Salvation By Works Alone, Why "Free Grace" is a False Doctrine

A favorite "proof text" of the free-grace advocates is 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.

This comes from a part of the Old Testament called Trito-Isaiah, which may be compared loosely with something in the New Testament, Ephesians, which is purported to have been written by Paul, but now scholars believe it may have actually been written by something like a "school" of Paul. To be considered as "trito", that would require that there was previously just such a thing as a "deutero", which in fact there is. These "older" (older than the trito) prophecies envisioned a triumphant return from Babylonian exile of the Judean elite, who lead by a messianic and authentic Davidic "Prince" would be like a second crossing of the Red Sea, and a glorious Golden Age of Israel would then come into being. Of course the reality turned out to be nothing of the kind, and their attempt at restoring the glory days of Solomon had no chance of coming about, and their very attempt to do that became a mockery in the face of their client status to the Persian Empire, and the miserable nature of their temple, and the disrespectful way the priesthood was regarded by the rustic, peasant class (who the priests did not even consider to be "real" Jews).
The verse is taken out of context and used to apply to all people as if it is impossible for anyone to be considered righteous (ignoring the fact that Paul says that God judged Abraham to be righteous, for example).

One could ask a basic question like, "What is salvation?".
I would say, on an individual level, salvation would involve a resurrection.
Next question could be, "So how does resurrection work?".
To deal with actual theological questions, I would refer to the actual theological works of the New Testament, which are the authentic letters of Paul, and ignoring the questionable letters only pretending to be by Paul.

Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

reply to post by jmdewey60


I am not realy sure what you are trying to say. Are you trying to say Salvation through the forgiveness is false and that only works will get you to heaven? Are you saying that Jesus isnt needed for salvation and that we could obtain access to the Father through our works alone?

Just trying to understand your full concept of salvation. Sorta of confused. Also , are you saying the books of the Bible are incorrect and that the message it teachers is corrupt?

Originally posted by jmdewey60
Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

by works alone... sounds excellent and basically the same as I read in the bible somewhere, 'it is what we do in his name which defines us' (living a certain way) not via a confession to the Pope.

I tell ya I would love to have a few questions with that guy sometime...

reply to post by SisyphusRide


In my opinion , works only permit you more Crowns in heaven and more blessings on the Earth , however , Crowns are very important in heaven regarding the type of position you will be rewarded with after the rapture or your death. Nothing you can do can make you worthy to enter the kingdom of God except by being covered in the blood of the lamb because even your good deeds are but filthy rags.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
One could ask a basic question like, "What is salvation?".
I would say, on an individual level, salvation would involve a resurrection.
Next question could be, "So how does resurrection work?".
To deal with actual theological questions, I would refer to the actual theological works of the New Testament, which are the authentic letters of Paul, and ignoring the questionable letters only pretending to be by Paul.

Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

I try not to cling to any theology handed to me. Instead, I consult as many works as possible, but use the Bible as the root to rightly divide the rest. The Rabbi of Paul and Simeon was Hillel. He had seven rules for rightly dividing truth. LINK By taking a larger view of the world and of God, I have tried to take a composite view of the whole, believing that God gave His revelation to the whole world rather than to one specific location. I believe that all seven areas of the world hold some of the overall truth. When this view is taken, a truth emerges from the whole that also agrees with each part. The Seven Rules then allow for this overall context to show that the Bible is pointing the correct path in agreement with the rest. There is no paradox. The final comparison can then be drawn from nature to confirm. I'll start with nature.

How does love happen? Love is a union of two becoming one. It's a process of multiplicity to unity. The nature of the viscia pisces is a symbol of this unity mathematically. The square root of 2 is a ratio of 1:1.415. When Jesus told Peter to fish on the right side of the boat, he was giving him a clue to salvation (John 21). They then caught 153 fish. This number is then the connection to the rest. Unity comes from the multiplicity as a result of the Law of Inverse Squares. Pathagrous called this the "Measure of the Fist." A simpler version is this:

Two people grow to love each other, but no union can be perfect before each side sees the other from a perspective that denies bias in favor of grace. When two become one, a union happens out of a mutual agreement of love over pride. One humbles to the other. All unions happen in a womb of sorts. Sperm and egg come together and the baby develops from the two becoming one. When the baby is then born, the process starts over. The baby then grows as a child and learns to become one with the world. If love takes hold, they agree and prosper until the womb is no longer needed. The Earth can be seen as a womb where the soul and spirit of God gain union until a rebirth from the world to a new place God provides called the kingdom of God--the final destination. If they fail, the process starts over. Jesus said, "you must be born again." God is long-suffering. The key to the entire process is when the soul and the spirit become united. Salvation is this union with God in love. The only law is love. When this law is realized, man and God walk as one in the garden. The tree of life then blooms and the fruit drops. Before this can happen, the tree of knowledge must be experienced. This is the unity of opposites from multiplicity. Good and Evil are managed by free will. WORKS are then the fruit that we bear here for others in love. Apart from works, our faith is dead and the union is false. A tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and burned in the fire by trials. Good trees bear fruit.

The second step to seeing this is to realize that ritual and symbolism in the Bible always points another direction than what you might think. Find the root meaning and you find the truth behind the symbol. Go back to John 3 now and read. The Water is our baptism into the material world. Spirit is our consciousness. We must be born of both. Both must bear fruit. The water was pictured in 1 Kings 17 as Elijah and the widow woman. Elijah had control of the water. He is then pictured later as John the Baptist controlling the water baptism. Jesus is Fire. The Lord and Father are Earth and Air. There are four baptisms.

Earth - Dust of the material world. Light as particle and wave with consciousness (Spirit). Carbon has 6 protons, 6 electrons and 6 neutrons. Carbon is the mark of mankind and the thing to overcome by love and the breath of God with the Word. Salvation comes as we overcome.

Air - Nitrogen 777 (God's number of completion) and Oxygen 888 (Jesus in Greek Gematria). The breath is used for the Word. Word is information that leads to a Holy Consciousness when union takes place with the Spirit of God in the womb of the Earth.

Water - Our immersion into the reality that the Word constructs for our education. You must be born again until this happens. God goes after the lost sheep.

Fire - Trials. The flaming sword protects the tree of life. Trials cut away pride by experience. Confucius said, "I hear and I forget. I see and I learn. I do and I understand." We are here to do all three. The trials allow us to see ourselves clearly by comparison. Multiplicity becomes unity after we pass through all four stages and emerge as a prospering plant in the garden. The gardener is God. He then harvests the crop. This is why Jesus passed over us 2000 years ago. The crop was not bearing fruit. The fig tree was withered.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
One could ask a basic question like, "What is salvation?".
I would say, on an individual level, salvation would involve a resurrection.
Next question could be, "So how does resurrection work?".
To deal with actual theological questions, I would refer to the actual theological works of the New Testament, which are the authentic letters of Paul, and ignoring the questionable letters only pretending to be by Paul.

Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

With that said, the answer to the questions:

What is salvation? Redemption from the process. A kinsman had to come pay our debt. When a reward is taken (Fruit of Knowledge), a debt is created. If you smoke, you get cancer. We cannot pay our debt. Two negatives create a positive when multiplied.

Consider this example: In mathematics, if you owe three people $10, then you are negative $30 (3 X -10 = $-30). If the lenders then say, "We forgive you for this debt because we love you," then you are free from that debt by another negative. You have just had three subtractions of -10, making you three positives of $10 (-3 X -$10). Your debt is -30 + 30 = Zero. Jesus died a horrible death to pay our debt, walking us back to a positive value.

This was something we could not do by adding and subtracting by our own works. It required a greater sacrifice. We are here to gain atonement by sacrifice. The water cleanses the temple (Baptism). The tools of the temple are our hands, feet, eyes and so on. The temple is the body, veiled from God while we do our work. Faith is required to disallow duplicity. We must seek God honestly and not because we desire reward or want to hide from punishment. It must be from love. We were given this world to find atonement. At-One-Ment.

The resurrection is again seen in nature. An oak tree is enfolded into the acorn. Neither are the tree by form. The information is the essence of the form as an archetype of what it is. The information is spirit. It can be saved or lost. You must be born again. The vehicle you inhabit only teaches you along the way. All forms in nature are there to show you a lesson. You are not of this world. The world is yet another part of the development of the acorn that you represent. You are seed planted in a garden to grow. Here is a poem I woke to one morning.

The Pendulum of Life Swings

A seed is planted in a garden with care
Its fruit of expectations unknown
An invocation of Spirit to clothe
Something from nothing the goal

Mortal toil evokes the moving flow
Of swinging extremes to circle an end
With providence and patience a Gardener must tend
The Miracle of One from two

Like is to unlike
As right is to left
Blind wakes to new Light
As a vision obscured

The pendulum swings; must come to its end
Refinement and purpose revealed
The veil of choice leaves the first fruits behind
As one new creation transcends

Link in my signature.

reply to post by EnochWasRight

We must seek God honestly and not because we desire reward or want to hide from punishment. It must be from love. We were given this world to find atonement. At-One-Ment.

I think people seek God because they want life.
I think some people would desire a God even if it could only offer then an existence in some sort of Hell, rather than no existence at all. I think it is a fantasy that people prefer death over life. I realize there are people who kill themselves all the time, but I imagine those are acts of desperation where they don't see themselves in this life having a connection to God, and so try to use death as a way of reaching out to God.
But generally speaking, I have to think that most people want life. You see this concept played out in the Gospels where Jesus tells people that if you believe in him, they will not die. There was probably a fuzzy sort of idea about an afterlife, held by the people Jesus was interacting with, and there were probably multiple theories out there about how one could participate in an afterlife.
I think the sayings of Jesus that the advocates of free grace construe as a manual for easy salvation, are in fact Jesus pointing out that those who desire that life after this one is over, should be directing their attention to him as the one who teaches the correct understanding of God's nature, and how we are expected to behave to be in conformity with God's will, and actually the provider of that pathway in a more physical sense into that new life.

reply to post by milkyway12

I am not realy sure what you are trying to say.

I am saying that "being saved", as a real thing, rather than a hypothetical thing, or a way of describing your belief in a future salvation or some sort of guarantee of salvation, is something very physical, which is an action taken by an indwelling spirit from God, indistinguishable from God, which brings you bodily back to life.

Are you trying to say Salvation through the forgiveness is false and that only works will get you to heaven?

Basically, but with some defining of terms. The real and physical actualization of "salvation" is the continuation of the work of the Christ spirit living and working in you. Of course once you physically come back to life, and are in whatever sort of existence you arrive at, whatever sort of things you may have done in your past life will be forgotten, otherwise your new life would not be of much value, having to suffer the consequences yet again.

Are you saying that Jesus isnt needed for salvation and that we could obtain access to the Father through our works alone?

We have access to the Father through Jesus, which is how we receive the spirit. The work of that spirit is what eventually physically "saves" us.

Just trying to understand your full concept of salvation. Sorta of confused. Also , are you saying the books of the Bible are incorrect and that the message it teachers is corrupt?

Paul was uniquely qualified to preach his gospel of salvation, but people writing in his name, afterwards, were not, and missed some of the important details in their giving of their own take on the core of Paul's message.
For example, a favorite "proof" text of the advocates of free grace is one taken from Ephesians (not actually written by Paul).

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--

This is technically true in a very general way, but not something Paul would state as a slogan like this, which people could take up and misconstrue the precise meaning of.

reply to post by SisyphusRide

by works alone... sounds excellent and basically the same as I read in the bible somewhere, 'it is what we do in his name which defines us' (living a certain way) not via a confession to the Pope.

I tell ya I would love to have a few questions with that guy sometime...

The Pope offers synthetic works as a substitute to real works , which are of the spirit.
There is a difference, where one is penance in a prescribed way, and the other is a transformation of our very natures, which makes us fit for a heavenly life to come.

reply to post by milkyway12

In my opinion , works only permit you more Crowns in heaven and more blessings on the Earth , however , Crowns are very important in heaven regarding the type of position you will be rewarded with after the rapture or your death. Nothing you can do can make you worthy to enter the kingdom of God except by being covered in the blood of the lamb because even your good deeds are but filthy rags.

These ideas as stated come across to me as being rather contrived and not having solid biblical backing.
I am suspicious of these teachings and question the motives of those who are the ultimate source of them. I believe there is a natural spirit that dwells in some people that is worldly, and are of the things which will pass, and will not be carried over into the world to come.

reply to post by jmdewey60


I am trying to figure their deal out... they have positives and negatives. But still seemingly a church for the old mans club I guess?

they have all the dough though and have been missionaries for quite some time now worldwide... there is even alot of Catholic camps here (some are closed down) and no one has done that in my opinion since Roosevelt created the CCC for young men in America. We got alot of beautiful national parks out of that, sometimes when I am enjoying our national parks I wonder where did this type of service go?

I missed out on the whole military enrollment unfortunately I was too busy playing the field.

Originally posted by milkyway12
reply to post by SisyphusRide

 

In my opinion , works only permit you more Crowns in heaven and more blessings on the Earth , however , Crowns are very important in heaven regarding the type of position you will be rewarded with after the rapture or your death. Nothing you can do can make you worthy to enter the kingdom of God except by being covered in the blood of the lamb because even your good deeds are but filthy rags.

now that can be taken on quite a few levels... I slam's terrorist seem to take this to the literal? I believe it means to be full of the spirit of Jesus and do only what he would do... which is pretty hard for anyone and surely to fall short of. Somehow reflecting back myself I have known I been living a pretty decent life so I decided to look at what was going on in the world around me... that's where I find myself now.

when it comes to any level dealing with the freedoms that were provided me growing up in America I side with the institution which has provided it for me... I am not some commie like the hippies were, things are complex

reply to post by jmdewey60

A favorite "proof text" of the free-grace advocates is 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.

That text is also used to establish the false doctrine of original sin....that all people are condemned by default... on which rests the other false doctrine of "sin sacrifice".

However, the very verse before that refutes that doctrine.


You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?
- Isaiah 64:5


This is one of the many verses that clearly shows that God judges people by their deeds.

Christian fundamentalists will read that worse to you and say "see, it says right here in the bible that our righteous deeds are filthy rags" and then assert that peoples good deeds mean nothing to God.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Wait, who ever says justifying grace was free? It cost God the most important thing to Him. That isn't free whatsoever.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

Christian fundamentalists will read that worse to you and say "see, it says right here in the bible that our righteous deeds are filthy rags" and then assert that peoples good deeds mean nothing to God.

It does seem to be an excessively used and abused verse. Probably the fundamentalists of the Old Testament sort of orientation. I would ask someone who quotes that, "You do realize that is in the Old Testament, right?" which would not seem to phase them. I suppose some people see it all as "The Bible" without regard to the context, where if they want to, they can take part of a verse in one book, and connect it to a part of a verse in another book, and create a totally valid new verse which they are now able to quote with authority.
I think good deeds are important to God, and why Jesus came, to directly teach us what it means to be good, by us following his example. The often ignored context of John 3:16 is that so people can now do good.

"For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames." - 1 Corinthians 3:14 NIV

Works are good, but they aren't the way to grace. We must also be careful not to let our works make us self-righteous lest they "burn up". Finally, salvation always comes from Christ - the foundation - not from what we build.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Wait, who ever says justifying grace was free? It cost God the most important thing to Him. That isn't free whatsoever.

I mean a type of hypothetical salvation which is apparently based on some sort of principle that there is nothing involved other than making a claim to it. That there is this contract written out which we can use to force the hand of God to make Him save us. Regardless of what it took to write such a "contract" it is still free, for the claimant, meaning without conditions, and the carrying out of the contract is somehow divorced from our real, day to day life.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by EnochWasRight

 

We must seek God honestly and not because we desire reward or want to hide from punishment. It must be from love. We were given this world to find atonement. At-One-Ment.

I think people seek God because they want life.
I think some people would desire a God even if it could only offer then an existence in some sort of Hell, rather than no existence at all. I think it is a fantasy that people prefer death over life. I realize there are people who kill themselves all the time, but I imagine those are acts of desperation where they don't see themselves in this life having a connection to God, and so try to use death as a way of reaching out to God.
But generally speaking, I have to think that most people want life. You see this concept played out in the Gospels where Jesus tells people that if you believe in him, they will not die. There was probably a fuzzy sort of idea about an afterlife, held by the people Jesus was interacting with, and there were probably multiple theories out there about how one could participate in an afterlife.
I think the sayings of Jesus that the advocates of free grace construe as a manual for easy salvation, are in fact Jesus pointing out that those who desire that life after this one is over, should be directing their attention to him as the one who teaches the correct understanding of God's nature, and how we are expected to behave to be in conformity with God's will, and actually the provider of that pathway in a more physical sense into that new life.

I think about John 2, where the people were confessing and believing in Jesus, but he refused to entrust himself to them.

23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

The belief and calling on Jesus name is important, but taking the name in vain is possible. Since the name carries with it the duty to be Christ-like, then taking the name in vain is taking it apart from the character that accompanies the name. Faith without works has no evidence that it is living. We give life to our spirit. Our spirit is consciousness. When we empower a thought of love for others, our heart is then focused on the intent of the desire. We give life to our thoughts--good and bad.

If you examine the above verse, Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He did not need their testimony, although we confess with our mouth. We also confess with our actions.

reply to post by EnochWasRight


I can't get enough of that link in your sig... I have spent a half of the day reading through it and still have a ways to go.

Question: all lifeforms are based on carbon as far as we know here on earth?