Saturday, March 21, 2009

Faith vs Faithfulness

We can all read Ephesians 2:8-9 and see Scripture record that God saves people by Grace, through Faith, a gift of God not of ourselves, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

A while ago, a long time friend here was making an apologetic that God saves people by Grace through "faithfulness." She was saying that God preserves the true Christians by maintaining them in the Faith through faithfulness. That they were maintained in Salvation, and ultimately saved at the end by endurance and continued fruitfulness. By "keeping the faith" and "enduring to the end" and that this is seen in the doing of good works.

It ought to be clear to long time readers of this blog that I would deny such an assertion, but I feel like testing it with the current readership - if you will employ your gifts here with me. If Ephesians means what it says, but the whole of Scripture paints a slightly different, or let's say "fuller" picture to give benefit to what we are testing, then the whole of Scripture might say;

For by grace you have been saved through faithfulness, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Do you see the problem as quickly as I do? Even if one supposed that the rest of Scripture says that Salvation is maintained by God given faithfulness, Ephesians 2:8-9 would still invalidate it. Because it says this salvation is not of works. We can't be saved, or maintained through our works because Scripture declares we are saved by Grace. That Salvation is a gift.

This has been on my mind for a while... I think I've posted something similar in a thread here in the past but I'd be interested in some thoughts.


For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

11 comments:

Jan said...

A while ago, a long time friend here was making an apologetic that God saves people by Grace through "faithfulness." She was saying that God preserves the true Christians by maintaining them in the Faith through faithfulness. That they were maintained in Salvation, and ultimately saved at the end by endurance and continued fruitfulness. By "keeping the faith" and "enduring to the end" and that this is seen in the doing of good works.

I don't remember seeing this specific idea from the long time friend (if I am correct in who I believe that to be), but the idea is definitely a scrambling of biblical principles. There is no way to get such a salvation on the ground of grace. It must be works based. God cannot save people "by grace through faithfulness." If Paul had meant to write "faithfulness" instead of "faith" he certainly could have done so. Faith and faithfulness are not the same thing. Faith is defined by the Oxford American Dictionary as "reliance or trust in a person or thing." Faithful is defined as "loyal, trustworthy, conscientious." Faithfulness is the attribute of being faithful. One is the act of finding another person or thing worthy of faith. The other is being worthy of faith being bestowed, and if we are the ones being faithful, it means we are the ones worthy of having faith bestowed in us.

It doesn't matter if the faithfulness is God given and therefore really His. It will not save and cannot, because faithfulness as a means of salvation is antithetical to salvation by grace. The only possible way one could say salvation is by grace through faithfulness is if the faithfulness is attributed to Jesus Christ, who was indeed faithful and did indeed procure our salvation by His faithful sacrifice of Himself on the cross. It is clear, however, that the intended focus of the faithfulness in the sentence is not Christ but the believer. Once the believer becomes the focus and faithfulness the attribute, grace is trampled under foot.

Further, even if we did look to Christ as the one who is being faithful in us (or working His faithfulness in us) we are still on the ground of salvation by works. It is the error of vicarious law keeping extended beyond Christ's earthly existence and into the lives of believers. So salvation still does come through the law and Christ died in vain.

I have said this before and will say it again now: if we are faithful as believers, it is because we are saved, not in order to be saved. It is the progressive outworking of a finished work, not an ongoing process that culminates in salvation, whether certain to be completed or no. It is already completed in the believer.

Not getting into that one again, though. Been there done that.

I will close with this pertinent quote I found from H.F. Witherby, which I think is an excellent sum of the faithfulness/works/antinomian issue:

"The flesh in its pride would say, 'I can live to God by means of law keeping and religious observances'; and the flesh in its lusts would say, 'I am safe for eternity, and thus can live for myself.' The new life the Father has given us has no affinity for either the one or the other of these evils and the Spirit of God opposes the flesh in each." (emphasis mine.)

So lets hear no more accusations of antinomianism when we assert that salvation is by grace apart from works.

JanH

Jeffrey said...

Grace is the root and faith is the fruit.Faith is a response to God's grace.

Grace and faith are both given by God not of ourselves.For to each is given the measure of faith.Rom 12:3

Jesus is the Author and Finisher of faith.It is not Jesus is the Author and we are the finisher.

If God did not impart to us faith we can't response in faith.

Kevl said...

Hi Jeffrey,

Many people think that word "author" means that He writes it in us... however that is not the case.
Check it out http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G747&t=KJV

Saving Faith is not a gift from God. Faith is a response to the demonstration that God has provided in Christ.

And people also like to say that God has "dealt" or given each "the" measure of Faith. They say that this means that God has given each the faith they have.

However.... if we actually read Romans 12 we will see that once again Paul is speaking about the differences in our giftings.

The word "dealt" means "divide up" http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3307&t=KJV

He has measured up and divided up and given gifts in accordance.

Paul is telling people not to be prideful, but to be a willing vessel in light of the Salvation we have received. Hence the "therefore" at the beginning of Ch 12.

He's just spent the previous 11 Chapters talking about salvation by faith, both to the gentile and the Jew and brings it together that those saved in Christ are a "new man" a "new creation" neither Jew nor Gentile.

Then he says "therefore"....

The big problem with proof-texting is that those who are stuck in it find it very hard to see that they're doing it. Pulling a single or a couple of verses out of the Bible and deciding they indicate the means of Salvation is always in error.

Context context context... let the Bible tell you what the verse is saying, not the verse tell you what the Bible is saying...

Kev

Lou Martuneac said...

Kev:

In his article, The Danger of Teaching That Faith is the Gift of God George Zeller made this observation:

"This teaching is based on a wrong interpretation of Ephesians 2:8–9 which says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Many Reformed men wrongly conclude that the pronoun "it" refers to "faith." What Paul is really teaching is that SALVATION is the gift of God."

That article and the extended version of it are powerful tools to help the unsuspecting from falling into Calvinism's extra-biblical presuppositions.


Lou

Jeffrey said...

Thanks Kevl for your response.

But what about the verse that says that no one can come to the Father unless He draws him.Jn 6:44

If faith is not a gift then we can boast about our faith.But actually the bible talks about the faith of God or God kind of faith not faith in God.Ep 2:8-9,Mk 11:22

Rather than focussing on our faith,we focus on His grace.

Kevl said...

Hi Jeffrey,

You asked
But what about the verse that says that no one can come to the Father unless He draws him.Jn 6:44


I bet you can answer it yourself if you read the surrounding Text.

You said faith is not a gift then we can boast about our faith.

Does a drowning man boast that he had faith the rescue people he saw reaching for him in the water were there to save him? I do not mean to be rude but that's just ridiculous.

What portion of Scripture warns a person against believing they had faith in God? This is an invented concept used to make Christians feel guilty so they will submit to Reformed Theology. Any such burden is NOT of God.


Rather than focussing on our faith,we focus on His grace.


Focusing on His grace is all about faith, trust. Of course the reformed person thinks he never really needs to trust God because he's been "unconditionally elected" and so he never had to trust God to be saved.. and doesn't have to trust God now because God's going to make sure he says good enough to make it to heaven....unless He doesn't in which case the person was never saved in the first place and could never have been anyway so it doesn't matter....

I'm being a tad rough on you. I'm sorry for that. I do welcome you comments. That "boasting" of your faith bit really riles me up because it is manipulation straight from the Enemy.. and so many Christians use it as though it's Godly wisdom. Do a search for "your faith"

Kev


Kev

Jeffrey said...

No worries bro.I'm not offended.
I do agree with you that focussing on His grace is about trust.

But there you go.The focus is His grace,not our faith.

The woman that was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus garment,was she focus on her faith or was she focus on Jesus grace and His ability to heal her?

No offense bro but Gal 3:23-25 tells me that faith is a Person.

Rather than focussing on our faith,our confessions, or ourselves,why don't we focus on Jesus,the Author and Finisher of faith.Looking unto Him.Heb 12:2

I seen many miracles happened when my focus was on Jesus.Surely you can't fault me for that bro.

Kevl said...

Hi Jeffrey,

You said (to my great pleasure),

No worries bro.I'm not offended.

This is a relief.

The conversation gets interesting when you say

But there you go.The focus is His grace,not our faith.

The woman that was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus garment,was she focus on her faith or was she focus on Jesus grace and His ability to heal her?


I think focusing on His grace, IS faith. She had faith before she touched His garment - it's why she dared to do so. Jesus was a Rabbi and someone touching him who was diseased would have made Him seen as ceremonially unclean (which is really cool because He made a big deal out of it, which ended up giving Him access to the girl who they thought was dead right after that - as a side note.)

She took a risk touching Him. Touching Him wasn't the faith, it was the faith that led her to touch Him. Not argument, just statement BTW.

I don't think anyone could argue successfully that faith is only the Person of Jesus Christ and that it/He was not present before His humiliation (what we call His earthly ministry sometimes). We would both agree that Salvation has ALWAYS been by Grace, through Faith.

You asked
Rather than focussing on our faith,our confessions, or ourselves,why don't we focus on Jesus,the Author and Finisher of faith.Looking unto Him.Heb 12:2


Like above, I think focussing on Him is faith. Our discussion doesn't really match what I had intended with the blog article - that's ok though.

I would never want a Christian to be focusing on their faith - there is no Text to support such behaviour. But in the defining of how a person is actually saved we have to focus on the faith because that is our access to His Grace for Salvation. Which is the topic I was intending to discuss with the Blog article.

Thanks for coming back. My fuse was pretty short the other day.

Kev

Jeffrey said...

Ok I buy what you say.Be good if we can meet up some time for cofee.

Kevl said...

Would love to, but where on the planet are you? :)

Kev

Jeffrey said...

I'm at Choa Chu Kang, Singapore