Is believing/faith a work ?

[beloved57]

Now understand, . If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the work of man, or the productions of natural man’s own efforts, then his salvation is the fruit of his own labour , his work,

However If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the gifts of God of His grace, then it is absurd , to consider them as conditions on the part of man and then his salvation is of grace.

 

[marke]

Now understand, . If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the work of man, or the productions of natural man’s own efforts, then his salvation is the fruit of his own labour , his work,

However If faith, repentance, gospel obedience, are the gifts of God of His grace, then it is absurd , to consider them as conditions on the part of man and then his salvation is of grace.

God promises to give the gift of life to those who repent.


Acts 2:38
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost

 

[Right Divider]

God promises to give the gift of life to those who repent.

Acts 2:38
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost

In Acts 2, the context is specifically Israel repenting of murdering their Christ.

When you quote (as I've seen you do before) a single verse that starts with THEN or THEREFORE, you are missing some valuable CONTEXT about the verse that you are quoting.

Acts 2:37-38 (AKJV/PCE)
(2:37) ¶ Now when they heard [this], they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men [and] brethren, what shall we do? (2:38) Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

So... what had they heard that "pricked them in their heart"?

 

[marke]

In Acts 2, the context is specifically Israel repenting of murdering their Christ.

When you quote (as I've seen you do before) a single verse that starts with THEN or THEREFORE, you are missing some valuable CONTEXT about the verse that you are quoting.

So... what had they heard that "pricked them in their heart"?

The Holy Spirit turns sinners to Jesus by enlightening them. When the sinners hear Peter preaching the Holy Spirit convinced them that Jesus is the Lord God Savior and they were "pricked" in their hearts of their need to find forgiveness of their sins from God.

Acts 2

36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

 

[Right Divider]

The Holy Spirit turns sinners to Jesus by enlightening them. When the sinners hear Peter preaching the Holy Spirit convinced them that Jesus is the Lord God Savior and they were "pricked" in their hearts of their need to find forgiveness of their sins from God.

Acts 2

36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

No, they were pricked in their hearts because the learned that they had MURDERED their Christ.

Acts 2:23 (AKJV/PCE)
(2:23) Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

 

[beloved57]

Acts 16:30-32

30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.

What the answer the jailer received simply shows is, the saved believe. He was not told to ‘Believe, and then you will be saved or get saved’. He was not told that his act of believing is what his salvation is reliant upon. He was merely told that the saved believe, and the rest of Scripture shows that this believing is a gift from God, and not something which can be self-induced by man. Salvation does not wait upon your believing, but on the grace of God. All a man can be told is believe and you will be saved. However, far from implying that salvation is conditioned on a man’s believing, all these words are saying is that only the man who believes will be saved. The man who has eternal life is the man who believes. The gift of eternal life is present only in the man who believes. The gift comes first, then the believing. Salvation is not by works, it is not by your belief, it is by the grace of God through the gift of faith. Grace gives faith to the man who has been chosen by God to believe. Believing is not a ‘Do this and you will then be/get saved’ proposition, for believing is a gift from God to the one He has chosen to save. Faith is given before belief, so that one will believe. One cannot savingly believe before grace gives the gift of faith. One cannot believe without the gift of faith being given first, just as one cannot be saved without grace. https://www.godsonlygospel.com/by-grace-alone-22

 

[marke]

Acts 16:30-32

30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.

What must sinners do to be saved? Not a thing, just believe God.

 

[beloved57]

Is making a decision a work ?

Yes to make a decision is a work, no not a physical activity you do with say your hands, arms, legs or body muscles and mass, but a mental work, labor. Lets take for instance a person who may be on a sodium restriction, and they're in a grocery store about to buy a can of soup. They observe many different soup labels on the shelf, so they began to read the nutrition contents as it pertains to sodium. They see a can with the label reading 110 mg sodium, a can reading 220 mg sodium, and one reading 550 mg sodium, which can of soup should they purchase ? To say the least a decision has to be made. How is that decision derived ? You must think, consider , weigh the pros and cons, which all are mental activities of the mind, its mental work, it takes mental exertion effort to do this. Now so it is when its being taught that a person , in order to get saved, they must make a decision for Christ !

 

[marke]

Is making a decision a work ?

Yes to make a decision is a work, no not a physical activity you do with say your hands, arms, legs or body muscles and mass, but a mental work, labor. Lets take for instance a person who may be on a sodium restriction, and they're in a grocery store about to by a can of soup. They observe many different soup labels on the shelf, so they began to read the nutrition contents as it pertains to sodium. They see a can with the label reading 110 mg sodium, a can reading 220 mg sodium, and one reading 550 mg sodium, which can of soup should they purchase ? To say the least a decision has to be made. How is that decision derived ? You must think, consider , weigh the pros and cons, which all are mental activities of the mind, its mental work, it takes mental exertion effort to do this. Now so it is when its being taught that a person , in order to get saved, they must make a decision for Christ !

It is an error to assume that God commands sinners to believe God and then condemns them for their so-called "work" of believing God.

 

[beloved57]

Is making a decision a work ? 2

The Arminian freewiller gospel gives us a camouflage gospel of works parading as salvation by grace through faith. It provides the natural man room to boast in their supposed salvation, yet in their mind they deny such, but affirm that they ascribe their salvation to their freewill decision for Christ. However this is a deception, its a cloak for boasting , its still teaching that salvation is conditioned on man, on his works, will, or decision, his mental effort at the least. He can even boast and say he is saved because of his wisdom or making a wise choice. The true believer however has been God given Faith to realize that they have been saved by Grace alone, and what God only by Grace has done, that none of their salvation was conditioned on them. Eph 2:8-9

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works or[my decision], lest any man should boast.

 

[marke]

Is making a decision a work ? 2

The Arminian freewiller gospel gives us a camouflage gospel of works parading as salvation by grace through faith. It provides the natural man room to boast in their supposed salvation, yet in their mind they deny such, but affirm that they ascribe their salvation to their freewill decision for Christ. However this is a deception, its a cloak for boasting , its still teaching that salvation is conditioned on man, on his works, will, or decision, his mental effort at the least. He can even boast and say he is saved because of his wisdom or making a wise choice. The true believer however has been God given Faith to realize that they have been saved by Grace alone, and what God only by Grace has done, that none of their salvation was conditioned on them. Eph 2:8-9

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works or[my decision], lest any man should boast.

God has commanded all sinners everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel, not because repenting and believing the Gospel is some kind of work that God condemns, but because believing and repenting is not a work to be condemned at all.
Acts 17:30
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Acts 26:20
But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Believing/faith is not a work, in that it doesn't merit one's salvation. Here's what John Piper had to say about this:

APRIL 1, 1976 Is Faith Meritorious?​ Article by John Piper​ Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org The question I am trying to answer is this: If faith is the sine qua non of being saved (Ephesians 2:8; Acts 16:31; Romans 5:1), then is it proper to speak of faith as meriting salvation? Does one earn salvation by believing in Jesus? First, note that this is not a serious question for the universalist. For him, the call to faith is the call to all people to recognize that they have already been justified and are being and will be saved. Nothing crucial hangs on the act of faith. But I am not working with the universalist assumption, but rather with the assumption that “we are justified by faith” (Romans 5:1) and without faith we are not saved and not justified. In other words, I am assuming that the attitude of the heart and mind which we call faith is just as necessary to the salvation of the individual as the death and resurrection of Christ are, because it is that without which we will not be saved. Does this insistence that our faith is as necessary as Christ’s death for our salvation mean that our faith merits salvation? How we answer this question depends on our use of the terms involved. The key terms are “merit” and “faith.” As the term is normally used, “to merit” (or “to deserve”) something good from somebody means to perform some act or manifest some quality which has enough value to another person that it morally obligates him to reward it. Illustration 1 – The Guilty Convict​ What faith involves and whether it “merits” salvation may be shown by two illustrations. First, picture yourself as a murderer condemned to death and awaiting execution. You are guilty and everyone knows it. You deserve to die. Then you get a letter from the President of the United States which says that he has, by his sovereign power, decided to remit your sentence and let you go free. The reason he gives for this decision is not that any new evidence has turned up, but rather he simply wants to demonstrate to everyone his power in this declaration of mercy and to transform your disregard for his laws into humble adoration of his merciful sovereignty. He calls your attention to his seal on the letter and instructs you to simply show it to the warden, who will then let you go free—no questions asked. So you call the guard, show him the letter and get a hearing with the warden. As you enter the warden’s office, you smell the fresh air of life and liberty blowing in his window and you see the tops of trees and a kite flying beyond the wall. You hand him the letter and he reads it. Without a query he orders the guard to get your things. As you leave the gates you turn to look at the massive prison and the row of windows where you had been an hour before. Then you start running and jumping and shouting and laughing and telling everyone, “The President let me out! The President let me out!” Illustration 2 – The Poor Laborer​ In the second illustration, picture yourself as a poor unskilled laborer who barely can scrape enough together to feed your wife and three children. One day you get in the mail a letter from a famous wealthy philanthropist. The letter says that if you will bring it to his lawyer, the lawyer will pay you a hundred thousand dollars—no strings attached. The reason he gives is simply that he enjoys giving to the poor. There is no indication why he sent the letter to you and not to another. You need only go pick up the money with the letter. So you follow his instructions and go. Entering the lawyer’s office, you hand him the letter. He says he has been expecting you, writes the check and bids you farewell. The question that these two stories raise is whether you, in either situation, could properly speak of “meriting” freedom or wealth? You did have to meet a condition: The sine qua non of freedom and wealth was to present the letters from the President and the philanthropist. But to use our definition of merit, was your presenting of the letters an act so valuable to the President or to the philanthropist that they were thus obligated to reward you? Why Faith is not Meritorious​ I think the answer is clearly no. Only one thing obligated the President and the philanthropist—their own honor. Insofar as they were committed to maintaining their own honor, it was morally impossible for them to refuse the favor they had promised. In other words, there was something so valuable to them that they were obligated to “reward” it, namely, their own good name. Faith is symbolized by the response of the prisoner and the poor man. On what basis could they with any assurance lay claim to the promise of freedom and wealth? No use of the terms “merit” or “deserve” in our ordinary experience would justify the prisoner’s saying to the warden, “I deserve (or merit) freedom because I brought you this letter.” Nor could he properly say, “My act of bringing you this letter is an act so valuable to the President that he is therefore obligated to free me.” That statement completely contradicts the dynamics of this situation. The prisoner may say one thing: “Our merciful President has sent me a letter of remittance and I believe that his faithfulness to his word and his commitment to his own honor is so great that in spite of my guilt he will certainly do what he has said.” Faith is the one human act which morally obligates another person without calling attention to the other person’s honor. Faith in God’s promise obligates him to save the believer not because the quality of faith is meritorious, but because faith is the one human act which calls attention alone to God’s merit, honor and glory and his unswerving commitment to maintain that glory. The Biblical Purpose of Faith​ The cry of faith is found throughout the Psalms: “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name; and deliver us and forgive our sins, for thy name’s sake” (Psalm 79:9). “For the sake of thy name, O Lord, revive me” (Psalm 143:11). “For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great” (Psalm 25:11). “But thou, O Lord, deal kindly with me for thy name’s sake” (Psalm 109:21). Paul spells out the essence of faith as the antithesis to merit when he says in Romans 4:4-5: “Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” And then Paul gives Abraham’s experience as the great pattern for all faith when he says, “With respect to the promise of God (the letters of the President and the philanthropist) Abraham did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Romans 4:20).

Is Faith Meritorious?

Does a person earn salvation by believing in Jesus?

www.desiringgod.org

 

[beloved57]

Robert Harbach wrote:

If faith is a condition unto my salvation which I must fulfill, if faith must originate with me, then my salvation is by works — and that excludes me — for all my works are filthy rags! Faith must be the gift of God so that I can believe! If I may believe through grace, then, praise God, my deliverance is His work from beginning to end! This is Calvinism. It is unpopular, but it is right. It is despised but glorious. It alone can say, Sola Dei Gloria!

Calvinism Unpopular But Right

This article first appeared in the December 1966 issue of the Standard Bearer, vol.43, Issue 5. The religious and doctrinal outlook of this now beyond middle age twentieth century is not that of Calvinism or that of the Reformed Faith. It is rather that of an inclusivistic or syncretistic and...

www.prca.org

 

[marke]

Robert Harbach wrote:

If faith is a condition unto my salvation which I must fulfill, if faith must originate with me, then my salvation is by works — and that excludes me — for all my works are filthy rags! Faith must be the gift of God so that I can believe! If I may believe through grace, then, praise God, my deliverance is His work from beginning to end! This is Calvinism. It is unpopular, but it is right. It is despised but glorious. It alone can say, Sola Dei Gloria!

Calvinism Unpopular But Right

This article first appeared in the December 1966 issue of the Standard Bearer, vol.43, Issue 5. The religious and doctrinal outlook of this now beyond middle age twentieth century is not that of Calvinism or that of the Reformed Faith. It is rather that of an inclusivistic or syncretistic and...

www.prca.org

Faith is not a work. Calvinists think it is. That is nonsense.

 

[beloved57]

If one is supposedly saved or justified after some action of theirs, like making a decision or what have you, that is salvation or justification by works and not grace. Whenever salvation is conditioned on a person doing is works !

 

[JudgeRightly]

If one is supposedly saved or justified after some actin of theirs, like making a decision or what have you, that is salvation or justification by works and not grace.

After an action on their part? No.

Whenever salvation is conditioned on a person doing is works!

John Piper disagrees:

Is Faith Meritorious?

Does a person earn salvation by believing in Jesus?

www.desiringgod.org

 

[beloved57]

After an action on their part? No.



John Piper disagrees:

Is Faith Meritorious?

Does a person earn salvation by believing in Jesus?

www.desiringgod.org

Yeah I disagree with him.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Yeah I disagree with him.

That's nice.

What he said he teaches from the Bible. I don't agree with everything he says either, but here he's dead-on correct, and he shows logically how your position cannot be true.

The article completely destroys your position. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

 

[beloved57]

That's nice.

What he said he teaches from the Bible. I don't agree with everything he says either, but here he's dead-on correct, and he shows logically how your position cannot be true.

The article completely destroys your position. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

Hes in grave error, and I have shown that.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Hes in grave error,

Saying it doesn't make it so.

and I have shown that.

No, you haven't.