James 2:24, Works, and Salvation

[Paidion]

Dizerner, you're not telling me anything which I have not heard before. You and JR are approaching salvation from a completely different paradigm. Doubtless you learned this from the church(es) you attended. I was in exactly that place as a teenager and into my early twenties. But I learned from my Bible reading and early Christian writings from the 100s that my paradigm was false. I, too, thought that anyone whose position on salvation required anything from a person was an attempt at "being saved by works."

When I was in that mode of thinking as a teenager, I was a youth leader at a Baptist Church. When, I was teaching them, the pastor at the time recognized that there was something wrong with my teaching. Later, he asked me in private, "Don, what are we saved from?" Well... I knew the Scripture; I replied, "We are saved from sin."
"And what does THAT mean?" he asked. I responded, "We are saved from the results of sin. (I meant eternal hell). The pastor then said, "Don, nowhere does the scripture say we are saved from the results of sin. It says that we are saved from SIN!" At the time, I believed he was wrong. I wondered why he never preached what I considered to be the gospel message (accepting Christ as your personal Saviour). He was always preaching about submission to Christ. At the time, I didn't accept what he said. But later, when I became enlightened as to true salvation, I realized he had been correct. I didn't have a revolutionary change in my understanding. It came very gradually.

In those days, I didn't think the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matt 5, 6, and 7) was for us today. I swallowed C.I. Scofield's explantion that it was the kingdom teaching offered to the Jews, and when they rejected it, it was postponed until the millenium to come. However, when I finally realized that Christ's teachings were the heart of the gospel, I submitted to him, and began to be saved (delivered) from sin. Salvation is a life-long process. It is not self-effort. Trying to be righteous through self-effort is not salvation from sin. Neither is "simply believing in the finished work of Christ." The apostle Paul made it clear that by coöperating with the enabling grace of God, salvation takes place. The first step is to repent and become baptized. Baptism is analagous to signing a contract. It confirms that we belong to Christ and are His servants. But repenting and being baptized are but the first steps in the life-long process of salvation from sin. Certainly it is the gift of God! There can be no process of salvation without the gift of His grace. But we must coöperate with that enabling grace. We cannot do it by self-effort without God's enabling grace. And God won't do it alone without our coöperation. But together we CAN do it! Praise God!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (1 Cor 5:17-21, 6:1 NKJV)

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[jriccitelli]

Dizerner, you're not telling me anything which I have not heard before. (Paidion)

Your right, you must have heard it here: ‘Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins’ and “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves”

You and JR are approaching salvation from a completely different paradigm. Doubtless you learned this from the church(es) you attended (Paidion)

Remember that I came to faith from reading my bible while alone, and I accepted Him while reading through a bible in my room. I then attended a Mormon church, and they told me to refrain from ‘everything’ and this I did. I even gave up coffee for awhile. But by reading scripture I quickly realized this is not what scripture taught, and I realized they were trying to save themselves, and “lift themselves up by their own bootstraps” to quote old Joe Smith (I would have to ditto Dizerner's comment on this also)

Salvation is a life-long process… (Paidion)

Sanctification is, but having our sins forgiven is salvation. Sanctified dead sinners are just dressed up corpses without atonement for sins.

Neither is "simply believing in the finished work of Christ."… (Paidion)

Finished is the act of atonement; there is no other sacrifice for sins, not yours, or any other.

The apostle Paul made it clear that by coöperating with the enabling grace of God, salvation takes place… (Paidion)

‘Not by might, but by His Spirit says the Lord’. You really are skipping past the first 30 books of the Bible. God went through extensive examples to demonstrate that salvation was by His power, without such we would be dead. His hand brought salvation, over and over again. You again substitute your ‘enabling grace’ idea where it would seem to be the Holy Spirit that sanctifies us and gives us life and direction. Grace is not a thing, it does not think, it is an act. The Holy Spirit is God. Do you not believe it is the Holy Spirit of God in us that sanctifies us?

Baptism is analagous to signing a contract… (Paidion)

We have Covenants in scripture. Covenants were sealed with blood. The new covenant was also. Baptism is analogous to death and resurrection. Paidion, would you say you are born again?

If that finished work is not working in you, then you are not really trusting in it’ (Diz)

That’s how you know Paidion, if we notice that we have no works to speak of, our faith is most likely dead. Real love was demonstrated on the cross, that should produce a love for God, and real love for God will be evident in our actions. But still, if all we have is faith, even though we are as old as were Abraham and Sarai in age, and her womb as dead, we will be saved.

Taking up our cross, does not mean adding our fleshly zeal to take up the cause of Christ (Diz)

True, I often am so put off by organized religion and people, that I say to myself ‘I am just going to forget all this and stay home and just pray with my wife’ then something in me wants ‘to love and fellowship with other believers, and do something for people who need a friend or a hand’ so I go back out the door again. It must be God, because it is not necessarily me alone.
Like Diz noted, I am A hopeless sinner saved, and 'motivated' (of freewill) unto good works by the LOVE in the Cross (and my life and ability is empowered and directed by His Spirit, most of the time, since I am only a man, I can live by the 'grace' found on the Cross) I hope this is the context for 'enabling' grace.