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Of Faith and Works - [ Permalink ]

posted: December 2008

When a Christian says that you are saved by faith in the cross of Jesus, not by works, many times religious people think that the person saying this is living in or justifying sin. They think this way because the life of a religious person is spent trying to be holy, avoiding sin, and doing good works. This is how they think they are saved. When they are told that salvation is by grace and not by works, they think that the person saying this is not doing what they need to do to please God. They think that they must please God to be accepted by Him. They think that acceptance with God is based on performance. Oh, what a rude awakening is in store for these people. It is going to be hard for those who tried to buy salvation with filthy rags.

If we could be accepted by God because we’ve earned it by works, then Christ died for nothing. If we could partially earn salvation by works, then Christ’s sacrifice is not all sufficient.

But what about all the sin in this country? Do we just ignore it? No. But the way to godliness is not by being religious. Religion is man’s attempt to reach God. But man cannot reach God. God reached man through the death of Jesus, and it is by faith in Christ that we are made into godly people. Godliness is a work of God. When we realize that godliness is God’s work in us, all the pressure is off. We can enter into His rest at that point.

This is not to say we are not responsible. We are responsible to believe the Gospel. That is all. We fulfill our end of the bargain when we believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again. God takes the ball from there. Jesus said that we cannot make one hair black or one hair white, so how are we going to change our natures? God changes us when we believe. Jesus said “make a tree good and its fruit will be good.” Jesus makes us good trees when we believe in Him, not before we believe. So religious people should not make bad assumptions about believers in Jesus.

True believers do not use God’s grace as a permit to do evil. Those who do this are only playing a dangerous game with God. God is not amused by this game. He is also not amused by people denying righteousness by faith, which is a denial of all that Jesus has done. One of the main objections to justification by faith apart from works comes from a misunderstood verse in the Word of God.

“Faith without works is dead” from the book of James is often quoted by religionists to quickly refute 14 letters of Paul. Paul dedicated his letters to the God-given idea that we are made right with God by faith apart from works. One cannot do away with the major portion of the New Testament with a misunderstood passage from James. I submit to you that there is no such thing as faith without works. If you look carefully at James’ book, you will find that James was not talking about real faith. He was talking about someone who merely “claimed” to have faith. It was a false faith that James was correcting. If someone truly believes the Gospel, good fruit will always come. A tiny amount of faith is all that is needed. A mustard seed amount of faith can move a mountain.

Also, it may take 4 years for a tree to bear even a single fruit, Luke 13. And people bear differing amounts of fruit: 30, 60, or 100 fold. The workers in the field all received the same payment, no matter how long they worked i.e. one hour, or all day. The sheep didn’t recall their good works because they were not focused on them. The goats said that they had good works. The goats depended on their works. The sheep were not works-conscience. Couple this with the fact that Paul was the one through which Jesus chose to reveal the Gospel, and Peter and James were not acting in line with the truth in Galatians 2, and you have a strong argument that we should always go to the letters of Paul to get our understanding of the New Covenant.

Go to Galatians chapter 2 and see with whom Paul had problems. Peter was fine, until certain men came from James and influenced Peter to draw away from the Gentiles and become a hypocrite. Paul had to rebuke Peter to his face in front of everyone. This was after Pentecost, when Peter was supposed to have been infallible according to the teachings of the Vatican. This shows that nobody is perfect. Even the authors of the Bible.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were historic accounts of the work of Jesus. But Jesus couldn’t tell the disciples the Gospel of Paul because they couldn’t understand it. This is because the Spirit had not yet been given, and the Gospel had not yet been published.

God brought His word to light through the preaching of Paul, Titus 1 verse 3. This verse is important. Either we believe or we don’t. We can ignore it, but that won’t help. The Gospel was manifested through the preaching that was committed to Paul. This means that before Paul, the Gospel was not published. In Peter’s own epistle he says that Paul’s letters are God’s wisdom. Peter also admits that he found Paul’s letters hard to understand!!

Before Paul, they were preaching the resurrection of King Jesus, a sort of political message about the coming kingdom of Israel. As a matter of fact, in Acts chapter 1 the disciples asked Jesus if it were time to restore the kingdom to Israel. And what did Jesus say? He said to take the Gospel around the world. It was this Gospel that Christ revealed to Paul. Remember that Paul said that no man taught him the Gospel. He received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. If Paul could have received the Gospel by man, then Peter or James would have taught it to him. But God specially chose Paul to reveal His Word. The why’s and how’s of salvation, and the meanings behind all that Jesus did, are revealed in Paul’s letters.

Find out how to rightly divide the Word of Truth, and then go and communicate the happy news to the world. But if you do not rightly divide the Word, you will only confuse people. You might make them religious, but you won’t save them. Save people by preaching the Gospel, and your building will consist of gold, silver, and costly stones. Gold, silver, and costly stones are the people who get saved by believing the simple Gospel. Some are more fruitful than others. Wood, hay, and stubble are those who burn away. Some people burn away more quickly than others. And if any man defiles God’s temple, God will destroy him.

If you are one of those who thinks that a man is saved by faith and works, I can easily take those Bible verses you quote and understand them to be good fruit as a result of simple faith. But when I quote the myriad of scriptures that say we are saved through faith without works, what can you do with those? You either misunderstand them or you ignore them. If you are honest you’ll admit that you do not really understand Paul. You only take verses from his letters and use them out of context.

Here is the key to understanding Paul. If you will believe that you are saved by faith in the Cross, plus nothing, if you will believe that the entire law of Moses was nailed to the Cross and ended there, you will understand Paul. Don’t let your religious pride stop you from believing. This is more important than anything you’ll ever hear. I’ll leave it at that for now. Please consider what I am saying. If you are so concerned with works, fine. Only do not put the cart before the horse. Good fruit flows from simple trust. Jesus cleans His fish after He catches them. So be caught by Jesus by simply believing on what He has done for you!