Is believing/faith a work ?

Bright Raven

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Ephesians 2:8-9 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

By the very text of the verses Faith is not a work!
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
Here's another scripture that indicates faith has an element of action to it. Jesus says in Mk 11:22

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

This is an imperative that requires action

[FONT=arial, helvetica]The imperative mood corresponds to the English imperative, and expresses[/FONT] a command to the hearer to perform a certain action [FONT=arial, helvetica]by the order and authority of the one commanding. Thus, Jesus' phrase, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mk.1:15) is not at all an "invitation," but an absolute command requiring full obedience on the part of all hearers.[/FONT]

[FONT=arial, helvetica]People try to dismiss truth by worldly arguments, the wisdom of this world.

Yes Faith here is a noun however an action is required, which is a work
[/FONT]

Right. And nobody said any different. The work is OF faith. It’s not something we can do apart from the faith that is given as a gift that then means we can do the works of faith. Faith is the source of the work/s.

The same is true of repentance as a noun. It’s the thing (noun) granted by God for us to be able to repent. Metanoia is the changed condition of the heart and mind, by which we are able to know Him and His will, and the repentING is the resulting action that a changed mind’s state of being can “do” because effected that change in a man.
 

beloved57

Well-known member
Ephesians 2:8-9 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

By the very text of the verses Faith is not a work!

Eph 2:8 doesnt say faith isnt a work.
 

beloved57

Well-known member
See the word Love is a noun strongs g26 however that doesnt negate that its also an action done by someone Gal 5:14. So when men argue over such semantics its like Paul says 1 Tim 6:4

He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

So if a person says they are saved by God because of their act of believing, they are promoting salvation by works, which is condemned in scripture. See salvation is by grace alone apart from works.
 

Nanja

Well-known member
See the word Love is a noun strongs g26 however that doesnt negate that its also an action done by someone Gal 5:14. So when men argue over such semantics its like Paul says 1 Tim 6:4

[FONT=&]He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and [/FONT]strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

So if a person says they are saved by God because of their act of believing, they are promoting salvation by works, which is condemned in scripture. See salvation is by grace alone apart from works.


Amen, well said !
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
See the word Love is a noun strongs g26 however that doesnt negate that its also an action done by someone Gal 5:14. So when men argue over such semantics its like Paul says 1 Tim 6:4

[FONT=&]He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and [/FONT]strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

Exactly. THIS IS YOU.

So if a person says they are saved by God because of their act of believing,

Nobody is saying this. Faith is not believING. Faith is a noun. BelievING is a verb. So you can stop perpetually violating the scripture you just posted above and stop your strifes of words against scripture and grammar.

they are promoting salvation by works, which is condemned in scripture. See salvation is by grace alone apart from works.

We have access by faith into the grace wherein we stand. Romans 5:2

It is of faith that it might be by grace. Romans 4:16

Faith is a thing. Faith isn’t believING. Faith is a noun.
 

PneumaPsucheSoma

TOL Subscriber
What i understand is that Eph 2:8-9 says nothing about faith not being a work.

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It doesn’t say faith isn’t a car or a cat or a barn door, either.

The fact remains that faith is a noun and not a verb. Faith cannot be a work. Nouns aren’t works. Verbs are works. Period.

Your theology is ultimately as bad as the stubborn and uncorrectable Unitarians.
 

Idolater

"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
1) During the period both leading into Nicea and between Nicea and Constantinople with the Cappadocian clarifications.
2) The Great Schism of 1024
3) The Reformation

These three stand as the primary schisms, reconciled (the first) or not (the second and third).
OK.
And there is NO way there is Apostolicity attached to the Filioque debate. What emerged was the whims of first one Roman Bishop, and then an intermittent succession of Bishops. It had never been an issue until Rome made it an issue of conflict. There had been no Filioque until Rome belatedly added it.



And a simple overview of history indicates it’s quite impossible. I’ve read EVERY Patristic writing extant available in English to the general public. The Filioque was a late innovation.
Can you clarify then how it would be possible to detect an oral tradition through the examination of written historical records?
Yeah, and then Rome went rogue and demanded the Filioque be included and imposed it upon the East and all others over an oddly vascillating period of time. There is no characteristic of the Filioque addition being Apostolic.
What do you mean by, "an oddly vascillating period of time," and by, "characteristic of the Filioque?"
No. History and the Patristics are far from silent, and none of that is fiction.



And I do not.
Then I find that odd. Your position on the office of Bishop is the same as all Protestants then, that all bishops are all together corrupt and that the office is irreparably invalid. Note that my hypothetical /conditional includes the possibility of all the bishops coming around in some way to each others's way of thinking, and not exclusively the possibility that simply the eastern bishops 'et al.' would 'return' to Catholicism and to the subordination to the papacy (wrt the papacy being 'first among equals' only), nor just the possibility that 'Rome' recants. It could be some arrangement or agreement that none of us has ever even imagined, let alone heard of before. So I find your position odd. Why wouldn't you instead long for the Church's valid bishops all reuniting together again as it was for so many centuries, starting right from Jerusalem in AD 33 on Pentecost? To me, that's the legendary 'New Testament Church' that so many Bible thumping Protestants try to duplicate in their own lives and practices (a very good goal in concept imo, if not in aim); all the bishops together with each other, in communion, teaching uniformly, just as the Apostles designed.
Ecumenism is not unity
I never used that word, and that's not what I'm talking about. True and valid unity must be founded upon authentic Christian /Apostolic teaching, not through compromise or 'dumbing down' this or that teaching, just that everybody can agree to something.
, and that’s all Rome is capable of at this point.
'Rome' cannot reunite all the bishops unilaterally, and I never suggested that 'Rome' could. This will require free cooperation on the part of all the valid bishops.
It’s what is pervading the current landscape. The Pope has more unity with Islam than with the East, and it’s deteriorating.
Islam denies both Christ's Resurrection and that He is God /the Trinity. At least all the bishops agree on these two things, along with many other things, but to compare this with Islam pushes that envelope too far imo.
And the issue is that I CAN affirm from years of exegetical and lexical perusal in fasting and prayer according to Patristic example and doctrine that I can confirm the authenticity of the Eastern teaching over the innovations of Rome in this regard, and it’s unequivocal.
You're clearly convinced in your own mind.
So I too defer to Apostolicity, but to the Apostolic claims and traditions that actually agree with scripture rather than usurping it.
Me too.
So it’s not my doctrinal predispositions that determine my affiliation (as you insisted earlier), but that my doctrinal predispositions are determined by Holy Tradition as is ALSO explicated in the divinely inspired text.
But the bishops are in that same text.
And the Vatican is one of three city-state entities from which the onslaught of the elitist global agenda is issuing forth. The Vatican is wholly complicit in ALL the history of the secret societies and all else that is building toward One-World everything with Ecumenistic Religion as the third leg of the Communitarian stool.
Beyond the scope of this thread, but the only way I see anything like "One-World everything" happening is for the US to resume annexations (which is something I support). And the First Amendment does and will continue to prevent government /police from ever establishing any religion.
The corrupt fractional reserve world banking systems are related to the corruption of Rome, so Apostolicity isn’t even present in the Ecclesiological ranks of the Romanized Church.
The office of bishop was never specified as having any expertise in any other practice beyond the valid celebration of the sacraments, and of teaching the entire Christian faith in all matters of faith and morals. So that would exclude banking, government, etc.
I have 20+ years of irrefutable volumes of research that indicate the Vatican is the seat of nothing but Antichrist with a mask provided by institutionalized corruption with a fascade. So you’re not going to get any traction with me by insisting Rome is anything else, much less Apostolic.
The papacy is Apostolic, Peter's Roman pastorate is Apostolic. He held that office, and the office itself didn't die with him. You can disagree that the office is valid at the moment, but you can't reasonably disagree that it is Peter's own Roman pastorate that he vacated when he died, that the Pope today holds, and that in this sense the office is Apostolic. At least, not imo.
If it’s above your paygrade, then it might be better to remain competely silent and resign it all to those whose paygrade it is.
:idunno:
I cannot and will not agree or concede. I know far too much of the bowels of Papal and Roman corruption. The East remains the last standing bastion of authentic orthodoxy and catholicism.
You say this, and yet you make no plans to be received into their communion. Just for comparison, I work with a Catholic priest who is in communion with his bishop (my bishop), and I am on the way to full communion.
And I am able to connect the Lutheran Confessions to the East and reconcile all the apparent diversions presumed between them. This is why I can either recite the Creed with or without the Filioque, because I know the exegetical and lexical foundations for why there was a distinction.

There IS an aspect of all of this that is NOT beyond ANY Believer’s alleged “paygrade”. Not the decisions for the Body, but about which “side” to yield to as authority. I can’t and won’t yield to Rome and her antichrist corruptions. The Vatican is anathema.
OK, but you also don't yield to any bishops. You make yourself into a bishop instead, and you teach and yield to yourself. That idea is not scriptural.
 

beloved57

Well-known 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
 
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Nanja

Well-known 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 unregenrate] cannot please God Rom 8:8

8 [FONT="]So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Faith/Believing pleases God see Heb 11:6[/FONT]


Exactly ! Because all people by nature are in the flesh, the kind of faith that's produced in the mind of the natural man [not born again] cannot / or does not have the spiritual ability to please God Rom. 8:8. As a matter of fact, their own believing in the flesh can only bring forth fruit unto death Rom. 7:5. So if a person is never Born of the Spirit in their lifetime, it bears evidence they weren't any that belonged to Christ Rom. 8:9b, for it's only by Him do we believe 1 Pet. 1:20-21; 2 Pet. 1:1.
 

Bright Raven

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Exactly ! Because all people by nature are in the flesh, the kind of faith that's produced in the mind of the natural man [not born again] cannot / or does not have the spiritual ability to please God Rom. 8:8. As a matter of fact, their own believing in the flesh can only bring forth fruit unto death Rom. 7:5. So if a person is never Born of the Spirit in their lifetime, it bears evidence they weren't any that belonged to Christ Rom. 8:9b, for it's only by Him do we believe 1 Pet. 1:20-21; 2 Pet. 1:1.

You believe in faith plus works not grace alone.
 

Aimiel

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No it doesn't

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Sorry, but, "...not of works, lest anyone should boast," means that you aren't doing a 'work' to be saved, it is a gift of God. He does it for you, through you; even causing you to surrender your own will by His love and grace.
 

beloved57

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Sorry, but, "...not of works, lest anyone should boast," means that you aren't doing a 'work' to be saved, it is a gift of God. He does it for you, through you; even causing you to surrender your own will by His love and grace.
It doesn't say Faith isn't a work

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