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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jan 5, 2009 19:31:01 GMT -4
Charles Haddon Spurgeon is one of my favorite preachers. Here's one of his sermons on justification by faith. The Gospel is indeed good news for sinners. www.spurgeon.org/sermons/3392.htm
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 5, 2009 22:46:22 GMT -4
Mr. Spurgeon say that we must have faith and trust in Jesus in order to obtain grace. So someone without faith in Jesus cannot obtain grace, correct? That makes trusting and having faith in Jesus a work necessary to obtain grace, doesn't it?
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jan 6, 2009 3:13:08 GMT -4
Mr. Spurgeon say that we must have faith and trust in Jesus in order to obtain grace. So someone without faith in Jesus cannot obtain grace, correct? That makes trusting and having faith in Jesus a work necessary to obtain grace, doesn't it? No. Spurgeon clearly taught in this sermon that grace precedes faith and that even faith is a gift of God. All the "work" is done by God. Man is the recipient--not the instigator. Grace, by definition, is unmerited favor. How could anyone by any means merit that which is unmeritable and can only be received as a free gift? Otherwise, you cannot have it. Eph. 2:1 "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." Eph. 2:5 "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) Eph. 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Note the progression. We're dead in our sins and have nothing to offer Him in order to merit His favor. He bestows grace and faith on some of us in order that we might do works that He preordained us for. Which brings us to the hotly debated topic of the doctrine of predestination. But let's save that for later. What I hope you see here from the scriptures is that we are all dead in our sins. We haven't one nice thing about us that would recommend us to God. Salvation is His, and only His, particular work which He gives to the admittedly undeserving. Matt. 9:13 "But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 18:10-14 "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Christianity always begin in despair, when we by grace realize that we have sinned against God and alienated him and that the wages of our sin is death. When we get to that place, then we are able to receive the Good News. "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved." This is Christian doctrine on salvation. What do the Mormons say?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 6, 2009 12:12:53 GMT -4
No. Spurgeon clearly taught in this sermon that grace precedes faith and that even faith is a gift of God. " If you believe in Jesus, that is to say, if you trust him, all the merits of Jesus are your merits, are imputed to you: all the sufferings of Jesus are your sufferings. Everyone of his merits is imputed to you. If you believe in Jesus, that is to say, if you trust him, all the merits of Jesus are your merits, are imputed to you: all the sufferings of Jesus are your sufferings. Everyone of his merits is imputed to you." "And this, I say, is through trusting, or believing. God's way of your getting connection with Christ is through your reliance upon him. "Therefore, being justified"—how? Not by works; that is not the link, but—"being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Christ offers to God the substitution: through faith we accept it: and from that moment God accepts us." "'Being justified.' The text tells us that every believing man is at the present moment perfectly justified before God. You know what Adam was in naked innocence in Paradise. Such is every believer." "Now, I do not say that this is the privilege of a few eminent saints, but here I look around these pews and see my brethren and sisters—scores and hundreds of them—all of whom are tonight just before God—perfectly so; completely so; so just that they never can be otherwise than just; so just that even in heaven they will be no more acceptable to God than they are here tonight. That is the state into which faith brings a poor, lost, guilty, helpless, good-for- nothing sinner. The man may have been everything that was bad before he believed in Jesus, but as soon as he trusted Christ, the merits of Christ became his merits, and he stands before God as though he were perfect, 'without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,' through the righteousness of Christ." "You must be convinced that there is nothing good in yourselves; you must know that you are sinners, and that in your hearts you are as big and as black sinners as the very worst and vilest, and you must come to Jesus, and leave your fancied righteousnesses, and your pretended goodnesses behind you, and you must take him for everything, and trust in him." "Now, if you trust Christ, you shall be justified by faith." So, he says quite often in the sermon that we must believe in Jesus and trust and have faith in him. Can we be saved without trust and faith in Jesus? If not, then this belief, faith, and trust is a work required for being saved. I don't see anything in this sermon about this requisite faith and trust being a gift from God. What I see is that the grace of God is unmerited, but that it requires faith and trust in order to benefit from this grace. and Mr. Spurgeon is encouraging his congregation to exercise this trust and faith. What point would there be in encouraging the congregation to exercise faith and trust if no action is required on their part?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 6, 2009 12:51:44 GMT -4
This is Christian doctrine on salvation. What do the Mormons say? We are Christians, so what we say is much the same. From the Book of Mormon: Mosiah 2 "20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another— 21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. 22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you. 23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him. 24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast? 25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you." Moroni 7: "Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain. 38 For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his name; wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also; and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made." "And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope? 41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise. 42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope." Enos "And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens. 5 And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. 6 And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away. 7 And I said: Lord, how is it done? 8 And he said unto me: Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole." We simply are perhaps more mindful of some other scriptures from the Bible: Romans 2:13 "(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." James 2:24 "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." Matthew 7:21 " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Matthew 7:24 "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:" Luke 11:28 "But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." John 7:17 "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." John 15: "9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love." Revelation 20:12 "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." Matthew 16:27 "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." Galatians 6:7 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." So no, we cannot save ourselves through works. We are unprofitable servants and owe more to God than we can ever repay. We have no hope except that through the grace of God we might obtain mercy. However, God requires that we do good works in order to obtain this mercy, for we are not justified without doing, we will be judged by our works, and we reap what we sow.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jan 6, 2009 16:32:14 GMT -4
Jason, faith isn't a work. Faith is a belief, it is something you accept, not something you have to work at.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 6, 2009 17:59:27 GMT -4
Don't you think that you have to work at accepting something? Why does Mr. Spurgeon continually exort his congregation to have faith if they can't decide to develop it?
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Jan 6, 2009 19:52:37 GMT -4
I'm confused, perhaps one you can help me. I thought that "works" referred to actions, good deeds, etc. Just because you have to "work" at having faith doesn't make it "Work," does it?
In my understanding, Faith is selfish, but Works are selfless.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 6, 2009 20:01:36 GMT -4
I'm confused, perhaps one you can help me. I thought that "works" referred to actions, good deeds, etc. Just because you have to "work" at having faith doesn't make it "Work," does it? That seems to be the sticking point here. In my view, if you have to work to have it then having it is a work. The idea that faith will save you without effort on your part only makes sense if it takes no effort to have faith, which is manifestly untrue. I wouldn't call faith selfish, but it's not really selfless either.
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Jan 7, 2009 17:42:27 GMT -4
Having faith may take work, but that doesn't make your struggle with disbelief "A Work," as I understand the term.
You need to have faith to gain salvation. Whether that comes easy for you, or you have to struggle with it should make no difference. Either way, you're only gaining YOUR salvation.
That's selfish. Your salvation or lack thereof shouldn't make a lick of difference to an infinite being.
On the other hand, you can do "Works," like feeding the poor, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or hosing puppy crap at the Humane Society. These things are not done for you - they COST something to do them, like time, energy, personal discomfort. So God gives you extra credit, on top of the salvation you get by believing in Him in the first place.
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Post by Grand Lunar on Jan 7, 2009 19:18:24 GMT -4
Provided you believe in the concept of sin, of course.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 7, 2009 19:24:30 GMT -4
Having faith may take work, but that doesn't make your struggle with disbelief "A Work," as I understand the term. You need to have faith to gain salvation. Whether that comes easy for you, or you have to struggle with it should make no difference. Either way, you're only gaining YOUR salvation. That's selfish. Your salvation or lack thereof shouldn't make a lick of difference to an infinite being. On the other hand, you can do "Works," like feeding the poor, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or hosing puppy crap at the Humane Society. These things are not done for you - they COST something to do them, like time, energy, personal discomfort. So God gives you extra credit, on top of the salvation you get by believing in Him in the first place. I would say that having faith costs you time, energy, and personal discomfort as well, and that God rewards sacrifice. I'm not sure why you chose to restrict the meaning of "works" to "unselfish deeds", but I could argue that even unselfish deeds have what is essentially a selfish motive at their bottom. You do these unselfish deeds because they make you feel better for having done them or because seeing others happy also makes you happy. You do profit directly from them - in gaining greater happiness.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jan 8, 2009 17:52:20 GMT -4
Jason, sorry it's taken a couple of days to get back to you. Busy at work and cleaning up after the painters at night. Back to where we left off,
I'll start with a repetition of the scripture I posted before:
Eph. 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:
That verse says faith is a gift of God. If believing faith were a merely human "work," then grace is no longer grace.
See Heading I, paragraph 4 of Spurgeon's sermon. It states: "A man, when the Spirit of God is bringing him to Christ, ..." Who's doing the work? The Holy Spirit.
Heading I, paragraph 6: "...it is utterly impossible for us to hope that we ever can be just before God, on the footing of our own doing." If faith is our own doing, then Spurgeon is wrong (but he isn't).
See everything under Heading II.
Yes, we exercise faith (the faith given us as a gift of God). But that is not a work, per se, insofar as the person who exercises faith (the faith given us as a gift of God) is only exercising it because he has already been singled out by God (hence he is saved). To be more clear, faith is necessary to apprehend God's grace, but even that faith is a gift of God. I know of no such thing as a person receiving said faith as a gift, but never exercising it insofar as the matter of salvation is concerned. The will of the sovereign God is irresistible, i.e., we don't have a choice in this matter. He draws us to Himself and enables us to apprehend His mercy through the gift of faith which, in the matter of salvation we are unable to resist doing.
See John 1:13: "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
It's part and parcel of being "born" of the will of God.
Now afterwards, it sometimes becomes necessary for us to "stir up" our faith (the gift of God) [II Tim. 1:6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands., and I could bring myself to concede that such exercise of faith is a "work" of sorts, but it in no way relates to saving faith, of which the exerciser is already in possession, as you can plainly see. Paul isn't laying hands on a non-believer here. Timothy already possessed saving faith.
*** I noted with interest your quote from Enos "...Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou has never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole."
Interesting that you've got a guy here, whom it appears you think is saved, even though Christ has not yet made the sacrifice. He'd be the only one who ever was. When Jesus said those words, He was talking about physical healing--not salvation.
Regarding Matt 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. That needs to be understood in light of all NT prophecy concerning the end of the age. Who is left standing when the dust of Armageddon clears? It isn't the church! That's a big topic all by itself.
My break time is up.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 8, 2009 18:54:42 GMT -4
Eph. 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: That verse says faith is a gift of God. If believing faith were a merely human "work," then grace is no longer grace. Are you sure it's not grace that is the gift of God in this verse? Grace is the subject of that sentence, not faith. If faith is given only by the gift of God, it is all that is required to be saved, and it's not our decision whether we get it or not, why is Mr. Spurgeon bothering to preach? Either his congregation has the gift and is already saved or they don't have it and all the preaching in the world won't make any difference. So for those who aren't exercising faith, it's through no fault of their own, is it? God simply chose not to give it to them. Why then does God condemn someone who had no choice in whether he could have faith or not to eternal torment? The scripture in John doesn't seem to support your point to me. Look at verse 12: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" They became the sons of God by the will of God after they had received him. The power to become sons of God followed an action on their part - receiving him. You're probably right that the gift of God referred to here is indeed Timothy's faith, but does this mean that Timothy did nothing to obtain faith? Or could it mean that Timothy's attempts to gain faith were blessed with a greater gift of faith than he could have acheived on his own? If Timothy did not stir up his faith, as Paul exhorts him to, would he then not be saved? If he would be saved anyway, then why should Paul care if he "stirs it up"? And how is it then "necessary" to stir it up? It was not phsycial healing that was being spoken of here, but forgiveness of sins. Enos' faith in Christ made him whole by bringing about forgiveness of his sins. "And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins." Enos was not seeking physical healing, but spiritual. "Every man" doesn't include the Church? I note also that this comes at the end of a paragraph in which Jesus asks his followers to "deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." What happens if his followers do not deny themselves? Is it God's decision whether they deny themselves, and not their own? Why is Jesus bothering to tell them to do it then?
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jan 10, 2009 19:41:55 GMT -4
Eph. 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: That verse says faith is a gift of God. If believing faith were a merely human "work," then grace is no longer grace. Are you sure it's not grace that is the gift of God in this verse? Grace is the subject of that sentence, not faith. You are correct. I should not have used this verse here. Nevertheless, I maintain that faith is a gift of God and I will offer some more verses which support my opinion. He's dead and I can't ask him, but here's what I think: (1) it is the tendency of all people (saved or not) to try to gain the acceptance of their deity through some kind of work. Even Christians must be reminded of where they came from so as not to start producing dead works or become proud; (2) repetition of the way of salvation constantly reminds the saved to be grateful and to praise God for His love and mercy; (3) the unsaved can be found in every church, even though we often do not know who they are, so there is usually an audience that has not yet heard the Gospel. Timothy was saved. See verse 5. I understood you, which is why I replied as I did. Nobody's sins were forgiven by the sacrifice of Christ until after His sacrifice had actually been made. It's not something a person could do in advance. Not even John the Baptist. Luk 7:28 For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Here is how I understand that verse: because Jesus had not yet died and resurrected, John was still under the law--that would mean John was not a member of the body of Christ. If John the Baptist couldn't be saved in advance of these events, Enos certainly couldn't have been either, John being the greatest prophet born of women. The bride of Christ has preeminence. No, "every man" does not include the church. The church receives judgment at the bema seat of Christ after the rapture, which takes place about 7 years before the Second Coming of Christ. The judgment the church receives doesn't involve salvation--their work while on earth is what is being judged and rewarded (or not) accordingly. The church then returns with Christ at the Second Coming. The church is spared God's judgment during the tribulation. I just want to add that I don't think that God does our believing for us, but the discussion of predestination is going to take us far off the topic of faith vs. works. Also, I find I don't have the energy right now to go into those scriptures I told you I'd be posting, and they would all involve predestination, which is a topic I now don't think we should delve into until that other question is resolved.
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