Jesus Christ is the church's one foundation, and one of His names is the WORD, as in "The WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us". Thus the bible is the foundation of the true Church, and the bible says;
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Good works are the evidence of salvation, but no amount of good works will save a man's soul without faith in Jesus Christ, and conversely no amount of evil works will condemn a man who has had his sin debt accounted to Jesus and paid for by His death on the cross. That is the pure New Testament gospel of Christ as exposited in holy scripture through the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul and other NT writers. The only trouble is that it is so simple and so generous that many people can't accept that it doesn't require any good works by the supplicant in order to assure his or her salvation. If fact, God said that all our good works are just filthy rags in His sight. That doesn't mean that good works are actually bad works, far from it. Good works will be rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and evil works committed after conversion will result in a loss of rewards. It means that good works won't justify us before Him, because the penalty of death for every sin ever committed must be paid and good works can't cancel out that penalty. But God in the person of Jesus paid that penalty on the cross for the sins of every human being who has ever lived, and He offers His perfect holiness to all who will believe in Him and accept Him as Lord.
We could probably argue the rest of today and never agree on this issue. But I have no desire to argue doctrine with my fellow believers in Jesus Christ, as I assume you are, and I will continue to put my faith in the veracity of holy scripture and the simple truth of the sola fida gospel that the Apostle Paul preached and taught, and that was agreed to by all the other human instruments who God used to write His eternal, infallible, indestructible Word on parchment.
I don’t see anything we disagree on. By grace, through faith, for works.
Well said, and scripturally on the money...