Featured Is faith a work?

I DON'T HOLD A "FREE WILL" POSITION. (sorry caps).

I was referring to RighteousnessTemperance's quote.

This is a typical statement on Sovereign Grace, from a "Landmark Baptist" position.

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My concern is whether or not "free will",
regarding their "process of Salvation", includes REPENTANCE.

 

Our church is Calvinistic and KJV,
Sovereign Grace, and a "Landmark Baptist"
and has been since her founding in 1786.

We believe carnal dead faith is a fleshly "work", per the OP;
Is faith a work?

Carnal dead faith is a fleshly "work", when not accompanied by Spirit Wrought CONVICTION and The Gift of REPENTANCE and FAITH, which is The New Birth, from above.

Carnal dead faith is a fleshly "work", of a Spiritually dead consent or decision,
which leaves a lost soul lost in their sins.

and SPIRITUAL FAITH, which accompanied by Spirit Wrought CONVICTION
and The Gift of REPENTANCE and FAITH, which is The New Birth
is The GIFT of GOD, as He Says.

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Bryan Station Baptist Church is a local, visible, called-out assembly of scripturally baptized believers, covenanted together according to the Biblical pattern of a “one member, one vote,” spirit-led democracy; whose purpose is the carrying out of the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20.

The Bible teaches that only such a church as this is authorized and constructed to be able to do so.

Our authority came, according to the Biblical doctrine of “church succession,” through particular New England “separate” Baptists who had sought out existing Baptist churches for this arm of authority.

Such were Elders Shubeal Sterns and Daniel Marshall who, once they were saved, sought out Baptist Baptism; Shubeal Sterns at the Baptist Church at Toland, Connecticut on May 20, 1751; and Daniel Marshall from Winsor, Connecticut, saved and burdened to preach, came to Winchester, Virginia where he became convinced of the soundness of Baptist doctrine and was immersed at the age of forty-eight.

After a few years each under sound ministry, and after becoming licensed to preach by their respective churches, they were found laboring in Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia. They remained in Virginia only a short while “but the power of God was effectual in the conversion of Samuel Harris, a man of great distinction…” who at length became greatly used of the Lord.

“Sometime in 1766… Elijah Craig and two others came to this same Mr. Harris’s home in order to procure his services in Orange County, Va. and adjacent parts; to preach and baptize and organize new converts.

They found to their surprise that he himself at that time had not yet been ordained; but being more perfectly instructed in the way of the Lord he carried them about 60 miles into North Carolina to get James Read (who was ordained) (Robert B. Semple, “A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia.”) and (John T. Christian, “A History of the Baptists,” pg. 215, vol. 2), even as Jesus traveled at least as far to receive baptism at the hands of a Baptists preacher (Mark 1:9-14).

From this beginning, churches were established and ordination by them was begun (John T. Christian, pg. 216, vol.2), and a church was soon founded at Spotsylvania, Va. – the Spotsylvania Baptist Church, pastored by Elder Lewis Craig.

And it is from this church, when it became the famous “Traveling Church” in September of 1781 when Lewis Craig led the whole church over the Cumberland Gap to settle in the bluegrass region of Central Kentucky, that the authority for our Bryan Station Baptist Church came, organized in 1786.

We believe we are to take our history seriously. It is a glorious history.
May the Lord grant we live up to it.

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Also, please see: BAPTIST CHURCH PERPETUITY,
from the Time of Christ, until He Comes Again.

If you would like to fill in any "gaps", in Baptist History, from the time of Christ,
it is here, from the Bible:

Revelation 12:6; "And the woman* fled into the wilderness ..."

*The Kind of churches Jesus Built.

 

Bingo!

 

Elijah Craig!?! Is that the Whiskey distributor ? How did he go from being a Baptist Pastor to running a still? What Baptist would buy Elder Craigs recipe!

 

I can forgive your sorry caps. And it's OK to ask. Better yet, maybe read my posts with understanding, as I've already addressed it.

As for that post, the most I would have in response is a quibble or two. Otherwise, it aligns with my own position. It's hardly worth arguing, and not needed here.

 

“It’s déjà vu all over again.” No, I’ll not answer it again. I answered the question when I expanded the earlier response to provide some explanation. Just jump back and read it with understanding as suggested.

If anyone doesn’t like my answer and wishes to debate it, they can start another thread. I’ll not debate it here, as it is entirely unnecessary to the topic here.

 

Faith is not works, Romans 4:16.
Faith is according to grace, in that our faith is not "of righteousness" but must be credited as righteousness by God. Romans 4:3-5.
So for the million or so times, God chooses those who are heirs to the kingdom promised to those who love God. We who love God do not make ourselves heirs, as we become heirs when God credits our faith like Abraham's faith as righteousness.
Every time we see "through faith" in scripture we should understand scripture is saying through credited faith God bestows a blessing.

Romans 3:25, the means of salvation - propitiation
Romans 3:31 uphold the Law
Ephesians 2:8 we are saved
Ephesians 3:17 we are indwelt
2 Timothy 3:15 salvation
Hebrews 6:12 inherit the promises
Hebrews 11:7 heir of righteousness
1 Peter 1:5 kept for our inheritance

 

Please permit me to introduce a popular song lyrics… what does it say about faith?…

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

What good is man’s faith when a woman’s physical beauty can overthrow ya? Maybe should ask Adam, Samson, David!

 

I have read your responses. I don't see your answer. I will try asking once again. You can go back and quote your direct answer to the question since I don't see it.

"If we were dead when God made us alive, how did we exercise faith?

Does the text provide an answer that points toward humans exercising faith before God makes us alive?"

Please provide the exact quote where you answer these two questions. Or, please reanswer for me.

 

@RighteousnessTemperance& do you think this answer of yours actually answers my question? You stated:

"The point is that people are not just dead in trespasses but living in sin. Again, see Ephesians 2:1-3. Someone can start another thread, if they feel the need to argue against this.

The point that it is ludicrous that the free-will faith position includes a possibility of boasting for accepting Christ, as if faith is a righteous work still stands. Perhaps one may make a case for faith as some sort of work in regard to other positions, but definitely not this one. It would take an entirely different take on scripture to come up with that."

I do not see how the quote above actually answers my question.

 

You rascal you but so true!... Brother Glen

 

He might mean that being dead in trespasses and sins doesn't have to mean that it's not possible to have faith since being "dead" doesn't necessarily mean an inability to do all activity.

And like I said before, because of what it means to have faith, in a sense of saving faith, because of what it is you are believing, it would be difficult to boast, even if you believe faith itself is not a gift. I do know some people who have boasted of their faith but the point is still correct I think.

 

I posted this not understanding your parameters so if I'm out of line its your call

You are saved by God's Mercy and Grace... Get a grip... The FAITH OF CHRIST... Not yours!... You have more faith in your faith, than you do Christ... Here is your righteousness... You get no credit for what Christ has done alone... Here is your righteousness!

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

7 And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

And this one has been blown way out of proportion!

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

How can you work out something you don’t already have?

And this one has been misquoted more than I can remember again your faith is not the gift it so you would be graceless… The Faith Of Christ alone… Read John 3:16

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are you saved through faith ( the Grace of God and the Faith of Christ) and that not of yourselves… It is the gift of God… What did God give?… Read John 3:16 again.. Not of works lest any man should boast… IOW … It is not your faith that saved you only the mercy of God through his Son Jesus Christ and because of the loving character of God alone, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus… Some say well I believed in Jesus Christ and that is what saved me… So are you calling scripture a liar… Romans 11 begins… Hath God cast away his people, which he foreknew… GOD FORBID!… The Jew first, then the Gentile and both were concluded in unbelief so he could show mercy to all (all his Father gave him)

Romans 11: 26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.

29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:

31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Hope I gave you enough and not to much... Brother Glen

Monergism states that the regeneration of an individual is the work of God through the Holy Spirit alone, Synergism in my belief which, in its simplest form, argues, that the man of God cooperates with God's grace in order to be blessed.

 

I didn't take it in any direction other than what is faith and is it a work?

Would you like to add your opinion on whether faith is a work?

 

kyredneck

It is a good work, one of the first following Gods workmanship creation Eph 2:10

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

In other words, Faith in Christ is a work of the New Man Creation

 

I see that language pattern a lot. "Faith of Christ". Does anyone who has some language ability know why it is sometime put like that? Also, you are right, it is a problem that many people have faith in their faith. Just like some seem to have faith in their "election". So you get in to the question of assurance, which has been discussed in other places.

 

I am surrounded by church buildings with his name inscribed on their building.

He did some mighty, Spirit-led, sound, and perspicacious works for The Lord.

...

His brother was instrumental, being used of The Lord, in the founding of my present church home, in 1786.

Our History – Bryan Station Baptist Church

Bryan Station Baptist Church is a local, visible, called-out assembly of scripturally baptized believers, covenanted together according to the Biblical pattern of a “one member, one vote,” spirit-led democracy; whose purpose is the carrying out of the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20. The Bible teaches that only such a church as this is authorized and constructed to be able to do so.

Our authority came, according to the Biblical doctrine of “church succession,” through particular New England “separate” Baptists who had sought out existing Baptist churches for this arm of authority. Such were Elders Shubeal Sterns and Daniel Marshall who, once they were saved, sought out Baptist Baptism; Shubeal Sterns at the Baptist Church at Toland, Connecticut on May 20, 1751; and Daniel Marshall from Winsor, Connecticut, saved and burdened to preach, came to Winchester, Virginia where he became convinced of the soundness of Baptist doctrine and was immersed at the age of forty-eight...

“Sometime in 1766… Elijah Craig and two others came to this same Mr. Harris’s home in order to procure his services in Orange County, Va. and adjacent parts; to preach and baptize and organize new converts. They found to their surprise that he himself at that time had not yet been ordained; but being more perfectly instructed in the way of the Lord he carried them about 60 miles into North Carolina to get James Read (who was ordained) (Robert B. Semple, “A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia.”) and (John T. Christian, “A History of the Baptists,” pg. 215, vol. 2), even as Jesus traveled at least as far to receive baptism at the hands of a Baptist* preacher (Mark 1:9-14).

(Alan note"; more Scripturally accurately, "a Baptist-like", or "The Baptist", i.e., they are saying, "a Baptist with Scriptural Authority", that John the Baptist had from God.

"Mark 1:2
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.")

John 1:7;
"There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world."


"From this beginning churches were established and ordination by them was begun (John T. Christian, pg. 216, vol.2), and a church was soon found at Spotsylvania, Va. – the Spotsylvania Baptist Church, pastored by Elder Lewis Craig. And it is from this church, when it became the famous “Traveling Church” in September of 1781, when Lewis Craig led the whole church over the Cumberland Gap to settle in the bluegrass region of Central Kentucky, that the authority for our Bryan Station Baptist Church came, organized in 1786.

...

Elijah Craig (ca. 1745–18 May 1808), Baptist minister and distiller, was born in Orange County and was the son of Tolever Craig and Mary Hawkins Craig. He received a rudimentary education and lived an unremarkable life until 1764, when the preaching of David Thomas led him to a religious conversion. The following year Craig attended meetings held by Samuel Harriss, another prominent evangelist, who convinced him to spread the gospel. Along with other new believers, Craig began holding worship services almost daily in his tobacco barn.

In 1766 he journeyed to North Carolina and persuaded a clergyman, James Read, to return with him to Orange County in order to baptize the converts. Craig soon began preaching but did not abandon farming because he believed ministers should not rely solely on pastoral duties for their living.

An uncompromising Calvinist with a solemn yet powerful presence (a contemporary described him as like "a man who had just come from the dead"), he quickly established himself as a leading Baptist preacher. In 1769 he helped found Blue Run Church in Orange County, became its presiding elder, and later, probably in June 1770, was ordained as a minister.

...Although many traditional accounts list Craig as a member of the so-called Traveling Church, a large group of Baptists who migrated in 1781 from Spotsylvania County to central Kentucky, he did not accompany his two elder brothers, Joseph Craig and Lewis Craig (also Baptist ministers), who led that famed party. He remained in Virginia, but during the next few years, he speculated in Kentucky land and may several times have visited the area in which his brothers had settled. Craig participated in a meeting of Baptist preachers in the area in 1785 but may not have permanently moved to what became Scott County, Kentucky, until 1786, the year he sold his Orange County farm. In 1787 he became pastor of the Baptist church at Great Crossing. About five years later the congregation split because some members wished to replace Craig with another minister. Excluded in 1791, Craig later regained his pulpit but left about 1795 to lead nearby churches at McConnel's Run and Silas.

...

I still associate myself with him when I visit and talk with local liberal, apostate "pastors", like at Great Crossings, shown right above, where he preached, as Pastor.

I'll tell them, "that's not what Elijah Craig said".

His name is on their building.

I live in Georgetown, Scott County, Ky and is link and the pictures are from here.

Georgetown, a Baptist minister and Kentucky bourbon

That would be he. I live near a creek he used. The next county over is, "Bourbon County".

I am going to say that is what would be called, "the flesh".

A typical baptist Church Covenant (nowadays) reads, "to abstain from the sale of, and the use of destructive drugs or intoxicating drinks as a beverage; to shun pornography; to abstain from gambling and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the Kingdom of our Saviour."

I can only guess that he was exposed to and probably at one point agreed to some kind of agreement to abstain from the sale of, and the use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage;

Dunno.

Did this apply?

"If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire"?
...

Looks like Charles Spurgeon went from drinking beer back to being an advocate for The Temperance Movement.

I heard he was not happy that beer shops advertised something like, "this is the beer Charles Spurgeon drinks", INSTEAD OF, "Jesus Christ is The Savior", or something like that.

Spurgeon the Drinker: The Rest of the Story - The Aquila Report


I do not condemn my brothers and sisters who disagree with me on this issue. But I do ask to receive the same respect. My conviction is not one born out of legalism or mindless acceptance of tradition. I believe my conviction comes from the same place that Spurgeon’s did – a pastor’s heart sensitive to the needs of those around him and ready to contextualize in order to most effectively preach the Gospel in the world where God has placed us.



It comes as a shock to many Baptists, but it is true. Our “prince of preachers,” our model for fiery, evangelistic preaching – Charles Haddon Spurgeon – was a drinker and smoker.

Those who advocate drinking and smoking in the Southern Baptist Convention today enjoy knowing that one of our Baptist heroes would seem to have been on their side. You don’t have to visit blogs for long to notice how Baptists who like their beer often trot out Spurgeon as the token saint of drinking.

The stories make for great internet fodder, even today. Who can forget Dr. Pentecost’s public chiding of Spurgeon’s habit from Spurgeon’s own pulpit in 1874? Newspapers record Spurgeon announcing to the crowd that he did not consider smoking a sin, he intended on “smoking a cigar before retiring to bed” that night, and that he would continue to smoke “to the glory of God.”

vs

Alcohol & Charles H. Spurgeon: everybody become abstainers (1834-1892)

“Next to the preaching of the Gospel, the most necessary thing to be done in England is to induce our people to become abstainers.”
– Charles Spurgeon, 1882 (Baptist Church)

 

OK, patience, RT&. Let’s try to spell it out, though it should be painfully obvious.

Back in post #71 (then added more in #75), I referenced and quoted Ephesians 2:1-3 and noted that Paul explains that we all used to live that way, that is, dead in trespasses and sin. Lived. Dead. Lived dead. We were not alive in Christ, yet we lived dead in trespasses and sin. Lived dead.

I’ll not argue the point, but will add this one observation. Adam and Eve, after sinning that affected us all, had communication with God that they could well understand. They knew their sin, were already dead in it and yet living in it, hiding from God, no less, then making excuses and shifting blame when confronted. They were not alive in Christ. They were living dead in their trespasses and sin.

Again, if this doesn’t answer the question to someone’s satisfaction, they can start another thread on it.