Faith is sufficient for salvation; Works are the only credible external evidence of faith.
If a person finds genuine faith on their death bed but has no opportunity to perform any good works before they snuff it, they are still saved.
There is of course a reasonable time lag to be expected between the arrival of faith, which creates a *motivation* to good works, and a person actually figuring out what/when/how/where/to whom to do any good works, and then getting a chance to actually do it.
But if a person claims to find faith in jail, gets released on grounds of their "transformed character", but then goes on to triple their score of rapes and murders in their first week of freedom... It's just possible they were lying about the faith bit. =:o\ (I am *NOT* in favour of granting prisoners early release on the grounds of claimed religious conversion, since the state is rarely in a position to judge whether that conversion is genuine. The state whould make its decisions based on the evidence available to it; Let God take care of those decisions that need to be based on evidence that is only available to God.)
Also: It wasn't Luther's idea, although he certainly did a lot to re-popularise it. St. Paul spells out the "it's by grace we're saved, through faith, so that no one can boast" message pretty plainly and tends to major on that, because he was arguing against a bunch of people who were saying "these gentiles can't be considered saved until they start doing what our law requires them to". Meanwhile, St.James emphasises the point about "you show me your faith without works, buddy [implict: Bet you can't, though, can ya? Ner!], and I'll show you my faith by what I do!", because he was arguing against a bunch of folks who were claiming to be saved but doing sod all to help anybody but themselves, and using Paul's words as justification.
In other words: "There's nothing new under the Son". =:o}
[ETA:] I am also not claiming (and nor was St. Paul, or St. James) that faith is the *only* effective motivation to do good works. See the quote "when those who do not have the law fulfil the requirements of the law, they are a law unto themselves; their own consciences now judge them, now pardon them" (or something like that)
(Somehow, that phrase "a law unto themselves", originally meant as a validation of non-Christian/Jewish/whatever "good conscience", got twisted into a cynical comment about people who don't respect authority. =:o\ )
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 08:46 pm (UTC)If a person finds genuine faith on their death bed but has no opportunity to perform any good works before they snuff it, they are still saved.
There is of course a reasonable time lag to be expected between the arrival of faith, which creates a *motivation* to good works, and a person actually figuring out what/when/how/where/to whom to do any good works, and then getting a chance to actually do it.
But if a person claims to find faith in jail, gets released on grounds of their "transformed character", but then goes on to triple their score of rapes and murders in their first week of freedom... It's just possible they were lying about the faith bit. =:o\ (I am *NOT* in favour of granting prisoners early release on the grounds of claimed religious conversion, since the state is rarely in a position to judge whether that conversion is genuine. The state whould make its decisions based on the evidence available to it; Let God take care of those decisions that need to be based on evidence that is only available to God.)
Also: It wasn't Luther's idea, although he certainly did a lot to re-popularise it. St. Paul spells out the "it's by grace we're saved, through faith, so that no one can boast" message pretty plainly and tends to major on that, because he was arguing against a bunch of people who were saying "these gentiles can't be considered saved until they start doing what our law requires them to". Meanwhile, St.James emphasises the point about "you show me your faith without works, buddy [implict: Bet you can't, though, can ya? Ner!], and I'll show you my faith by what I do!", because he was arguing against a bunch of folks who were claiming to be saved but doing sod all to help anybody but themselves, and using Paul's words as justification.
In other words: "There's nothing new under the Son". =:o}
[ETA:] I am also not claiming (and nor was St. Paul, or St. James) that faith is the *only* effective motivation to do good works. See the quote "when those who do not have the law fulfil the requirements of the law, they are a law unto themselves; their own consciences now judge them, now pardon them" (or something like that)
(Somehow, that phrase "a law unto themselves", originally meant as a validation of non-Christian/Jewish/whatever "good conscience", got twisted into a cynical comment about people who don't respect authority. =:o\ )