Featured Between two Robbers...

Another attempted diversion from your misuse of passages talking about Abraham to support your spurious notions about credit for faith at salvation. If your claims were true you could (a) cite Scripture that says God credits faith at the point of salvation as righteousness, and (b) quote a post of mine where I said anything resembling your first sentence above. You can do neither.

 

The Bible does not say Abraham's approval resulted in his "salvation being made perfect after Christ died," which of course explains why you offer no passages to support this erroneous notion.

And I have repeatedly shown that you are misconstruing and misapplying this passage in violation of its plain meaning and context. Paul never says what you are saying, because what you are saying is wrong. Repeating your unbiblical claims without explanation or support does nothing to strengthen them.

 

I did not "claim this passage does not say God credits our faith." Your characterization of my words is false and you ought to be ashamed. I said God does not credit faith for righteousness AT SALVATION. Romans 4:23-25 is NOT talking about salvation, but you are misusing and misapplying it to talk about faith at the point of salvation. Saving faith and living faith are NOT the same. You are doing exactly what Peter described: "As also in all [Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16).

This is a complete falsehood. I have not said anything at all about 2 Thessalonians 2:13. Attacking me with untruths only confirms that you have no legitimate answers when your beliefs are shown to be out of line with Scripture.

 

If only that were true.

You quote me not, because I never said what you claim.

You have your reward. Shalom.

 

You are right and wrong. You're 100% right that striving would be works, and it is, but the context is eternal salvation.
It's just that Christ was teaching before the cross, and therefore under the Old Testament (Heb.9), under the law, and under the law, salvation was by faith and works; unlike in the post-cross church age when salvation is NOW by grace alone without works. As usual, dispensationalism solves these "problems".

 

What Scripture leads you to believe eternal salvation was dependent in any way on works in the Old Testament?

 

Not eternal salvation per se, although we are talking about the salvation of the soul, but only leading them to Abraham's bosom until Christ's blood was shed to open up heaven.
The scriptures abound to that effect, as Paul and Moses both summarized the law as follows:
Gal 3:12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

 

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. [Matthew 7:7-8].

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. [Matthew 11:25].

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 18:3-4].

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. [Romans 10:8-9].

So easy a child can do it.

 

Galatians 3 is addressed to believers who have already received the Spirit (vv 2-5), and Paul is explaining that living a righteous life and inheriting God's promises is not accomplished by keeping the law (as Jewish legalists were arguing at the time), but by faith.

"Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions... if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." [Galatians 3:19, 21]

Obedience under the law resulted in physical life and blessing, not soul salvation. Ezekiel 18 makes this clear.

 

Paul was quoting Leviticus 18:5. He was contrasting law and faith. the law is NOT of faith. And indeed, Ezekiel makes it clear that the question was one of spiritual life, not just physical life.

The word soul or souls shows up 6 times in that chapter:
Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Eze 18:27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.

Now compare the following 3 verses which speak of the soul dying.:



It is the soul that lives or die. God did not say “the flesh”, or “the man”, or “the body”. To be just, we must point-out that in the O.T., before the spiritual circumcision made possible by the resurrection of Christ, the soul and the body were fused, so that the death of a soul of a living man was also the death of his body. But it was nevertheless a death of the soul as well. This is not the threat of bodily death only, it is the threat of soulish death as well. This is confirmed by the fact that Ezekiel said that that soul would die in his sin (3:20, 24; 18:24) and in his iniquity (3:18, 19; 18:18, 26) and in his trespass (18:24), and Paul described lost souls as dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1).

If God had been addressing the Jews concerning physical death and life exclusively, why did he conclude the chapter with make you a new heart and a new spirit (v.31)?! Those are expressions of salvation of one’s soul, not body, as he had been saying all along. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of dying in one’s sins as a damnation of the soul (John 8:21, 24). There it is a result of unbelief, but here it is a result of works. A total of 17 works [including hath taken off his hand from the poor (v.17)] are listed in the passage and they are called duties in v.11.

No one can argue that in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live (v.22) is exclusively a reference to a long and good physical life on earth and not a reference to salvation as well: Luk 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Luk 10:26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? Luk 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luk 10:28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

Christ’s words thou shalt live (v.28) is a direct answer concerning obtaining eternal life (v.25); and that’s the salvation of one’s soul! Christ himself told the lawyer that his obtaining eternal life was dependent on what the lawyer would do (v.28)!



Ezekiel 18:22 above is a quasi-replica of Leviticus 18:5 and Paul takes Leviticus 18:5 – and therefore Ezekiel 18:22 – as a doctrine to be set in opposition to New Testament salvation by faith!
You’ve seen how Ezekiel 18 opposes Pauline doctrine, but see now how it matches Jacobine [James’] doctrine:


Since Paul differs from Ezekiel, and Ezekiel matches James, we now expect Pauline doctrine to be in opposition to Jacobine doctrine, and indeed it is:


Moreover, if this promise of life were merely one of a long physical life on earth – as opposed to a promise of salvation – then the reference to the commandment to honour one’s parents is conspicuously absent, (which is the first commandment with promise ; ) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth (Eph.6:2). Certainly the fifth commandment is included within hath walked in my statutes (v.9) but just as certainly God had a reason for specifying a sin such as not coming near to a menstruous woman (v.6) yet not the commandment to honour one’s father and mother; that reason being that the warning extended beyond the mere loss of long bodily life on the earth – it was one of eternal judgment on the soul.

Salvation by grace through faith without the works of the law is only a true doctrine during the church age. Under the law, and in the tribulation, and in the millennial kingdom, salvation was and will again be by faith and works.