We are saved by faith, not works, but the faith that saves is a faith that works. True saving faith will produce good works. Faith, not works, is the causal condition for salvation, but good works are the necessary effect of our saving faith. That doesn’t mean we will be perfect, but it does mean we will be moving toward perfection via the process of sanctification.
February 12, 2021
Faith that works
Posted by Jason Dulle under Hamartiology, Holiness, Soteriology, Theology[11] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
February 12, 2021 at 2:33 pm
“Faith, not works, is the causal condition for salvation, but good works are the necessary effect of our saving faith.”
Hmm, I’m not sure about that. According to the Bible, you can commit all the sins you want (except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) and still be forgiven:
• Mark 3:28-29 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.
• Matthew 12:31-32 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
So if that’s true, as long as you don’t die too quickly to ask for forgiveness, you should be fine.
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February 12, 2021 at 3:07 pm
It’s a bit of a to-may-to, to-mah-to thing. While you’re right that “true saving faith” is a working kind of faith, that’s what Catholics mean when they say “faith & works.” They even have a term for it: Fides formata. So while Protestants might say that their “faith alone” is the same thing (working faith), Catholics worry that the phrase “faith alone” is dangerously similar to James’s “pisteos monon” (faith “standing alone” from loving action; in context, exalting the rich and showing contempt for the poor) sowing confusion at best, antinomianism at worst. Catholics point to Galatians 5:6 to show that Paul’s issue with works was about works of the Law specifically as a causal condition, not works in general as a causal condition: “Under Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision [i.e., works of the Law] have any value. The only thing that counts is faith, through love, working [Gr. pistis di agapes energoumene].”
I’m no longer Catholic, but I am partial to N. T. Wright’s New Perspective on Paul, which comports with these passages.
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February 12, 2021 at 3:55 pm
Yeah, it’s a bit confusing. Protestants tend to cite these passages to justify the “sola fide” (faith only position):
• Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
• Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
• Romans 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
• Romans 3: 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
• Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
• Romans 10:9-13 That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the lord will be saved.”
Whereas Catholics often cite these passages to say salvation requires both faith and works:
• James 2:24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
• James 2:18-19 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
• 1 Corinthians 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
• Luke 10:25-28 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
• Revelation 20:12 The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
• Matthew 25:41-46 Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.” Then they themselves also will answer, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?” Then He will answer them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
And that you can lose your salvation:
• 1 Corinthians 9: 27 But I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
• 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
• John 15:5-6 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
And then there are the Lutherans who teach that anyone can choose to accept salvation, while Calvinists teach that only God chooses whom to save.
But those are only approximates. Interestingly, less than half of Protestants believe in salvation by faith alone. And when asked if they believe in salvation by faith alone or salvation from following the Bible and official church teachings, a third believe in faith alone, a third believe in both, and a third believe in neither: https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2017/08/US-Protestant-Reformation-FINAL.pdf. Evidently this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen:
• John 17:20-23 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, THAT ALL OF THEM MAY BE ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, THAT THEY MAY BE ONE AS WE ARE ONE—I in them and you in me—SO THAT THEY MAY BE BROUGHT TO COMPLETE UNITY. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
• 1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ALL OF YOU AGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER in what you say and that THERE BE NO DIVISIONS AMONG YOU, BUT THAT YOU BE PERFECTLY UNITED IN MIND AND THOUGHT.
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February 16, 2021 at 11:53 am
@stanrock
Though I’ve often disagreed with you on these boards, kudos to you for your fine post. Too many in the Protestant camp minimize works in their zeal to promote the primacy of “faith,” and that has resulted in a de facto or de jure antinomianism. This is precisely what Jude warned us against.
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February 17, 2021 at 11:48 am
stanrock, I don’t agree that it’s anything similar to Catholic theology. Catholic theology is very clear that one is justified by their faith and works. And I am equally clear that one is only and fully justified by their faith, however, that sort of faith will always produce good works. Those good works do not add any merit to our salvation and do not keep us saved. They are the result of our saving faith, in the same way that the light shining (works) is the result of flipping the light switch (faith). If we flipped the switch and didn’t see any light, we would realize something was wrong – not because the light has any causal relationship to the switch, but because the switch has a necessary effect on the light.
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February 17, 2021 at 11:53 am
But Jason, your analogy is no different from what I’ve heard Catholics say with respect to the relationship between faith and works. Can you point to anything they’ve said, officially, that denies that faith is the driving force behind works?
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February 17, 2021 at 12:10 pm
Of course they would say that faith is the driver of good works. That’s not the issue. The issue is that they believe the good works that one does by faith also contribute to one’s justification. I don’t. Faith leads to good works but those good works contribute nothing to our justification. They are not meritorious.
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February 17, 2021 at 12:12 pm
Jason, it appears that you’re directing your fire at a caricature of Catholic theology. I strongly encourage you to read the following link. The presentation isn’t long, and it’s written in a very accessible manner.
Faith and Works
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February 18, 2021 at 10:56 am
I am not an expert on Catholic theology, though I was once a Catholic. However, I have read enough official sources on Catholic theology over the years to know that works bring grace in Catholic theology. They conflate sanctification with justification because they see justification as infusing righteousness into the believer rather than merely declaring him to be righteous. That process of infusing righteousness continues throughout one’s life. Protestants would call that process sanctification, not justification, and would deny that we are receiving more grace from it (although we are surely becoming more like Jesus). I know many Catholics try to get around this, and you can find various statements by Catholics and Catholic sources that seem to go against it, but Catholic teaching has been clear for centuries that good works are tied to our salvation.
Even if I’m wrong about that, however, I’m completely confused at this point as to what your point is. You were concerned about the primacy of faith leading to antinomianism. I affirmed that one does not lead to the other because true faith leads to good works. You said this sounds Catholic, by which I understood you to mean that this sounds like works are involved in our salvation. But now it seems that you are saying Catholics don’t believe that. Whether you are right or wrong about that point, I’m not understanding what your point is anymore. If you think Catholics merely believe that the faith that saves leads to good works, then what’s your problem with that? Perhaps you can clarify.
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February 18, 2021 at 11:58 am
Jason, you used the analogy about a light switch and a bulb and compared faith to the switch (when turned on) and the bulb (works) as merely reactive. I simply said that Catholics use similar analogies and if so, you’ve offered nothing to distinguish your view from theirs, generally speaking.
When you critique a view, you should be thoroughly appraised of the view you’re critiquing, and that’s my main point to you. Your answer here implies that you did not read the link I provided. If you had, you would discover that Catholics are indistinguishable from you with respect to Christian initiation.
As to whether one is sanctified or justified, you definitely believe that a genuinely born-again person can lose salvation and thus be damned. You claim a distinction in that a person’s “sins” cannot cause said person to be lost; it is rather their failing to trust God that can cause damnation. However, unbelief and/or refusing to trust God is also a sin, so it is incoherent to argue that sin cannot separate you from God. As I’ve argued here over the years, you cannot separate genuine faith from works, for faith itself is a work according to our Lord.
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February 21, 2021 at 10:58 am
TR ………. you are correct —- like many the roman catholic church teaches a works based salvation. Dr William Lane Craig has several good talks on this subject and makes a very good point about catholicism which i only agree partially.
and i’ll paraphrase the part i agree with …….. roman catholics gets salvation pretty much correct but the roman catholic church doesn’t.
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