Define "works"

[MoreCoffee]

Here's where the justification/sanctification ("born again"- regeneration / growing, becoming Christ-like, discipleship) distinction helps. I'm using these terms theologically.

JUSTIFICATION: We are "saved" by CHRIST'S works, CHRIST is the Savior, it is because of God's unconditional love, boundless mercy, gracious blessing and gift; God GIVES us life... the dead do not and cannot give life to self, cannot perform good works. Here works ARE important - it's just they are all GOD'S works (not those of the DEAD who can't and won't do a thing)

SANCTIFICATION: Once born again/regenerated, once justified (narrow sense), once we are a Christian, a child of God, with the Holy Spirit, as a part of the Body of Christ, we CAN do things and we are CALLED to such. Here works ARE important - and they are OUR works (empowerd by God ALONE, not performed by our human strength or even will). The point here is not justification or heaven.... the point here is The Great Commandment and becoming Christ-like.

Thus works ARE always important - but we need to distinguish BY WHOM and FOR WHAT. When these are blurred, we find the Gospel displaced, we find Christ displaced by self (Christ becoming a HELPER or POSSIBILITY-MAKER but not Savior), synergism, Pelagianism... and eventually the abandonment of Christianity. We also can find the Law displaced, we find antinominalism and lawlessness. BOTH are fully true.... we just must not confuse WHO is performing the work and WHY.
Thank you.
- Josiah

The quote is too long. A better summary is that We're saved by grace through faith for the good works God prepared for us to do.

 

[Albion]

:thumbsup: That's ambiguous but certainly better than We're saved by grace through faith and the good works we perform.

 

[MoreCoffee]

:thumbsup: That's ambiguous but certainly better than We're saved by grace through faith and the good works we perform.

Is it the "we perform" that you dislike? If so then why did you add it and subtract the other?

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

It isn't Faith in that case, so of course it cannot save. Anything that's described as *dead* usually is no longer operable, right? That, however, does not mean that a live one doesn't function.

"Faith alone" includes works?

Faith produces works, that's right.

But that isn't what you said. It was stated that "faith without works is dead". Your response was that "It isn't faith in that case...". Nothing about what faith may produce or not produce. Are you meaning to clarify your statement to include works in your definition of faith? If not, then we are left with faith, as it is, being the acting agent in salvation.

However, the "Faith vs Works" debate concerns which one (or both) "counts" when it comes to us being saved or not...

True. So which counts? Faith, or faith and works?

 

[Albion]

But that isn't what you said.

Yes, it is. A dead faith is not a faith, which is what James was saying there. A dead faith cannot produce God-pleasing works. But nothing in that conflicts with the New Testament teaching that Faith, not works, is what saves.

Counts for...what? As I used the word counts, it means counts with regard to salvation. So, the answer here is Faith Alone.

 

[Albion]

Is it the "we perform" that you dislike?

In order to make clear that we are not discussing Christ's good works, specifically his sacrifice for sin on the Cross.

 

[MoreCoffee]

In order to make clear that we are not discussing Christ's good works, specifically his sacrifice for sin on the Cross.

The passage says that "we should walk" in the good works that God prepared.

Ephesians 2:1-10 1 And you were once dead in your sins and offenses, 2 in which you walked in times past, according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of this sky, the spirit who now works in the sons of distrust. 3 And we too were all conversant in these things, in times past, by the desires of our flesh, acting according to the will of the flesh and according to our own thoughts. And so we were, by nature, sons of wrath, even like the others. 4 Yet still, God, who is rich in mercy, for the sake of his exceedingly great charity with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our sins, has enlivened us together in Christ, by whose grace you have been saved. 6 And he has raised us up together, and he has caused us to sit down together in the heavens, in Christ Jesus, 7 so that he may display, in the ages soon to arrive, the abundant wealth of his grace, by his goodness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves, for it is a gift of God. 9 And this is not of works, so that no one may glory. 10 For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has prepared and in which we should walk.

 

[Albion]

The passage says that "we should walk" in the good works that God prepared.

And so we should! That fact doesn't change anything. No one has been arguing that we ought to avoid doing good. :wink:

 

[MoreCoffee]

And so we should! That fact doesn't change anything. No one has been arguing that we ought to avoid doing good. :wink:

Excellent then we're agreed that we do the good works.

 

[Albion]

Excellent then we're agreed that we do the good works.

Assuming that we have both received the gift of saving Faith, sure. That never was the issue here.