Faith is from Christ to the Elect

Something I do?
Will you hire me for having faith? Pay me for having faith?
How many hours do I have to have faith for?
How much work is involved in having faith?
How many calories is expended while I work at having faith?
Please explain.

 

No it isn't action as we define it.
Jesus said: Except you have faith as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

What kind of work can a little child have.
The faith is not understanding the Bible, the gospel message, etc.
The faith is confidence in their parents that they will provide for them, protect them, etc. They will never get paid for faith. It is not a work; not something they DO. It is something they HAVE. It is inherent. Jesus requires us to put that simplistic inherent faith in His blood, His atoning sacrifice that we might be saved.

 

You are simply wrong! In Acts 16:30 the jailor uses the present tense "what must I KEEP ON DOING" whereas the Paul and Silas responded with the Aorist tense "believe"!

They were rebuking his question and not condoning it!

Believing in the gospel is merely RECEIVING the good news. There is no work done by receiving a gift.


Furthermore, you fail to understand that faith is merely the consequence of being DRAWN by the Father and no man can come to me except the Father DRAW him. The work is done by God not by the saint.

Jn 6:44 No man can come [believe] to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jn. 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come [believe] unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

Thus believing is IMPOSSIBLE for man and thus cannot be a WORK of man but it is a WORK OF GRACE - Romans 4:16 "It is of faith that might be of grace".

"BY GRACE are ye saved THROUGH FAITH and THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES for IT IS A GIFT OF GOD NOT OF WORKS..." - Eph. 2:8-9

Now DHK disagrees with me on this as much as you do but this is the fact of scripture that no amount of debate will change.

 

It's true, believing is a verb, its an action, and therefore its a work. So you have to do at least one work, 'believe' to be saved, right? But God gives you the faith so He gets the credit.

 

Wrong! Believing in the gospel is RECEIVING not participating in the gospel as the gospel is a declaration of what Christ has done FOR the sinner not what the sinner does FOR God.

Why can't you deal with the evidence I gave in my last post???? Because you cannot objectively deal with it so you simply make an unfounded speculative assertion that is contrary to the Biblical evidence.

Faith in regard to the gospel is always RECEPTIVE as it is "in" Christ or receiving his active obedience to God for us, whereas faith in regard to sanctification is our ACTIVE response to the revealed will of God or personal obedience.

 

It's not enough to just receive the news, you have to believe. Some people receive the news and yet reject it and refuse to believe. So there must be some action on the part of the believer.

 

So then you seem to be taking the position that a work - even if its a work of grace, is a requirement to be saved?

 

That is precisely why I quoted John 6:44,64-65 - which you ignored.

Why not deal with the Biblical evidence I presented???? Why merely give your uninspired PHILOSOPHICAL opinion? The Biblical evidence I presented disproves your PHILOSOPHICAL opinion! Deal with the Biblical evidence because all I am going to do is keep putting it in your face until you have the courage to deal with God's Word.

 

John 6 and Romans and Ephesians are all saying the same thing - that the works that are done in us are a free gift of God, so they are works of grace. This includes our believing and our public testimony and our baptism and any other good work we do, which are works of grace, which are free gifts done in us by God.

 

Here is where we fundementally disagree. Grace is God's work pure from all human participation. Grace is cause whereas man's "good works" are consequential but never joint participation. Hence, "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work."

Hence a direct repudiation of sacramental salvation as taught by Rome.

 

No, that is not what they teach! Ephesians 2:10 explicilty places our "good works" as a CONSEQUENCE of being already "created in Christ Jesus" rather than a participant factor (sacraments) in being created in Christ Jesus as taught by Rome.

 

You said:

I replied:

Then you come back with:

It sounds like you believe that God does a work in us, which we don't cooperate in at all, which is called a work of grace. And one of these works of grace is faith. Do I understand you correctly?

 

John 6:44 is about people being drawn to Jesus BECAUSE BEFORE Jesus' ministry, these people who are drawn to Jesus, they are drawn because they already had been believing in God. John 6:45 Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.

Jesus offered salvation FIRST to those Jews who ALREADY believed in and loved God. THE REST OF THE JEWS WERE HARDENED, THEY WERE HARDENED AND CUT OFF, SO THAT GENTILES COULD BE GRAFTED IN, GRAFTED IN THROUGH FAITH, AND NOT THROUGH WORKS SUCH AS CIRCUMCISION. The Bible tells us that though they were Jews, and as being Jews, they were God's people, THEY WERE GOD'S THROUGH THE LAW AND CIRCUMCISION, BUT the Jews who did not have a right heart with God, they were hardened when Jesus' ministry came to them, so that they could not believe and be saved. In example, the Bible tells us that there were many people, Jews, who obeyed God in giving sin offerings...but they were not sorry for their sins! They only gave the sin offerings because it was the law, and was work that they must do.
The Bible tells us Jews were hardened and cut off, but God can graft them in again, if they do not persist in unbelief.

We are enabled to come to Jesus by faith, and that is how we have access. See Romans 5:2.

 

Please do not now be indoctrinated into the false beliefs of Calvinism.

 

John 6:44 does not say "no jew" or "no one but already believers" - it says"NO MAN"

 

The people who were taught by God are the Jews. That is who this passage is about. In addition, no man can come to Jesus and be saved UNLESS they have faith, and salvation was FIRST offered to the believing JEWS.

 

Biblicist,
Explain something to me, Jews were hardened, so that when Jesus’ ministry came, they would not understand and believe. WHY DOES GOD HAVE TO HARDEN THEM BUT JUST not NOT ENABLE THEM? You falsely claim that we can only believe with a special enabling given by the Holy Spirit. However, that is nowhere in the word of God. Just the fact that God has to harden people shows that we could believe on our own after learning of Jesus.