Why is belief,considered by some, a "work" before regeneration?
Eph 2:8....And that not of yourselves - That is, salvation does not proceed from yourselves. The word rendered "that" - τοῦτο touto - is in the neuter gender, and the word "faith" - πίστις pistis - is in the feminine. The word "that," therefore, does not refer particularly to faith, as being the gift of God, but to "the salvation by grace" of which he had been speaking.
Where in the bible does it spell out for us that belief is a work?
I believe that the kingdom of darkness is behind this myth that we as creatures cannot believe. Satan wants absolutely no creature in heaven and is trying to blind Christians from teaching Free believable and Available Grace to the lost.
When Christ is the object our belief and faith it has no human merit what so ever.
Satan is trying to convince us that belief is a work, and he will try to convince us that our belief is the object of our faith therefore its a "work".
With this scheme Satan antagonizes both Grace for the unbeliever and true knowledge for the believer.
1 Tim 2:4 who desires ALL people to be saved(GRACE) and to come to the knowledge of the Truth. That is the will of our Father!
Satan.....who desires NO people to be saved(convince them they cant believe for Gods Grace) and to blind ALL from the knowledge of the truth so Gods free and available Grace wont be taught to the lost.
(1) In John 6:27-28 Jesus Himself calls belief a work. Those people asked Jesus "
What shall we do, that we .... work the works of God?" Jesus did
NOT tell them to do no works lest they be trying to earn salvation but Jesus told them
Ye believe,...YOU do this work of believing. In this context Jesus clearly, plainly said to
work for the meat that endures unto everlasting life. Therefore Jesus has settled the issue that works are necessary to obtain everlasting life, yet people will still argue against it.
So belief is a work for it must contain obedience to God's will else it is dead without those works. James tells us the devils believe and tremble yet their belief will not save them for it does not contain obedient works therefore the devils have a
dead belief only. So there is a world of difference between a living, viable, saving biblical
belief and a dead
belief only, meaning no one can just assume the word "only" appears behind the world "believe" in bible verses. No one can add to or take from God's word else they pervert God's word and no longer have God's word but their own opinions as Martin Luther had to add the word 'alone' in his German translation to get a verse to teach 'faith alone' when it did not.
(2) "believe" is sometimes used in the NT as a synecdoche where a part (belief) stands for the whole (belief, repentance, confession and baptism).
Various verses as Lk 13:3,5; Rom 10:9,10 and Mk 16:16 show that repentance, confession and baptism are just as necessary to salvation as belief. So when the bible says one believed it means he believed, repented, confessed and was baptized. Comparing Acts 2:41 with Acts 2:44 those who gladly received Peter's words were baptized. Those that refused Peter's words refused to be batized. So who were the ones in verse 44 that are said to have "believed"? The ones in v41 who accepted Peter's words and were baptized. So "believed" in v44 includes being baptized. The same is true in 1 Pet 3:21 where Peter said "
baptism doeth also now save us". Peter did not say baptism
only saves for it does not just as belief
only does not save. Baptism here is also used as a synecdoche where baptism in 1 Pet 3:21 includes having believed, repented and confessed with the mouth. Acts 16:34 speaks of the jailer
"having believed in God". The participle phrase
'having believed' inlcudes all the jailer had done which includes his repentance (washing their stripes) and being baptized. That is why verse 34 does
NOT say "having believed
only in God" for the jailer did NOT
believe only. So we have 'believed' in verse 34 being used as a synecdoche where the jailer believed, repented confessed and was baptized.
(3)
Eph 2:8-9
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Rom 4:4-5 "
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
(a) no one can take these two verses and isolate them from the rest of the bible and wrongly declare "no works" are needed to be saved. Considering other remote contexts as Rom 6:16-18 Paul said "
obedience unto righteousness" and spoke on how the Romans had "
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." To try and force belief only into these two verses creates contradictions with Rom 6:16-18 and other verses as in Rom 10:1-18 where Paul put obedient works
BEFORE salvation.
(b) it also has to be understood that the bible speaks of many different types of works; works of God, works of Satan, works of the flesh, works of unrighteousness, works of obedience, works of merit etc, etc. So all works are not alike. From the contexts of the two above verses the works Paul speaks of are works of merit. Paul is not excluding all types of works as some
assume. If Paul was excluding all types of works then he is excluding the work of believing creating a major contradiction.
Furthermore, in times past in my dealings with those who think that "faith only' saves, they have argued that man does not have to do any work at all to be saved but that God does all the work in saving man. If that was the case
and Eph 2:8-9 and Rom 4:4-5 eliminates
ALL WORKS whereby
NO WORK is necessary to be saved, then that would eliminate any work God supposedly does to save man.
