Faith Alone is Salvation Without Loving God
Part One
Yes, the headline is provocative. It’s meant to be provocative because there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who are asleep and in darkness. They need to be smacked verbally upside the head to wake them up. Both Jesus and the Apostles used rough, caustic language when necessary to wake up their audience and give them a chance to actually listen.
What is the doctrine of faith alone?
The doctrine of faith alone essentially boils down to the belief that only faith affects our salvation and good works have no effect on our salvation. Let’s not mince words here. This doctrine is from the pit of hell. It is not from Christ and is not the Christian faith. It undermines the direct commands of Christ that we must do good works.
As Christ Himself explicitly said, “if you love Me, keep My commands”. Refusal to follow the commands of Christ is a refusal to love God. There is no way around this. As we see in the parable of the Two Sons, the one who actually DOES what the Father asks is the one doing the will of the Father, and only those who do the will of the Father will be saved. In every instance where Scripture speaks about the coming judgment of Christ, it says that Christ will judge everyone based on what they have done and their works.
Christ commands good works from us. He teaches it repeatedly in the parables of the True Vine, Unforgiving Servant, Talents and Sheep & Goats that works are required for salvation. (Quick note: Good works are not the source of salvation, only Christ is. But Christ will not save us without good works.) Let’s look at each one of these and see how each one decimates the doctrine of faith alone:
Parable of the True Vine: In this parable, Christ is the vine, the true vine and we His believers are the branches. The branches are IN HIM. This right away undermines the Protestant rebuttal that those believers who refuse to do good works are not actually saved. Christ says they are IN HIM. Christ is not confused nor is He fooled by those who claim to have faith in Him but do not. The branches who are IN HIM (which means they are saved) who refuse to produce fruit are gathered up and thrown into the fire (hell).
Parable of the Unforgiving Servant: In this parable, the servant pleads with the king to forgive a debt he cannot pay. This obviously refers to Christ forgiving us for our sins, which we cannot do. The servant is totally, completely and absolutely forgiven of this debt. What happens after this forgiveness? The servant refuses to forgive a much smaller debt from another servant, and the Unforgiving Servant has this other servant thrown into prison. When the king hears of this, he REINSTATES all the debt that was previously forgiven. Jesus then EXPLICITLY says that the Father will do the same to those who refuse to forgive. (Read the Our Father prayer again, and reflect on this parable when you do.)
Parable of the Talents: In this parable, the servants are given different amounts of talents and the king departs the kingdom for a while. Most servants use those talents to make even more talents. One does not. The other servants are rewarded by the king upon his return. The servant who did nothing with his talent is stripped of the one talent he had and then thrown into the outer darkness (hell). This parable is very clear about what happens to servants of the King who do not perform good works. Protestants will argue that this servant is not a “real” servant and never really believed, or some such nonsense. But the parable is clear.
Parable of the Sheep & Goats: In this parable, the sheep and goats are divided by Christ. The sheep are received into Heaven, while the goats are sent to hell. What separates or differentiates between sheep and goats is whether they performed good works or not. Protestants will argue that the goats were always goats and that’s why they didn’t do good works. But as we see from the parable of the True Vine, even those who are in Christ can choose not to produce fruit.
As we can see from just these four parables, the doctrine of faith alone simply does not line up with the teachings of Jesus, does not line up with Scripture and is not part of the Christian faith. It is contrary and in opposition to the Christian faith, and we must warn all Protestants that their doctrines are false. They have a right to know the actual Christian faith and be able to choose whether to follow it or not. They have a right to know that they are on not on the narrow path to Heaven and make a choice about whether they will get on the correct narrow path or not.
These are not the only time in Scripture that Jesus and the Apostles laid out requirement for salvation and commanded all Christians to perform good works. In Part 2, we will examine the book of Romans, where chapters 2, 6, 8, 9 and 11 all teach that works are required for salvation.
I agree but we must be cautious with who gets to decide what “living and active” means. All revelation was complete with the Apostolic age. Nothing new can be added, changed etc. or we get chaos aka heresies. This may be a tangent but all ecumenical discussions ultimately end up with the question of “Authority”. Without accepting authority for our scriptural interpretations, we end up talking past each other.
Yes, Faith is come by hearing the word that was written, there was a gap from the apostolic age to when the canon of the NT was finalized that the written word was either not available yet or incomplete. As St Paul said we hold fast to was we learned both aural or written 2nd Thessalonians. Which is how the Faith spread in those days, through aural Tradition. Either way a conscience change must happen to accept what was heard. To change one’s affiliation, as it were, would necessarily mean an open change in conduct and attitude. If I was a Bears fan and became a Jets fan, I’d let people know that by my wearing of Jets paraphernalia. Crude example but you get the point. And I think we’re on the same page here.
Yep.
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
Romans 10:17 NIV
https://romans.bible/romans-10-17
The message is heard through the word. Your previous post implies you think only attending church and audibly hearing the word is the only way to obtain faith. But here its clear the message us heard through the word. So it can be read too. Hebrews 12 says the word is living and active.