Archive for July, 2012

> 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10)

I have a confession to make. I’m a sinner. Completely and utterly helpless. If you aren’t convinced by me telling you, you’re more than welcome to ask my wife. Thankfully, my salvation is not dependant on anything I have done, or will do, because, quite frankly, I would be incapable of doing any such thing. It is only by the grace of God that I have been saved, and it is only by his grace that I am capable of good works.

Ephesians 2 is quite clear. I can’t have a hand in my salvation, because if I did, I’d be a complete jerk about it. This actually lines up quite nicely with the New Testament accounts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees who took an extreme amount of pride in their ability to follow the Law (in their minds completely). Jesus countered this mentality with statements like Mat 5:20 “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.“ Meaning that even all of their perceived perfection just wasn’t enough. There were not enough works that they could do in the world that would be effective to actually save them. It was this very philosophy that Hebrews confronted in its famous chapter 11: “1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.“ Emphasizing the fact that it was the faith of the Old Testament saints, not their works, that saved them.

The fact that when Christ came he was drawn to the sinful, the weak and the broken people of the world is no coincidence. He came to these folks, because these people were painfully aware of their need for a savior and salvation. They knew that they could not do it on their own. They knew how bad off they were and how much they needed, and when it was freely offered they partook.

My local church is fond of the following saying: “You a far worse off than you’ve ever imagined, but you are far more loved, than you ever dared dream.” The meaning is quite simple, our sin and the burden of it, is greater than even what we are aware of. However, the love Christ bears us, and the sacrifice he gave, is more than sufficient to forgive all of it, past, present, and future.

Now, just because we’ve established that good works are not necessary to salvation, does not mean that they are not important. Sometimes it is mistakenly communicated that Calvinism and other elements of the reformed faith preach some kind of “Couch Christianity” or other inactive or even hedonistic form of Christianity wherein one can be saved and continue either doing nothing, or continuing in a lifestyle of sin. We must remember that faith is the beginning of regeneration which leads to sanctification.

The fact of the matter is that faith is the first element of a new lifestyle. Paul in Romans 6 pretty clearly lays this out: “1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” We are supposed to die to sin. James (2) is also clear on the subject.

> 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

The fact of the matter is that “by their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt 7:16) means something. If one truly is regenerate, and in the process of becoming sanctified, they will be producing fruit.

So to wrap it up, why am I glad I have nothing to do with my salvation? Because I know that I am incapable of “righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees” and acknowledge that I am even worse than I am aware of. This is the heart of the gospel; we are incapable of even being aware of our need for salvation without Christ softening our hearts and preparing us for him. We don’t deserve it, and when we begin to think that we have done something it is just a continuation of our sinful pride. However, faith is not the end; works must follow faith as fruit grows from a tree. But faith itself, it’s not about me, and boy am I glad for that.

Faith and works only make sense in light of love.  Love is the “big picture” of Scripture by which every piece of the puzzle can be properly understood.  Faith alone is worthless, works alone are worthless, faith and works together are worthless — unless you have love.  And with love, of course there will be faith, and of course there will be works, so the debate becomes moot!

God’s Nature

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)

God is love.  It is a radical claim, and a radical deviation from the common view of God as an oppressive Taskmaster with His finger on the “SMITE” button… but this is Scripture.  This is true.  In fact, I am not aware of a more explicit statement in Scripture about the nature of God.  God is love.

God’s Command

Many have trouble believing that “God is love”.  What about the Old Testament?  What about the Law?

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.  (Romans 13:8-10)

(Jesus taught the same thing.)  It turns out that the whole Law was actually an attempt to show mankind what it looks like to walk in love!  Interesting, eh? Perhaps truth isn’t as complex as we thought.

In fact, the commonly-quoted passage that says “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments” is sandwiched between “”A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” and “This is my commandment, that you love one another” – all in the same discourse!  Likewise, the oft-quoted “you shall be perfect” is the conclusion of a paragraph about loving without partiality!

It seems like God is trying to tell us something… “I want you to be loving!”

Man’s Nature

Man is not loving.  Actually, we are the opposite.  This is why no one could fulfill the Law.  Even those who appeared to fulfill the law by obeying the commandments were not motivated by love, which is why Jesus had to explain in detail that it is your heart that God cares about. (Matthew 5)  All of us our guilty of being unloving.

God’s Invitation

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  -Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30, NASB)

Jesus invites us to come to Him and “take His yoke” upon ourselves.  Modern Christians may not recognize this allusion.  In Jesus’ day, when a farmer acquired a young, untrained ox and wanted to train it to plow, he would yoke it together with an older, well-trained ox.  Over time the untrained ox would learn to plow as the well-trained ox did, and would eventually be just as useful.  The goal was imitation.  Jesus is inviting us to come alongside Him, learn from Him, and imitate Him.

As you have probably guessed by now, imitating Jesus means walking in love.  Jesus is our perfect example:

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. -Jesus (John 15:13)

In order to follow Jesus in love, we actually have to die to ourselves.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”  -Jesus (Luke 9:23, NASB)

and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. (2 Corinthians 5:15, NASB)

Our nature is evil, disgusting, selfish, and bad.  God is love.  We need to die to ourselves and follow Jesus, our perfect example, and walk in loving partnership with our God.

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Understanding “Salvation”

The word salvation has many meanings:

• Conversion: This is where you join God in loving partnership.  This marks the beginning of a new life of following Him in love.  We are only able to do this by the blood of Jesus, poured out for us in love.  Here we are saved from our independence from God’s loving ways.
• Transformation: This is the ongoing process of being transformed more into His image day by day (including things like baptism).  Here we are saved from our disgusting nature (little by little) by learning to be more loving.
• Resurrection: One day you will be raised up and given a new body.  Here you will be saved from your cursed flesh which is doomed to destruction.
• Inheritance: The end goal is to find yourself in Heaven for eternity, saved from Hell (which is the ultimate isolation from God’s love.)

Before discussing “what saves you”, we need to consider which “salvation” we are talking about.  Of course, the “salvation” everyone really cares about is the last one.  “I want to go to Heaven when I die!”

So how will we inherit eternal life?  Good question!

And a lawyer stood up . . . saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”

Now that we have the proper context, let us examine the individual pieces of the puzzle

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Faith

Are we saved by faith?  It depends on what you mean by “saved”, and it depends on what you mean by “faith”.  However, faith does play a crucial role in your reconciliation.

• If you are going to follow God, you need to first believe that He exists (Hebrews 11:6)
• You’ll also need to trust that the blood of Jesus is actually enough to pay for all of your filthiness
• You will need to trust that He is good, and entrust your life to Him

Works

Are we saved by works?  It depends on what you mean by “saved”, and it depends on what you mean by “works”.  However, works do play a crucial role in your reconciliation.

• You need to repent.  This means making a decision to walk in the opposite “way”; go to God in prayer, acknowledge your nature, confess His goodness, and commit yourself to Him and His ways.
• You need to die to yourself.  You cannot follow Jesus and live for yourself, in your disgusting self-serving ways.
• You need to take up His yoke and follow Him.  This means beginning to live for Him, in His beautiful, loving ways.
• You need to obey Him.  His ways are higher than yours, and often times, what He calls us to may not make sense.  Why should I get baptized?  What’s the point?  Oh, that’s right – because You commanded it, and you know better than I do what is good and loving.

Love

Faith is important, and works are important.  In fact, they are both essential.  However, if faith and/or works is all you have, that would be pretty worthless.  Love is greater than faith, and faith is worthless without love.  (1 Corinthians 13:2,13)  Love is greater than works, and works are worthless without love.  (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)  Jesus clarifies it for us here:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

You confess Jesus as Lord by faith.  You prophesy by faith.  You cast out demons by faith.  You perform miracles by faith.  Confession, prophecy, exorcisms, and miracles are all works – and good works at that!  Yet Jesus says to these, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Hopefully this is beginning to make sense.  We need to love Him and love others.  It is about relationship (i.e. knowing Him.)  And this was the message from the very beginning – indeed, this was the whole point of the law.

Conclusion

If you believe “faith alone” is going to land you in Heaven, you are wrong.  (Sorry!)

If you believe you can be right with God by trying to follow commandments, you are wrong.

The only thing that is going to land you in Heaven is God. And He wants you to return to Him. That means learning to love Him. That means loving others – even your enemies. That means trusting Him. That means following Him. Faith has a role in this, and so do works, but neither of those is going to save you if it is all you have.

To become a Saint, nothing more is needed than to gain all the indulgences we can. St. Alphonsus Marie Ligouri 1696-1787

That quote is by my confirmation patron, St. Alphonsus Marie Ligouri. I chose him because I was a big Frank Zappa fan at the time and he seemed to be next best thing to St. Alphonso (of pancake breakfast fame). Choosing him, at the time, seemed to be the most naturally impious thing I could do. But, he did manage to have a lasting impression on me as his imprint, Ligouri Press, happens to publish the Catholic Catechism which I happened to notice one day in a second hand book store which I happened to purchase and read and quite naturally found myself agreeing with everything it said; I even agreed with the part about indulgences, which were one of the lightning rods of the Reformation:

What is an indulgence?
“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”
“An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.” The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.
CCC 1471

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The topic of this month’s Eschewmenical query is Salvation and I aim to present an unadulterated Catholic view of the matter. I don’t aim to offend anyone, but this is one of the deeply divisive issues that we can’t exactly pretend don’t make or break our faiths, and I can’t much help it if I hold in antipathy the words of Martin Luther, who said, when justifying his addition of the word “alone” to his translation of the Bible that

If your papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word sola (alone), say this to him: “Dr. Martin Luther will have it so, and he says that a papist and a donkey are the same thing.”

That makes this papist cringe to think that the man who put the Luther in Lutheran couldn’t come up with a better argument than modus jerkface. I’d imagine Catholics have said some pretty rotten things about Protestants over the years, but at least our Popes attempt to write, if not act, in a demure fashion.

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So, if we take it as a given that Martin Luther added “alone” to Romans 2:38 in his translation of the Bible, we certainly don’t see in these modern Protestant translations so why does anyone still think we’re saved by faith alone? Well, CARM has some good reasons. But, I’m not sure that any justification would be needed, if justification itself hadn’t been turned on it’s head by Luther by his insistence on faith alone in the first place.

Martin Luther clearly didn’t like indulgences, that was the start of his trouble. But, if you take everything about Catholicism and toss out indulgences, you still have the Catholic Church… For about 5-6 days, then the system runs out of capital and all hell breaks loose.

In a debased, and probably incorrect way, indulgences are spiritual stock. If the company goes bankrupt, stock certificates are not worth the paper they’re printed on. If one’s soul is not received in to purgatory or Heaven after death, then those indulgences can never be applied.

What Luther seemed to be against at first, the selling of indulgences, is – to me at least – more like what no sporting man from Wisconsin can be against. Purchased indulgences are to the medieval pious Catholic serf what Packers stock is to the modern secular football fan.

And, to illustrate my point, consider the benefits of each:

Packers Stock	Papal Indulgence
Helps build new stadium	Helps build new church
Lasting memento of a seemingly pointless act	Lasting memento of a seemingly pious act
Better than paying more taxes for stadium upkeep	Better than paying more taxes for church upkeep
Probably more trouble than it’s worth to explain to the Bears fans	Definitely more trouble than it’s worth to defend to non-Catholics

Today’s skeptic and yesterday’s reformer may have been against selling indulgences on principle. But, I think they gloss over how incredulous the medieval peasant would be about buying them. We peasants are, as a class, very tight with our money, but I think we would prefer to give it away, storing it where moths and bugs and stuff can’t get at it, than trade it for just a piece of paper. Purchasing indulgence must have been thought of as primarily alms giving and alms giving was one of the things mentioned in other books that got chucked by the reformation.

You will be storing up a goodly treasure for yourself against the day of adversity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps one from entering into Darkness. Tobit 4:8-10

As water quenches a flaming fire, so almsgiving atones for sins. Sirach 3:30

But one such quote (which just barely missed the chopping block), almost identical to what Tobias’s dad and Sirach’s son said was in Daniel:

Therefore, O king, may my advice be acceptable to you; atone for your sins by good deeds, and for your misdeeds by kindness to the poor; then your contentment will be long lasting.” Daniel 4:24

In any event, regardless of how useful I think selling indulgences was, and could yet be, the Church, in her wisdom has ceased to do so. She’s even cleaned up the lingo, as of 60 years ago, to make it so just plenary (total remission of punishment due to sin) and partial (partial remission of punishment) indulgences exist. Instead of:

• 50 days off purgatory for making the sign of the cross
• 100 days off purgatory for making the sign of the cross with Holy Water
• 200 days off purgatory for making the sign of the cross in a church with Holy Water

Nevertheless, these things still are partial indulgences, but there’s no need to be scrupulous about them any more. The mere existence of the Church’s teaching on indulgences assures one that good works one does to gain indulgences (whether one is aware of them or not) should never be in vain.

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So much for works. Let’s concentrate on faith. Would it be wrong of me, as a Catholic, to say that it is faith in Jesus that saves us?

Nope, but that’s the beginning. But, like so many other beginnings, it’s really the most important part. We call it sanctifying grace; the grace brought on by Christ’s sacrifice which saves us. It’s not our doing, it’s not merely a result of our assent at Baptism, although that is then that it enters us forever. It is wholly beyond our comprehension, but it exists nevertheless.

Once baptized, the Christian enters a world where grace is necessary to move through life. Grace is spiritual grease.

Grace precedes, prepares and elicits our free response. CCCC 425

The freedom we gain through baptism is a freedom to be obedient to Christ. The freedom to follow the Law:

I will love You more than myself and myself only for Your sake; I will love all others in You and for You, as Your law of love commands; Imitation of Christ (Book 2 Chapter 5 Paragraph 6)

The New Law is mainly the same grace of the Holy Spirit which is given to believers in Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas

So, even when someone correctly interprets Galatians 2:16 and Romans 3:28 (which everyone seems to do) concerning justification through Faith vs Works of the Law. One can hardly say that for the Christian, to whom much has been revealed and much is expected, we are saved through works of the Law. Because our works are faith and our faith is works.

And to tie the point around to Catholicism, which is often criticized for adding too much work (Liturgy, by the way, is literally work of the people) to the requirements of the faithful, it is good to note that Catholic Church never claims to have discovered or created a more important commandment than “Love”.

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But, in the end, it is God’s decision whether or not we shall be saved, not ours. Our knowledge of our faith can’t assure us a place in Heaven. Our knowledge of our good works can’t assure us of a place in Heaven. No amount of indulgences and no spiritual awareness can change that.

All we know is that the measure by which we measure will be measured out against us (Matt 7:2) and the heavenly house is very spacious (John 14:2). That it is better to be awake, prepared for the bridegrooms return than it is to be asleep at the wheel because not everyone who in their faith acknowledges God and cries Lord Lord who will, in the end, be known by God (Matt 25:1-13). It takes an insignificant amount of faith to move mountains (Matt 17:20). It was an ignoble work (Matt 26:49) which brought about the greatest test of faith God or man will ever know (Mark 14:34). But it was a simple yes (Luke 1:38), a work of faith, which brought in to being the greatest Man and God the world will ever know.

1 Corinthians 9:24
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.

Jacobus Arminius began his career as a theologian and preacher in the Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) tradition in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Over time, Arminius found himself disagreeing with Calvinist theology on several key points of doctrine.

Arminius studied theology at the University of Leiden, in what is now the Netherlands, where most of the professors held an extreme form of Calvinism that included a doctrine known as supralapsarianism. According to this view, God decreed some people to be saved and others to be damned before God decreed to allow the Fall. Most of the professors at Leiden held this view, although one—Johann Kolmann—argued that it made God out to be a tyrant and an executioner.

After earning his degree from Leiden, Arminius went to Geneva to study under Theodore Beza—another supralapsarian—for six years, before returning to Amsterdam to become a pastor. As he studied the Bible for sermon prepration, he developed an understanding of grace and predestination that was increasingly at odds with the teachings of Calvin and Beza.

Running Aimlessly

Arminius never doubted the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity, the idea that human nature is so completely corrupted by sinfulness that we cannot be saved on our own merits, nor even choose to accept the salvation God offers.

Jesus himself explained God’s standard for righteousness.

Matthew 5:48
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

To put it in today’s language, God has a zero-tolerance policy for sin.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, makes note of what percentage of the human population actually live up to this standard:

Romans 3:23
…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

To extend Paul’s race analogy from 1 Corinthians 9, if salvation is like running a race, then the sinful nature is like running aimlessly with no idea that the race course even exists.

In his understanding of humans’ sinful nature, Arminius remained true to his Calvinist upbringing. But during his years in the pulput Arminius discovered a number of areas where he could no longer agree with Calvinist teachings. The more he studied his Bible, the more Arminius encountered passages that he simply could not reconcile with the doctrines he had been taught at Leiden.

To the Starting Line

For example, two doctrines of Calvinism are Limited Atonement—the belief that God’s grace was made available only to a select group—and Unconditional Election—the teaching that before the foundation of the earth God made the final decision about who would be saved.

But a number of New Testament passages indicate that God’s will is for everyone to be saved.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

1 Timothy 2:3-4
This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Titus 2:11-13
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If God wants everyone to be saved, then Limited Atonement and Unconditional Election leave us with a God who subverts his own will.

But as Arminius discovered, the Bible contains a different teaching about election.

Romans 10:9-10
…because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

Acts 16:30-31
Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

John 1:11-12
[Jesus] came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

If I can extend Paul’s race metaphor even further, God is not going to exclude anyone from competing in this race. However, we are so far off course that it takes an act of God to bring us to the starting line. We can let him lead us there, or we can continue going our own way and getting nowhere.

Running the Race

When we reach the starting line, what does God expect from us? A simple one-time confession, a recitation of the “Sinner’s Prayer”? Or does God want something more?

According to the Calvinist doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints, a person who is saved can never fall away. But once again the Bible appears to teach something different.

Matthew 24:10-13
Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

James 2:17-24
So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

So salvation depends on our works as well as our faith. Just as God does not drag us to the starting line without a response from us, God also does not run the race of salvation for us. Rather, this race is something we run in partnership with God. Because, as it turns out, our good works are not really our own.

Philippians 2:12b-13
[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

What God expects of us is nothing less than a complete transformation of our entire being, so that we live for God’s will and not our own.

Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Crossing the Finish Line

This transformation takes time. Paul recognized that even after he had converted from Judaism to Christianity and preached Christ throughout the Roman Empire, he had not reached the finish line of salvation.

Philippians 3:10-14
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. We can’t quit the race in the middle, or leave the course to follow our own interests, if we want to win the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

In Summary

Salvation is like a marathon, and we are like runners who don’t even realize the course exists. But God has set conditions by which we can not only compete in the race, but win. God will even bring us to the starting line if we let him lead us. But the starting line is not the end of the race; it is merely the beginning. To win this race we must follow God’s course and not veer off on our own way. It is only by enduring to the finish that we will receive our eternal reward.

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Next week, Peter Turner will bring us the Catholic perspective as he explains why God’s the guy with the gun.

If you’ve been following along with my posts, you might have noticed that I’ve managed to cover all the standard characteristics of Evangelicalism except “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed”. I admit to stretching the assigned topic at times to get through the list, but this month’s topic, “Faith and Works”, is a softball pitch of the beer-in-one-hand variety for me. Salvation is the term Christians (especially Evangelicals) use to describe the conversion event and Protestantism was founded because of our insistence that conversion is an act of faith and not of works. I could dig up a quote from one of Paul’s letters and be done with it, but it turns out to be not that easy.

A few weeks ago, my son asked me what the most important two parts of a walkie-talkie are. (He’s at a very analytic stage in life.) My answer was maybe the transmitter and the receiver, which sounded about right to him. Then we talked about which parts we could get rid of. For instance, our set has a little LED flashlight, which is handy, but not necessary. They also have a hands-free feature that makes the Push-to-Talk button potentially superfluous. If you don’t mind the cross-talk from being locked into one channel, there’s a bunch of parts that are used to set up the frequency that could be removed. The only functions of a walkie-talkie that really can’t be taken away are the ability to send and receive radio transmissions. Without one or the other, it’s just not a walkie-talkie.

Salvation is a bit like a walkie-talkie: you need both faith and works or else you don’t really have salvation.

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One of Protestantism’s touchstone stories for illustrating that faith is all you need for salvation is the two criminals crucified on either side of Jesus. One mocked Jesus mercilessly, but the other asked Jesus to remember him when he came into His kingdom. It must have struck observers as pretty humorous since all three men were surely destined to suffer for a few more hours and then die. Jesus promised the man who asked that they would meet that very day in paradise. By implication, the man was saved purely by his faith in Jesus as the literal Son of God.

We have a walkie-talkie like that: it can only send pre-loaded call-tones since the microphone broke somehow. My son set up a convoluted game of hide-and-seek that involved the seeker using the receive-only device while the hider transmitted hints. (He’s at the arbitrary rule-making age too.) Lots of folks figure God works a bit like this: we are looking for Him and He transmits revelations to guide us now and again. All you need to do is know the right things and you will be saved.

Historically, this view is associated with the heresy of Gnosticism. Bonhoeffer called the modern variation “cheap grace“. Jesus’ brother, James, called it dead faith. Taken to the extreme, once a person makes the salvation decision they are assured of eternal bliss and believe nothing else matters in this life. Nothing could be further from the truth—Jesus spent the bulk of His teaching exhorting His followers to love others as themselves (the Golden Rule) and to love God with everything they had.

But there is a kernel of truth in the idea that we don’t have to do something for God in order for Him to rescue us. Way back in Genesis 3, humanity was captured by evil and we cannot escape without divine intervention. The Hebrew Scriptures tell the story of a failed attempt to free one nation from the tyranny of sin via religious activity. Occasionally an individual will achieve a greater level of righteousness than their contemporaries, but when sin rubs against human institutions God’s priorities usually get lost in the shuffle. That’s why, when Jesus walked among His chosen people, He had to drive out profiteers who changed foreign money so that worshipers could pay the temple tax.

While I was on vacation in Hawaii last week, I witnessed a man pulled back to the beach by a pair of divers who had found him on the bottom of a snorkeling lagoon. Most likely, he got tired from fighting the surf, panicked, and accidentally swallowed some water. At that point, he would have been helpless to rescue himself. That’s what happens when we start getting sucked down by sin—we start off doing something a little dangerous and end up overwhelmed. I know that’s what has happened to me.

In the depths of sin, we need God to rescue us and we can never rescue ourselves. But you can’t say you’ve been rescued if you keep going back to the dangerous place and taking crazy risks. Salvation is a lot less like a ticket to heaven and a lot more like an AA chip. Thankfully and paradoxically, God has provided a way for followers of Jesus to escape sin daily: His own Spirit.

To me, salvation is the total package. We can’t save ourselves from our addiction to sin so we need faith. And yes, we risk falling back into sin if we don’t continue to pursue a godly life via works. In order to be effective at either faith or works, we need God’s Spirit to guide our steps. Further, we need the other believers to support us in these things. And prayer! Don’t forget prayer. Reading your Bible can help too. And so on.

All of this is to say, you could probably communicate with a pair of walkie-talkies that have just a transmit and receive function, but that’s not the best option. Even seemly pointless features, like a flashlight, turn out to be wonderfully useful and appreciated at times. God isn’t really interested in giving us the most basic tools to live a good life. He’s interested in giving us the best tools:

For thus says the LORD:
“Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
    and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
    ‘O LORD, save your people,
    the remnant of Israel.’—Jeremiah 31:7 (ESV)

So in the weeks to come, starting with Bruce‘s Arminian/Wesleyan perspective, remember that we all agree that Salvation is what Jesus has done for us even though we disagree about the mechanism of Salvation.

Hello, and welcome to July on Eschewmencial.

Every month we choose a new topic and present several different doctrinal perspectives on the same theme. We encourage debate and discussion of these ideas and desire to provide an open forum for such.

This month’s topic is the age old showdown between Faith and Works. Not to rub salt in old wounds, but this debate was one of the primary drivers of the reformation and the great church schism that has risen out of that event. It’s also been an ever present topic on Christianity Stackexchange. In fact this question and this question attempt to find the proof on each side of the issue.

A search through the scripture will also find what seem like mixed messages, including lines like “by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Eph 2:8) and “faith without deeds is useless.” (James 2:20) What conclusions and views will our author’s draw? Find out this month as we explore the centuries old debate of Salvation by Faith or Works.

• 7/2 Jon (Evangelical—Salvation is what God does for us)
• 7/9 Bruce (Arminian/Wesleyan – Running to Win the Prize)
• 7/16 Peter (Catholic – Faith, Works, God’s the Guy with Gun)
• 7/23 Wax (Reformed – Irresistible)
• 7/30 Jas 3.11 (Jasian – A Beautiful Partnership)

Again thanks for reading. This is Eschewmenical!