15 Theses About Faith and Works
This is a short attempt I made recently to clarify some of my thoughts about Faith, Obedience and Assurance
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There is a moment of conversion for all saved people, a moment before which they were not saved, and after which they are. (Mt 18:3, Eph 2:1, 2:5)
We often don't know exactly when conversion happens, nor is it necessary to identify such an experience to be "really saved".
We are saved by faith in Christ, not faith in a particular doctrinal statement or formulation of the gospel, even a true one. (Acts 4:12)
We cannot lose our "new life". (Rom 11:29)
No ritual, be it baptism, tongues, accepting Christ, sinner's prayer or an altar call should give you assurance of salvation. If your life shows unrepentant disqualifying sin, there can be no assurance of salvation (Acts 8:20-23; Rom 6:16).Â
Sanctification is not optional for a believer, it necessarily follows, just as glorification does. (Phil 1:6, Rom 8:9-11)
Obedience is thus always present in the true believer, though it may take time to become apparent. (Jn 10:26-28, 15:5; 1 Pet 5:6, Phil 2:13)
People have many "conversion" style experiences, such as "really understanding grace for the first time" and the like, even when they are already believers. (Rom 7:24-8:1, Luk 22:32, Ps 32:3-5)
It is unnecessary and can be actively harmful to try and nail down which was the "real" one as conversion is an invisible act of the Holy Spirit. (Deut 29:29) God does not need us to, and in fact encourages us not to deal with people on the basis of whether they are "really a believer". (Mt 13:24-30, 47-52)
Everyone is under Christ's authority (Mt 28:18) and all people, believer or not, are commanded to repent, believe and obey (Acts 17:30). No one has the right of refusal, whether they are a Christian or not.
Sanctification is necessarily present in the final judgment (Rom 8:13, Heb 12:14).Â
God is merciful and no one achieves perfection (Deut 4:31, 1 Jn 1:10), but part of sanctification is repenting of our current sin.
The distinction of "righteous" and "wicked" still exists and is not generally used in the sense of judicial righteousness. (Ps 18:20-26) The Lord rewards according to deeds, not simply faith. (Ps 62:12, Prov 24:12, Jer 17:10, Eze 18:20-21; Rom 2:6-7)
Therefore a man in rebellion and dissipation, regardless of his "baptized" or "circumcised" status, or his "having accepted Christ" or "being a believer" or "being a Jew" ought not to presume on the riches of God's kindness. (Rom 2:4)
For a person's subjective experience, there is an internal witness of the Spirit (Rom 8:16), but from the outside that is also invisible and so is entirely irrelevant in terms of how *we* deal with others.
I don't know if the above qualifies me as a "Lordship" guy, because frankly I reject the entire paradigm of trying to assert whether a person is "saved" or not. Conversion is an invisible operation of the Spirit. The effects are fruitfulness or thorns (Luk 6:44) and that is the basis on which we operate with people in the real world, knowing that it is an imperfect metric but also that God does not need us to, nor does he wish us to, separate the wheat from the tares (Mt 13:24-30). This is how Paul deals with his readers also. He has no magic faith glasses, so he deals with them as they visibly appear (based on their deeds), which is why he can offer both assurance and warning without skipping a beat (Gal 6:7; Heb 12:14; 1 Cor 6:9-10; 1 Cor 10:1-6; etc, etc). This is how we should deal with people as well.Â
Thanks for the post! Here are thoughts on some of these:
Thesis 2: I think this is a good point based on experience and observation. I think many children have faith before they are even making conscious decisions, so an exact moment of conversion is obviously going to be difficult to pinpoint.
Thesis 4: I disagree that it is impossible to reject the new life for someone who believed at one point. My understanding of Romans 11:29 is that it concerns the calling of Israel to salvation. God has called them since the patriarchs and is still calling their descendants today with an irrevocable calling, but still some resist the gifts and calling and so it does not benefit them. On the other hand, from Matthew 13:1-23, it seems like some do have faith for a time but loses it due to tribulation or the cares of the world. We are also warned against falling away from a salvation that we have received in Hebrews 2:1-4 and Hebrews 6:4-6, which again indicates that it is a real possibility.
Thesis 5: I agree that unrepentant sin shows a lack of faith and therefore salvation. However, I think we should find not find assurance of salvation our good works, but in God's Word and promises when we are repenting. God promises that we will be saved if we confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:21), so the existence of faith in us should comfort us. He promises that we will be raised from the dead because we have been buried with Jesus by baptism into His death (Romans 6:1-6) and that baptism now saves us (1 Peter 3:18-22), so if we remember our baptism and trust God's promises about it, that should comfort us. He promises that whoever eats Jesus' body and drinks Jesus' blood will live forever (John 6:52-59). In summary, I think that the sacraments should give us assurance of salvation, not because of our faithfulness in performing them or something magical in the rituals themselves, but because of God's promises attached to them.
Thesis 12: I completely agree that repentance should be a daily and ongoing part of the Christian life.
Thesis 13: I like what you're saying here. While we are only truly righteous by the imputation of Jesus' righteousness to us, it does seem like the word "righteous" is used in different senses in different places. In one sense, no one is righteous before God (Psalm 14:3) apart from Christ. In another sense though, we can grow in outward righteousness toward our friends, neighbors, and enemies, which is how the Bible seems to be using the word at times.
Thesis 14: I completely agree that we should repent of sin and not willfully sin by presuming on God's grace.