Comments on: We are judged by our actions.

By: will

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Before salvation must be repentance and submission. Although man could not earn salvation:
Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous
acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the
wind our sins sweep us away.

And Jesus showed the real standard of god’s law which we can never keep. Yet as a result of being born again a person desires to do good works and does them it is a sign of a living faith. There is a good explanation on faith and works from this website:

http://tektonics.org/af/baptismneed.html

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By: chrisgale

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:29:00 +0000

Not quite. The Ephesians were not Jewish. But the Jewish teacher had arrived and introduced either legalism, mysticism or both thus diluting the gospel.

Being judged by your fruits goes back to the teaching of Ghrist. We are judged by the product of our lives. Using that yardsikck, we will all fail. but we are still to try. We are to attempt. We are expected and required to obey.

For may years I looked for a magical way, some formula or experience that would remove my wish to sin. I have come to the conclusion that it does not exist here. Obedience is hard — Jesus ised an analogy of taking up ones cross. And I think that much of our current contextualizing and post modernistic exegesis is our strying to rationalize our disobedience, instead of repenting.

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By: okrahead

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:44:00 +0000

The difference between Paul and James is the difference between two types of works. Paul addressed Jewish Christians who believed they could earn their salvation through meritorious works. No amount of good works will ever earn the sacrifice made on the cross on our behalf, so any attempt to do so is vain (and perhaps prideful). James, on the other hand, addresses the need for works of obedience… not because they earn our salvation, but because God has commanded them as a condition of our salvation. Christ Himself admonished us that if we do not confess His name before men, He will not confess us as His before His Father. Certainly this confession is a work; it is something we do. Yet just as certainly this confession in no way allows us to “earn” our salvation. We do it because God commands it and we are saved by Christ’s blood through grace. Works of merit are antithetical to grace, works of obedience work together with grace.

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