Posted on 07/25/2015 5:28:35 AM PDT by Gamecock
By grace, God offers the righteousness of Christ to all who put their trust in Him. For all who believe, all who have faith in Him, the merit of Christ is reckoned to their account.
Does this exclude good works in the life of the believer? By no means. Our justification is always unto good works. Though no merit ever proceeds from our works, either those done before our conversion or those done afterward, good works are a necessary fruit of true faith.
“Necessary fruit?” Yes, necessary. Good works are not necessary for us to earn our justification. They are never the ground of our justification. They are necessary in a more restricted sense. They are necessary corollaries to true faith. If a person claims to have faith yet brings forth no fruit of obedience whatsoever, it is proof positive that the claim to faith is a false claim. True faith inevitably and necessarily bears fruit. The absence of fruit indicates the absence of faith.
We are not justified by the fruit of our faith. We are justified by the fruit of Christ’s merit. We receive His merit only by faith, but it is only by true faith that we receive His merit. And all true faith yields true fruit.
CORAM DEO Prayerfully examine your faith and spiritual fruit.
PASSAGES FOR FURTHER STUDY Galatians 5:22–25
Morning y’all!
Hope each of you, both Protestants and markets have a blessed day!
Thanks for the ping.
Ray Comfort has a sermon he delivers periodically at gatherings in which he addresses the false conversion. The sermon is on Youtube as ‘Hell’s Best Kept Secret’.
.....”Good works are not necessary for us to earn our justification. They are never the ground of our justification”.....
If good works did justify us then there’s no purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Justification ‘begins’ our sanctification...it is a Legal “Position” which makes us pardoned and cleared before God....as is written....“there is therefore NOW ‘no condemnation’ to them that are in Christ Jesus....Romans 8.
Sanctification is “the process that conforms us” to Christ’s likeness... our dying to self and being obedient to the word and the Spirit.... “put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”...“because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth”....... “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Col 3:10....II Thess. 2:13:....Phil 1:6
If we still need anything from the law to complete salvation, then Christ is not the Savior... His work is not sufficient.....nor finshed as his last words on Calvary rang out....
As it is clearly written... “for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”.... the law ‘points out’ our guilt and was a teacher to bring us to the Savior....
Therefore knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
In conclusion we can then say....” once faith came we are no longer under the law FAITH replaces it.....as written....”The just shall live by faith”
Galatians 2:21....Gal. 2;16....Gal. 3:19-25
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