Why Do They Try?
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin ArticlesSo many come here to this study forum who advocate salvation by faith only. There is no doubt that we in the Lord’s church do not believe this and for good reason. It’s not the truth. Our salvation is not by faith only. One need only look at Matthew 7:21 and be honest with what Jesus says and realize that salvation by faith only is not taught in scripture.
We in the Lord’s church are also quite aware of Paul’s teachings in Ephesians 2:8-9. This is undoubtedly one of the most posted scriptures by the “salvation by faith only” group. The problem with this is, that they toss Eph. 2:8 up on the table, then lump obedience to God’s will in with the general heading of “works” and then force the rest of the Bible around their notion that our salvation is somehow separated from our obedience to God. Belief in Jesus Christ is an act of obedience, so how then can we be saved apart from it?
We in the Lord’s church understand that we cannot earn our salvation. We have that figured out. We don’t need to be reminded of that over and over and over. There is nothing we can do, either individually, or collectively, that can in any way repay God for the life of His Son. And that is what it would take. We would have to be capable of rendering our own salvation without the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin. That is the only way we could ever deserve or earn or merit salvation. Our salvation, no matter what good we do in this life is still by the grace of God because we can’t earn it.
We in the Lord’s church do not believe that the grace of God gives us permission to be any less than what God would have us to be. With that in mind, those of us who are faithful strive to conform ourselves to the image of Jesus Christ. We seek His will through His word and we do our best to obey it. We fail at times, but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, square our shoulders and keep on keeping on. We do our best and when we fail we are profoundly sorrowful and we seek forgiveness from God for our shortcomings. We strive always to be obedient to God, serving Him faithfully and obediently. We expect to do this until our last breath on this earth.
The “faith only” folks come in here and they tell us that salvation is by our belief only and that all good works follow as a result of our faith. Guess what? We have faith. We have TONS of faith. We have so much faith that we are willing to offer our bodies as living sacrifices in service to God. Nobody without faith is going do that. Read Romans 12:1. The same Paul that wrote Eph. 2:8-9 also wrote Romans 12:1. So by their own doctrine, by their own teaching, we are saved by faith and the good works we do are a natural result of our salvation. Does anybody see the irony of this? What are they going to convert us to? Why would they come in here and tell us we need to have faith to be saved when we have already met their minimum requirements for salvation? Then if we do convert, we would then automatically do the works we were already doing in the first place. It is beyond logic.
My question is…. Why do people come in here and try to tell us we don’t have to be obedient to God? What is the compelling reason that would drive someone to try and convince people who are so faithful they are striving to live an obedient life in service to God that they don’t have to? “Ye shall not surely die” Where have we heard that before??? Why is it so distasteful to so many that we strive so hard to live the Christian life?
Read the discussion in the forum.