Saved By Grace and Works

1. Saved by grace

A. (Ephesians 2:8-9) - "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, that no one should boast."
B. (Rom. 3:20,28) - "because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin...28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law."
C. (Galatians 2:16) - "nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."

2. Saved by works

A. (James 2:24) - "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by Faith alone”
B. (Phil.2:12) – “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but how much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”.
C. (I Pet.1:9) – “For you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls”.

God does not want a faith that is empty and works that is hypocritical. James 2:24,Phil.2:12 and I Pet.1:9 is talking about a faith w/c must be accompanied by works that is pleasing ( for w/o faith it is impossible to please God Heb.11:6) and acceptable unto God. Also it is a kind of faith w/ work that is according to the righteousness of God – not hypocrisy, as what the Pharisees and the Sadducee s and the self-righteous lawyer (Matt.19:16-21) had put in their work. All of their works are based on the tradition and ritual made by man. Jesus said,”For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teacher of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of heaven”.Matt.5:20

Therefore, we could say that a true faith that is dynamic and alive must be accompanied by work that surpasses of what the work of the Pharisees can do. It means we must have a kind of work that goes beyond of what the natural or the unspiritual man can do.

As what we oftentimes heard,”true faith results in true works” or “the fruit of salvation is good works”. That’s true indeed, but the question hanging in our mind is, “How can we tell a work is truly work or what are the true works whereby we can tell it is a true work? And what good works wherein we can pinpoint exactly it is a good work? Because, as far as the true works and good works is concerns, there are a lot of people, even unbelievers, who do the true works and good works the same as we do and even far better than us. Actually, it’s hard to tell, or no one can, for God only knows. But then, there must be a basis, a set of rules or set of standards wherein we can distinctively obey and set forth unto us to follow.

By the goodness and righteousness of God, He is the one who do the business of putting up and setting up before us a standard. The standard of God that came first to Moses, then to Jesus w/c He surpass and then unto us. Anyone who wants to follow Christ must do what He did to the law. As Jesus fulfill and surpass the law, so we must do the same also.