New Thoughts (3/20/03-3/22/03)
There are matters of doctrine which we can discuss, which are enough beyond our full comprehension as to need such discussion. However, there are matters that should be so cast in concrete for us that no further discussion can be tolerated. The issue of works and salvation is one of these issues. Any argument that leads back to salvation based on the efforts of man should be clearly seen for the foolishness it is. If that point is made clear, it is sufficient argument, and no more need be said. For, truly, if a man insists that his salvation is still dependent upon his own efforts, his own works, then he is condemned by his own insistence.
Any teaching that would seek to return works into the formula for salvation must certainly be rejected. It should cause deep concern in us to even consider the possibility! If we have truly come to understand our nature and our neediness, how can we place any confidence in ourselves? If our salvation depends upon our own actions, how can we place any confidence in that, either? Perhaps, in Paul's mind, this is what makes debating this point so foolish. For any man to continue holding to the idea that his works will be his salvation is for that man to have blinded himself to his own condition. Until that blindness be removed, discussing the means of salvation with such a one will indeed be a waste of time.
This was part of the problem with convincing the Jews of the reality of Christ then, and it remains so now. They are still firmly convinced that their lineage as God's people, their carefulness to conform to His law, will suffice to secure their eternal future. It still has not become clear to them that they are already guilty of breaking that law, and no amount of obedience thereafter can suffice to satisfy the claims of His justice. It required more than the blood of bulls and goats, and even these are not offered any longer. However, they continue to hold out the hope of their own history and effort. Until it can be seen that this will never be enough, the message of salvation by faith will be a message spoken to them in vain.
The same can be said for the Roman Catholic church. They continue to insist upon the works of man as a requirement for man's salvation. They give Christ a place, but then they take back for themselves what is rightfully His. Here, there is not such leaning on heritage and lineage as was so prevalent amongst the Jews. They even acknowledge the weakness of man. But, instead of turning to Christ more fully in the light of that weakness, they have fashioned other works for man to do to repay God for what they have done. Can they really not see that making up their own system for satisfying the Judge of the whole earth can't possibly work? He has already declared the due penalty quite clearly in His Law. He has already declared every man that ever was guilty, in breach of His Law, and indebted to His court for payment of the due penalty.
Thanks be to God that He has also provided the means for us to pay that penalty, for the cost of our crimes against God and heaven are high and far beyond our ability to repay. God has truly made a way, a way we could not possibly have made on our own!
It must be seen that if we, in any way, place the basis of salvation back upon our own works, we are insisting by that choice on condemnation. The very fact of our reliance upon our own effort cannot but be an act devoid of faith in the work of Christ, and we know that whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). How can we shout about the wondrous work of Christ, the incredible sacrifice He made for us, the awesome power of His blood to save, and then turn around and insist that it is by the sweat of our own brow that we will enter in? How?!? How is this not a rejection of the very One who came to save us? How small do we think our God to be?
What, then, are we to say? Is the issue of our salvation a matter worth discussing, worth debating? Is it an empty dispute, or is it critical to our eternal state to get it right? I would contend that it is indeed critical. To repeat myself, whatever is not of faith is sin. Faith and works stand in total opposition to one another in this matter of salvation, yet we must remain clear on the fact that our good works are to be expected. The issue, as always, is in the heart. Do we work to save ourselves, are they works of guilt, done in hopes that maybe He who judges the heart will be less offended? If so, then we are justly condemned, because we have refused the Way He chose. We do not act from faith but from fear.
If, on the other hand, we accept the idea that our salvation is by faith, claim this salvation as our own, and then simply sit back, refusing to do any further good works we are equally condemned, but on a different basis. In this very letter, Paul has been urging his constituents to continue in doing good works, because they are profitable to men. Elsewhere, he makes it clear that those works are put in our path by God Himself, so that we might do them. What, then? Isn't he the one telling us that works can't save us? Yes. He is also telling us that the salvation that is ours by faith cannot possibly be devoid of the fruits of salvation. Faith without works is a very dead faith (James 2:26). It is not the lack of works that killed it, though. The lack of works stands as evidence that the faith never lived at all.
Our works do nothing, my friend, to further our salvation. They have been given us to do as a blessing both upon ourselves, and upon those for whom the works are done. They are prepared specifically for us by God, so that we can do them (Ephesians 2:10). Why? That we might be the more assured of the salvation He has wrought in us. How is this an assurance? It is because we live in recognition that it is God working in us, and not our own effort alone. It is God who has given us the will to do these good works, and it is God who performs the work through us and in us, all for His own good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
Indeed, work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), but know this: that it is God who is working, and it is God who is willing. It is God in you that is doing it all. There is nothing in those acts to which we can rightfully lay claim. There can be no merit in them for us, because it was God who did them. If there is merit, it is all His. We cannot even take credit for choosing to obey, for even that, Paul says, is God's doing. He has willed in our will that we would choose to do His will.
Is this, then, foolish doctrinal dispute, or a matter of life and death? If all that is not faith is sin, and sin is death, can we not see that to seek salvation in our own strength is to seek our own death? Can we really believe that God will be pleased by our seeking His forgiveness by actions that deny that we accept the forgiveness He already gave?
Indeed, work out your salvation with fear and trembling! For, until we arrive at our eternal home, we must hear the witness of our heart, and of our spirit. Our heart, we know, is exceedingly wicked and deceptive. What we may tend to forget is that it is equally deceptive in both directions. Our hearts are more than willing to testify to how good we are, even when we're acting most shamefully. Our hearts are just as willing to testify to how completely condemned we are by our failures. This is what John addresses in his letter.
There, in 1John 3:18-22, he points up the fact that the testimony of our heart against us is not altogether trustworthy either. We require other proofs of our true condition. The proof, he tells us, lies in the fact of our active love. This is hard evidence, not feelings and thoughts. This, he says is our proof that we are of the truth, and this proof will give us assurance even when our heart is condemning us. How is this? Because we know that God is greater than our hearts (He who both wills and works within us). This proof by action rather than emotion can alone quiet the deceitful heart. This proof stands to oppose the attempts of that heart to condemn, leaving us confident before God because our eyes have seen the evidence of His life in us. This active love is the evidence that we are indeed keeping His commandments, doing what pleases Him, and candidates to receive what we ask of Him, because what we ask of Him is not of our own desires, but of His will.
Thus does God provide for the testimony of our heart. What, then, of the Spirit? That the Holy Spirit has come, and will teach us all things is the clear message of Scripture. Yet, here again John gives us a word of caution, lest we deceive ourselves. In 1John 4:1-3, John gives us both the reason for the test, and the test by which we can know whom we are hearing. Not every spirit we hear is the Holy Spirit. Many false prophets were in the world then, and many are still out there today, disguised as angels of light as Paul says elsewhere (2Corinthians 11:14). So, we must know how to recognize the Holy Spirit among all these other spiritual voices. He will be the spirit that confesses Christ come in the flesh, sent of God. Any who would say otherwise, are to be dismissed outright as the voice of antichrist.
Even if angels come with a different message, Paul says in Galatians 1:8, they are to be esteemed as accursed. Here, also, we are given a solid test by which to validate the messages our spirit may receive. What the Holy Spirit will teach us can be no other than what the Father declares as truth, for they are One. In the Bible, we have been given the foundational word of God regarding Himself, and regarding His creation. If we would know whether the spirit that speaks within us is of God or otherwise, we can first apply John's test. If this remains inconclusive, then we must check what that spirit says against what the record of Scripture says. If this spirit's message is not fully and completely aligned with Scripture, the spirit speaking to us is not to be listened to. Indeed, we know the voice of our Shepherd, because He has given us great means of assuring ourselves that it is He and no other who is speaking.
The sum of this should be reasonably clear. The internal testimonies available to us are not sufficiently trustworthy in themselves. They require external confirmation, hard evidence as it were. Here, then, is the place of good works in our salvation. They are the hard evidence of active love that John insists must be the confirmation (or denial as the case may be) of our heart's claims. Our hope is to be a firm anchor to us, a solid rock upon which our faith can stand. That hope must be in Christ and not ourselves. That hope can only hold us firm, if it is attached to something firm. Christ is to be our anchor in the storm, but how do we know this? How are we to be certain that our hope is more than fantasy and delusion? How can we know that we are truly saved, and not of those who claim to be His, but aren't? The works of active love, the fulfilling of those tasks of active love that God has prepared beforehand for us to do are the very confirmation we need!
The heart saddened by sin is a start, for it would seem to speak of the Spirit working upon us, but once more we must remember the heart's deceitful nature. We are, by our nature, most willing to be deceived, more than willing to hear what we wanted to hear rather than the truth. The heart saddened by sin is nothing more than deception if the evidence of the Spirit working out His active love through us is not there.
I asked, at the top of this study, where we were to draw the line between doctrinal discussion and foolish dispute. I think we may have the answer in this. Insomuch as these doctrinal disputes are a working out of love, a seeking for the greater spiritual wellbeing, and an earnest seeking of a greater understanding of the truth of God, they remain a healthy thing, a good thing. Where such discussions are a matter of proving ourselves right and our opponent wrong, where we no longer seek God's mind on the matter, but only confirmation of our own opinions, we have slipped into futility.
There are incredible mysteries of God, matters which centuries of study and dispute have not managed to clarify sufficiently for all to agree upon. Even with our vaunted intelligence, even with the great and learned history of the Church, there is that about God which He simply will not reveal in full to us. In the face of this, it would be the height of foolishness for us to claim to have the answers. It can be nothing other than an act of pride to make such claim, knowing that better minds than ours have wrestled with these things and come out on both sides of the answer. Perhaps, in His time, God will choose to answer conclusively. Perhaps it must wait until we have been perfected, and stand before Perfection.
Father, I fear I have been guilty of claiming more knowledge than is truly mine. I have stood in arrogant pride, so sure I have this matter of election fully worked out. Yet, it remains a mystery to me. How can it be that we are assured of our place in Your house, and yet must expend every effort to maintain that place? How can we resolve all that You have said to us in Scripture on this subject to know the whole of Your message? I sense that, when this present study is over, You and I will be looking hard at this subject yet again. Oh, how I hunger to understand this!
Prince of Peace be with me! I know that all my assurance is in You. I know that these tests I have written of are tests I myself need to apply even now. I need to be certain that what I have come to believe is indeed the message of Your revelation. I need to see those confirming works in my life, that the certainty of my eternal state can be the more certain in my mind, as it is in Yours.
Holy Spirit, guide me to the right questions, that I might come, by Your teaching, to the right answers. Be with me, now and always, to point me in the direction I should go. Indeed, be within me to will and to work according to Your will and Your promise. Let me see the fruits of Your presence in my life, that my joy in knowing You may be made full.
