Faith and Works
Was telling Ze Gang about the promises I highlighted in the previous post and then noting that they were all (or mostly) conditional statements. At a glance it means God says “I will do this, If you do this”. Examples are as follows:
- James 5:16
- Isaiah 40:31
- Jeremiah 33:3
- all the verses in this post (just before this one) concerning seeking
In fact, even salvation is a conditional statement
- romans 10:13
- yes, even our favorite john 3:16
Does this seem to contradict the notion that by grace we are saved? and not of works? Since we have to do something before God does something?
I think the whole problem lies with the definition of works.
Is calling unto God in Jeremiah works? how about
- effective, ferevent prayer in james?
- seeking him with all of our heart in Deuteronomy?
- believing in Jesus in John 3:16?
Don’t these reflect attitudes more than an action? and if any promise does mention action, don’t they arise from attitudes?
For example, the attitude of seeking with all your heart leads to reading the bible and then you “find” him. Reading the bible in itself doesn’t do anything because the action of reading is a work. Reading without a seeking attitude is useless and a seeking attitude will never manifest itself by not-reading. Illustrated by “I am tired but have no desire to sleep”.
Consider the following very apparent contradiction also:
Yet, if you actually read on it would say this
22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”[g]And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
In conclusion, I don’t really have anything conclusive to say. It is suffice to say that the promises I have looked at(10/1260, less than 1% of all the promises according to agards-bible-timeline.com) being conditional, are not conditional requiring action, but rather requiring a right attitude. Can you tell a person to be more Patient? Loving? Unselfish? No. Can you ask him not to kick his sister? Steal a car? share what he has? Yes. Why? because they are actions. Only by grace (romans 12:13) is paul humble (an attitude), which leads him “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (the action or more accurately, non-action). If you do come across something in the bible which does not follow this, I’d like to have a look and be made aware of it.