In this, he agreed with James.
After disposing of the belief of many Jewish Christians that Gentiles must be circumcised and become observant Jews in order to be saved, what Paul really wanted to get to was the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. That’s why in his letter to the Romans, which is his fullest presentation of his message, he takes care of circumcision vs. uncircumcision, and of Jew vs. Gentile, within the first four chapters, and then barely mentions that issue for the rest of the letter.
What he goes on to talk about is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New, though in different words. And that difference, as he presents it, is that Christians, who are the people under the New Covenant, no longer base their religion and spiritual life on behavioral obedience to external law, but rather on an internal understanding of and assent to the truth, or “faith.” Christians live their lives based on that internal “faith” rather than based on external obedience.
The Jews of Old Testament times, as their own Scriptures say, were a “stiff-necked people.” See, for example Exodus 32:7–9, 33:1–6. They were stubborn, worldly, and focused on external benefits, punishments, and rewards. If they had heard anything like the preaching of Jesus, especially the most spiritual parts of it as recorded in the Gospel of John, they would have rejected it entirely—as indeed, most of the Jews did even in Jesus’ day. Because they were so physical-minded, the only thing they could understand was raw power, in the form of punishments for bad behavior and rewards for good behavior. Thus they had to live under a regime of strict behavioral laws, complete with harsh punishments for people who disobeyed those laws. That’s why the Old Testament is so harsh and strict in so many of its laws and punishments. This was the only way to keep such “stiff-necked” people on the strait and narrow path.
However, as happens with every nation and every church, eventually they fell away from observance of their laws, leading, according to the biblical account, to the exile of the entire northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, from which they never returned, and to the Babylonian captivity of the southern kingdom of Judah, from which many of them returned only after Babylon fell to Persia, and they were allowed by Cyrus to return and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. But the spirit was already gone from their religion. That is why very little story or prophecy of significance happens during the last four centuries before the birth of Christ.
As the Old Testament itself makes abundantly clear, this falling away from the Law of Moses was not because the Israelites could not obey the Law, but because they were unwilling to obey the Law.
Once again, we know that it is possible to fully obey the Law of Moses because of the example of Zechariah and Elizabeth in Luke 1:5–6. And if you read carefully all the passages quoted by Protestants in their arguments that the Law was given to show that it is impossible to keep the Law, you will see that those passages never say that the people could not obey the Law, but that they did not obey the Law. There’s a big difference! Protestants engage in another of their acts of subtly misquoting the Bible when they wrongly read these passages, and twist them to support Luther’s heresy.
Paul also does not say that he cannot keep the Law. He knows very well that he can, because when he was still a Pharisee, he took pride in scrupulously keeping the Law. Rather, when he presses forward his argument, he says that he does not do the good he wants he wants to do. Not cannot, but does not:
And he does not do the good he wants to do, he says, because of the sin that dwells within him. That is why he does not have “the ability.” He does not have the power to free himself from that sin, but Christ, who is God With Us, does have the power to free him from it.
It is the same sin that caused the Jews up to that time to abandon their Law, embodying the commandments of God for them in their low, unspiritual state, and to do all of the things forbidden to them in the Ten Commandments and the rest of their body of law, resulting in their loss of both their holy place and their nation (John 11:48), not just once, but by stages at least twice throughout the Bible narrative and beyond. God could have given them the ability to obey the Law, but they turned their back on God, and did not obey it.
Meanwhile, by the time Christ came, the hard worldliness and physical-mindedness that had characterized the Jews of Old Testament times, and that required them to be under a covenant of external behavioral obedience to strict laws under threat of severe punishment, was beginning to give way to an openness to the deeper things of the spirit. A key theme of Jesus’ ministry was making this transition from the letter of the law to the spirit of the law—a theme that Paul picks up on and develops in his letters. See especially John 6:22–70, and also my commentary on it in this post: “Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood.”
Most of the Jews were still stuck in the Old Covenant of obedience to external law—as, indeed, most people who remain observant Jews to this day still are, along with most Muslims, who have a very Old Testament, behavioral obedience style of religion. But people who could make the transition from obedience to understanding, called “faith” in the New Testament, were able to hear Jesus’ message, and leave behind the old Jewish rituals of the Law of Moses, along with the entire paradigm of living a good life out of obedience to externally imposed laws. They would still live a good life, but it would be based on “faith,” or on an internal understanding of and assent to the moral and spiritual laws of God. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said:
In Old Testament times, it was not necessary for people to know everything that Jesus has heard from his Father. It was not for them to inquire or understand why God gave these particular laws. It was only necessary for them to learn the Law, and obey it.
But this is not sufficient for Christians. Christians must know and understand the deeper things of the spirit that Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds, and in plain words to his disciples (see Mark 4:33–34). Christians would no longer be like slaves of God, obeying whatever God commanded them regardless of whether they understood God’s ways and purposes. Instead, they would be friends of God, knowing and understanding the ways of God, and willingly following them from an internal assent known as “faith.”
This is the theme that Paul is writing about in the rest of his letter to the Romans, after he has disposed of the circumcision vs. uncircumcision debate in the first four chapters (strictly, in chapters 2–4).
If we read everything Paul wrote as a commentary on things that Jesus had shown and taught him, which are the same things Jesus teaches us in the Gospels, then we can read Paul’s letters in a whole new light. Contrary to the blasphemous belief of some Protestants, Jesus gave the fundamental teachings of the New Covenant in the Gospels. Paul then spent his intellectual energy explaining those teachings, which he received both from the other Apostles who had been Jesus’ disciples and from the Lord himself from within.
Once again, we must read Paul’s teachings in the light of Jesus’ teachings, not the other way around.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my earlier reply to your comment, Paul often expressed his message with fancy flourishes and over-the-top rhetoric that has caused many people who think too literally to get a completely wrong impression of the things he said, “twisting them to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:15–16).
The interpretation you have given to various statements of Paul in Romans 7 and elsewhere, under the thrall of Luther’s heresy, is a fine example of this twisting. That interpretation causes Protestants to reject the teachings of Jesus in favor of their own wrong understanding of the teachings of Paul.
As I’ve covered previously, Jesus clearly affirms the Ten Commandments as still in effect on multiple occasions in the New Testament. He does soften the commandment against working on the Sabbath day by making it more spiritual and less literal. But for the rest, Jesus’ teaching makes it very clear that the Ten Commandments are still in effect. We are still not to have other gods before him, not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain, not murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, covet, and so on. Even the two Great Commandments, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, are quoted by Jesus directly from the Old Testament.
The Protestant belief that we are no longer subject to any of the laws in the Old Testament as a condition of our salvation, including the Ten Commandments, is flat-out false. It is contrary to everything Jesus teaches in the Gospels, and everything the Apostles, including Paul, teach in their letters.
Paul would never contradict Jesus Christ, who was his Lord and Savior. If he did, he could make no claim to being a Christian. If anyone thinks Paul is saying something different than Jesus, that person does not understand Paul. In fact, that person defames Paul’s name and character as an Apostle of Christ.
With all this in mind, let’s look at the key passage you quote from Romans:
Now, the Protestant argument amounts to saying that the Law causes sin, and therefore is evil. However, Paul specifically rejects this argument in verse 7. And if we read one more verse past what you quoted, we find this:
Paul is “speaking of this as he does in all his letters,” saying “some things in them hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). And if we read the next verse from Peter’s letter, there is a specific warning against the sort of “lawlessness” that Luther’s heresy of justification by faith alone inevitably leads to:
Once again, God knew beforehand that Luther’s heresy would arise, and forewarned us against it through his Apostles.
No, Paul did not say that the Law causes sin. Rather, in his fancy, rhetorical way, he said that the Law brought about an awareness of sin. It was sin itself that caused the breaking of the law, as Paul says in the next verses:
I wish Paul had spoken more plainly and directly, as the other Apostles do. But once again, God works through broken human vessels. Paul’s ego and desire to be considered wiser and greater than the other Apostles pushes its way into his letters, and makes them more complicated and subject to misunderstanding than they needed to be.
Regardless, here he says that it was not “what is good,” which he has just identified as “the Law” in the previous verse, that brought death to him. It was sin that was working death in him through what is good, in order that it might be shown to be sin. All of this is perfectly sensible if we peel away the fancy language and understand what he’s saying.
To put Paul’s fancy language here and elsewhere into plainer language, if it were not for laws we would not know what is sinful, and therefore we would be without sin. But because we do have laws from God, we do know what is evil, and therefore it is sinful for us to do it.
Animals do not have sin, because they have no awareness of good and evil, and no divine law that they are commanded to follow. They simply follow their instincts. When a leopard is ripping apart a fawn, it is not sin, because the leopard has not been commanded by God not to kill. Similarly, a person who was raised by animals (in the fables) and had no awareness of any commandments could not sin, because there would be no commandment from God telling him not to kill or steal. Such a person, if he were to come upon civilization and kill and eat someone’s cow, would not have sin. He would simply be stalking his prey and satisfying his hunger. The idea that this is “sinful” because it is “stealing” would never occur to him.
But we are humans, not animals. And we do have laws and commandments given to us by God, which we are enjoined to obey. We therefore do have an awareness of sin, and we are therefore culpable when we do things that God has commanded us not to do, and when we omit to do things that God has commanded us to do.
Does God give us commandments that we are incapable of obeying? Not at all! This is another Protestant canard. God does not play Catch-22 with God’s children. What would we think of a father who required his son to jump ten feet straight up into the air, and then punished him because he couldn’t do it? The whole idea is preposterous! It is a miserable blasphemy on the good name, the love, and the mercy of God. Indeed, in the Old Testament itself, the Lord tells us that it is not at all impossible for us to keep the law:
What prevents us from keeping God’s commandments is not that they are too hard to obey. Rather, as Paul says, it is the sin that is working death within us.
The power of Jesus working from within is the power to take away that sin:
Once again, Protestants reject this. They say instead that Jesus covered over our sin. Luther’s heresy of justification by faith alone depends upon the heresy of the satisfaction theory of atonement that he inherited from his years as a Catholic, and that was developed into the even more heretical doctrine of penal substitution within Protestantism. Under this doctrine, if you study it closely, you will see that Jesus never does take away our sin, as John the Baptist said he does. Rather, Jesus covers over our sin with a “clothing of righteousness” made of his own “merit,” which is “imputed” to us so that even though we remain sinners in our heart, God does not see our sin, but sees Jesus’ righteousness clothing us instead.
But we know this is false, because “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
So Protestants, like their Catholic brethren, make the Word of God of no effect through their human traditions.
We do not become “justified”—which is an archaic translation of a Greek word whose primary meaning is “to become righteous”—by having our sin covered over by Jesus’ righteousness. No, we become justified, or righteous, when Jesus takes away the sin in our heart, and replaces it with the righteousness of God. (Compare Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26; 2 Corinthians 3:3.) And as Jesus and all of his Apostles preached, this happens only when we repent from our sins, and instead begin to live a good life according to the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments, and all the other moral and spiritual teachings of the Lord in the Bible.
Nothing about the New Covenant changes this. It is just as true in the New Testament, under the New Covenant, that “unless you repent you will all perish just as they did” (Luke 13:5). Repentance is not mere faith that Jesus died for our sins. It is actively ceasing to do the evil and sinful things we have done before, and doing good and righteous things according to the teachings of the Lord instead. This is what Jesus, Paul, and all the other Apostles teach in dozens, if not hundreds of places in the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles.
Protestants deny all of this, and say that it is only faith that justifies and saves us, and not repentance or good works. In saying so, they are rejecting everything the Bible teaches, including everything the Lord and his Apostles teach.
What is different in the New Covenant is that unlike under the Old Covenant, in which people obeyed the Law under threat of punishment and death, under the New Covenant, people obey the moral and spiritual parts of the law out of an internal “faith,” or understanding and acceptance of the divine truth that Jesus, his Apostles, and the entire rest of the Bible, read spiritually and with understanding, teach us.
As Christians, we no longer need to obey the ritual law of Moses because that law was given to a stiff-necked, materialistic people to keep them on a path that leads away from the destruction that they would otherwise have brought upon themselves. And when they departed from that law due to the sin that reigned within them, they did bring destruction upon themselves. (However those parts of the Bible are still the Word of God because spiritually they speak of the Lord, and of our relationship with the Lord, as the letter to the Hebrews explains.)
Meanwhile, as Christians we still must obey the moral and spiritual laws of the Bible because these are the commandments of God for all people, everywhere. Anyone who disobeys these commandments cannot be saved because he or she has defied the love, truth, and power of God, and has rejected God from his or her life.
This is why, as James says, “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
Here, unlike most of the times Paul uses the word “works” in his letters, James does mean good works, as his commentary surrounding this statement makes clear. It was those whose faith was embodied in good works, such as Abraham and Rahab, who were justified by their faith and their works together.
Once again the Greek word commonly translated “faith” should really be translated “faithfulness.” See: “Faith Alone Is Not Faith.” People who have faith alone are neither justified nor saved. This is the plain teaching of the Bible, not just in James, but from Genesis to Revelation.
I do not expect you to accept all of this. Your eyes have been blinded by Luther’s heresy. However, I pray that Jesus Christ will open your eyes so that you can see and accept the truth that will make you free.
Hi Lee,
I wish I could reply to your response to mine to keep the comment thread going so it doesn’t get separated.
I agree that Jesus is Lord of all. And that someday, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God. But this is not the case presently. Many abhor the reality that God indeed exists, despite him being beautiful and loving and kind and patient. Many who abhor this reality also desire to hold onto their own form of morality, enjoying tenants of loving others and social justice, but absolutely hating the idea of being forced into an alignment with something that they hold onto dearly because it is something they too closely identify with, such as a sexual ethic or gender identity because it denies the reality and relationships they treasure that have been formed through various choices, many of which are sinful. But post-modernism rejects absolute truth as oppressive, bigoted and archaic.
The ‘co-exist’ bumper sticker is an impossibility because the roots of each various religious system are at odds with one another, but most of all at odds with the claims of Jesus, which are ultimate and dividing. So much so that Jesus himself says that His coming has brought division in the most intimate of relationships:
Luke 12:51-53: “Do you think that I came to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
This is not because people disagree with various feel-good tenants of social justice, equity and loving others. It’s because Jesus claims absolute Lordship, ideologically, from the tip of one’s worldview to its roots, and often peoples’ held ideologies (this thread is a great example!) are attached at very deep parts of one’s identity and understanding of the world. The tiniest change in doctrine has massive effects in communities and entire regions, as we’re well aware. Many of the epistles take explicit effort to battle against heresy, primarily focusing on the necessity of keeping the gospel message pure and untainted (which is why I hold strongly to the necessity of evangelism and the preaching of the gospel, it being the power of salvation through belief in Jesus (Romans 1:16) and helping discern who is truly of Christ, which much of the discernment that we’re able to garner on whether or not someone is truly of Christ is through their actions. But salvation is different.
Salvation comes through God’s indwelling Spirit. This Spirit comes through confession of faith, trust, belief, in Jesus. Every example of the Holy Spirit filling believers is specifically related to confession of faith and/or laying on of hands and prayer from the apostles. Peter makes this reality abundantly clear during his preaching to the masses in Jerusalem following Jesus’ resurrection:
“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” […]
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
They could not have had received the Holy Spirit until they repented (not from not obeying the Torah, but specifically repenting from non-belief in Jesus) and accepted the forgiveness of sins that Jesus wrought for them. They could not have believed unless Peter preached this message, the Gospel, to them. They could not have had the Gospel preached to them unless Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and commissioned by Jesus to go and do so.
Even Saul/Paul himself did not experience the indwelling Holy Spirit until he was converted. There are many in other religions who follow moral tenants well, but their fundamental beliefs lead them to persecute Christians. Saul fell into this category, ‘knowing’ God and ‘serving’ him, but not, in reality.
Acts 9:4-6: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Paul goes blind into a house to wait for someone the Lord was sending to preach to him. Then he receives the Holy Spirit.
Acts 9:17: “Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized…”
The Holy Spirit seems to be what scripture shows as whether or not someone is saved and has the power to do what God calls them to do. And he comes not through moral obedience (Cornelius, again, a prime example) but through the belief in Jesus through the preaching of the Gospel. Peter preaches to a God-fearing gentile, who subsequently was filled with the Spirit, but not prior to, belief in the Gospel of Jesus:
Acts 10:42-48: [Peter preached:] “He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”
I don’t see how someone can rest assured that people all over the world don’t need to hear the Gospel because they are all ultimately just following Jesus in ‘name’ when in scripture shows that those who follow him in name God sends to hear the Gospel so that they may be saved, in addition with anyone else who will believe.
Romans 8:9-11: “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”
Ephesians 1:11-14: “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”
The Holy Spirit is the mark, the seal, of the future inheritance of God’s promises. Following a religion is different than having ‘God With Us’ actually with you. Like, with you. Always. Forever.
Crying out to God as ‘daddy’ or Father with intimacy is a big evidence of the Spirit’s presence in someone’s life
Romans 8:15-17: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba, Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ–if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”
Saying that everyone is ok and we all just need to love one another and ultimately all roads lead to God is too pluralistic for my taste and evades the persecution and glory that comes from suffering for Jesus by remaining steadfast to Him rather than creating a system where everyone can win whether or not they submit to the objective reality of Jesus as the Christ.
Hi Ben,
A bit of housekeeping. You say:
You might want to try using the WordPress reader, or some other blog comment reader. These should allow you to reply to any comment. I have limited comment nesting on the blog to four levels to prevent long conversations from getting spaghettified into little narrow columns of practically unreadable text. Comment replies entered from readers that would go beyond that level of nesting are simply run in on the same nesting level.
Hi Ben,
Reading Protestant arguments is painful for me. So much ignoring of what the Bible says. So much twisting of the Bible to make it say things that it doesn’t say. It is a vast flood of falsity sullying the beautiful teachings of Jesus and the Bible. It hurts my soul that so many people have been swept up in this flood of falsity, you included.
You can’t just ignore Matthew 25:31–46 and Romans 2:1–16. These are two of the clearest statements in the entire New Testament—indeed, in the entire Bible—about what will happen on the day of judgment. That’s why I quote them so often. Yet Protestant dogma rejects what they teach because it holds to an opposing human doctrine.
In Matthew 25:32 Jesus says that all the nations will be gathered before him for judgment. Not some nations. Not the Christian nations. All the nations. The Bible is not loose and sloppy in its use of words. “All” means “all.” The people of all the nations, Christian and non-Christian alike, will be separated like sheep and goats. All the people will be judged according to what they have done. You can’t just ignore this, and say, “No, they’ll be judged according to their faith.” That’s simply not what the Bible says.
In Romans 2:1–16, Paul is even more explicit. He explicitly includes non-Christians among the people God will judge, through Jesus Christ, according to what they have done (Romans 2:6). You can’t just ignore, this, and say, “No, they’ll be judged according to there faith, and non-Christians need not apply.”
There are no passages whatsoever that say that on the day of judgment, people will be judged according to their faith. Jesus does not say that the sheep are the ones who had faith in him, whereas the goats are the ones who did not. He says that the ones who did a good dead for the least of his brothers did it for him, and will go to eternal life, whereas those who did not do a good deed did not do it for him, and will go to eternal punishment. You can’t just ignore that because Luther said we are justified by faith alone.
You can’t just ignore Paul saying that Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles will be repaid according to their deeds, that God shows no partiality, that those who do good will receive eternal life, whereas those who are self-seeking will receive wrath and fury. You can’t just ignore all of that because Luther said that we are justified by faith alone.
Yet that is precisely what you are doing.
You are ignoring what the Bible does say because it does not agree with Luther’s doctrine. And what the Bible does say is that people of all nations, including Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles, will be judged for eternal life or for eternal punishment according to what they have done. This is the plain teaching of the Bible. And these are not the only passages that say this. There are many of them. But here is one more, from the Book of Revelation—which, like the book of James, Luther tried to expunge from the Bible because it also rejected his newly invented doctrine:
This is the great scene of judgment in Revelation. It says the exact same thing that Jesus Christ himself says in Matthew 25:31–46, and that Paul says in Romans 2:1–16. All people—not some people, not Christian people, but all people—will be judged according to what they have done. They were judged, not according to the book of faith, but according to the book of life. This is the book in which all their deeds throughout their life have been recorded. It is on that basis that all people, Christian and non-Christian alike, will be judged.
This is the plain teaching of the Bible, repeated wherever the Bible talks about judgment. The Bible is clear and consistent on this point.
You can’t just ignore what the Bible says about this. You can’t ignore the dozens, no, the hundreds of other passages in the Bible that say exactly the same thing.
You can’t just say, “No, they will be judged according to their faith.” Where are the Bible passages that say this? There are none. Because it is a false doctrine invented by human beings many centuries after the Bible was written.
It is this false doctrine that underpins your entire argument, and causes you to misunderstand and misrepresent every passage you quote. Luther’s dogma has so blinded your eyes that you cannot even read what the Bible says, but constantly replace it with Protestant verbiage and slogans whenever you are not directly quoting the Bible.
But before moving on, let’s deal with this red herring:
Where have I ever said anything about social justice or sexual ethic or gender identity or post-modernism as having anything to do with salvation? Where have I said that everyone is OK? Where have I said that we all just need to love one another, and ultimately all roads lead to God?
You are calling up the usual fundamentalist Protestant whipping-boys because that’s what fundamentalist Protestants are used to whipping, and it makes a great foil for their unbiblical beliefs. But these are indeed red herrings that have nothing to do with anything I have said here, or anywhere else.
Please pay attention to what I say, and respond to that. Don’t argue against some favorite Protestant straw man. Otherwise this conversation will quickly devolve into uselessness.
Everyone is obviously not OK. All roads obviously do not lead to God. If everyone were OK, this world would be a much nicer place, not the conflict-riven, greed-filled place that it actually is. And if all roads led to God, all the Bible’s words about eternal punishment would be empty rhetoric.
The alternative to Luther’s dogma is not free love and everything goes. It is what the Bible itself teaches, which is that all people will be judged according to what they have done, regardless of their religion, creed, “faith,” or origins. This is the plain teaching of the Bible, given over and over again, in the clearest words possible.
Trying to avoid this with tangents about social justice and post-modernism will not allow you evade your rejection of and attacks against the Bible’s own clear teachings.
You reject this plain and continually repeated teaching of the Bible because it does not accord with Luther’s dogma.
Instead of drawing your doctrine from the Bible, you twist the Bible to conform to human traditions and doctrines.
Since this comment is already getting long, I’ll start a new comment to deal with some of the specific ways you have done this in this most recent comment of yours.
But to wrap up this reply, if you want to be a Christian, you simply can’t believe that all non-Christians are damned to hell because the Bible itself teaches the opposite.
You can’t quote the Bible against itself. And there are no passages in the entire Bible that say that non-Christians will go to hell. Jesus himself certainly never says this, as I point out in this post:
Did Jesus ever actually say, “If you don’t believe in me you will go to hell”?
In short, the belief that it is necessary to be a Christian in order to be saved is out of bounds for Christians because it is contrary to the direct, clear, plain, and repeated teaching of the Bible itself, including from Jesus Christ’s own mouth. If you reject what Jesus and the Bible teach on this subject, you will not be able to understand anything the Bible says about salvation. You will misunderstand every single passage in the Bible.
That is precisely the situation you are in.
Hi Ben,
Now let’s dig into some of your actual quotes and statements. The falsity that has taken hold of your mind is endless. I could literally write an entire volume explaining all of the mistakes and their ramifications that have led to and supported the key falsity that has become your idol, which is Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. But I don’t have that much time. So a few will have to suffice for now.
Your very first words of reply are:
Then why do you think Jesus is Lord only of Christians? Why do you not believe that Jesus is also Lord of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists?
Your Jesus is a local tutelary god—the god of Christians only. My Jesus is Lord of the entire earth, as the Bible itself says. The Bible says, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22, emphasis added). Unless you disagree with Isaiah, and believe there is some other God, then Jesus is God, and there is no other. Jesus is the one to whom all the ends of the earth turn to be saved, regardless of their religion.
My Jesus is Lord and God of the entire earth, and all its people, just as the Bible teaches.
Your Jesus is a small, local Jesus, made bigger only because Christianity has gotten bigger. Your Jesus is one of the many gods of the nations. This becomes clear a little later when you say:
We’ll leave aside the “co-exist” bumper sticker. No need to go off into tangents. Your belief that “the roots of each various religious system are at odds with one another” demonstrates that your Jesus is not the God of all the earth, of all its people, and of all its religions. It demonstrates that you think of Jesus as a local god—the tutelary god of the Christian religion and its people only.
The Bible presents Jesus as the God and the Judge of all people, of all religions, in the passages I have already quoted for you multiple times, and in many more passages. Your Jesus is small and local. The Bible’s Jesus is universal, to whom “all power has been given in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18).
You go on to say:
Then you quote this passage from Luke:
Indeed, Jesus here says that family members will be divided against one another, which did indeed happen, and still happens today.
But you are using this passage to say that Jesus makes an entirely different division: one between people of different religions. Perhaps you personally believe this. But the passage you quote to support that opinion simply doesn’t say it. If you purport to base your beliefs on the Bible, at least quote Bible passages that say what you believe. This one simply doesn’t. The Bible is not loose and sloppy in its language.
You continue your argument:
Where does the Bible say that “Jesus claims absolute Lordship, ideologically”? This is not biblical language. It is fundamentalist Protestant sloganeering.
It’s as if Jesus were a Fox News commentator engaged in today’s political battles between the right and the left. But Jesus’ Lordship has nothing to do with today’s political battles. Jesus is not a Fox News on-air personality. Nor is he a CNN or ABC or NBC on-air personality engaging in the battle from the other side of the ideological spectrum. Jesus’ Lordship is not about political ideologies, nor does it have anything to do with the politics of this world, as Jesus himself said to Pilate:
Protestant fundamentalists try mightily to make Jesus into a political figure and a political force. Jesus himself rejected those efforts two thousand years ago. Until you understand that Jesus’ Lordship is not “ideological,” but is spiritual, and is not limited to Christians, but is over all the earth, you will never understand anything Jesus or the rest of the Bible says about God and salvation.
A little farther along you say:
That is why it is so ironic that you have swallowed the heresies that human beings have hatched over the past two millennia since the Bible was written, and based on those heresies, you reject everything the Bible itself teaches about God and salvation. None of these heresies are taught anywhere in the Bible. That’s why you can’t quote any passages that actually say what you believe, but have to misquote them and misrepresent them to twist them into saying those things. See my eight-part series on this, starting with: “The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 1: God is a Trinity of Persons?”
Then you say parenthentically:
But that’s not what Romans 1:6 says. (Edit: My apologies to Ben for misreading his reference, which is to Romans 1:16, not Romans 1:6, as he pointed out in a later comment. Romans 1:16 does indeed talk about “belief.”) Here is Romans 1:6:
Romans 1:6 doesn’t say anything about “belief.” It says that we are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
Not everything about the Bible is about “belief” or “faith.” As strange as it may seem, the Bible actually does talk about other subjects besides “faith” and “belief.” I put “faith” and “belief” in quotes because Protestants don’t have the faintest idea what the Bible means by these words. Once again, please see:
Faith Alone Is Not Faith
Your reference to Romans 1:6 is just one more example of Protestants quoting or referring to Bible passages that simply don’t say what they say they do. The word “faith,” which Protestants think of as “faith alone,” is plastered in front of their eyes so that even when the Bible is saying something else, all they see is “faith.”
This is why Protestants cannot even read the Bible. When they “read” the Bible they are not actually reading its words. Instead, they are substituting “faith alone” for everything it says. That’s because they are worshipers of the golden calf that Luther set up. And like the ancient Israelites, they worship this golden calf at the very time God is proclaiming the Ten Commandments to them as the eternal law of God.
You say:
For Christians, yes it does. For non-Christians it is different. Most of the New Testament is addressed to believing Christians. That’s why Paul disposes of the issue of the salvation of non-Christians early, in the second chapter of his letter to the Romans. The rest is addressed to Christian believers, and says how they can be saved. Even the passage you go on to quote makes this clear:
Peter is addressing people who can accept that “we are all witnesses of it.” The passage also says that Peter is speaking to “fellow Israelites” (verses 22, 29). But not all Israelites will accept that God raised Jesus to life. In fact, most of them denied it, as detailed in Matthew 28:11–16 and elsewhere. Peter is clearly talking to those who do not deny the resurrection, but can accept it as a reality. The rest will not listen to his message.
Once again, the earliest Christians viewed themselves as the true Jews, or true Israelites. This was before Christianity broke off from Judaism and became a separate religion. That’s why, when the book of Revelation addresses the Christian churches in Asia Minor, it speaks of:
And says:
In short, Peter is speaking specifically to those in the crowd who can accept the Christian message because they are not deniers of Jesus’ resurrection.
Not understanding that the message of the New Testament is directed primarily at believing Christians (and also to people who are ready to become believing Christians) even if it is presented in the context of Jews and pagans, has caused much confusion and error among later Christian believers. The way Christians are saved through faith in Jesus is a constant theme in the New Testament. But when the New Testament zooms out to present the bigger picture, it also shows how non-Christians are saved by Jesus even without conscious faith in him, if only they have loved their neighbor as themselves, as Jesus taught. This is why Paul said:
And James agrees with Paul on this:
You say:
This makes it sound like Paul was a good person before his conversion, but that just wasn’t good enough. However, that’s not how the Bible itself portrays Paul before his conversion:
Saul’s own Jewish Ten Commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill.” Yet Saul, as a Jew, was “breathing threats and murder” against innocent people who had done no one any harm. Paul was not a good man before his conversion. He needed conversion precisely because he was an evil man, proud and self-righteous, and murderous as a result of that pride and self-righteousness.
The Lord did not come to earth because “everyone is ok,” to use your words. He came because most people were very much not okay. And by “not okay” I mean flagrantly selfish, greedy, and evil in their actions, including breaking every one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus didn’t come to save people who were living good lives and mostly okay, and just needed that extra frosting of faith in Jesus to make them completely fine. He came to save people living dark and evil lives in a dark and evil world.
Jesus does not save people from some theoretical, abstract sinfulness, or from some slight little peccadilloes committed by otherwise good and excellent people. He came to save people who were murdering (such as Saul/Paul), committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, coveting, and so on. That is still the case today. As he himself said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).
A little earlier than this, your misunderstanding of what repentance and salvation are becomes obvious as you quote what the Bible says, and then say something very different yourself. Here is what you quoted from the Bible:
And here is how you read it:
Where does the Bible ever speak of “repenting from non-belief in Jesus”?
It is amazing to me that you can even utter such ridiculously wrong words. The Bible never says anything like this. Over and over again the Bible says that we must repent from sin. Do I really have to quote passages for you? There are hundreds of them, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. There is not a single passage that speaks of “repenting from non-belief in Jesus.”
What the Bible says and what you say are in stark contrast to one another.
You utter such completely wrong and unbiblical words because you are dancing around the golden calf of justification by faith alone. It looms large in front of your eyes, so that when read the Bible, and then put it into your own words, the words that come out of your mouth are completely different from the words that are written in the Bible.
The Bible calls us, not to “repent from non-belief in Jesus,” but to repent from sin. And sin is not some theoretical stain of the evil of some theoretical “original sin.” It is doing evil things. It is murdering, committing adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness, and internally, it is the coveting that leads us to commit all these sins.
Honestly, it is hard for me to fathom how Protestants can miss such a basic reality in the Bible’s message.
Everyone is not OK. If you haven’t noticed, the world is very messed up. That’s because the people in it are very messed up. It’s not because of some theoretical “non-belief in Jesus.” It’s because people are selfish and greedy, and from that selfishness and greed in their heart, they do evil things, as Jesus himself said:
Jesus, and his Apostles call sinners to repentance. In other words, they call people who, from evil intentions, commit sins such as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. There is nothing theoretical or philosophical or ideological or theological or abstract about it. Jesus calls sinners—people who are doing evil things from evil intentions—to repentance.
And repentance means, not “believing in Jesus,” but not doing evil things anymore, and doing good things instead. This message is consistent throughout the entire Bible. For example:
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16–17)Belief in Jesus, if it does not lead us to repentance, is not belief in Jesus at all, because Jesus preached that we must repent from our sins. (Again, do I really have to quote the passages where Jesus says this?) The whole purpose of believing in Jesus is that when we believe in Jesus, we will follow Jesus’ commandments—and that will cause us to repent from our sins and become righteous (“justified”) people instead. Not from our own power, but from the power of Jesus working within us, in our heart, and from there changing our outward words and actions.
Jesus himself rejected faith alone without repentance and good works when he said:
He doesn’t say “you who don’t have faith in me,” but “you who behave lawlessly.” Christian preachers even today who do “mighty works” in Jesus’ name, publicly walking on fire and loudly professing that they are saved by faith alone in Jesus, while secretly sleeping with prostitutes and openly acting with bigotry and hatred against anyone who doesn’t conform to their rigid set of behavioral laws will hear Jesus saying these very words to them when it comes their time to stand before the judgment seat of the great King.
I could go on, but this is enough for now. The contrast between what the Bible says and how you read it is stark. The Bible says one thing. You say a completely different thing, even when you have just quoted the Bible’s own words!
As long as you continue to dance around the golden calf of justification by faith alone that your High Priest Luther has set up for you to worship, you will never be able to read the Bible. You will never be able to understand anything it says.
Give up your Lutherist idolatry! Believe the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels! Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Are you entirely against Luther?
As I explained he wasn’t against good works, just that that was not the way to get into Heaven. Good works comes from faith. You can’t do good works to get to Heaven without faith. But, having faith will get you into Heaven.
Acts 16:13 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (saved by faith through grace)
John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. (faith leads to good works)
Mat 8:13 “…Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”
Mat 8:26 “And He said to them ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’”
I would think from your views that you would also not believe that it is by the grace of God that we are saved. Why? Because if it is by His grace you wouldn’t need to work for your salvation. That makes your work imperative to your salvation, not the God’s grace.
This would also mean that the death and resurrection of Christ is not involved in your salvation. He died for your sins that you may have everlasting life. But you’re choosing to work.
I thought Ben posting something interesting that I have yet to read in my studies. This was Paul “ Philippians 3:7-9: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”” This is beautiful. He’s saying quite clearly that all he did before he came to Christ counts for nothing. All his good works are “garbage”. So how is this since Paul believed in God? Why wouldn’t his good works be counted from before he believed in Christ?
What good works did Abraham do? Since James said he was justified by them.
What say, ye, Ben? I’d love to correspond with you.
Hi David,
I’m sure Luther said and did many good things. Certainly the corrupt Catholic Church needed a reckoning.
Unfortunately, anything good he said or did is overshadowed by the doctrine he invented: justification by faith alone. He set up this false doctrine as “the article on which the Church stands or falls.” And in my experience, Protestants of all stripes would let go of Christ himself before they let go of sola fide. For Protestants, Luther’s dogma has replaced Christ as the cornerstone of the Church.
Protestants accordingly reject everything in the Bible that doesn’t agree with Luther’s doctrine, including Christ’s own teachings, and especially including the Bible’s clear rejection of that doctrine. So what if the Bible says very plainly that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone? Protestants flatly disagree with the Bible on this point. Instead of accepting what the Bible says, they accept what Luther says.
Even worse, many Protestants justify selfish and evil lives in the belief that their actions do not matter to their salvation. Protestant preachers can preach till they’re blue in the face that you must follow up your faith with good works. But every time they preach that we are saved by faith alone apart from good works, what people hear is that their actions don’t really matter all that much, and what’s really important is that they believe that Jesus paid the penalty for their sins.
Ever since Luther first promulgated his new doctrine, Protestantism has been plagued by antinomianism. The doctrine itself is at fault for giving cover to unrepentant people who want to live a lawless and sinful life while still claiming that they are saved. Today, the most bigoted, hateful, and nasty Christians are Protestant fundamentalists who believe that they are saved just because they believe in Jesus Christ, regardless of how badly they treat people whom they consider to be their enemies. They way they live is the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels. They are Christian in name only.
The Church that Luther founded has been full of these sinful, lawless people from the very beginning. See:
The Christian Church is Coming to an End
Hi David,
You say:
Here again, in your parentheses, is the common phenomenon of Protestants unconsciously misquoting Scripture to make it conform to Luther’s doctrine. Here is what the Bible actually says:
Not by faith through grace, as you said. By grace through faith. There’s a big difference!
The Greek word commonly translated “grace” is χάρις. This is one of the many Greek words for “love.” Specifically, it means “good will, loving-kindness, favor.” It is a love for people (or anything else) that is not based on merit or quality or any “deserving” on the part of the one loved, but comes from the heart of the one who is moved by this love, and extends to all people and to all things, having an affection for them and wishing them well.
As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, we are saved by God’s χάρις, or lovingkindness, through faith—which should really be translated “faithfulness.” See:
Faith Alone Is Not Faith
Strictly speaking, we are saved neither by faith nor by works, but by God’s love. “For God so loved the world . . . .” (John 3:16).
When we speak of being saved by faith or by good works, we are speaking loosely. The meaning is that we cannot be saved without both faith and works active together in our life, as James says (James 2:22). Our faith and good works simply provide the conditions under which God’s love can save us. If we do not have faith together with good works, we will reject God’s salvation. And God will not force salvation upon us if we are unwilling to receive it. God puts the choice of our own life or death in our own hands, as he says in Deuteronomy 30:11–20.
It is neither our faith nor our good works that get us into heaven. It is God’s love, which gives heaven to us freely, if only we will accept that free gift. We accept it by repenting from our sins, having faith in the Lord, and living a good life of love and service to our neighbor according to the Lord’s commandments. If we do not do these things, we will reject heaven no matter how much so-called “faith” we have.
Hi David,
You say:
This is a variation on the Protestant slogan that “good works are the fruits of faith.” I call it a “slogan” because although it sounds sort of biblical, the Bible never actually says this. Look for yourself. You will not find it anywhere in the Bible.
Good works are not the fruits of faith, nor do they come from faith. They come from the Lord, as he himself says:
Faith is the gate by which we enter into the Lord’s love. The most that could be said is that good works come through faith, just as we are saved by God’s love through faith. But good works that are truly good come from the Lord, not from faith.
Once again, Protestants simply don’t know the Scriptures. Protestants are constantly misquoting the Bible, and attributing to the Bible things that it never says, all in their zeal to support Luther’s doctrine, which is the cornerstone of their Church and the idol that they worship.
I could comment on the rest of the Bible passages you quote, but you will not understand what they say as long as Luther’s dogma has its tentacles deeply embedded in your mind.
Come out of it! Leave behind Luther’s false doctrine! Learn from the lips of the Lord himself in the Gospels. Then you will be a follower of Christ, not a worshiper of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Lee, you just proved all of my points entirely.
Eph 2:9 by grace through faith. It is our faith that we get grace from Gods. Not from any works. The works come from God’s love. That is grace given unto us by God. And the Holy Spirit males us want to do good works only not to get to Heaven but for love!
If the good works we do are from God then Luther was correct in that we have no real free will.
I think you keep going on the faith alone and forget the scripture alone, Grace alone, In Christ alone, for the glory of God alone. They all tie in.
Even Pope Benedict said “That is why Luther’s expression “sola fide” [“faith alone’’] is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life.”
It never has been. We (I) do good works because of the faith I have and the grace that has been given me. Not to achieve something but because I love my fellow man. And, yes, these works come from God. Not me.
As for Luther himself: The Bible you’re reading, if not entirely in Latin, Luther. Including the order of it. Given the sacraments to everyone? Luther. Are you Catholic? Thanks to Luther, you’re considered a Protestant.
And not only the English language of the Bible you’re reading but the interpretation of it. Luther used to Latin/Greek version and the Hebrew versions to put into German. They guy was very well educated. I.e. you’re interpreting his interpretation.
Hi David,
You say:
And this statement proves that you have completely missed the point. Therefore I think that further discussion is probably pointless.
Luther and his followers keep adding an unbiblical “alone” to everything in the Bible. I read what the Bible itself says, in its own words, without adding extra words to them as Luther did in his German translation of the Bible. And yes, I do consult the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek when there is a question about the exact meaning of any word or verse.
It is faith and nothing else, by grace and nothing else from scripture and nothing else in Christ and nothing, else for the glory or God and nothing else.
If the works come from God then we don’t need them to get into Heaven. We just need the faith. You said yourself that the works come from God. That is God’s love for our faith.
Hi David,
The only problem with this is that the Bible doesn’t say any of it. Once again, I’ll follow the Bible, not Luther.
Sorry, should say that it from our faith that we receive or grace from God. Not faith and works.
I’ll throw in here briefly a few points, and David I’m totally willing for Lee to pass on my email to you (you could probably guess what it is).
In responding to Lee, I define faith differently than ‘an internal understanding of and assent to the moral and spiritual laws of God.’ This would be no different than any other theist in the world. The difference that I believe marks a Christian is the object of their faith, and the outcome of that faith by God’s dwelling with in His presence through the Holy Spirit. The Old Covenant, God’s Presence was limited to the temple and was given in select measures to specific individuals for specific purposes or seasons. After Jesus died on the cross, finishing the manifold task of redeeming broken humanity from sin, the temple curtain tore in two, showing very viscerally that there was now no separation from God from what Christ had done, and that Jesus Himself considered people the Temple by which He would inhabit and dwell with. Shortly following this was Pentacost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, which was prophesied in Joel (which Peter references in Acts) and which Jesus foretold in John, and in one gospel, Jesus specifically ‘breathing’ upon his disciples and distributing the Holy Spirit to them. I believe this marks the difference between the Christian and non-Christian, that through their faith–belief, trust, ‘banking completely on’ Jesus, that they then receive forgiveness of sins through their belief, which in itself is repentance:
John 14:7-11: Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
It is interesting that Jesus says when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict or ‘prove the world to be in the wrong’ regarding sin in that people ‘do not believe in me.’ Not because they are not obeying God’s moral laws and commandments and that Jesus wants everyone to repent and start ‘doing right,’ but it is regarding their faith–their belief, trust, actual apprehending the reality of Jesus’ real life presence with them and desire to be with them in every very moment. The thief on the cross portrays this excellently as well, who had zero time to repent in the sense of the moral behavioral law, but simply in just acknowledging that Jesus was indeed the Christ and was inheriting a kingdom, and merely looking to Him for mercy. This is the act of repentance that all true Christians everywhere experience the amazing presence of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit, from repentance from ‘dead works’ (religious rituals, which I include also acts of piety in an effort to earn salvation as Paul denotes in Romans in his awareness of his attempts to not covet) to a ‘living relationship with God.’
Hebrews 9:13-14: “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God”
It was so different for Paul, a devout Jew, aware of the ubiquitous nature of sin in humanity in within himself, that he considers all previous attempts at ‘living for God’ garbage compared to the surpassing awesomeness of knowing Jesus. Not knowing ‘of’ Jesus, or knowing ‘about’ Jesus, but an intimate relational ‘knowing.’
There is sin that people commit every day. Sin is not a black-and-white line that one can say ‘I did not cross that line today.’ Those who scripture says walked ‘blamelessly’ with God regarding the law does not imply that they were sinless. Even James says that if someone breaks the law at any point, they become a lawbreaker, guilty of breaking the entire moral code:
James 2:10-11: “Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”
The Bible clearly says that we are all lawbreakers. That is Paul’s primary point about sin in Romans, beginning with the fact that those who judge others’ sins are even guilty of pride because they themselves are lawbreakers, and thus everyone is under the same dire situation.
Romans 2:1: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”
The gospel, the good news, is not ‘start doing good’ but merely acknowledge the fact that you are a sinner, and God’s forgiveness cleanses you. This act of washing (like how Jesus washed Peter’s feet, “unless I wash you, you have no part with me”) creates in Christians a new heart of mercy and love, and forgiveness, because they are growing in the awareness of exactly what they have been forgiven of by God Himself, who then takes up residence in your heart through faith…*cough*alone*cough*…. and empowers them to do likewise.
1 John 1:8-10: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
If we do not acknowledge the ubiquitous nature of sin, before OR after knowing Jesus, we make God out to be a liar. Mortification is a process, as evidenced by Peter even after Pentacost where he began to fear association with gentiles and began sitting at the Jewish table for meals and Paul had to confront him to his face for showing partiality and fear of man. Sorry for a massive scripture paste but it is all relevant:
Galatians 2:11-21:
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. 12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 13 As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. 16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! 18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. 19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
I think the emphasis is wrong to call people to repentance and focus on the teachings of Jesus, when people need to come to Jesus first. I could create a whole list of God’s laws and outline Jesus’ teachings WITHOUT sharing with them the gift of God which is eternal personal individual relationship in the NOW by His indwelling and empowering Holy Spirit through faith in His Son Jesus, I’m bringing them to the door of the Kingdom of God but withholding them entrance.
Matthew 23:13: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”
I would commend all who read this to ‘enter in’ and trust Jesus today, everyday, always, and cherish Him.
Romans 3:9: “For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.”
Romans 3:19-26: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Hi Ben,
I may return to this later. For now, a few points:
1. I don’t necessarily disagree with your definition of “faith.” But it is only one small aspect of faith as the Bible uses that term, and by itself, without the rest of the meaning of “faith,” it is a very shallow definition. Yet even that rather shallow type of faith is not possible to have in reality for people who are not faithful to Jesus Christ, which includes not only believing in him, but learning the spiritual truth he teaches and following his commandments. People who think they can have faith in Jesus without living by his commandments are deceiving themselves.
Faith is not even possible unless it is accompanied by good works. Faith without good works is not faith at all. It is a mere intellectual abstraction that has no substance.
“Faith alone” is not only wrong, it doesn’t even exist. It is a nonentity.
But once again, for the biblical meaning of “faith,” please see:
Faith Alone Is Not Faith
2. Spiritual rebirth is a process, not a sudden event. Yes, there is conversion, which some people confuse with being born again. But that is not really being born again. That is simply starting on the path of being born again. Being born again happens as we repent of our sins one by one, throughout our lifetime, and begin living a good life instead. No, nobody is perfectly sinless except Christ himself. But God does not require perfection of human beings. That is impossible for us. Requiring it of us would be unreasonable and cruel on God’s part. See:
The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 4: God Condemns Us to Hell Because We’re Not Perfect?
God does not require us to be perfectly sinless. This is a Protestant fallacy. Rather, God requires us to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). That is a lifelong process, not a sudden event. As we see our sins, we must repent from them, stop doing them, and start doing what is good and right instead. That is why we have an entire lifetime on earth. If Protestant doctrine were correct, we could all die right after conversion, because there would be nothing more for us to do. But Protestant doctrine is not correct. That is why God gives us a lifetime to go through the process of regeneration, or being born again.
3. James 2:10–11 has, as with almost every passage in the Bible, been badly misunderstood by Protestants. James’s examples, which are from the Ten Commandments, make it clear that he is not saying that anyone who fails to tithe mint, dill, and cumin has broken every commandment. Rather, his meaning is that anyone who is willing to break one of the Ten Commandments will not have any scruples about breaking the other nine either. The lack of respect for one of God’s main commandments shows a lack of respect for God’s commandments altogether. That person is a lawbreaker.
The idea that breaking any of the myriad of statutes and regulations in the Old Testament is tantamount to adultery or murder is downright silly—nor does James say any such thing.
God is not a dimwit who cannot distinguish between jaywalking and murder. The Old Testament provides severe punishments for breaking major laws, lesser punishments for breaking lesser laws, and minor punishments for breaking minor laws.
This whole line of thinking once again shows that Protestants understand neither the Bible nor the nature of God.
It is quite astounding to me just how bad Protestants are at reading the Bible. They are so blinded by Luther’s doctrine that they can barely understand a single thing the Bible says. Quite often they can’t even quote the Bible properly from memory because their doctrine twists the Bible passages around in their minds so that they misquote them. I have seen this over and over again, including in this conversation.
I could go on, but that’s enough for now.
ames says that letting a rich person sit in front of a church service is akin to breaking the whole law because they have shown favoritism, the breaking of one law (not loving others as ourselves) and are convicted as lawbreakers. James says so, and plainly:
James 2:9-10: “But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
God is indeed not a ‘dimwit,’ but in His incredible wisdom, like we’ve already covered, has redeemed the evil of sin and ‘bound all to disobedience’ so that he could have mercy on us all, using faith, a vehicle that all can thereby access Jesus and receive the gift of eternal life, which is relationship with God, and generously and lavishly, I might add, not in proportion to one’s own ‘goodness’.
I’d be curious what you’d think of converts that accept Jesus and then are shortly after killed for their faith, will their ‘eternity’ be less because they were not as far down the road of good works as someone else who happened to live to 80 but lived according to moral laws their whole life? The prodigal son comes to mind, who ‘repents’ by merely asking his father for mercy to come and work under his household because he was hungry, and yet the father bestows the maximum amount of honor possible, completely embracing him as son and restoring relationship to the maximum. The older son, having never left the father, became frustrated because he had worked all his life without having even the tiniest celebration with his friends while his brother had wasted what the father gave him. Another example is the parable of the workers in the field, where some worked during the heat of the day and bore the brunt of the labor, and yet God was generous and gave the same reward to them all, even ones that worked only for the last hour. What mattered in both stories was not how much they did, but Who they were working for.
The ‘spiritual growth’ path is not good works based, but intimacy with Jesus based. Which is on a whole different scale entirely. Which is the whole point of our discussion.
Hi Ben,
First, it is amazing to me that Protestants have the temerity to use James 2:1–13 to support Luther’s doctrine when the letter goes on in James 2:14–26 to eviscerate that very doctrine many centuries before Luther invented it. It is blindingly obvious to anyone not blinded by Luther’s doctrine that your whole line of argument is fallacious because it is supporting a proposition that James goes on to specifically and emphatically reject in the one and only passage in the entire Bible that even mentions justification by faith alone.
Second, even if James did mean what Protestants say he means in James 2:1–13 (which he does not), it still doesn’t lead to the conclusion that God will send people to hell for breaking even the least of the commandments. In fact, Jesus himself puts the kibosh on this idea:
We have it from Jesus’ own mouth that whoever breaks (or annuls, which amounts to the same thing) minor commandments will not go to hell, but instead will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
There is no justification in the Bible for the idea that anyone who breaks even a small commandment is just as guilty as someone who breaks a major commandment. This is something Protestants insist upon without any biblical evidence whatsoever. And they do so because this ridiculous and unjust idea is necessary to provide support for Luther’s entirely unbiblical and blasphemous dogma. Blasphemous because if Luther’s dogma were true, God would be worse than any human tyrant and madman who has ever lived on the face of this earth, sending jaywalkers and murders alike to burn in hell for eternity.
Further, the Bible makes a distinction between intentional breaking of the law and unintentional breaking of the law, such as in this passage:
People who break laws they weren’t aware of will get punished for it, but it will be a light punishment. And assuming they really did not intend to violate the master’s will, they will then be instructed and reinstated—and will be the wiser for it. But people who knowingly and intentionally break the master’s law will not only be punished severely, but will be relieved of their duties because the master can no longer trust them.
The Bible makes many distinctions between greater and lesser sins, and between intentional and unintentional sins. That’s because God also makes these distinctions. God is neither a dimwit nor a black-and-white thinker, as Protestant dogma portrays God.
In the first half of James 2, James gives clear instructions on not showing partiality. Anyone who reads his letter, but still shows partiality, is knowingly violating a biblical commandment. And it is not a minor commandment. Poor people are just as much the children of God as rich people. If we show partiality to rich people, and prejudice against poor people, we are not only dishonoring the poor person, but we have dishonored God by dishonoring God’s children.
To draw the conclusion from James’s words about not showing partiality that therefore breaking any least commandment causes us to break the entire Law of Moses, or violate the entire Bible, is stretching his words beyond all sense and reason.
Plus, as pointed out above, Jesus specifically rejects the idea that people who break or ignore minor commandments will go to hell for that reason.
Once again, the Bible, both Old Testament and New, does not make all sin black and white, but gives many shades of gray in the seriousness of the sin and the corresponding seriousness of the punishment. Protestants just mow all of that over with their one-size-fits-all condemnation of jaywalkers and murderers alike. According to Protestants, both jaywalkers and serial killers should go straight to the electric chair, because both are equally guilty of violating the entire legal code.
I am very glad that God is not a Protestant.
And once again, it is highly ironic that Protestants twist James’s words in the first half of James 2 to support the very doctrine that he goes on to reject clearly and decisively in the second half of very same chapter.
I said in an earlier comment that Protestants will reject Christ before they reject Luther’s doctrine. And in fact, Protestants have rejected the entire teaching of Jesus Christ, relegating it to the irrelevance of the Old Covenant—whether they do so explicitly or implicitly. That is why Protestantism is not Christian. It’s not even Paulism, as some accuse it of being, since even Paul does not teach what Protestants believe. It is literally Lutheranism and Calvinism, because it is a religion that follows the teachings of one or both of these men while rejecting the teachings of Jesus, Peter, James, John, and Paul.
Protestants worship Luther’s doctrine, and reject anything in the Bible that goes against it. This means they reject the entire Bible. They are too busy worshiping the idol that Luther set up: justification by faith alone.
One day I hope your you will cease your idol worship.
Meanwhile, your idol-induced blindness continues in every one of your comments, as you misunderstand and misinterpret every Bible passage you quote, trying to make them say things that the Bible flatly rejects, sometimes only a few verses earlier or later.
Hi Ben,
You ask:
First, “accepting Jesus” does not mean merely “believing” in Jesus. It means actually accepting Jesus, which includes living by Jesus’ commandments. As covered in the article I linked for you previously, even the thief on the cross lived by Jesus’ commandments in the few hours he had before he died. And in the parable of the laborers and the days, every laborer worked in the field, whether it was for a longer or a shorter time. No one got paid who did no work at all.
The prodigal son also offered himself to his father as a laborer, and was ready to work for him. In fact, he had already been working. After he wasted his inheritance, he took a job feeding pigs. By the time he returned to his father, he was already a wiser man, ready and willing to continue working for his own father as he had been working for a stranger. Even after his father rolled out the red carpet for him, he would still work for his father, as his brother had for many years. Sons in those days didn’t just sit around idly living off their father’s wealth. They worked in their father’s business. The whole family worked.
The clear conclusion from all of the stories you mention is that whether a person does a lot of work or a little work, and whether a person works for a long time or a short time, it is necessary to work in order to inherit the kingdom. See Paul’s own words about idleness in 2 Thessalonians 3:6–13.
To answer your question, then, people who truly accept Jesus, and do not have that mere figment called “faith alone,” will spend whatever time they have left serving the Lord by serving their neighbor. This will continue in the afterlife.
Meanwhile, people who have faith alone without any intention and action in doing good works for the neighbor will be rejected from heaven no matter how much they have “accepted Jesus,” because they have not accepted Jesus at all. They have given mere lip service, while continuing to live a selfish and sinful life.
In short, in the afterlife, each person will fare well or badly, and will go to heaven or hell, based on whether he or she has not only had faith in the Lord, but has acted upon that faith. This is the plain teaching of the Bible. See Matthew 25:31–46.
Hi Ben,
Oh, and about the thief in the cross, please see:
Are We Saved in an Instant? How was the Thief on the Cross Saved?
This is yet another Bible passage that Protestants badly misunderstand because Luther’s false doctrine has blinded their eyes and clouded their minds.
“The only problem with this is that the Bible doesn’t say any of it.”
Can you show me, in the Bible, where it mentions dinosaurs? How about meteor showers? Atom? Other planets?
I would think that, even though the Bible does not speak of scripture alone, you wouldn’t still believe in that one. Or do you look to the Book of Mormon for other spiritual values.
Christ does state that it is through him to be with God. And was His sacrifice that took our away. And you don’t think it’s through Christ alone?
What about for God’s glory alone?
It’s not just one saying but all five.
Hi David,
“Alone” is not in the Bible, except to reject it. Protestants say “scripture alone,” but then make up doctrines that aren’t in the Bible and set them up as the foundation stones of their church.
Hi Lee,
Glad you’ve committed the time for the back and forth we’ve had. You’re right, we will be judged by our own works and that living by the commands of Jesus is what will confirm our election. It is by what we -do- that will give us a rich welcome into eternity with Jesus.
This is where my doctrine becomes a struggle for me. I have read through the Bible and I don’t believe I’ve read mistakenly that salvation comes not through works, but that it can only come through the belief in Jesus through the hearing of the preaching of the Gospel, and by the power of the drawing or ‘wooing’ of the Holy Spirit when the message is preached. This was my personal experience, and scripture corroborates this as a rescue from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13). Before, I dabbled in various religious ideas and practices, but I refused to believe that Christianity was right and that God really Is. For me, the message was preached, and I felt the Holy Spirit’s conviction as a literal heart-pounding moment of God’s presence upon me for whether I would accept the message and become a Christian, and when I was saved, it was a black and white conversion experience of my eyes being opened to the existence of God and the presence of Jesus with me, along with a changed heart. This is where being ‘born again’ comes from the power of the Spirit.
Acts 26:18: “[I, Jesus, am sending you, Paul, to the gentiles] to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
I totally agree that to believe includes ‘accepting’ wholeheartedly Jesus as Who He really is. Right before I felt God’s presence before my conversion moment, I told God that I would just maybe start reading my Bible (as my ‘well, maybe I guess I’ll start thinking about becoming a Christian because of all this’). Then I was flooded with a very powerful, warm tingly presence of His love that I had never felt before, brought me to tears, and he told me to tell my cousin I wanted to become a Christian. God indeed wants us to accept Him entirely, all in. I believe that’s the difference between Christians and anyone else that is kind-hearted and loving and yet holds Jesus at a distance internally. A Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, does not believe Jesus is who a Christian believes He is. And I believe that’s the difference between whether the Holy Spirit takes up residence in someone or not. Which I believe is what makes someone saved or not.
Romans 10:1-4: “Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
Jews may have been and even still are zealous for God. There are even efforts in the works to build a third temple and reinstate temple worship (which eschatology shows will usher in the antichrist). But this zeal is not based on knowledge, and thus they are not saved yet. Once they recognize that He indeed is the Messiah, they will be saved.
Romans 10:5: “Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The ‘word is near to us’ not because the law is available to us and able to be accomplished by our own power and our salvation won in our own merit, but the Bible says the proper interpretation of that verse is related to the message of faith: that if we simply proclaim Jesus as Lord and believe (trust, bank on) that His resurrection is ‘living proof’ of all that He said and did, we are saved.
But only those who hear this message.
Romans 10:14 “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Like living in The Matrix, you aren’t ‘saved’ until you take the red tracer pill and they find and wake up your sleeping body, and ‘unplug you’ and rip you out of the grasp of the world of darkness and deliver you into the world of the Real. (lol). You can’t be saved unless you are able to call on Jesus. Calling on him is a definite repentance moment that gets one on the ‘right path,’ but walking that right path (moral behavior) is not empowered by the law, it’s empowered by the fact that it’s the right path, that it’s real, and that you’ve been rescued to it. Rescued not of your own, because you were unable.
This doctrine of sin seems to be another point of contention between our views, where I think all have sinned, all are in need of rescuing, and that a sinful nature exists within people everywhere, and that outside the power of the Spirit who comes through faith in Jesus Christ as the specific object of one’s faith, everyone is hopelessly bound to sin (at whatever severity, whether coveting, murdering, being angry, committing adultery, lusting, lying, not honoring our parents, not keeping the sabbath, using God’s name in vain, not doing the right we know we ought to do, etc), and thus all are bound for hell regardless of one’s level of sinfulness not because of a lack of justice on God’s part, but because sin is a deception and a disease that requires something more powerful than our own efforts to overcome. Whereas you seem to view that sin can be avoided altogether by human effort, and that it doesn’t matter that people are all under the power of sin as long as they repent of it, and are not in actual need of calling on Jesus for forgiveness of their sin through faith in His death and resurrection as long as they try to overcome it themselves. Or, even if they outright deny that Jesus is the Christ or believe in and serve another god through whatever myriad of religious ritual or philosophy, as long as they act out some acceptable standard of morality that generally fits within a Biblical definition of goodness–they are still ‘saved’. Is this an accurate understanding of your view?
Again, this is the main focal point for where I struggle. I know of many good people who do good things. All I can say is that I want everyone to experience God like I have, and that has been specifically through belief in, asking, talking to, relying on Jesus, and everything else I studied/thought/practiced/did was all worthless, incomparable to having a real relationship with God, which I have in Christ.
Know that I do process your responses. I’m glad that you likewise take the time to process through the line of thinking I offer.
Blessings,
– Ben
Hi Ben,
I am a Christian. I have been a Christian all my life. It was never necessary for me to have that lightning-bolt conversion experience, as wonderful as it would have been, because I was never unconverted. What happened instead is that when I was about seventeen years old I realized that I could either accept or reject the Christian faith in which I had been raised; that once I made that choice I would convince myself of whatever I had chosen; and that my life would follow an entirely different trajectory depending upon which choice I made.
For me, this was a very clear moment of decision. And I decided to accept and embrace my Christian faith. I made this decision not because the faith in which I had been raised was more sensible than anything else—although it was more sensible than anything else—but because I saw that believing and practicing this faith would lead to more good both in my own life and in the world. It would lead to more comfort, to more understanding, to more joy, to more peace, to more love than anything else I had encountered, religious or secular.
Since the day I made that decision, I have never looked back. And to this day, though I have read quite widely (if not especially deeply) in science, philosophy, and religion, I have still not found anything better, truer, and more soul-satisfying.
As a Christian, I believe in and worship Jesus Christ. I do not believe in and worship Jesus according to the fables of Nicene Christianity, as the human side (as compared to the divine side) of some supposed second Person of the Trinity, so that Jesus is approximately one-sixth of God. That is not who Jesus is. Jesus is “God With Us” (Matthew 1:23). I believe in and worship Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). For me, there is no distinction between Jesus and God. I worship Jesus because Jesus is God. That is how Christian I am. I am not a one-sixth Christian, but a full Christian. When I pray, I pray to the Lord God Jesus Christ, the one God of the universe, who has now come to us in person, as told in the Gospels.
Because of this, I also know and understand the Lord’s words that “There is no god besides me” (Deuteronomy 32:39). Anyone, of any religion, who is worshiping God is worshiping Jesus whether they realize or not, because there is no other God to worship. Either that or they are worshiping false and worldly idols, which are not God at all.
I am well aware that Jews and Muslims, especially, would find it highly repugnant to realize that when they pray to God they are actually praying to Jesus Christ. And the Lord allows them to have their own beliefs so as not to turn them away from religion altogether. They are not ready for Christianity—and in any case, Christianity as it exists today has repelled them by its belief in three gods. But Jews, Muslims, and people of every other religion are, in fact, praying to Jesus. And when they receive a response from God, it is Jesus responding to them because there is no other God to respond to them. Jesus is the one Lord and God of the universe.
Paul was also aware of this when he said, in Romans 2:1–16, that Jews, “Greeks,” and Gentiles alike will be judged for distress or glory, according to their own conscience, by God through Jesus Christ. In less metaphorical terms, Jesus Christ is the one who judges people of all religions based on whether they have not merely believed in God (“faith alone”), but have lived according to the commandment of God to love their neighbor as themselves. Once again, please read Matthew 25:31–46, where Jesus himself teaches this plainly. Notice that all the nations (verse 32), not only the Christian nations, will be gathered before him for this judgment based on whether they have or have not loved and served their neighbor according to Jesus’ word.
The struggle that you feel about the many good people you know who do many good things, but are not Christian, is based on the lack of Christianity in the existing Christian Church. It is based on Nicene Christianity not seeing Jesus Christ as their Lord and their God, but (let’s be honest!) as a junior partner in the mini pantheon of gods that Nicene Christians believe in and worship. If they believed that Jesus is God with us, and believed what Paul taught in Romans 2:1–16 and what Jesus taught in Matthew 25:31–46, good-hearted Christians—among whom I believe you are, or it would not be a struggle for you—would not have to face this struggle. They would realize that indeed, God shows no partiality (Romans 2:11) when it comes to Jews (among whose number the very earliest Christians believed themselves to be), “Greeks” (pagan polytheists), and Gentiles (non-Jews or non-Christians).
Put plainly, the traditional “Christian” belief that only people who literally, intellectually believe in Jesus are saved is false, as the Bible itself teaches us. The biblical reality is that anyone who believes in God, worships God, and lives by God’s commandments—especially the two Great Commandments—believes in Jesus, because there is no other God to believe in. Whether or not they realize they are believing in Jesus is a different question. See: “Is Jesus Christ the Only Way to Heaven?”
Then why be Christian?
What Christians have that people of other religions do not is a full understanding of who the God is that we worship—at least, as much as we finite humans, with our finite minds, can conceive of the infinite nature of God. What Christians have that other religions do not is the knowledge that God is fully human (according to Genesis 1:26–27, we are human because God is human) and is personally present with us in human form—the one we call Jesus Christ. No other religion has this knowledge of the human nature and presence of God with the scope and intensity that Christianity does.
Hinduism, which is a very ancient religion, does have the potential for this with its concept of the periodic avatars of God, such as Krishna. But it is a diffuse and divided belief because these incarnations of God come periodically and repeatedly, so that there is no one Divine Human Being whom its adherents can turn to, and in so doing have a direct and personal relationship with the one God of the universe. They worship various gods and various avatars of God, not realizing that these different gods were originally representations of different aspects or virtues of the one God of the universe. Some of the Hindu mystics are aware of this even today, but they still do not have the focused and powerful human presence of God that Christians can have because we know that Jesus Christ is God with us—“the only Son of God,” to use the New Testament metaphor.
Christianity is not better than other religions because only Christians can be saved. The Bible never teaches this. And if you are willing to leave behind the Nicene and Lutheran idols that you are currently worshiping, I would be happy to go through more Bible passages with you to show you exactly how this is true.
The truth you would then know and understand would set you free from the struggles you are currently experiencing due to your compassionate heart fighting with your intellectual mind over the ultimate fate of good non-Christians. It is heart-breaking for people of good heart to believe that many good and lovely people will spend eternity burning in hell just because they never accepted Jesus and became Christians during their earthly lifetime. Many people are abandoning Christianity altogether because of this false, non-Christian belief that is put forward as “Christian” by the “Christian” churches of today.
No, Christianity is God’s leading religion on earth because it has the deepest and truest understanding of who God is, and its adherents can therefore have the closest relationship with God that is possible in any religion on earth.
Or at least, this could be the case if today’s Christianity were actually Christian. Fortunately, many ordinary Christians do not get all tangled up in the unbiblical and irrational doctrines of their churches, but simply pray to Jesus and live according to Jesus’ commandments. Because of this, they will be saved, regardless of the false doctrines that their preachers preach at them every Sunday. Even though the churches they attend are not Christian, and do not believe that Jesus Christ is the one God of the universe, these simple, good Christians will be saved by God through Jesus Christ, to use Paul’s metaphorical language, just as all Jews, “Greeks,” and Gentiles who live good lives according to their conscience are saved by God through Jesus Christ.
(I would also be happy to dig deeper into the meaning of what Paul is saying here, so that you do not have to think of him as talking about two different gods, according to Nicene Christian belief.)
All the other issues you raise also have good, biblical answers. No one is saved by their own effort or merit. No one buys their way into heaven. No one is anything at all, nor can anyone do anything at all, without Jesus, as he himself says in John 15:4–5. This includes all people, not just Christians. Everything we have, everything we do, and everything we are comes from God dwelling within us. We could not even repent from sin if Jesus did not give us from within the power to do so. And when we consciously call upon the name of Jesus, we gain the most concentrated power available to repent from our sins and live a good life instead.
That’s because Jesus Christ is God. Jesus is the same God who said:
I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I am the one who declared and saved and proclaimed, not some strange god among you; you are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God. (Isaiah 43:11–12)And:
I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:5–6)And:
Declare and present your case; take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is no one besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:21–22)Indeed, we are told:
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)The child who has been born for us is not only the Wonderful Counselor and the Prince of Peace, but is indeed the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father.
If only you are able and willing to drop the Nicene and Lutheran idols that you have been worshiping, this Mighty God and Everlasting Father could be, for you, the one who struck you on your road to Damascus, and called you to a new life. Then you would no longer have to struggle with the false doctrines that cause your heart to pine in sorrow for those who do not have the wonderful and deep Christian faith that you do. You would know the truth, and the truth would set you free.
And the truth is that Jesus Christ is the Lord and God not only of the Christians, but of all the earth. Anything less than this, and Jesus would be a mere god among the many gods of the earth, not the one and only God of the universe. See:
Is it Right to Call Jesus “Father”?
This article is excellent, faith without works is dead; but many people don’t know what faith means. Also we Catholics also say that one is not saved by scripture alone which means Bible. There is a difference between Bible and holy revealed writings or holy writ ,in Greek hagios graffi which is all over the books of said Bible but you wont find the word “Bible” anywhere in any book of said Bible which means library. Holy writ is the Tanack (law and the prophets), the psalms which prophesy the coming of Jeshua(Jesus), the Gospels (the Loggia or sayings of Jesus and His deeds especially the great saving sacrifice on the cross) and of course the book of Revelation which is self explanatory, although Luther reluctantly included it in his Lutheran Bible.
Faith is to trust in the promises of God and the greatest promise is the sacrifice and resurrection of Jeshua our Immanuel (God with us) and likewise our similar maturity to glory.. When we confess our shortcomings and receive communion we grow in Christ’s likeness every day if we do good works, if for no other reason but penance for our shortcomings regarding our neighbor. Luther still believed in the Eucharist (holy communion), without which grace is meaningless.
Finally I was baptized as an infant in the Methodist Episcopal faith but I never understood justification by grace through faith even when I studied it in University.. In some circles it is a psychologically pernicious doctrine in which one is born unworthy and most prove they are the elect of God by being a slave to Massa Jesus because He bought your tawdry soul, bad theology and the fruit of racism. One can never be sure of their liberation and so live in spiritual uncertainty under this doctrine. Beloved no principality or power can separate us from the love of God through the ever giving crucified one, Christ Jesus. The Virgin Mother points to Her Son: LISTEN TO HIM and have peace in His Name. SHALOM AND SALAAM.
Hi John,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your kind words. Though I don’t agree with Catholics on many things, on this point I do. Faith without works is dead. We are saved by works, and not by faith alone. This is the plain teaching of the Bible, which Protestants have rejected.
Good morning, Lee!
Small matter, I did start getting the notifications now at my email address, but when I go to reply it takes me back to the last post in 2017 and not up to where we are now. I think that this might be a glitch in the program.
Thank you for your time.
P.S. You have my permission to give anyone my email that may wish to correspond with me. Even if I never go to works plus Faith, I always want to hear more doctrine that will help me in my walk with Christ.
Lee doesn’t allow personal contact info. See his comments policy. He will probably respond with the link.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
I already did post the link for David earlier in this thread, so he is aware. But thanks anyway.
Hi David,
Since this is site is hosted on wordpress.com, I don’t have any control over the software or the email notification system. Some years ago I attempted to migrate the blog away from wordpress.com so that I could have more flexibility and control over how the website works. Unfortunately, the migration was a disaster, even though I went with one of the hosting companies that WordPress itself recommends. Whether I like it or not, unless I want to start an entirely new blog and leave this one behind, I’m stuck with whatever the people at WordPress code and implement.
Good evening, Lee.
Couple of questions:
What have you read of Luther’s to discern that he is wrong about Christianity?
Also, I see that you said “Faith alone” not “faith” alone. Why?
Hi David,
It is not necessary to read Luther’s writings to know that justification by faith alone is his signature doctrine. This is the doctrine that is adhered to and defended in all the Protestant churches that follow Luther’s teachings. Calvin adopted this doctrine from Luther, so that Reformed (Calvinist) Protestants also adhere to and defend this doctrine. It is the key doctrinal point by which Protestants distinguish themselves from the other branches and sects of Christianity.
I say “faith alone” because that is the subject of the article. And as pointed out in the article, the Bible never talks about “faith alone” except in James 2:24, where it specifically rejects faith alone.
And this is where you have been misguided. You have ostracized Luther based on a saying that you have said in the wrong way and you have never bothered to research what he actually said or meant.
There is a huge difference between “Faith alone” and “Faith” alone. Not only that but Luther was quite adamant about doing good works. Had you read this, your statements might have changed quite a bit and you would have had more understanding.
You’ve also castrated the whole Lutheran doctrine based on two words that you never did any research about.
Think about this way; you’re teaching your followers in English and not Latin, right? Luther. You’re not teaching about purgatory or selling indulgences, right? Luther. You’re not forced to teach Catholic doctrine on fear on death for teaching differently right? Luther.
When you look at what he did, it’s amazing that he wasn’t assassinated. He was targeted and had a price on his head. But God kept him alive for a reason.
Even the Bible you are using is because of Luther. He used three bibles when translating it into German. Latin, Greek, Hebrew. This is not some dumbass who just decided to promulgate religious theory.
And Martin Luther states “So the Christian who lives in confidence toward God knows what things he should do, and does all gladly and freely, not with a view to accumulating merit and good works, but because it is his great joy to please God and to serve him without thought of reward, contented if he but do God’s will.”
Hi David,
I haven’t “ostracized Luther.” Ostracized him from what?
I have said that Luther was wrong about justification by faith alone, and that Protestants have clung doggedly and even fanatically to that wrong doctrine ever since.
Yes, Luther did some good things, including doing away with the most corrupt practices of the Catholic Church, and giving the Bible back to the people. The latter, I think, is why God did preserve Luther’s life despite his doctrinal error. For Christianity to continue as Christianity at all, the Bible must be in the hands of the people so that they can read it and learn what to believe and how to live from the Lord’s own mouth.
But doctrinally, when Luther invented the doctrine of justification by faith alone, he only followed in the footsteps of the increasingly doctrinally false Catholic Church, taking their five-hundred-year-old satisfaction theory of atonement (which is not biblical) and making it even more false and fallacious.
I am well aware that Luther said Christians should do good works. I am specifically saying that he was wrong that good works have nothing to do with salvation, whereas faith does. This is contrary to the Bible, and Luther knew it. That’s why he did indeed make an effort to remove four books from the New Testament, and failing that, demoted them to the end of his German Bible.
But he needed some doctrinal point on which to break from the Roman Catholic Church so that his followers could never go back. His newly invented doctrine of justification by faith alone did that admirably. Indeed, it has served as the distinguishing and dividing line for Protestants from Catholicism ever since.
However, that new doctrine of his remains unbiblical and false, as the above article shows. No amount of heroism on Luther’s part overcomes that falsity. No matter how heroically a man fights for a falsity, that falsity is still false.
You ostracized him/them is due to you calling them idolaters. No one in the church worships Luther over Christ. And as much as you’d like to believe that the doctrine he proposed is unbiblical, it is based on the Bible, three original versions he had to translate from. It’s not wrong nor anti-biblical. It’s his interpretation.
When I posted earlier that Jesus said “believed in me and you will have everlasting life.” That is just faith. Nothing else. Am I reading that wrong. Did He not say that? Did He mean something else? Maybe John was wrong. Is Jesus asking for us to believe and do good works?
We are meant to work good things. But that is from God for God. If it from God, then it doesn’t count toward salvation. Because those works would be in atonement. If that is true, we don’t grace.
Your view on Matthew 25:31-46 is a bit, biased in that when you brought it up in one of your other columns, you left out little details to your followers.
1. He called all people BUT separated them by faith and no faith.
2. The people had no idea that they had done any good works whatsoever.
You, yourself, did say that works come from God. This and John is why we know they were separated by those with faith and those without. Also, that these others would have mentioned any good works they had done. But since they didn’t have faith, it didn’t matter.
Works without faith are dead.
Now for someone who said that by “scripture” alone is not in the Bible, you certainly go by scripture alone in your defense. Would you say that Luther was right about that?
One question to you, does your Bible contain the books that are in the Apocrypha? If no, why not?
Hi David,
I never said Protestants worship Luther. I said that they worship Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. And they do worship that doctrine over the words of Christ, because if Christ said anything in the Gospels that disagrees with Luther’s doctrine, Protestants will consider Christ’s own words to be part of the Old Covenant, and therefore not applicable to Christians.
And no, that doctrine is not stated anywhere in the Bible. It is, however, explicitly rejected in the Bible.
You can’t just make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. The Bible says definite things. And it never says that we are saved or justified by faith alone. But it does say that we are not justified by faith alone.
However, precisely because Protestants do worship Luther’s doctrines, they reject what the Bible says about it, and still accept that doctrine. That’s why I say that Protestants dance around the golden calf of justification by faith alone. They reject the Word of God in favor of a human doctrine just as the Israelites danced around the golden calf instead of listening to God’s words from Mt. Sinai.
Your statement that God “separated them by faith and no faith” in Matthew 25:31–46 just proves my point that Protestants cannot read the Bible. They cannot read the Bible because “faith alone” is plastered over their eyes, so no matter what they read in the Bible, all they see is faith alone.
Matthew 25:31–46 does not leave us in any doubt as to how God separated the people. Read it for yourself. The word “faith” does not occur in the entire story, nor does the word “belief,” nor any other word anything like “faith” or “belief.” Instead, it says that the sheep were the ones who did good deeds for the least of the Lord’s brothers (i.e., human beings in need). The goats were the ones who did not do good deeds for people in need.
To take that story and say that no, that’s not what it means, but actually God separated them by faith, is to simply ignore and reject the plain words of the Bible.
If you are willing to reject and ignore the Lord’s own plain words in favor of a human doctrine invented by a man named Martin Luther 1,500 years after the Gospels were written, then you are not a Christian. You may be a good person, but you are not a Christian, because you have rejected the teaching of Jesus Christ, and have replaced it with human doctrines and traditions.
You have done this, not because you worship Luther, but because you worship Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. That is the idol that you and all other doctrinal Protestants worship.
Hi David,
You ask:
No, we do not consider the Apocrypha to be part of the Word of God. We consider the books of the Word of God to be the books that have a continuous spiritual meaning. Our canon of scripture is smaller than any of the other canons of scripture, including the Protestant canon, which is the smallest canon in the rest of Christianity.
For a fuller explanation, please see:
Why Isn’t Paul in Swedenborg’s Canon?
Practically speaking, however, we commonly use the Protestant canon. It is the smallest set of books that are accepted by all traditional Christians as part of the Word of God. That way we don’t have to get into wrangles about whether or not a book we’re quoting from is inspired.
Also practically speaking, all of the books of the Protestant canon support our key doctrines, whereas they do not support the key doctrines of Protestants and Catholics. The key doctrines of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christianity were developed by human beings and human councils centuries after the Bible was written, and are therefore not stated anywhere in the Bible. See:
“Christian Beliefs” that the Bible Doesn’t Teach
Our key doctrines are mostly just a distillation of what the Bible says, most of them in the Bible’s own words, though there is some adaptation to present them in subsequent Christian terminology—such as using the word “Trinity,” which is not in the Bible. See:
Christian Beliefs that the Bible Does Teach
When you accused them of idolatry you meant that they worship him.
I don’t worship doctrine, I worship Christ Jesus..
True, you can’t make the Bible say what you wanted to. But the person who taught you has. And has passed that on to you.
Ah, and in Mathew it does not say he separated them by those that did works either. He separated the sheep from the goats. All throughout the Bible, sheep are referred to being the followers of Christ. And for the good deeds, they didn’t know that they had done them. They knew that they were the faithful. The good works did not come from them. They didn’t even know they did them. That’s how we know.
Then to actually think that the lamb of God is Jesus is to interpret it your own way. The Bible specifically says “lamb”.
So, did he separate people or sheep from goats?
Again, you ignore what Jesus said in John. Believe = faith, my friend. You can have good works but that won’t get you into Heaven. You can have faith and you will be saved but you will be judged on the works that you do or don’t do.
Hi David,
Obviously, I am using the word “worship” metaphorically, not literally. I am well aware that Protestants don’t literally get down on their knees and literally offer prayers to Luther’s dogma.
But they do worship it.
They give it first place in their thinking, in their reading of the Bible, and even in their reading of Christ’s own words, as this comment of yours demonstrates. You are unable to simply accept what Jesus Christ himself says in Matthew 25:31–46. Because you worship Luther’s dogma, you must bend Jesus’ words to support that dogma, even though there is not one word about faith in his entire description of the Judgment under the metaphor of the sheep and the goats.
That is because you worship justification by faith alone as an idol. Maintaining loyalty to that doctrine is more important to you than reading Jesus’ own words, and paying attention to what Jesus himself says.
Of course Jesus speaks in metaphors, as he usually does, speaking of good vs. evil people using the metaphor of sheep and goats. That is a no-brainer. Sheep do not give people food and drink, clothe people, invite people in, and visit people in prison. Obviously he is talking about people, not sheep. Let’s not be lame-brained about this.
And obviously doing these things are good works. If they aren’t, then “good works” has no meaning at all. Once again, let’s not be lame-brained.
The story plainly says that the sheep were the ones who did good deeds for people, and the goats were the ones who did not do good deeds for people. I would not want to be on a debate team assigned to argue that this is not about good works vs. lack of good works.
The story is plain, and the meaning is plain. The ones who do good works will go to eternal life, whereas the ones who do not will go to eternal punishment. That is the plain, clear, obvious meaning of the Bible’s own words—of Jesus Christ’s own words in the Bible.
You can try to argue that no, he really meant faith. And if you do so, it only proves my point that you worship Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, placing it even above Jesus Christ’s own words in authority and importance.
That is why people who hold to Luther’s doctrine are not Christians. And no, that doesn’t mean they’re going to hell. Just that they’re not Christians, because they follow Luther rather than Christ.