Sonbeam wrote:Jay,
I need to ask you a direct question about the way to be saved.
Do you believe that salvation is by faith PLUS works?
I get that impression from your posts.
sonbeam
Is that not the point in the Parable of the separation of the Sheep from the Goats, where both had begun to call Jesus Lord, but the Sheep, developed a heart after God's heart and their deeds/"works" reflected this. Their deeds were not done to gain entry into "heaven," so to speak, but that they were the required course of action within the circumstances of the people they were rubbing shoulders with. If they saw a need, within the people around them, they met that need. They took up their cross and followed the example that God also displayed.
The Goats, on the other hand, only did "good" deeds/"works," if it gained them, in their minds, an advantage to get into heaven. They had a Grecian understanding of their relationship with God. They displayed their "Good Work," for God, to get noticed so that they could "get the prize" of a "free" entry ticket into heaven.
That is why I have been saying that Faith/Believing in Jesus is an important step in our Journey of relationship with God, but if the fruit of that Faith/Believing does not produce Good Fruit as a natural outcome of our Faith/Belief relationship with God, then our faith/belief has not grown into the maturity that God requires of us for the producing of Good fruit.
God's instruction for Abraham and Abraham's descendants was for him and his descendants to walk in God's desired earth's outcome. God's covenant outcome for Abraham was that they would inherit the whole earth. Sadly, the Promised Land became an "idol" for Abraham's descendants, just as the "temple" is today for modern Israel at the moment, as it is also for many Christians which is why the establishment of the Nation of Israel within the Land of Canaan has been a big deal for many people, but God is going to judge the hearts of the people of Israel when they repent of their Idolatrous sins and are gathered to Him, where they are scattered throughout the whole earthy. God undertaking to those that He gathers to Himself is that He will put them into/plant them in the "Soil of Israel," i.e. Christ, and will teach them about the religion of Israel which came down from Heaven as a "rock untouched by human hands" to grow into the highest mountain on all of the earth, and subsequently making every other "religion" on the earth insignificant for those searching for the one true God.
Isaiah 58 talks about the sacrifice that God requires from us all, and the chapter finishes with God's requirement to keep the final Sabbath Day for all of mankind Holy. The deeds required by God in this chapter are the same deeds that He will judge the Sheep and the Goats by.
In Luke 14 Jesus tell Israel that although they will want to build a temple in the future to reconnect with God, that they will not be able to complete the task of building the Temple because they will not have the means to do so. He then goes on to speak about the time of the judgement at Armageddon, and that the nation of Israel at that time will consider if they can overcome the king, leading the battle at Armageddon, and conclude that they cannot, and will seek out this Kings terms of Peace and commit to them.
The Judgement Battle at Armageddon occurs after the completion in time of the Heathen Gentiles trampling the Sanctuary of God and His Hosts on the earth. As Paul tells us in Romans 11:25-26, after the completion of the 2,300 years of the Heathen Gentiles prophesised trampling, that all of Israel will be saved.
The prescriptive steps for our salvation is not just limited to "Believing in He Whom has sent," but it also includes the producing of Good Fruit through our deeds as a demonstration of the compliance of our hearts to His terms of Salvation for our souls.
The above response can be considered to be long winded, but a simple response of "Yes," also does not cut it as it does not define the "deeds" that are required.
Saying Yes, to believing through faith that Jesus is the Son of God, does not cut it unless we renew our minds such that we are putting on the refurbished personhood that was prepared, for each person, that God intended us all to become through His redemptive works for all of mankind.
Shalom
Added: - I accept that exceptions can be argued, but the principle does not change.