Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Understanding Faith and Works


In the Baptist church we attend we are studying Galatians with Baptist glasses on.  That is, it is drilled into us every Sunday that we cannot lose our salvation and it is only God's grace through our faith that saves us.  We can't "work" our way to Heaven.

I can barely sit through a sermon.

Does not compute!

I am not nor have I ever been a believer of "once saved always saved."  And while I have floundered a little on the faith-alone doctrine, overall, I do believe that our works means and merits something towards our final salvation or damnation.

I'm still struggling with fully understanding it in 3 ways:  The Catholic way, the Assemblies of God way (how I grew up), and the Baptist way.

In the Baptist church we are constantly reminded that "our righteousness is as filthy rags," and it is presented to us that even our best behavior is nothing more than used toilet paper to God.  That makes me want to pound my head against a brick wall.  I just can't understand or accept that!  Surely when I am in His Will it is a sweet savor to Him?  Isn't it?

I think Baptists over-simplify and don't take it into an overall deeper context.  I think they see "our righteousness" and consider it anything we do, when really perhaps it means what we do on our own.  I figured it this way:

When my oldest son was around 7 or 8 years old he got into a habit of benevolent disobedience.  Let me explain.  I would ask him to pick up his legos and he would fix the beds, instead.  I would tell him to feed the chickens and he would rake the leaves, instead.  When I confronted him on his disobedience to me, he would point out the good works he did.  I would remind him that while it was very nice that he fixed the beds and raked the leaves, he still disobeyed me by not doing what I told him to do.  I didn't want to squelch his good works, but eventually it got so bad that I had to discipline him for disobedience!

His own righteousness wasn't entirely good.  To me, it was useless.  I needed legos picked up, not the beds fixed.  The chickens were starving for their breakfast.  The leaves could wait.  His good works were useless.  However, if he obeyed me and picked up the legos and fed the chickens, then his good works would be a sweet savor to me, a balm, a blessing, and he would have merited great favor and reward for his obedience.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  That's where salvation is.  Many of the Jewish people would not accept that for their salvation and would point out their following the Law, instead.  They were corrected:  the Law cannot save you.  Jesus does.  Jesus is the legos.  The Law is fixing the bed.  You need to pick up legos.

But, I think that's where Baptists get stuck.  The salvation is in the legos!  But, they don't always pick them up.  They just point to the legos and say the salvation is there.  Why?  Because picking up the legos is "works."  And works don't save, right?  Or, they may pick up the legos but say that salvation wasn't in picking up the legos but only in recognizing that they needed to be picked up.

You know how they say love is a verb?  Well, so is faith.  And faith includes works, which is what the Catholics believe.  They believe that God gave us a job to do alongside salvation.  And if we don't do it according to His will and our abilities, we are useless.  What good is recognizing that the legos need picking up if you don't pick them up?

Baptists believe you are still saved, even if you don't pick them up because you recognize that they need to be picked up.
Catholics believe you are not saved unless you pick them up.

Think of it this way, too:  You can love your spouse in your heart all you want, but it means nothing to them unless you act upon it.  Works.  You have to work at your marriage.  You have to do their will, fulfill their needs, obey the Word of the Lord concerning the boundaries surrounding Godly marriage.  If you don't, what good are you?

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