FreeInChrist
Active Member
Ill get there before you. I'll let you know.
Is believing/faith a work ?
- Thread starter brightfame52
- Start date
brightfame52
Active Member
Now since believing, the result of God given Faith is a work, that is an act of the mind, the heart and will, if men teach they are saved or justified before God because of their act of believing, while yet unregenerate and in a state of nature, then in essence they're saying that they were saved or justified before God based upon a subjective characteristic that pleased God while yet in the flesh. However the scripture plainly teaches that they which are in the flesh [the unregenerate] cannot please God Rom 8:8
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Faith/Believing pleases God see Heb 11:6
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Faith/Believing pleases God see Heb 11:6
FreeInChrist
Active Member
Your argument depends on a false equation that Scripture never makes which is namely, that faith is a work that earns God’s pleasure in the same sense as obedience or righteousness.
Romans 8:8 is addressing those who seek to please God through the flesh, that is, through submission to the law, self-effort, or works arising from the Adamic nature. Paul’s point is not that an unregenerate person is metaphysically incapable of responding to God’s revelation, but that the flesh cannot produce righteousness or merit.
Faith is explicitly excluded from that category.
Romans 4:5 “To the one who does not work, but believes, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
If believing were itself a pleasing work that justified a person while still in the flesh, Paul could not contrast believing with working so sharply.
Hebrews 11:6 does not say that faith is a meritorious act that earns salvation; it says that faith is the necessary means of approaching God at all. The verse defines faith as trusting God’s promise ,not as obedience, law-keeping, or moral transformation.
Moreover, Scripture consistently places faith before regeneration and the reception of the Spirit:
Eph 1:13 “Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.”
Rom 5:1“We are justified by faith.”
Gal 3:26 “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
If faith required prior regeneration, then faith would be the product of salvation rather than the means of it a concept Scripture never teaches.
Romans 8:8 does not say the unregenerate cannot believe; it says they cannot please God in the flesh, meaning they cannot attain righteousness or life through fleshly means. Believing the gospel is not a fleshly work it is the abandonment of all fleshly confidence.
In fact, faith does not assert a subjective quality that pleases God; it confesses the absence of any such quality.
Romans 4:5 “God justifies the ungodly.” (Romans 4:5)
Therefore, believing while unregenerate does not contradict Romans 8:8 ....... it fulfills God’s appointed way of moving a sinner out of the flesh and into Christ.
So, it’s God’s fault if someone doesn’t respond to the gospel? Hmmm
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civic
Active Member
so when Jesus preached to the crowds in the Sermon on the Mount no one heard Him.
hmmmmmmmmm
brightfame52
Active Member
Thats any unregenerate person, duh
brightfame52
Active Member
Huh. You ask that because believing in Christ is a spiritual blessing ?So, it’s God’s fault if someone doesn’t respond to the gospel? Hmmm
brightfame52
Active Member
Those who were of God spiritually heard
I asked it because if one is not picked for the bestowment of belief, that one has no hope it seems from your faulty thesis.
civic
Active Member
correct his god created them for hell all for his glory, honor and praise.
yet in the same breath they can claim God is love.
oh the irony....................
FreeInChrist
Active Member
John Calvin did claim that in his
"[God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction." ~John Calvin (Institutes, 3.23.6)
as I say in my signature......
It would be beneficial to explore Book 3, Chapter 23 of "Institutes of the Christian Religion," where Calvin discusses election and reprobation in detail. (a link below)
https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/calvin-institutes-christianity/book3/chapter-23.html goes on to say in Calvins view...
brightfame52
Active Member
Thats true as well, but thats an election study. This thread is about believing is an work
civic
Active Member
believing is a work in all of Christendom in one theological systematic- CALVINISM.
that says it all right there.
in every other place in Christendom its salvific and a result of accepting or rejecting the gospel message which results in the new birth, regeneration, eternal life, salvation etc.......
hope this helps !!!
brightfame52
Active Member
I dont know what you talking about sir
FreeInChrist
Active Member
Bingo.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
It applies to both.
civic
Active Member
you are the only one calling ones faith a work- no one else in Christianity does except the calvinist.
FreeInChrist
Active Member
You know what @civic..... I bet it is a work for them.
For us, once we hear, read, and see the truth and our belief and faith explodes, there is no work to it.... As I always say... faith, to me, is a privilege for God could have blinded me to the truth had he chosen...
But for the calvenist, who believe their faith was given to them " at last", boy it would be a work because in a great many cases that would not come either naturally or possibly not even welcomed.
God is sooooo good.
Thank you our Heavenly Father.....
civic
Active Member
deleted
brightfame52
Active Member
Not to me
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