With a nod to Tony, the question that needs to be asked is are we saved (even in part) by our own good works or 100% by Christ's work on the cross freely imputed to us?
As always, I appreciate your spirit of charity and hope I convey the same to you. Yet concerning this particular discussion, there is either one mediator between men and God or there are more. One perspective is correct and gives all glory to God and one perspective is wrong and does not.
As Grace's doctrinal statement reminds us..."We teach that, whereas there may be several applications of any given passage of Scripture, there is but one true interpretation."
Dear sister in Christ, you are always charitable towards me! And I'm glad you find me likewise towards you! People can disagree without being disagreeable. Yet the fact remains, on the core issues, I keep finding we mostly agree.
WRT to your question above, it seems the main difficulty between us is you tend to separate "faith" and "works" into two separable, mutually exclusive boxes while I tend to see them as dynamically, organically interrelated. Because I do, I don't have to "choose" between them.
Yet I do believe, on the one hand, that no amount of "good works" can save if we have no faith in Christ, or worse, outright deny God. At this level of the problem — call it "the level of gross description" if you will — it seems justified to speak as if the terms faith and works are indeed separable in a certain sense.
On the other hand, at the personal level, to sort faith and works into their two boxes again, and to ask which one of the two is "efficacious," seems like a bad way of proceeding. My point is at this level of the problem, such a separation creates a false dichotomy. For at this level, faith and works go "hand-in-glove," so to speak. Which is the very point I thought Pastor Tony made so very eloquently (as quoted in my last).
Your question raises a more technical point, one that seems to go to the doctrine of justification, the mystery of how Christ's work on the cross which constitutes the hope of our salvation is "freely imputed to us." By "us" I gather you mean individual souls. I can't speak very well to this issue; I don't know the details. All I know is there is no salvation outside of Christ! And that He alone purchased our redemption from eternal damnation by means of His suffering and death on the Cross.
"We teach that, whereas there may be several applications of any given passage of Scripture, there is but one true interpretation."I so agree! Yet I recognize that the "one true interpretation" is, paradoxically, probably not something that can be reduced to a pure doctrinal form of any kind. Or at least, that is my suspicion regarding the matter. I rather suspect that, although the one true intrepretation is definitely known to God (after all, these are His own statements), the distance between God and man (cognitively speaking) is so vast that I strongly doubt that any man can ever know what God knows. At least, not in this life, in this world....
In other words, human reason — as magnificent a gift of God that it is — cannot take us "all the way home" on this issue.
And that is why we need faith — a living faith.
Just some thoughts, reflections, FWIW.
The TRUTH is there is no salvation outside of Christ.
Thank you ever so much for writing, dear Dr. Eckleburg!
None of man's works are of any benefit whatsoever. What is manifested in a Christian, over time and forms a new man, are the works of the Holy Spirit. Once again, a Christian cannot claim them as his work.
Galatians 5:19
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.