No works? No Salvation!

[beksta777]

Richard, you're making a valid point: we are not saved by works, nor are works essential to our salvation. Let me re-explain what we're trying to say:

A person can only be saved by totally accepting Christ by faith. If that person intends to keep on living his or her own way, that person did not completely accept Christ. If the person really does accept Christ, God will work in that person, and the person will have a changed life, including good works. A person without the good works does not have a changed life, because God is not a part of that person's life, because the person did not really accept Christ as Savior.

That is exactly what I was trying to say LOL Praise God someone can express their thoughts better than I!

 

[RichardBurger]

Okay, let me try again. We often quote Ephesians 2:8-9 to lost people, but the passage is actually written to Christians. The Ephesian Christians were confused about good works; they could tell by looking around then that they were acting better than others. Paul explained to them:

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Paul explained that their salvation was a gift, not something they had earned. It was by faith, not their good works. None of them had the right to brag about being saved.

AFTER they got saved, Jesus made them a new creation, designed to walk in good works. If they did not walk in these good works, it was because Jesus had not made them into a new creation because they had never been saved. Good works are the inevitable RESULT of being born again. They are not the cause, and they have nothing at all to do with the new birth occurring.

Good works are not just a result of being born again...but a requirement of those who have tasted of the heavenly gift. To whom much is given... more is required. Are you familiar with the parable of the talents? What happened to the one who neglected to bear fruit?

So we are saved to go under a new law of works. Amazing

 

[Vince]

So we are saved to go under a new law of works. Amazing

Not really, but I see your point. A changed life is the INEVITABLE result of the new birth. The changed life does not save you, nor is the cause of your salvation. The changed life produces good works, because now God is working in you.

 

[Adullam]

So we are saved to go under a new law of works. Amazing

Not really, but I see your point. A changed life is the INEVITABLE result of the new birth. The changed life does not save you, nor is the cause of your salvation. The changed life produces good works, because now God is working in you.

Wait a minute! The changed life does save you.....that is the gift of God. We are given a new heart. We become empowered from on high to obey the commandments in the Spirit. We can only be justified through obedience. This is faith. Believe it!

Your logic goes like this. It's not the pacemaker that saves a man it's the fact that he has a doctor. But the doctor put the pacemaker in to save or prolong his life!!!! If we take out the pacemaker the man dies EVEN if he still has a doctor.

As Jesus said...it is not the gift that sanctifies the altar, it is the altar that sanctifies the gift. Unless we become the altar or temple of God...no gift can save us. We are saved by grace...not by an amnesty.

God doesn't arbitrarily forgive sin as so many have been indoctrinated into believing. There must be a change of heart. It is the change of heart that saves the man. So the new life IS what saves us! It produces good works unto salvation. Salvation is a process of overcoming sin, the devil and the world.

 

[Adullam]

Law will not change as God's Law will be used for the final judgment.

Everyone's works and words will be judged in court if he failed to accept the New Covenant.

With the New Covenant in place, Christians cannot be acussed in court of anything. That is, Satan cannot legally accuss any Christian of anything. Only the dead will be judged by Law in court.

Now what qualifies a Christian then? God judges hearts to know who is who. Not those saying "Oh Lord, Oh Lord" are all qualified Christians, only those who seek to live a holy life, those with the image of Christ are qualified Christians. You must be holy in order to see our Lord. And your holiness reflects your willingness to obey God's Law and Commandments.

Now when God judges hearts to know who is who, how humans roughly know who is who? By people's works. If you are a qualified Christian, you are going to live a life as your own testimony for being a qualified Christian, not just the "Oh Lord, Oh Lord" in your mouth.

Without work one can hardly make progress in faith, because you are going to lose reference for such a progress. Only through work one can tell if your faith is making the correct progress. Only with work that you know that your faith makes a difference from that of the devil.

At last but not the least, what Paul says are from our Lord. So they preach pretty much the same thing.

:amen You don't sound like you are from North America....your doctrine is good!

 

[Adullam]

My friend bodhitharta makes a valid point. Since Paul could not get total victory over sin in this life, how could the new birth have produced good works?

Paul had explained that "in my flesh there dwells no good thing." The flesh is evil and cannot be made good, although it can be controlled. After receiving Christ, we still have our flesh, and it is still evil. But now we also have the indwelling Holy Spirit, Christ abiding in us, a new heart, and other benefits of salvation.

The born-again Christian does not become sinlessly perfect, but the changes brought by salvation MUST produce good works.

LOL you agree with a Muslim that we cannot overcome sin. How powerless is Christ within you??? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul could and did overcome sin. You misunderstand him. He was trying to make spiritual things make sense to carnal man.

Paul also said....it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me....so which sin does Christ commit in a man?

 

[mondar]

No regeneration, no works.

 

[bodhitharta]

LOL you agree with a Muslim that we cannot overcome sin. How powerless is Christ within you??? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul could and did overcome sin. You misunderstand him. He was trying to make spiritual things make sense to carnal man.

Paul also said....it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me....so which sin does Christ commit in a man?

Adullam,

You must have misunderstood what I was saying I said you must overcome sin, I said Paul preached you cannot overcome sin.

I follow Jesus he said you must overcome the world as he did . Jesus said therefore bge perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect and that means to me to be as perfect in submission as God is in commanding submission. Obedience is Salvation

 

[Vince]

I forget which one of us said it, but someone said that it is the new birth that saves you. That's a good point. Most genuine Christians understand that they are saved by Jesus as an undeserved gift. But when you get into split-hair, pin-point precise explanations of salvation:

There is no such thing as being saved without being born again. Either way, the process gives you a new heart because it makes you into a new creation. Being saved/born again/recreated/transformed/adopted/washed in the Blood/baptized into the Body of Christ/and a few other things that I left out is what saved you.

 

[Adullam]

LOL you agree with a Muslim that we cannot overcome sin. How powerless is Christ within you??? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul could and did overcome sin. You misunderstand him. He was trying to make spiritual things make sense to carnal man.

Paul also said....it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me....so which sin does Christ commit in a man?

Adullam,

You must have misunderstood what I was saying I said you must overcome sin, I said Paul preached you cannot overcome sin.

I follow Jesus he said you must overcome the world as he did . Jesus said therefore bge perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect and that means to me to be as perfect in submission as God is in commanding submission. Obedience is Salvation

Agreed!....but we are called to overcome sin. All the biblical writers of the NT state this.

This is the power that is called grace within that one who is abiding in Christ, and Christ abiding in him.

If we abide in Him and He in us, then we cannot sin. We walk as He walked by the same obedience. We submit to God in Christ.

This then is the fundamental difference between true Christianity and true Islam. For the disciple it is Christ working in them that achieves the miraculous. Not everybody will do great visible miracles....as this is not the purpose of the grace that followers are given. But we are called to overcome sin in this miraculous capacity called Christ in us! He empowers us to obey so perfectly, that the works themselves have been pre-ordained before the founding of the earth. It is a great mystery and a great miracle...every time. But this is the way of faith in Christ.

God bless you my friend!! <><

 

[bodhitharta]

LOL you agree with a Muslim that we cannot overcome sin. How powerless is Christ within you??? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul could and did overcome sin. You misunderstand him. He was trying to make spiritual things make sense to carnal man.

Paul also said....it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me....so which sin does Christ commit in a man?

Adullam,

You must have misunderstood what I was saying I said you must overcome sin, I said Paul preached you cannot overcome sin.

I follow Jesus he said you must overcome the world as he did . Jesus said therefore bge perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect and that means to me to be as perfect in submission as God is in commanding submission. Obedience is Salvation

Agreed!....but we are called to overcome sin. All the biblical writers of the NT state this.

This is the power that is called grace within that one who is abiding in Christ, and Christ abiding in him.

If we abide in Him and He in us, then we cannot sin. We walk as He walked by the same obedience. We submit to God in Christ.

This then is the fundamental difference between true Christianity and true Islam. For the disciple it is Christ working in them that achieves the miraculous. Not everybody will do great visible miracles....as this is not the purpose of the grace that followers are given. But we are called to overcome sin in this miraculous capacity called Christ in us! He empowers us to obey so perfectly, that the works themselves have been pre-ordained before the founding of the earth. It is a great mystery and a great miracle...every time. But this is the way of faith in Christ.

God bless you my friend!! <><

There is no fundamental difference between a true Christian and a true Muslim, as if we are anointed as Christ is, then all things are possible through faith in God as Jesus said. When Jesus spoke of having faith as small as a mustard seed it wasn't faith in him he preached but Faith in God i.e. our heavenly Father. You seem to not understand fully that Faith in Christ is Faith in God just as Faith in Moses is Faith in God or Faith in anyone God sends is Faith in God.

 

[Adullam]

What I mean is faith through Christ....not in Christ. Sorry for the bad wording. Christ who lives in Me knows where He is going...so I follow the Christ within me. I also recognize that there are those who have Christ in them as well. I submit to God through Christ in them as well.

Believing in Jesus is fine....but there is no power in it until Christ makes His dwelling within us. Then we walk through Him. We become "possessed" as it were, by the Spirit of Christ. We can then fulfill the law...through Christ who strengthens us.

 

[Vince]

We can then fulfill the law...through Christ who strengthens us

I think that the way it works is that Christ fulfilled the Law by His obedience. By taking away our sins and giving us His own righteousness, He made us righteous.