WHAT SAVES US? [801a]

 

Interactive comment from another post. On the other post, we were talking about WORKS. We are not saved by works. What then are we saved by? FAITH. Faith means believing, and ongoing faith means trusting. In what then do we trust? [the love of God]. The sacrifice of Jesus. What is the result? We are saved because our hearts are cleansed and we have a clear conscience before God, and we do His will from out of this cleansed heart and renewed will for Him. We love, because He first loved us. We become partakers of the divine nature. Without love I am nothing.

It is the act of belief, of believing, that saves us, because we have died with Him and live with Him. Because we have been transferred by faith from death to life. You mentioned James because you are concerned about people saying they are believers but showing no change in their lives. James simply brought some reality to it by saying that if there are no good works from this faith, then it could be considered dead. (Even “the demons” believe). But Corinthians brings the ultimate reality by saying that the believer whose “works” do not stand, will still be saved. This is because we are not saved by works, but by faith. It is the power of believing that changes people, it is the power of changed thinking that changes actions.

The heart is cleansed by faith, then out of that new heart comes the works of righteousness, instead of the works of the flesh. But the works of the heart are called fruit, not works. This is because the fruit grows from the tree that has been made new by the Spirit.

Those born again are renewed, they have died and risen (by faith) with Jesus, and this faith creates the internal reality that is Jesus internalised. This faith gives birth to love, and it is out of this faith and love that new works emerge, being the fruit of the Spirit.

So believers are those who have been transferred from death to life. They are born again of the Spirit of God and are cleansed to good deeds, not bad ones. You shall know them by their fruit. This is possible because we are meant to accept that the sacrifice of Christ was meant to cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, to serve the living God.

No preacher can teach that men can continue in sin. This would be an entirely different gospel, I know of none who would teach this. Salvation comes from a cleansed heart that serves God, not from serving religion and the works of a religious process.

So we are cleansed by faith in His body on the cross, through faith in His blood. This is what saves us. We are not saved by the actions we perform or do not perform, we are saved because we are now different people, living for a different reason, for a different purpose.

We are saved because we have a new nature, His nature of love, and the works of our father we do. If we do not believe we have been “saved”, then we are not believing what He wants us to believe, it is His will that our faith in Him should cleanse us, and He is displeased if we do not accept this cleansing through simple faith in the death of His son for us. He demands our conscience be cleansed by the cross. Without faith it is impossible to please God. The faith He asks of us is that He has utterly dealt with our sin and death so that we might have life. This life comes as we believe, not because of what we have done or do, but because of what He has done and does.

All believers should be able to worship together on the basis of having been cleansed by the sacrifice of Jesus, whose hearts have been cleansed by faith. We have no right to refuse fellowship with those who claim Jesus as Lord, who obviously have been cleansed from sin by faith “in His blood”. We do have a right to question people if they are behaving badly and remain in obvious sin and death.

The only doctrinal issue is that one which separates Christians from non-Christians, that defines the Christian faith from other religions, and that issue is based in the fact that Jesus’ sacrifice totally dealt with sin and death, and opened the door to eternal life, to be entered conditional only that you believe your sin and death has been removed, because you died with Him and were raised in life with Him. These are the terms of the new covenant. The old has gone, the new has come. He has abolished the law. He has abolished death.

To BELIEVE is to by faith make this true in us, even as it is true in Him. To DISBELIEVE this is to make Him a liar and is to remain in the old covenant instead of moving into the new.

[This was a response to comments made by someone whose doctrines dispute the above]

[1 Corinth. 3-15]