Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A Review of “Justified by Grace through Faith without Deeds of Law”


A Review of “Justified by Grace through Faith without Deeds of Law


In an article or outline,  a brother we care about,  tries to explain salvation by grace through faith, but it seems to me that he has not grasped the significance of saving faith and what is involved with saving faith. In his article he separates himself from churches of Christ, making some claims about what churches of Christ believe and what he now believes.  For example, he asks this misleading question: “ b) Are we saved by what we do, or are we saved by trusting in what Christ has done?”   That is misleading because it is self-contradicting.  Don’t we do the trusting?  Isn’t that something we do?  Furthermore, while we fully understand and appreciate the fact that it is only because of what Jesus has done that any of us can be saved,  the fact remains that Jesus is not going to save any of us unless we trust Him enough to OBEY His terms of pardon.  Our brother is making an unfair contrast between two ways of saying the same thing. What we do is trust and obey Jesus to receive what He has done.  Why? Because we trust Him even on the terms of pardon He has required.  Are we saved by what we do?   Yes and no!  Yes, if you mean  “are you saved by JESUS if you DO what He said to receive His grace?”  But, “no”, if you mean that doing something on our own has inherent power to save us exclusively by the mere doing of those things.  But, the question is misleading because we cannot be saved by Jesus unless we do the hearing and believing the evidence and do the repenting and being baptized in His name, and do it because we want HIM to pardon us on the terms He commanded and gave promise to.  Apart from Jesus, those activities have no saving ability any more than Naaman could dip himself in the Jordan seven times and save himself from leprosy by the mere action he took.  But, he could not be saved from leprosy by grace if he did not have the faith to do what was required of him as a condition to being healed by grace.

A little further into the outline our brother says:

a) NO BOASTING: Justification by grace thru trust in Christ eliminates any reason for boasting.

 If we are saved by obedience, we leave room to boast. (cf. Lk. 18:9-12; Mt. 7:21-23)

 We will not be saved if we do not obey God, but we are not saved by obedience.-Unquote!

Reply:   One can just as easily boast about doing the “trusting” as one can boast of repentance and baptism. In fact, one cannot really say that they “trust” Jesus at all unless they trust what He says, and trust him enough to repent and be baptized IN HIS NAME for remission of sins (remission that only HE can give us. We don’t give it to ourselves. He gives it when we trust Him obediently in this manner). It seems to be some double-talk to say:  1) we will not be saved if we do not obey God (meaning we must be saved by obeying God), but 2) we are not saved by obedience.  Well, that is cutting too jagged a line.  We are saved only WHEN we obey. Jesus is the Savior. He saves us when we obey Him, and He sets the terms of obedience so that if we obey we will be saved.  Repentance and baptism cannot be “in His name” if it is an action we take wholly on our own and apart from trusting Him to cut our sins away (Col.2:12; Acts 22:16).  Those who do it “in His name” are trusting what He says and believing that He will do the cutting away of sins as He promised.  There is no boasting in recognizing we are sinners in need of His grace and appealing to Him to forgive our sins as we obey His terms of pardon.  We are not saved by a list of things to obey (apart from any connection to Jesus), but we are saved by obedience to Jesus’ terms of pardon (because that is WHEN He will save us).  Our brother shows great confusion. 

Further, one can boast of “trusting” as easily as one can boast of repentance and baptism in Jesus’ name.  So, he solves nothing by taking up the denominational faith-only song we have heard and defeated in every debate I’ve heard or read for decades.  It is puzzling how every few decades a new group of preachers come along who think they have discovered something that the older preachers just missed entirely. 

Then a little later in his outline our brother makes this claim:

1. Many in churches of Christ have assumed Paul’s contrast in Romans/Galatians is OT vs. NT.

a) E.g. We are not saved by obeying the OT law; we are saved by obeying the law of Christ.

b) This assumes we are saved by obeying law; the only question is which law we must obey. –Unquote.



Reply:  I would not say that we are saved by obeying law (a book of rules), but by obeying Jesus’ terms of pardon(found in His law).  Now, to show the further fallacy of our brother’s reasoning we ask: 1) does the law of Christ require us to “trust” Him?  Does the law of Christ require us to believe in Jesus?  If it does, then our brother has shot his own position in the foot.  If the law of Christ requires “trust” or “faith” or “repentance” as CONDITIONS for pardon, then our brother really has not escaped the dilemma he thinks “many churches of Christ” have gotten entangled in.   Since the law of Christ is built into believing in Jesus, it is not a similar thing to the Law of Moses or moral code only.  Those are law-only codes.  The Jew refuses to believe in Jesus and claims devotion to the Law of Moses. Can that law save him? No!  A Gentile may have “law” apart from Jesus. Can his “law” save him? No!  But, a Christian does not have a law apart from Jesus, but law built into the very relationship with Jesus. It is not a separate entity as it is an expression of Jesus Himself.  A person does not enter into this law or covenant apart from trusting and believing Jesus.  Thus, it is better to think of obedience to Jesus as “faith” and to think of the systems of Jews and Gentiles who do not know and follow Jesus as totally dependent on law and works, but that their systems do not provide salvation because their systems inherently condemn them rather than saving them.  By works shall no flesh be justified.  There is no salvation apart from Jesus.  The law of Christ is not something apart from Jesus.

A little later our brother says: 2. Romans 4 does not allow us to distinguish works of merit and works of divine command. –Unquote!

Reply: But Romans four DOES allow us to distinguish works of faith from all other kinds of works.  Abraham showed works of faith and so did David.  Trust is a work of faith. Repentance is a work of faith. Baptism in Jesus’ name is a work of trust or faith, but these are not works of merit, and they are not works of divine command that one can perform apart from faith in Jesus.  So, there is a subtle mistake our brother makes here with his choice of terms. The ‘steps of the faith” of Abraham were activities of effort such as packing and traveling to a place God would show him.  Don’t say there is no “work” involved with faith. It is simply a different KIND of work than the meritorious kind of work one would have to engage if they are hoping to earn a place with God on the basis of personal merit.  Later, our brother says: 2. Paul’s contrast is not between kinds of works; his contrast is between works and faith. 4:4-5. –Unquote!   But, that is not quite right either.  It is a kind of works that Paul is contrasting because faith is a kind of works too.  A faith in Jesus kind of work is far different from mere works of law.  It takes work on our part to commit our trust to Jesus. It takes work to believe, because that demands the work of listening, studying, analyzing the evidence of God’s word so that it can convict us, and conviction demands the work of repentance, confession, and baptism in Jesus’ name.  So, a contrast between works and faith IS indeed a contrast between KINDS of works. In Galatian Paul terms is “faith working by love”(Gal.5:6). Isn’t that a different KIND of works?  Of course it is!



 One kind depends on personal merit and work that earns continued partnership with God, at least theoretically.  The other kind of works is dependent on Jesus, trusting Him, obeying Him, meeting His conditions of pardon, which means I have not worked meritoriously, which is the reason I recognize a need for pardon and am willing to meet His terms of pardon, and am calling on Him for pardon.  The man of works does not see his need of pardon, and does not need what Jesus did on the cross.  The person who believes in Jesus has works of a different nature or kind altogether. So, because it is two entirely different KINDS of works, it is best to use two different summary words to make the contrast.  The standout feature of justification by law would have to be WORK, entirely a matter of personal performance, and therefore no need of mercy. The standout feature of justification by faith is that it looks away from self to someone else. People look elsewhere because they know they cannot present a case for justification on the basis of personal performance. Thus, faith looks to someone else to provide a basis for justification before God.  Does that mean that you don’t have to believe, trust, and obey any conditions?  No! It will be works of faith, looking for justification through faith in that other person. In our case, we look to Jesus for justification. 



We work a different kind of works. They are not meritorious. They are actions of faith.  Obedience is actions that surrender to another.  So, Paul does contrast two systems, and because they are so different,  the main characteristic of each system is emphasized with one word.  But, to say that faith is not characterized by works of any kind is to overstate the case.   This can be seen by the activity of Hebrews 11.  By faith Abraham….did something. By faith Noah did something.  The main characteristic of faith is that it does what God says. It demonstrates its reality by works of obedient faith (See James 2:14ff).  So, in all reality, Paul is contrasting two different KINDS of works: 1) Works of Law where personal performance merits a just standing before God, and 2) Works of faith where Jesus provides the basis of justification on His own conditions of pardon.

Our brother then argues with the above conclusions by saying: a) But the context simply does not picture this contrast. It is not about perfection vs. grace.

b) Is man justified by what he does in obeying God or by trusting in what God has done? –Unquote!

Reply:  It does indeed contrast perfection of standing before law versus grace and its provisions through surrendered and obedient faith.  But, our brother makes a false contrast in his point b.  He asks “Is man justified by what he does in obeying God or by trusting in what God has done?”  Well, that is self-contradictory.  Does man HAVE to “trust” in what God has done?  Yes!  If he does not, God will not justify that person.  Well, if God refuses to justify a person unless they trust God and obey His terms of pardon, then it is not an either-or situation. It is a BOTH situation.  Now, the opposite side of that coin is: Is man justified solely by what he does in obeying God?  The answer is absolutely not!  The other question that comes into play on the second half of the question is: What all is involved in “trusting in what God has done”?, and, does trusting in God exclude or include such terms of pardon such as repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ?  Now, obviously what God has done is the only BASIS for our justification,  but He has done that for all people whether they believe or not.  So, the acquiring of the benefits of what God did for us in Jesus is conditioned upon something God expects from us.  If you want to summarize it, it would be belief or trust in Jesus.  But, no person really knows how to express the kind of trust God has in mind except God says what He expects.  Let us use the story of Naaman again.  Is Naaman going to heal himself by what he does in obeying God?  Yes and No! Only because God told him the conditions he has to meet, and he has to do it. But, if God had not provided the means and conditions, Naaman certainly would not choose to dip in the Jordan seven times and think that has ANY power to heal his leprosy. Likewise, if Jesus had not told us to repent and be baptized in His name for remission of sins, there is no way anyone would have ever come up with that as a means of being cleansed from our spiritual leprosy, sin.  It is the fact that God commanded it as a condition for healing that made Naaman begin to trust and obey the words of the prophet of God. ONLY when Naaman washed in the Jordan did God cleanse him of his leprosy.  And , only when the 3000 on Pentecost and later the Ethiopian Eunuch, and later Saul, were convicted and were baptized in Jesus’ name were any of them able to lay claim to faith or salvation.  So, the truth is in the middle of what our brother said. Man is justified by what he does in obeying God because in obeying God he is trusting in what God has done and what God has said. The man who does nothing to obey God’s terms of pardon does not trust God at all, for how can one truthfully say “I trust what you DID, but I don’t trust what you told me to do?” Those that gladly received his words were baptized in the manner Peter, by Spirit-guidance, commanded.  If they did not, they did not trust the Savior at all. It is very easy to tell WHEN the 3,000 Jews “trusted” Jesus and received “remission of sins”.  It was when they trusted enough to ‘repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins”(Acts 2:36-41). Be careful of straining at Romans to make a false distinction. Obviously, even in Romans Paul is not speaking of a faith that was not the kind that moved them to be “baptized into His death”(Rom.6:1-5).  We should be careful to include in “faith” all the terms of pardon that the Lord commanded. Otherwise we cannot lay claim to believing Him at all. At least not the right Jesus(2 Cor.11:-4).

(to be continued)