For salvation? Or at all? Is Jesus the lord of someone who rejects any attempt to align his behavior to the lord's will?
If he believes, yes!
That's the gospel, Derf! You are not saved based on whether you do anything good bad or indifferent.
Romans 4:4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. 5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness
apart from works:
You don't get to have a grace based salvation and sneak in a requirement for works through the back door. It's either about faith alone apart from works or its about faith plus works.
Interestingly, on that particular point, it completely works the other way. In other words, adding works to a covenant of grace doesn't work but adding grace to a covenant of works totally does work.
Let's say, for example, you hire someone to replace your roof and they do such an excellent job that you not only pay them what they are owed for their work but you get some steaks and grill them up for the crew to eat after a job well done. That's grace added to debt (law) and it completely works and everyone is happy as clams.
Now look at the reverse. Let's say you're poor and have no way of repairing, much less replacing your completely warn out and useless, leaking roof and someone comes along and offers to replace your roof for free. You accept the offer and they get to work right away. While they're toiling away, you run out to Arby's and pick up some roast-beef sandwiches and a bunch of potato cakes and bring it back for everyone to enjoy. Then, after the work is done you happen across the roofer at church and you start bragging to everyone within ear shot about how great a job they did and how wonder it is that you don't have to deal with a leaky roof anymore and then you say, "....and all it cost me was a handful of Arby's #2 combos!"
See how that totally cheapens what was done? It just completely undoes the whole thing! It turns an incredibly lavish gift into something cheap and pedestrian. It is, in fact, insulting to the gift giver.
Likewise, our salvation is a free gift and we do not owe God anything in return for it. We have nothing to offer in exchange for it that isn't an insult to it's immeasurable value and we aught not feel any more obligation to God for having saved us than we feel an obligation when we, as a child, receive a gift from our grandparents on Christmas morning, beyond simply loving God just as kids love their grandma and grandpa.
But James is saying "be motivated by duty and not by love"?
Yeah! That's precisely what he is saying. James 2 is quite the opposite of Romans 4. Both are speaking about what it takes to get saved, not what happens after and they teach quite contrary things and rightly so because they are speaking to two different groups under two quite contrary dispensations.
Who is a higher authority.
It doesn't matter who it is! If God Himself came down and told you do something, doing it would have NO EFFECT on your standing before Him during this dispensation.
That, by the way, is a completely pure hypothetical for the sake of argument! God would never actually order someone to do anything contrary to the dispensation the person is under. It would be God contradicting Himself.
Simply? Then why did Paul have to keep telling people to love one another? If "simply" there's no need to write it in his letters.
Because our flesh has not yet been redeemed and so we are constantly in a battle against it. A battle which is fought in the mind, by the way.
Romans 7:25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
We must constantly be "reckoning" (to use the biblical term) ourselves dead unto sin. The more real this biblical fact becomes to our minds, the more Christ is free to live His life through us by faith because dead men cannot strive to do anything but rest. We have been crucified in Him and it is when we finally rest in Him that things get going in the right direction.
If you are a Christian, and you have no love for any other Christian, are you saved at all?
You are if you believe that Jesus in God incarnate, that He lived a flawlessly perfect life and was totally innocent and offered His pure life in place of yours which was forfeit because of your own sin and that God raised Him from the dead.
There's nothing wrong with us testing our faith every now and then to see if we are really following Christ, to see if we really believe in His death and resurrection, to see if we love Him. And if joyously following His commands (like "love one another") shows that we are still believing in His power to save, then let's have more and more of that all the time.
What we are talking about right now is precisely what I would call "testing our faith". What you are talking about is testing your flesh. I know that isn't what you intend but it nevertheless true. You cannot test your faith by looking at the performance of your flesh. Your flesh is contrary to your faith (in this dispensation).
But you're saying that he might not complete it, because the works might not exist in a person's life.
On the contrary, I am saying that it is already complete! There isn't anything else to do other than to redeem your flesh which is guaranteed by the giving of the Holy Spirit are an earnest payment. You cannot be better than you are right now - ever! If you think otherwise then your goal post is set too low! The only standard is perfection. It is all or nothing. Christ paid it all and then some! You have nothing of value to contribute. Stop trying and simply rest in His completed work and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. God's got it.
It makes no sense to say that Jesus will complete a good work in us, but we might not have any good works. The whole reason for Paul to write to believers about how to be better believers is that we should actually be better believers. And there's no point in handing someone over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh and the salvation of the soul, if the changes desired aren't really necessary.
I understand what you're saying but the problem is that it comes from a faulty premise. You are interpreting Paul's gospel as if it were James'. The flesh is very tricky in this respect. It is always attempting to figure out a way to take another bite from that forbidden fruit. Your desire to do rightly is commendable but the source you're attempting to bring it from is corrupted. Your flesh must be killed, not improved. For the Christian, sin is not the problem, YOU are the problem! For in you, that is in your flesh, no good thing dwells nor can any good thing dwell.
1 Corinthians 5:5 KJV — To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Paul definitely thought some kind of behavioral change was necessary for the saving of the person's spirit.
It's interesting that people always make this sort of argument. It comes in one of two forms. The premise is either that I'm trying to say that evil actions aren't a problem; that they aren't hurtful or that for whatever reason it can be basically ignored, or they take the reverse tack and suggest (tacitly) that I'm suggesting that we have actual permission to do evil. My response is the same either way...
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
And if your immediate reaction to that is to say that this is your position then I say you've missed the point! It is the opposite of your position because Romans 6 makes no sense to even say if one's presentation of the gospel doesn't ever lead people to make the accusation that you're preaching what modern folks often call "greasy grace" or "easy believism", which no one would ever have any reason to accuse you of if you're telling them that "real" Christians are must have good works (i.e. both abstaining from sin and doing good things).
And what is Romans 6 predicated on? What is it that prompted the rhetorical question that Paul asks in verse 1?.....
Romans 5:18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
How does righteousness reign? Through our effort? NO! Through Jesus Christ, who is the only ONE righteous Man and who's righteousness has been imputed to us IN SPITE of our flesh, in spite of our own unworthiness, in spite of our sin! As it says in Romans 7...
Romans 7:13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
Notice the dichotomy there between the mind and the flesh! The battle is fought in the mind and we are to RECKON ourselves dead unto sin but alive to God, which brings me full circle to ground I've already covered.
Resting in Him,
Clete
