Dwight, what is faith? It is not just the mental acceptance you are promoting. Faith REQUIRES action; if there is no action there is no faith at all. When Paul says that faith is required, he is including in "faith" all the actions that are mentioned anywhere else in Scripture that God says "lead to" or "result in" receiving salvation.
You obviously avoided my point and didn't answer my question, which you often do.
My point was: Paul said that "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain and worthless." 1 Cor.15:14 and 17
If confession and baptism were necessary for salvation, Paul would have said, "your faith and your confession and your baptism are vain and worthless."
So Paul is saying that your salvation hinges on, or relies on, your faith, not on your faith and your confession and your baptism.
You have no clue what Paul is thinking when he says "faith" - you can't read his mind. And you are simply speculating when you say that "lead to" and "result in" are the correct interpretations of eis. Granted I am speculating also when I propose how I think they should be translated. However, I believe my interpretation agrees with the rest of Scripture, that we're not saved by works and yours does not.
What???? He is "saved by is confession, which follows his salvation"? You cannot be saved by something that follows after salvation. That is like saying you are pulled out of the mud by the towel you wrapped yourself in after you were on firm ground; it makes NO sense.
You misunderstood my statement. I'll repeat it here: "I have told you many times that the context is of someone who already believes and that is shown to be a believer and saved by his confession, which follows his salvation."
Maybe it would be better to restate it, because I see it can be misunderstood.
I believe the context of Rom.10:9-10 is that Paul is speaking of a believer, i.e. he is already saved. Take me, for example. I have been baptized and I confess Jesus as my Lord all the time. My confession of Jesus has followed my salvation. That is to say, that after I was saved, I began to confess Jesus as my Lord, not before I was saved. The very fact that I continually confess Him as my Lord displays or shows that I have been saved.
The Greek "eis" (meaning "for") can indeed mean "in order to" or "because you have". It is contingent upon the context, along with the precedent of other passages, to determine the meaning intended in each usage. As for Acts 2:38, the intent is clearly shown in Acts 3:19 to be "in order to". As for the usage in Rom 10:10, the passage would make no sense to interpret "eis" to mean "because you have been". The NASB, in the marginal notation, says "to righteousness" and "to salvation". You say that "eis" means "in order to" when applied to "belief", but when applied to "confession" the meaning changes to "because you have"? There is no Biblical indication that the meaning would suddenly change from one to the other. It is, and must be, the same meaning for both.
No, I never said that eis means "in order to". I said that it means "to" righteousness and "to" salvation. Nor did I indicate that the meaning changes from one phrase to the other phrase, as you claimed. I agree with you that the meaning must be the same for both. But you and I disagree on the meaning. I believe that "to" righteousness " means "which reveals that he already has" righteousness and "to" salvation means "which reveals that he already has" salvation.
I can hear you objecting to that, that it can't possibly mean that. Well I too object to what you think it means. You think it means "results in" righteousness and "results in" salvation. That is, this person is just becoming righteous and he is just becoming saved.
I, on the other hand, think that this person is already righteous and he is already saved.
Only in your twisted understanding of what "works" means. Just taking an action does not mean that the action is an act of merit, or that the action is earning a reward. Even Jesus, in His parable of the unprofitable servant (Luke 17:7-10), says that a servant's duty is to do what he is told and he does not deserve or merit even a "thank you" from his master for doing what he is told. He merits condemnation and punishment for not doing what he is told, because it is his duty to do what is commanded. But a good master will deliver on promises he has made, and God has promised that if we confess Jesus, then Jesus will confess us. If we are buried with Jesus in baptism, then the Holy Spirit will remove our sins and resurrect us as He did Jesus. If we repent of our sins, then we will be cleansed from the stain of those sins.
Believing that confessing with your mouth Jesus as Lord is a work - is not twisted. If you're suggesting, from the above paragraph, that confession with your mouth is NOT a work - I say you're wrong. Just because it is something we ought to do, that it is our duty to do, does not means that it ceases to be a work. It is one physical action, which is a work, that you require (along with another physical action, which is also a work - baptism) for a person to get saved.
This is why my conclusion is that your interpretation is that we're saved by works and believing. My interpretation is that we're saved by believing alone. Then after we're saved, that is after we're "created in Christ Jesus", Ephesians 2:10 says that we are to "walk in good works".
That is, works follow our salvation, they do not precede our salvation.
