sorry it took so long for my reply.
it is very hard to separate what actions are as a result of salvation, are a result of obedience after salvation, or are our works.
Another way of asking what does a person *do* to be saved is to turn the argument around, and examine it from the *other* side.
What must a person *do* to be sure no NOT being saved?
It’s an easy answer. To not care about the things of God, to offend the Holy Spirit, to not acknowledge God.
This is why a saved christian cannot commit an “unpardonable” sin...not because his actions are any better than any sinner, but because he, in his heart knows he is a sinner, and acknowledges God, and seeks after light. In other words, a “son of the light”.
So now, now can you AVOID all this? Clearly a “believer” as we use the term BELIEVES and, by the grace of God, through his faith, becomes “born again”. We then get baptized, and join the community of believers.
I know it sounds like an *easy* thing to believe, but strangely, some will never believe...In the last days, when the wraith of God (the seven bowls in Rev 16) is on display to an unregenerate world, people will curse God rather than acknowledge him.
So, it is possible to “believe” in God (the devils do) and still be unsaved - our “work” if you will, is to stop rebelling against God’s authority, accept the salvation that by His grace he has extended, and “follow” him.
Follow includes the commandment to be baptized.
To love one another, and many other important commands.
WC Fields, known for this worldly ways, was near death and in the hospital when a good friend comes in his room. The friend spots WC sitting up, reading the bible. The friends says, “hey, what are YOU doing reading the bible”. WC replies “looking for loopholes”.
There is no loophole in God’s law. There is no “scales” that if our good works outweigh our bad, we are saved. Do you get a “reward” for driving the speed limit? No, instead punishment if you do not. That is the nature of the Law...It kills...We have all sinned, and so we are already bound for Hades.
So what can change our fate? Only by Propitiation
What is propitiation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propitiation
The propitiation, which He provided in His grace, is the sacrifice of Jesus.
A believer knows he is in a fallen state, a sinner, without hope of eternity, but pleads for forgiveness, and so God looks on the perfect sacrifice, and sees not our filthy works, but the character of Christ. This is what SAVES us, from the rightfully earned wrath of God.
What is counted toward our credit, is how we run the race set before us after we join God’s family.
If we do not love one another, we destroy our witness, suffer the consequences in this world, and the next, but still are assured of our salvation. We are still the Kings sons even if the King admonishes us.
This is Good News. Our Father, like the prodigal son’s father, is running to meet us, just as soon as we give up living in the world’s pigpen.
And I suppose the first order of business on returning from the pigpen is a good bath. (of course we are speaking here of the flesh, not of the spiritual things like baptism).
So what REALLY saves us is grasping hold of the death of our Savior, by whose death we are put back into proper a proper relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Your position would be much easier to understand if you would just say what one must do to be saved. :o)
I feel your pain though. Because to be consistent with your earlier statement, (Christianity is the ONLY religion based not on what a PERSON does, but what God has DONE.), the answer must be a person does NOTHING to be saved! We both no that can't be the right answer. In the body of your response you state belief, faith and grasping hold of the death of our Savior, and I do not disagree with that.
The point I'm trying to make is this.
................................Man................God
Who believes?...........X
Who has faith?..........X
Who confesses?.........X
Who Baptizes.................................X Col 2:12
It appears to me that you are the one advocating for salvation by work of man, and I am advocating salvation by the work of God.
Consider Naaman. No one advocates that there was any magic in the water of the Jordan river to cure leprosy. No one advocates that in reality the water had anything to do with it other than that was the commandment. No one advocates that the Naaman earned his cure by obeying the prophet. It was his obedient faith in the power of God that cured Naaman. II Kings 5:13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Again Col 2:12, Acts2:38. I Pet 3:21 (the answer of a good conscience toward God)
Consider the children of Israel on Passover night. Would anyone claim the blood on the door post was earning the life of their oldest son. Would anyone say, "I'm not putting that blood on the door post because I'm trusting in God to save my son?" No! We recognize that their trust was in God, but to fail to paint the blood was a lack of trust in God.
You stated when talking about following Him, "Follow includes the commandment to be baptized." This seems to me to be the opposite of what many here are advocating as over and over again they say 'you don't have to be baptized'. I would take the stand of the servant of Naaman and say, How much more then, when he says to you, `Wash, and be clean'? Acts 22:16
Just to be clear, I know that the blood of Jesus is what saves us. I know that nothing I do earns that salvation. I also know that if my LORD says to do it, the argument is over as far as I am concerned, and I will do it. I also know that anyone who says 'you don't have to do what my LORD commands' is not a friend, and could be to very one to encourage a father to not paint the doorpost at the expense of his son's life.