annalex: It is not a result of works alone.
Salvation is not the result of any works of any human except those of the sinless God-man Jesus, suffering The Gods fiery wrath upon the Cross of Calvary, for bearing there in His Body all our sins, dying, resurrecting to life, and placing His Incorruptible Life-bearing Blood. once for all time, as our Eternal High Priest, on the Heavenly Mercy Seat, thus completely satisfying all of The Father's righteous demands for the damage to His Creation that human sin has made.
Apparently you do not understand, or at least won't admit that works of any kind by you or by any other human do not enter into the salvation formula.
You want us to believe that:
(dead) Faith + (dead) Works = Rebirth
Whereas contrary to that, the true salvation equation is:
(Living) Faith + (God-given) Rebirth = (Living) Works for Christ
It is not until the new birth has been effected through God instantaneously conferring the irreversible gift of salvation, based on one's permanent change-of-mind (which comprises both simultaneous repentance and total committed trust, in one fell swoop) that a life of creditable works can be initiated, as prompted by the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 2:8-10, Heb 9:14)
A dead faith produces dead works, which mixed together can never produce a living child of God. To overcome this condition, the blood of Christ cleanses ones conscience, one's mind, from dead works. Relinquishing and abandoning them is the sign to God that one's mind has been changed, and that a permanent unbreakable loyalty to The Christ Whose Blood accomplished the cleansing is cemented. Christ Jesus is become the Source of Life and Truth, and is the single focus of ones affection above self and others, forever.
Sadly, but truthfully, there is no salvation that allows for "falling away," for "backsliding." Such behavior only means the person never really had that "change of mind," that μετάνοια (metanoeeah), that saving once-and-for-all repentance--and was never saved. (Moreover, neither water baptism nor paedobaptism can ever generate a new spiritual creature or remove sin.)
He/she not following through only experienced metamellomai--a regret, though yet a guilty, deep, sorrowful remorse--but remorse alone is not the basis for The God to confer salvation and new birth.
Paul described this condition to the Corinthian church, some of whose members clearly were not truly saved--they were just carnal, unregenerated "believer" converts:
"For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent (μεταμελομαι = regret),
though I did repent (μετεμελομην = regret): for I perceive that the same epistle
hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season.
Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance
(μετανοιαν = change of mind): for ye were made sorry after a godly
manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
For godly sorrow worketh repentance (μετανοιαν) to salvation not-to-be-
repented-of (αμεταμελητον = unregrettable): but the sorrow of the world
worketh death" (2 Cor. 7:8-10 AV).
Now, for those carnal Corinthians who evidently were regenerated as a consequence of hearing (faith cometh by hearing) and responding humbly to Paul's Gospel with a saving mind and heart (from which come the good works once saved), here is a summary of the works of their new and permanent relationship with God that ensued:
"For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a
godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what
clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what
fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what
revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be
clear in this matter" (2 Cor. 7:8-11 AV).
(In the above, I have inserted some parenthetical explanatory words, bolded a phrase for emphasis, hyphenated a phrase translated from one Greek word, and struck through the words as supplied by the translators only for clarifying.)
Unfortunately, in the Latin Vulgate and English Douay-Rheims translations the word "repentance" involving a total, 180 degree turnabout, has been replaced by the totally inadequate and misleading tern "penance," which only means that separation from God by Sin as a master can somehow be repaired by doing some kind of pay-back to God, of saying a few cycles of the Rosary, or spending a few days or months or a life in seclusion of a monk, etc. All these are dead works arising out of a dead faith, which is found in that mortally reprobate translation as follows:
"Now I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful, but because you were
made sorrowful unto penance. For you were made sorrowful according to God,
that you might suffer damage by us in nothing.
For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto
salvation: but the sorrow of the world worketh death" (2Co 7:9-10 DRB).
That simple substitution wreaks such havoc to Paul's words as to completely destroy his Gospel of salvation by faith/repentance alone, and rob one of the only path to salvation through the work of Jesus on The Cross.
For the true meaning of the Greek words for repent or repentance, we look to the reliable lexicons:
From Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon:
Strong's Number: G3341 μετάνοια
metanoia
Thayer Definition:
1) a change of mind, as it appears to one who repents,
of a purpose he has formed or of something he has done
Part of Speech: noun feminine
-------
G3340
μετανοέω
metanoeō
Thayer Definition:
1) to change one’s mind, i.e. to repent
2) to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with
abhorrence of one’s past sins
Part of Speech: verb
-----------
From Strong's Concordance:
G3341
μετάνοια
metanoia
met-an'-oy-ah
From G3340; (subjectively) compunction (for guilt, including reformation); by implication reversal (of [another’s] decision): - repentance.
-------
G3340
μετανοέω
metanoeō
met-an-o-eh'-o
From G3326 and G3539; to think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider (morally to feel compunction): - repent.
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I would be concerned for the eternal disposition of anyone who does not take the above explanation very seriously, and repair their relationship to The Lord Jesus Messiah accordingly.
Don't you think it's about time to give up on your fruitless approach? Your strategy is really logically, spiritually, and Scripturally untenable, and it cannot give you any security or heart-rest.
I understand your opinion about that, but I follow what the Holy Scripture says. No need for your complex algebra. Also the Catholic doctrine of justification is not based on how precisely you translate μετανοια. Even though wearing a camel shirt and eating locusts in the desert looks like a good old Catholic penance to me, and that is what he who called Israel to penance did.
The first sentence is true. The remainder is an attempt to force the scriptures to conform to theology, rather than have theology conform to all the scriptures. Are you asserting that babies are unsaved ?
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
-- James, second chapter according to a Catholic, verses twenty through twenty-four according to a Catholic turned Protestant, and all that without striking through a single word of the KJV.