Why Do Christians Argue Against Works?

[Hopeful]

True, but that's a pretty tall order. Many claim to be Christian but their actions contradict their profession.
How do you determine if someone is 'in Christ'?
I find this helpful...
To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
(Isa 8:20)
and...
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
(Act 17:11)

Kinda' prohibits us from following sinners...doesn't it?
Yes, thank God !

 

[Hopeful]

Hi Crossnote,
The NT does equate faith with obedience.
But where does it state in the NT that our obedience must be 100%?
Nowhere.

John 3:36
He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

John 14:15
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Luke 6:46
Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I command?

Nowhere?
You just supplied three verses declaring it !
Which Jews got to enter the promised land?
The obedient TWO, Caleb and Joshua.

 

[crossnote]

Kinda' prohibits us from following sinners...doesn't it?
Yes, thank God !

Right, though Jesus was a friend of sinners, He never followed them.
His call was 'take up your cross and follow me'.

 

[Hopeful]

Right, though Jesus was a friend of sinners, He never followed them.
His call was 'take up your cross and follow me'.

Amen to that.
And (rhetorically) where does a man take a cross?
To his death, which we experience at our "immersion" into Christ and into His death and burial. (Rom 6:3-7)

 

[rthom7]

A full and complete faith in Christ is a gift given only by God.
I believe salvation was brought to fruition by Christ's faithfulness, obedience and His offering to satisfy the Father's will: we are not saved by our faith but of His. From that, and manifested in the fruit of the Spirit, is a true and abiding faith in Christ as a gift unto those saved. A full and complete faith in Christ is demonstrated in a knowledge of/trust in Christ as the Saviour -- that He has already perfectly accomplished everything needed for salvation so our trust is in Him not ourselves; that is, there is nothing whatsoever any of us can do to bring about (our) salvation -- we are fully and completely dependent upon the mercy of God for it - some He gives it to, some not. Those who receive it, were those chosen by God before the foundation of the world for salvation, and their names written into the book of life. By that, and at some point in their lives, they are saved by God and a faith and an understanding of Christ and His gospel begins and grows.
Obviously, this isn't a full explanation to your question, and I'm not too happy with the way I wrote it (sorry about that - hope its not too confusing), but I tried to at least touch on some of the major points as I understand them.

You write well Rogerg, Faith is a gift, we are saved by Jesus faith, and there is nothing we can do to bring about our salvation. You are speaking mostly about one aspect of love, the providing love. Now how do we respond, with responding love?
The response has to be using faith, the same way Jesus did from the Father.

So my question than along this theme, is our response to Jesus is a faith response

(James calls it works, if you like) and these works of Jesus produced in us by our faith, is our responding love to Jesus providing love. Hope this makes sense?

 

[GodsGrace]

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22)

Are there other commandments or just this one?

What is the other Great Commandment?
Love your neighbor as yourself...

What does Love Yourself mean anyway?

What does Love Your Neighbor mean?

James 2:15-18
Matthew 25:40

 

[GodsGrace]

I agree, but we obey out of love and a thankful heart.

Romans 5:5 NKJV
[5] Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Our obedience is not 100%, thus our need for a Savior.

Agreed.

You had stated that faith and obedience are not mutual.

I agree that they are.
If we love God, we do our best to follow His commands.

 

[D-D-W]

Philippians 3:5-9 (KJV) Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 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:

In this passage Paul seemed to disavow any connecting identity to being a Pharisee, at least disavowing their approach to the law as a means of righteousness before God.
In any case the Pharisees couldn't stand Paul or for what he stood for, neither did Paul care for their doctrine...

Galatians 5:11-12 (NASB) But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.

Galatians 6:12-13 (NASB) Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

Acts 23:6
But perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Council, “Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!”

Notice that Paul used the present tense, not past tense: I am a Pharisee. OK let us go a bit later, with Paul arriving in Rome:

Acts 28:17
After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, “Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

"Customs of the fathers" refers to the oral tradition, later to be written down in the Mishnah and Talmuds. That was the tradtion of the Pharisees. So Paul is still claiming to be faithful to his Pharisaic upbringing.

 

[D-D-W]

I agree with John that "all unrighteousness is sin." (1 John 5:17)

Yes, all unrighteousness is sin. But what constitutes "all unrighteousness?"

True, in the OT, but not anymore.

The definition of sin never changed. There is nothing to say it did and the original language words in both Hebrew and Greek refer to the same thing: An archery term meaning to aim at a target but miss the mark, the bulls eye.

False, as that doesn't correlate with James 1:14-15.
Without temptation and lust, there is no sin.

That is NOT what that scripture says. Read it:

James 1:13
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

There is nothing to say that "without temptation and lust, there is no sin." You are reading that into the text as if that is the ONLY form of sin that exists. It is NOT. Not even close. Is what James describes "sin?" Absolutely. But it is not the only way sin comes about.

Do any of the believers of that doctrine live without sin?

No believer of any doctrine lives entirely without sin. PERIOD. That cannot be accomplished in this life.

 

[D-D-W]

So loving other people as you love yourself and loving God with all your being counts for nothing in the eyes of God? This is what keeping all the command results in, that kind of person. But instead, you’d say fulfilling the requirements of a religious matter, real as that is, that’s all that matters to God?

No. As someone said this may need to be its own thread.

Take a story of 2 families: the Smiths and the Joneses. The 2 families are neighbors and have 3 children each. The Smiths are very proper and strict. Homework done before dinner; Proper table manners, etc. The Jones kids are running terrors. But the kids are best friends.

One day the Jones parents are killed in a car crash. The Smiths take them in temporarily. So the Jones kids want to be permanantly in with the Smiths, so they totally reform their behavior. They do everything the Smith kids do in order to not be placed into the foster system. They come home straight from school. Perfect manners. Love each other and their neighbors. DO more than their share of chores.

Does any of that make them Smiths, or are they still named Jones? Does it let them move in with their neighbors, or does it not change their going to the foster system?

The only way for the Jones kids to be kept out of the system is for Mr and Mrs Smith to adopt them. There is nothing the kids themselves can do to make that happen one way or the other.

In the same way there is nothing we can do to make ourselves "saved." We have to be adopted by the Father.

 

[RBDERRICK]

Almost all OSAS people I know put a sincere emphasis on walking in the Spirit and obedience.

"It is still only an optional extra."

That's a good one. I'll be putting that in the files for intelligence insulting hypocrisy 102.

 

[RBDERRICK]

Define ‘sinning now’.

I don't describe the obvious.

I proudly hold to OSAS, I am saved by Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.
My sins have been nailed to the cross, buried and I have been risen with Christ awaiting my new body.
Jesus has a good habit of finishing what He begins…
I am now His Son and He does not do abortions.
(Go ahead with your insults)

I provided all those quotes for you at your request, and this is all you got?

OSAS is not only for sinners, but also for those who waste peoples' time.

No one is saved by Jesus' death. The world is not saved.

Pride is a sin. By being proud of your own salvation you are now sinning.

 

[RBDERRICK]

In the same way there is nothing we can do to make ourselves "saved." We have to be adopted by the Father.

And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

God doesn't adopt unrepentant sinners.

 

[crossnote]

You had stated that faith and obedience are not mutual.

Where did I state that?

 

[jaybo]

I don't describe the obvious.

I provided all those quotes for you at your request, and this is all you got?

OSAS is not only for sinners, but also for those who waste peoples' time.

No one is saved by Jesus' death. The world is not saved.

Pride is a sin. By being proud of your own salvation you are now sinning.

No one is saved by Jesus' death? The world is not saved? So, according to you, Jesus died for nothing and the penalty for all sin hasn't been paid.

That's not what the Bible says. John 3:16-17, " For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him."

 

[crossnote]

No one is saved by Jesus' death. The world is not saved.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 NKJV
[1] Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, [2] by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-unless you believed in vain. [3] For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, [4] and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

I guess I don’t understand your agenda. It seems like you are on a crusade to refute those who hold to OSAS. There have been good saints in the past that have held both views and we are not either of them.

 

[rthom7]

Are there other commandments or just this one?

What is the other Great Commandment?
Love your neighbor as yourself...

What does Love Yourself mean anyway?

What does Love Your Neighbor mean?

James 2:15-18
Matthew 25:40

Greetings Wondering, many do not understand while there is only one word in English for love, there are TWO words in Hebrew for love. This is profound and changes the whole doctrines of elohiym that define God as love.

http://spiritualsprings.org/ss-845.htm

This study looks into the two Hebrew words for love, the ahab and the ahabuh.

Shalom

 

[crossnote]

Acts 23:6
But perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Council, “Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!”

Notice that Paul used the present tense, not past tense: I am a Pharisee. OK let us go a bit later, with Paul arriving in Rome:

Acts 28:17
After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, “Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

"Customs of the fathers" refers to the oral tradition, later to be written down in the Mishnah and Talmuds. That was the tradtion of the Pharisees. So Paul is still claiming to be faithful to his Pharisaic upbringing.

Right, but my point was ‘whether he called himself a Pharisee or others did, his teaching was 180deg different than the Pharisees calling their attempt at righteousness before God as ‘dung’ v.8’.

Philippians 3:5-10 KJV
[5] Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; [6] Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. [7] But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. [8] Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, [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;

Also through the new birth he sees…

2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV
[17] Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Ephesians 2:15 KJV
[15] Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

and unlike Pharisees, Paul saw himself dead to the law…

Romans 7:4 KJV
[4] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.


Galatians 2:19-20 KJV
[19] For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. [20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

So people can name Paul a pharisee all they want, but in his new nature he was anything but one.

 

[crossnote]

Scripture tells us we are saved not by works but that doesn't mean that we are to avoid works. It merely means that works is not the means by which we are saved.

Actually Scripture tells us we are indeed saved by works!
We are saved by the perfect obedience (works) of Christ unto our good works, but even our good works are a result of faith.

 

[D-D-W]

Greetings Wondering, many do not understand while there is only one word in English for love, there are TWO words in Hebrew for love. This is profound and changes the whole doctrines of elohiym that define God as love.

http://spiritualsprings.org/ss-845.htm

This study looks into the two Hebrew words for love, the ahab and the ahabuh.

Actually the Hebrew has several words for Love, and those 2 are both forms of the same word: Ahavah.

There is also Dod (and its various forms), Rachaman (and its various forms), and Chesed (and its various forms).