A Greek Orthodox believer sent this to our email, which was going around to great applause in Greek Orthodox social media forums. This is Jeff Maples and his daughter, in hell with the Reformers.
Posted on 04/24/2017 6:45:59 PM PDT by NRx
As the owner and president of Pulpit & Pen, I feel that I need to issue a public apology to the Eastern Orthodox community in regards to my managing editor’s recent words. In a series of posts, Pulpit & Pen editor, Jeff Maples, took it upon himself to essentially anathematize the Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanegraaff, and in the process said some hurtful things about an old and revered religious tradition. I would be remiss not to clarify Jeff’s remarks and in the process, make some apologies. I pray that it is received well by all of our friends in the Eastern Orthodox community.
Firstly, we would like to apologize on behalf of Protestants everywhere for overlooking the grave and damning heresies of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, compared to our stalwart protest of Rome. This has been an oversight of Protestants, due mostly to the revival of actual Biblical orthodoxy (you might call it Protestantism) developing primarily in the West, and under the wicked authority of Rome, and not under the Eastern schismatics known by the misleading name of “Orthodox.” While we have rightly called the Bishop of Rome the “antichrist” in our Confessions of Faith, we have overlooked the many antichrists that have gone out into the world and settled in their positions as leaders in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It was not right of us to prejudicially focus on the Western anti-christ church just because they happened to be the ones murdering us for several centuries. In the future, we will strive to explain that anyone who seeks the title of ‘priest,’ (a blasphemous title if ever there were one), lead people into idolatry, claim the sole mediary position between God and man, practice necromantic prayers to the dead, engage in corpse worship, and promote meritorious salvation is an antichrist, every bit as much as the Roman Catholic abomination. We are sorry for leaving out specific condemnations of your religion in our Confessions, as it wasn’t very inclusive of us.
Secondly, we are sorry that many Protestants have stopped protesting, sending the impression that our confessional doctrinal beliefs don’t anathematize you as not only being sub-Christian, but being anti-Christian. We are sorry that men like Albert Mohler, Paige Patterson, Russell Moore and Carl Trueman, all who should certainly know better, seem to have affirmed you in your superstitious and pagan religion. While the Intelligentsia class of evangelicalism are happy to learn about how Rod Dreher’s monasticism fetish might be a valuable tool for fleeing the culture wars, the rest of us failed to speak up loudly enough to challenge them on this, partially because the idol-factory of our hearts are quick to make our own popes out of mere men, and we don’t like to challenge our popes. The fact is, Greek Orthodox men like Rod Dreher have no part in the Kingdom of God on Earth, because they have no part of the Kingdom of God in Heaven, unless they were to recant their idolatry and believe the one, true, catholic doctrine of Sola Fide. There’s no such thing as being “kind of Christian,” and the Trinitarian ontology of the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t undo the fact that trusting in your merit for salvation is just as damning as being a Modalist like TD Jakes or believing in 9 divine persons like Benny Hinn. So, therefore, we apologize for our evangelical leaders who have stopped protesting, even though they call themselves Protestants. Much of your outrage (the thousands of angry, F-bomb dropping emails we have received) is due to the fact you’ve never heard a Protestant say you’re not a Christian. It’s not because Protestant doctrine doesn’t say you’re lost (it certainly does), but because we’ve become a bunch of limp-wristed milksops. Forgive our cowardice.
Thirdly, we apologize for making it seem, should you have perceived it that way, that you’re unchristian because your priests wear dresses and you burn incense. While true religion has little patience for pretentious pageantry, the issue for us concerning your doctrinal apostasy is your denial of Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, and Penal Substitution. The fact that you adorn your buildings in gaudy and sacrilegious, bedazzled idols is second to the more blatant soteriological heresies that damn your soul (although idolatry is damning enough). The fact that you believe that superstitious voodoo oil poured over someone’s head fills them with the holy spirit and brings them back from apostasy is secondary to your hope in your own righteousness for salvation. We (still-protesting Protestants) shouldn’t have focused upon your bizarre, extra-biblical rituals that resemble more seance than Biblical service of worship; we should have focused far more upon your doctrinal beliefs that oppose Jesus and the very Gospel itself.
A Greek Orthodox believer sent this to our email, which was going around to great applause in Greek Orthodox social media forums. This is Jeff Maples and his daughter, in hell with the Reformers.
Fourthly, we apologize for letting you get away with asserting your religious superiority by the age of your church. While it is true that you happen to live in a part of the world that was first affected by the Gospel, your geographical proximity to the early church does not mean that you hold to the doctrines or practices of that New Testament Church. The fact is, the heresies of Gnosticism, Antinomianism, and the Judaizers all predate the Greek Orthodox Church. In fact, the sect of the Nicolatians (founded by an Acts 6 deacon) predates your church considerably. Logic, of course, would not deduce that these groups, because they are older, are right. We apologize for not being more forward in pointing out that Jesus specifically wrote to the Ephesians Church (where there is now the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate) that he would remove the lamp stand (IE the Holy Spirit) from their church for forsaking their first love, the Gospel of Jesus. The Scripture contains a very explicit warning, directly from the dictation of Jesus, that the church that would become Eastern Orthodox would have the Holy Spirit depart it should they continue on their path of abandoning true religion. While the Eastern Orthodox church is older than, for example, churches in other parts of the world, that doesn’t make it better. It just means that the Eastern Orthodox Church has been apostate longer than most churches have existed. Big. Stinking. Deal. You don’t get brownie points for the number of centuries since the Holy Spirit left your building.
Fifthly, we apologize for not pointing out, as you rage in anger that we anathematize you, that you anathematized us first. Like the Roman Catholic apostate church, Eastern Orthodoxy has also declared Protestants to be hopelessly damned for trusting in Christ’s accomplished work alone for our salvation. While the Eastern Orthodox community has ranted and railed with lamenting and gnashing of teeth toward Pulpit & Pen in recent weeks, they seem blissfully unaware that, like many cults, official Eastern Orthodox teaching declares that only they are the one true church and more specifically, they teach that actual Christians like ourselves are damned for trusting only in Jesus. We apologize for not pointing out that your man-made tradition similarly anathematizes, only it does it wrongly. There is no moral high ground of tolerance and open-mindedness that you can confess toward outsiders without denying the official teachings of your church, a church you believe infallible based upon nothing but the amount of time it’s held to its heresies.
I pray that you, as the Eastern Orthodox Community, will receive our apologies charitably. There has been much confusion because of the inability or unwillingness to articulate what Protestants actually believe about those who deny Sola Fide and Penal Substitution. We aim to fix all that, and do better in the future.
There is no justification outside faith alone in his accomplished work. Christ’s accomplished work includes his substitionary and vicarious death in our place, being for us our propitiation.
No amount of smells and bells, chanting absurdities, or calling out the gods of Ba’al and Asherah with much incense-burning, bell-ringing pomp and circumstance will change that.
Cordially,
JD Hall
That claim is not as provable as Catholics would like to presume. The tenets of the faith are what Jesus entrusted to the Apostles who then passed it down to others and which the Holy Spirit ensured was written down - just as He had with the ancient people of Israel. It is the truth that never changes - because it IS the truth and truth is absolute. But when people - as people are wont to do - fiddle with what God has said and put in their own spin, trying to reason out carnally those things that are spiritually discerned, the truth can get twisted. It sure happened with Israel and brought down God's judgment upon them. We already know that the "church fathers" often disagreed with each other and didn't always stay faithful to the faith once delivered unto the saints so they aren't any greater authority than Scripture. It's the SAME Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth as who led those ancient believers.
Where modern day Catholics err is in claiming that the "church" which Jesus established is THEIRS rather than it always having been that spiritual house of which EVERY believer is a living stone joined together throughout time to make up the called-out assembly (ekklesia) which is Christ's body, His bride. It is the continuity of belief in the tenets as taught from the start that determines whether or not one is part of Christ's church and NOT simply some boastful assertion that "WE" are that church just because the adjective small "c" "catholic" (meaning universal) was first used in the second century to mean the whole faith tradition and co-opted as a proper noun for an organization that gradually rose to power.
So, no, "Lutheran" nor "Calvinist" nor "Baptist" nor "Presbyterian" as called by those names may not have existed from the beginning but neither did "Catholic" or "Orthodox", for that matter. To be a member of THE church, one must believe in the Apostolic teachings PERIOD. Better get used to having brothers and sisters in Christ - eternity is forever!
Actually, your Catechism DOES extend the name churches to those outside of the Catholic church. Maybe you'd like to explain the difference between "churches" and "ecclesial communities" seeing as "ecclesia/ekklesia" means the same thing?
There is no "out of context" at all. Do you now think Paul would contradict himself rather than just James??? If Paul just got done saying we are saved by grace through faith and not works, why-o-why would he immediately contradict that by adding works to being saved? This is not that hard! God created us FOR the works He has prepared for us to walk in, He doesn't say those works are what saves us. What saves us is His grace whereby the gift of God which is eternal life is given to us through faith and not on the basis of our earning, deserving or meriting it.
If someone wants to boast about how his own works of righteousness are saving him, God says he has fallen from grace. Either we are saved by grace or by our works - not both. It can't be both. See Romans 11:6.
I think if you’re boiled in oil you’d be a hushpuppy and not a buttered biscuit. Just FYI. ;o)
It IS BOTH!
Matt 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
1 Corinthians 9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
2 Timothy 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
But you are neither one nor the other. You've apparently attempted to "solve" the problem of which ancient Church is more correct by inventing a whole new option which both agree is patently heretical.
You see a dispute about the exact nature of the Bishop of Rome's Primacy, and you conclude that we should have neither bishops nor primacy...at all. And you take issues that everyone had agreed on (the sacraments), and decide to go a different way altogether.
Isn't that one division in Christ's body too much already? Why in heaven's name would we add more division, more schism, more heresy just because Herr Luther had some fool ideas in his head?
And lay off the mind-reading.
Hm, good question. You know how in the grocery store there is a difference between "cheese" and "cheese food" or "cheese product"? Similar thing here I would suspect.
Lemme try again.
As I understand your argument, we can’t call something heretical because Rome and Orthodoxy disagree on a few points.
Well, aside from those points, if all the ancient Churches agree that something is heretical, isn’t that a good indication that it is?
For example, you and I both agree that denial of the Trinity is heretical, right?
If schism is troubling to you, and fuller communion with various Orthodox be desired, then drop 'Papacy' as that had become over-inflated into being.
It is the Church of Rome who is the most egregious schismatic of them all. Nobody should surrender themselves to an error.
Here's a useful wiki page, having a range of information in one place;
CAN'T BE! Did you read Romans 11:6? It is grace OR works. Grace, by the definition the Holy Spirit intended by the very use of the term, means unmerited, unearned, undeserved, it's a GIFT. Works, on the other hand, means merited, earned, deserved, wages due. Do you see the difference?
So, here's a test...let's say you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and you trust in Him as your Savior. Jesus says you are now born again/born from above and the way you live your life starts to show this inward change. Those things you used to do in the past that were wrong, now cause you shame and regret and you desire to be a better person so that God is glorified and pleased. Now, what actually saved you.. your faith or your changed life? According to God, your faith saves you. Your good works are evidence of your faith - it shows that your faith is genuine and not merely surface or "head knowledge" as some term it. What saves us? Our faith or our works? It's one or the other.
All those partial passages you posted can be read in this light or under an assumption that you make of your works saving you. Here's why:
Matt 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
What is doing the will of the Father?
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:28,29)
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Already addressed. Why would Paul say "not of works lest anyone should boast" then contradict himself by saying works are required rather than what he DOES say which is we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago?
1 Corinthians 9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
Again, why would Paul contradict the gospel he preached? That verse says he disciplines his body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, he feared that after preaching to others he might be disqualified. Disqualified by WHOM? God? No, by those he preached to who see his way of life. How many times have you disqualified whatever someone says because of how they live their lives?
2 Timothy 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
Why a partial quote when reading the context makes it clearer? This is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He will also deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Genuine faith CANNOT deny the Savior. We WILL endure because we have the Holy Spirit within us who will never leave or forsake us, by whom we are sealed until the day of redemption.
Well at least you posted more than a snippet. Working "out" is not the same thing as working "for" something, agreed? You can't work out what you don't have and what you have as a child of God is GOD working within you to do what pleases Him. Doesn't say works save you.
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Like I keep saying, genuine faith WILL show in how one lives his life. Head knowledge or surface belief won't. James doesn't contradict Paul, not at all.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
The book of James is such a favorite of works-based salvation religions isn't it? Look, it probably won't make any difference what I say about these verses since you'll probably just accuse me of YOPIOS. There is really no getting away from the truth that Scripture repeatedly states FAITH is what saves. Abraham BELIEVED and it was counted to him as righteousness (heh, even James says that!).
Whenever you start to add works to faith for salvation, you make salvation dependent upon what YOU do for God instead of what God has done for YOU. We are saved by grace THROUGH faith and not by works so NO ONE can boast. Either you believe that or you work for your salvation and fall away from grace. Genuine faith - the kind that trusts in and believes God saves us by His grace can't help but want to live in holiness. Some people are slower getting there than others but if faith is real, they will be on that path living in the way God created for us since before the foundation of the world.
So, any ecclesial community that isn't in communion with the Roman Catholic church is a "fake" church??? That may be how Catholics view other Christians but God knows the real thing from the "we say we are the real thing". He's the only one that matters here.
Any community that wasn't founded by Christ and doesn't pass on what he gave us is a fake Church.
First of all, Jesus didn't "found" a church/community, He was God in the flesh who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the grave as proof the sin debt was paid and he was who he claimed to be. All those who come to him in faith, believe in him and what he did for us, is born again into the family of God and become a member of his body, his bride/the called-out assembly. When believers join together for fellowship, worship and discipleship they ARE the "church". That is why the Roman Catholic church nor the Eastern Orthodox church, or ANY church, for that matter, has no claim to be THE church Jesus founded.
With that understood, a community that consists of Bible believing, born again believers in Jesus Christ, holding to the tenets of the Christian faith as taught in the Divinely-inspired Scriptures have EVERY right to be recognized as valid ecclesial/church communities. NONE of us has the corner on the elitist, exclusive assertion to be the sole body of Christ. I certainly won't. Regardless, Jesus already told us that visible "churches" will contain wheat as well as tares, so that should tell us that the TRUE church of Jesus Christ is the spiritual house of which all believers are living stones that make up its structure. Peter was the one who said that, you know.
I’m pointing to the facts Hall ignores, which is the root of “ignorance”.
“Did I not ask you already — on what basis does one make that claim?”
And I answered already:
When one ignores the Scripture that makes it clear that both Faith and Works are necessary, and continue to contend that only Faith matters, as Hall does, then he has illustrated his ignorance.
“Believe” means something beyond checking a square.
“I do not speak for him, but it is my guess the man would likely enough agree with that statement. So? And?”
The verses I quoted make clear that if your stated beliefs don’t show up in the way you live your life, then your claim of belief is void.
“How would you know about that?”
Scripture states it clearly:
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
This isn’t about how Hall lived, it is about what he writes regarding his belief, that how he lives doesn’t matter as long as he has faith.
The Scripture I cited contradicts that belief.
Matt 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
1 Corinthians 9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
2 Timothy 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
I’m “prosecuting” beliefs, not unknown behavior.
Do you some personal knowledge about this writer that none other here appear to have? Did he confess to you about himself having committed some horrific sin? He must not be Christian, for having written about what in his own view constitutes being a Christian, and what in comparison does not?
The debate is about Hall’s conclusions regarding the teaching of Scripture.
Are you not doing very much that same thing, in regards to that one man, but doing so going by arguably less than he has, in his own criticisms of Catholicism (and of the Coptics)?
You seem hung up on the notion that I’m judging Hall’s behavior in life.
Scripture tells us that the behavior matters.
How does anyone find forgiveness among Roman Catholics? From so-called “priests” only, huh?
John 20:22-23
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Being he likely has not availed himself of those hirelings’ tender mercies, then although some of those individuals who are ‘priests’ may forgive the man, it appears to me that you most certainly do not.
Instead, you have become the prosecutor condemning him on basis of your own assumptions about what he allegedly is “ignorant” of, and the way you assume he “lives his life”.
I “assume” nothing about how Hall lives, I only assert that Scripture tells us that it matters.
If that’s the way the Lord truly would have us all be, ….
Why do you say “if”?
Read the Scripture I’ve cited.
“Have you become the prosecutor, and one operating on a set of assumptions about others that may not properly at all apply in any number of cases?”
I’ve become the guy that points to the Scripture that contradicts the notion of “Faith Alone”.
It is not about “others”, it is about a Scripturally inaccurate conclusion.
“Why do you assume the worst when it comes to this writer we’ve been discussing? I asked you what was the basis for that, and now you have supplied it.”
You continue to ignore the fact that Hall goes to great lengths to express his view that Salvation is based upon Faith alone.
THAT is the “worst” that I am arguing that is not supported by Scripture.
There is nothing “assumed”, as Hall documents that baseline belief.
I’m not condemning individuals or groups, I’m citing Scripture that contradicts beliefs presented.
The Scripture referenced omitted the Chapter, but the verse posted was correct:
John 20:22-23
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
How do you manage to hang onto verse 22 and ignore verse 23?
What information do you have pertaining to how the man lives his life? None, and that was the point.
I think we should be done here, but no. Then you say;
Oh, really, now?
Then, continuing further, you changed things around, bringing us more to where you were coming from in the first place, from your own assumptions accompanied by dull, lifeless interpretation of scripture ;
As far as I know, he did not say anything approaching "that it doesn't matter how he lives..." (which we could assume you meant -- how he conducts himself?) "...as long as he has faith". That is simply yourself having put words into his mouth (and attendant meanings) which he did not say, nor intend to convey.
To put words (and particular wordings) into anothers mouth which they did not say --- or to analysis what had been said in isolation from all else which some individual has said, then through a biased process of deduction (where the final verdict had been reached prior to actual examination of evidence, the reasoning created in effort to justify the final verdict) is a deceitful practice, though one I've long seen FRomans indulge themselves in.
You began by prosecuting "unknown behavior" as you put it, which you assumed from your own woeful misunderstanding of Protestant beliefs, and how those rationally function. It's obvious to me that you do not understand what others beliefs actually are.
I already have, long before you ever posted it the first time. The truth of the matter remains -- the Grace of our Lord, and even our salvation is not dependent upon our own works. Grace cannot be earned else it is no longer grace. Payment for our own sins, if we were to pay in full would have to result in our own deaths.
To acknowledge that does not equal that one automatically lives their life as if there were no moral laws which God would have us follow, yield to, and obey. To acknowledge that the very foundation of our own salvation is dependent not upon ourselves-- but upon the Lamb who was slain, in no wise is recommendation against ourselves being called upon to put our faith in Him and the gifts He freely offers ---to work for the greater benefit of His kingdom. I already told you that. How many times must this be explained?
Projecting “Faith alone”, asserts that works (behaviors) are of no consequence.
Let that sink in.
Let that sink in.
That is imprecise, and far from correct. At this point, it's something of strawman argument too. So, no, I absolutely will not "let that sink in" because it's horribly deformed doctrine. I'm not the only one who has explained in part why and how that is so. We've been over this point several times already. I see you returned to it when you had no answer for other points that were raised. You're losing the argument(s).
On the other hand, assertions that works are required for one to earn salvation puts Christ's own sacrifice to be insufficient ransom for the captive.
When consuming the Lord's Supper --- if it is being assumed the meaning there when eating His flesh and drinking His blood results in establishing that His sacrifice provide an opening threshold only, that one must cross ---in order to be able to work their own way, the rest of the way into God's graces, then I will have to again say that is to fully misunderstand, and figuratively put the cart before the horse
If that is generally the kind of concept which you hold, that Christ is opening opportunity only, to which "works" must be added to earn salvation, then that is not the Gospel preached by Paul, and as was understood by the Church at the beginnings of 'Christianity'.
That does not mean that those of the Church are not called to do good works (as I have noted now for at least the the third time). We are also called to repent of doing evil, too. Most any Baptist could tell you these things, themselves not be too awfully confused about the matters.
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