Is believing/faith a work ?

[Hopeful]

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." James 5:16

That isn't the blood of Christ at work.
How often will a man crucify the Lord for ongoing sins?
It is written..."For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Further sin shows the initial repentance from sin was a lie to God.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

If you believe that God saved you because you believed, thats works, period

Call it a work if you want. The point is it's not among the works that can not justify. That's the point here that evades you for some reason. The works gospel is not defined by 'any and all things you can possibly do'. It just isn't!

 

[Hopeful]

How does that work? One would have to sin for that to happen.

Exactly.
False repentance from sin gains nothing.

Sin that you say true believers never ever commit because they are incapable of committing sin.
Please explain.

It isn't true believers that keep lying to God about their "turn from" sin.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

That isn't the blood of Christ at work.
How often will a man crucify the Lord for ongoing sins?

Everybody knows there is only one sacrifice of Jesus. It's always there on the altar in heaven making intercession for believers. It is not being sacrificed and re-sacrificed over and over. So when the believer sins (Galatians 5:17) the blood of Christ is there to intercede on his behalf keeping him perfectly guilt free in the eyes of God forever...that is as long as he keeps believing.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Exactly.
False repentance from sin gains nothing.

Oh, so your statement was false...there is no revocable reward for faith. Why did you agree there was?

 

[Hopeful]

You'll have to explain how John 5:24 means present tense hearing and believing meant present tense salvation and eternal life for the Jews of Jesus day but not for believers today.

There is more to Christianity than there was to Law keeping.
OT men could TRY to keep the Law as best they could, including sacrifices for sin, and be saved.
NT men must, and have been enabled to, walk as Jesus walked.
Perfectly !
God requires obedience now, and no amount of sacrifices and burnt offerings for sins will matter in the end.

 

[Hopeful]

If you believe that God saved you because you believed, thats works, period

Thanks be to God for giving us that choice to make !

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Further sin shows the initial repentance from sin was a lie to God.

2 Peter 1:8.

You have to stop ignoring the scriptures that makes your sinless perfection doctrine impossible to be true. You are purposely ignoring plain scripture.

 

[brightfame52]

I know this is an old thread but you are incorrect here on so many levels. I do understand why because I cut my spiritual teeth on Calvinism and represented it and argued it for nearly a decade. And then, with God's help I re-read the word in its entirety, void of the denominational theology by which I had been convinced, and plainly and simply read the word for what it says (not what others told me it means).

So first, Faith (Pistis) is the root of and the reason why Hebrew thinkers chose pisteuo and why they spend so much time explaining THEIR usage. Now though there are types of works and we CANNOT earn or deserve salvation (for it is solely by grace). Faith (pistis) as the Bible concept reveals is NOT a work (for just Paul see Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 3:28, 4:2-5; Galatians 3:10-11; Philippians 3:9).

Secondly, "faith" is not the gift mentioned in Ephesians 2:8-9, it is Salvation. For too many Greek and Christian Scholars have proved this so many times it is unspeakable that people still eisegete this passage in this way.

Thirdly, true depravity doctrine in the Bible does not mean absolute incapability for if it did than 100s of passages where God commands people to turn or repent, or audibly speaks to some and directs them (like Moses or Jeremiah) would be fruitless, meaningless, dribble or else a cruel joke. God by this error becomes a being who created people like say Hitler to actually do the specific things He commands men NOT to do, thus making God the author of Sin (and hence sickness and death). But God says this is of the Devil and his minions. Is God then lying to us? Most certainly NOT.

As the Bible teaches faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word whether that is by the Spirit, or audibly by God or a Preacher or Teacher, or by hearing a Testimony or the Gospel and being moved. But Mankind is REQUIRED to respond and can INITIALLY respond. Here are some examples.

John 1:12 tells us that as many as accepted HIM to them was given the right or power to BECOME the children of God. Not those who ARE the children of God will accept Him.

Acts 2:38 Peter tells us Repent and be baptized (repent means we change OUR mind) into the remission of your sins and you SHALL RECIEVE the gist of the Holy Spirit. Not thos who already have the Spirit must repent and be baptized.

Finally (and there are so many more even Ephesians 1:13) look at6 what JESUS actually says in Revelations 3:20. He says clearly and plainly that when He knocks, whoever opens the door will be whom He comes in and eats with. NOT those to whom He is already with will open.

So just like with Cain, before he actually does the horrible deed, God comes and speaks audibly with him and offers Cain grace (if you go and do it right will also not go well with thee?) and then from love warns him by saying if he does not heed then Sin awaits to come in and control him.

So by grace, God initiates or inspires or nudges, but then in His sovereign will He determined that the human must initially respond (and are capable of doing so) and THEN He will fill them with the Spirit taking up residence within unto Salvation. Feel free to comment

If you condition salvation on anything you do, believe, repent, water baptism, accepting Christ, its works and is contrary to Grace Salvation and is condemned.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

If you condition salvation on anything you do, believe, repent, water baptism, accepting Christ, its works and is contrary to Grace Salvation and is condemned.

What must I do to be saved?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

He isn't talking about not rejecting fake faith.

That's right, and some have rejected it - 1 Timothy 1:19. The very thing you say a person with genuine saving faith can't do.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

The true Christians will heed those words, by the grace of God.

But he plainly said some did not heed - 1 Timothy 1:19.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I'm sorry we can't meet, but I suspect that after a week with me you would still not believe YOU could walk in the Spirit full time.

Friend, you have not been sinlessly perfect for 16 years since believing. I'm glad you are off drugs and alcohol, but there's a lot more to living for God in obedience than being off drugs and getting water baptized.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I haven't rejected it.
In its context with verse 16, it is apparent that those walking after the Sprit cannot do the works of the flesh.
And those walking after the flesh cannot do the works of the Spirit.
If we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.

You're being deceitful. It does not say, 'so that you do what you want'. It says 'so you do not do what you want'. Galatians 5:16-17.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

If I didn't have the faith that water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ would wash away my past sins, (Acts 2:38, 22:16), and give name a good conscience towards God, (1 Peter 3:21), I wouldn't have gotten baptized.

The faith that made you do that justified you all by itself. Just as Abraham's faith justified him all by itself in Genesis 15:6. You are directly contending with plain scripture...again. Virtually all of your doctrinal beliefs defy plain scripture. And you don't seem to be able to bring yourself to acknowlege that even though it's being spelled out for you.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

It is the works of the Law that don't show one is righteous.
Circumcision, dietary rules, tithing, feast keeping, etc. can't make on righteous.

Because 'works of the law' for justification is being contrasted with believing in God's promise of forgiveness of sin for justification we know Paul is talking about any and all works not being able to justify except of course the very 'work' of believing he is contrasting all work with.

Water doesn't make you righteous. Obedience doesn't make you righteous. Only having your sin removed by faith in God's forgiveness can make you righteous in God's sight. Forgiveness is the only way you can be made righteous in God's sight.

"For with your heart you believe and are justified" Romans 10:10

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Faith without obedience is dead.

Yes. But the obedience that accompanies faith is not what justifies you.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Exactly.
False repentance from sin gains nothing.

No, you said the reward of faith can be revoked - gained then lost.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

It isn't true believers that keep lying to God about their "turn from" sin.

It's not lying about repentance, lol. It's the child of God stumbling as they learn to walk in deeds commensurate with repentance - Acts 26:20.

It would be pure hell going to a church where everybody thinks they must be perfect right out of the baptismal fount. What a horrible existence.

 

[brother Paul]

If you condition salvation on anything you do, believe, repent, water baptism, accepting Christ, its works and is contrary to Grace Salvation and is condemned.

I clearly did NOT condition Salvation on any such thing. I clearly stated that Salvation is 100% God's doing. What I said was that IF Total Depravity means Absolute Incapability it is Un-Biblical. We are made in the image of God and can choose but since the fall none of us would choose rightly unto Salvation, However when God urges us, initiates, draws us if you will, we make an initial choice to move in His direction, heeding His call, or we do not. That is very different from the slant you paint me as. Even sinners and atheists can do good and make moral choices (though incapable of getting saved by such actions).

John Calvin was a brilliant theologian and of great value to us all, however, he took Augustine's treatise on Against Pelagius too far and fell into error. He should have (but perhaps it was not available to him) read Augustine's own refutation against this extreme (of which there are two) in his following treatise called On Grace and Free Will, which addresses the error that Calvin fell into.

Augustine, On Grace and Free Will
Chapter 1

“With reference to those persons who so preach and defend man's free will, as boldly to deny, and endeavor to do away with, the grace of God which calls us to Him (like Pelagius), and delivers us from our evil deserts, and by which we obtain the good deserts which lead to everlasting life: we have already said a good deal in discussion, and committed it to writing, so far as the Lord has vouchsafed to enable us.

But since there are SOME persons who so defend God's grace as to deny man's free will, or who suppose that free will is denied when grace is defended (like Calvinists), I have determined to write somewhat on this point…
(parentheses mine)

Chapter 2

Now He has revealed to us, through His Holy Scriptures, that there is in a man a free choice of will. But how He has revealed this I do not recount in human language, but in divine...the fact that God's precepts themselves would be of no use to a man unless he had free choice of will, so that by performing them he might obtain the promised rewards...

Chapter 3

There are, however, persons who attempt to find excuse for themselves even from God (believing they are elect thus anything they do, even the abominable, is the will of God). The Apostle James says to such: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. James 1:13-15 Solomon, too, in his book of Proverbs, has this answer for such...The folly of a man spoils his ways; but he blames God in his heart. Proverbs 19:3 And in the book of Ecclesiasticus we read: Say not, It is through the Lord that I fell away; for you ought not to do the things that He hates: nor say, He has caused me to err; for He has no need of the sinful man.(parentheses mine)

Chapter 4

What is the import of the fact that in so many passages God requires all His commandments to be kept and fulfilled? How does He make this requisition, if there is no free will?
...with numberless other passages of the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament. And what do they all show us but the free choice of the human will? So, again, in the evangelical and apostolic books of the New Testament...As you have a readiness to will, so also let there be a prompt performance; 2 Corinthians 8:11...Do not do this, and Do not do that, and wherever there is any requirement in the divine admonitions for the work of the will to do anything, or to refrain from doing anything, there is at once a sufficient proof of Free Will

No man, therefore, when he sins, can in his heart blame God for it, but every man must impute the fault to himself. Nor does it detract at all from a man's own will when he performs any act in accordance with God. Indeed, a work is then to be pronounced a good one when a person does it willingly; then, too, may the reward of a good work be hoped for from Him concerning whom it is written, He shall reward every man according to his works. Matthew 16:27”

And there is so much more here. So finally (at this juncture) when Calvin would say that God created the evil people to do exactly the evil they did, then He is saying they did His will.