Is that correct? And very importantly, is faith a work? Is repentance a work? You did not answer those questions. On other threads, Calvinists have asserted that faith and repentance are works. Is that your position? Hank
There's a trap laid, whether intentionally or not, in the way you're asking. What you're trying to get us to say is that faith and repentance are works, agree that you cannot be saved without faith and repentance, then show that therefore we are saved by our works of faith and repentance. Faith and repentance ARE works. Repentance is a necessary byproduct of faith, for we cannot have faith in Christ and not realize the need to turn from our sins. So the issue really is faith and whether or not it's a saving work. Faith in and of itself does not save, just like election does not in and of itself save. What saves is God's grace...his imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the elect (however you define them). Faith is the vehicle. If you agree as you stated above that faith is a gift, then it is not a saving work in the sense you're trying to portray it.
This always ends up back at the James debate over faith and works. If one truly has faith, works are inevitable. They are the work of the Holy Spirit through that individual. Faith without works is a dead faith, not a living one.
I suppose this will lead us off on another tanget in this thread:)
I have never believed faith or repentance were works, and have always held that repentance is the surrender or giving up of ones works, and faith is embracing the finished work of Christ resulting from the conviction that one is totally incapable of saving themselves.
(I do not mean that these are all faith and repentance are.)
Now, you said, "What you're trying to get us to say is that faith and repentance are works, agree that you cannot be saved without faith and repentance, then show that therefore we are saved by our works of faith and repentance."
I am not trying to get anyone to say anything. I am trying to get people to think about what they say, and to realize exactly what you have realized that if faith and repentance are works, and salvation is impossible without them, (and it is), than salvation is by works (which it cannot be).
Now Calvinists have become very shrill in their answers to these simple questions for reasons I do not understand. I hope this will put the Calvinists at ease.
Here is an evangelist who is dealing with a person obviously convicted of sin showing him from the Scriptures that he must repent of his Sin, and his false hope in any religious or good works he has done, and embrace without reservation the finished work of Christ as his only hope. Now this poor sinner does just that, "just as he is, without one plea," except the shed blood of Christ.
Now, if the evangelist happens to be a Calvinist, he believes what he has just witnessed was the work of God; the holy Spirit convicting the sinner of his sin, enlightening His eyes to His need, emparting to him the gifts of repentance and Faith. (Eph. 2:8, Atcs 11:18)
If on the other hand, the evagelist happens to a non-Calvinist, he believes what he has just witnessed was the work of God; the holy Spirit convicting the sinner of his sin, enlightening His eyes to His need, emparting to him the gifts of repentance and Faith.
What's the difference. The difference is in the "small print." The Calvinist believes God only does this work in those that are predestined to be saved. The non-Calvinist believes God provides enough grace to every individual, whatever amount of grace is needed (God knows) to at least understand that he is a helpless sinner and in such need that there is nothing he can do to save himself, and that God has provided that salvation in full, and that he must give up all his own works, and surrender entirely to the will of God, trusting only in the shed blood of Christ. To this point, I think both Calvinists and non-calvinists could agree (although some will not, of course). It is at this point that I think the real difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists must be decided. At that place where a person understands what must be done, the Calvinist believes they cannot do it unless God causes them to do it, and the non-Calvinist believes they can do it, because God has given them whatever ability is required to do it. (Both believe God gives the ability, Calvinists believe it is only given to some.)
For some Calvinists and non-Calvinists the issue is not does God know everything, including who will or will not be saved, or does God predestinate everything, including who will and will not be saved, or whether there is any work that anyone can do to be saved, because there isn't. The whole question of importance for some of us is simple, does God enable everyone to the point where they can choose to surrender, or only to some. Those who believe God only enables some are Calvinists. Those who believe that God enables everyone so that they must choose (just as Adam did) are not.
So the entire issue of whether or not non-Calvinists teach "works salvation" revolves aroung the single question of whether a choice, made by a person enabled by God to make the choice, is a work.
Hank