Are you saved?
If you live in America and if you ever engage in discussions of life, death and the meaning of it all, you either have been or will be asked this question. A legitimate response is: What do you mean by saved, how is one saved and what do I have to do to be saved?
Usually when the question has been posed as: Are you saved? The question is coming from an Evangelical Protestant Christian and the answer the questioner will supply is: “If you confess with you lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom.10: 9) You are invited to ask Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior. This is the “Faith Alone” doctrine of justification or salvation that is one of the two pillars of Protestant Reformation doctrine, and it’s proponents will back it up with a series of scripture verses in the same vein. For example; “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law,” (Rom. 3: 28); “…a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified,” (Gal. 2:16).
So, are we saved by “faith alone”? Or is there more to the Christian understanding of the justification of sinners before God and our salvation through, with and in Christ Jesus?
How are we saved?
The Catholic belief is that if we are saved by anything “alone “, it is by grace alone, since it is only by God’s grace that we even have the gift of faith. But we are not saved by faith alone. Catholics believe that we are justified by “faith working through love.” (Gal. 5:6).
It is useful to note that the only place where the phrase “faith alone” is found in scripture is James 2:24, which states: “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” And two verses later: “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.”
How do we deal with this apparent conflict between St. Paul and St. James, since we believe that both were writing under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit?
The solution to the problem lies in looking at all of these passages in their full context and indeed in the context of the complete body of Sacred Scripture.
Paul never says that we are saved by faith alone, although he does say we are saved by “faith, apart from works of the law.” James never says that we are saved by works alone, without faith much less “works of the law,” but he does say we are justified “by works and not by faith alone.” Paul and James are not talking about different kinds of faith. We know this because they are both writing about faith using Abraham’s faith as an example. A closer look at “works of the law” and works in general seems appropriate.
there are works!
A closer look at St. Paul’s letters to the Romans, Galatians and Ephesians is necessary in order to understand what he is talking about when he refers to “works of the law” and “works” in the broader sense.
“Works of the law” is a technical term, which refers to the Mosaic Law and all it’s rituals, but especially circumcision. Paul’s whole point in Romans is that we cannot restore our relationship to the Father, which has been shattered by sin, by any kind of ritual works even in obedience to God’s law given through Moses. We cannot put God in a position of obligation or owing us anything because of something we have done, even if it is obeying his law. Nor can we oblige God by any good works we do above and beyond the requirements of the law on our own initiative.
This is a serious dilemma. How then can we be saved? Only by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ who by his faith and obedience even to death on a cross, restored the relationship with the Father, which was broken by the faithless disobedience of Adam (Romans 5: 12-21). But does this bring us back to “faith alone”? Indeed not! For St. Paul himself tells us that God’s saving grace is a transforming grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2: 8-10) So we are saved by grace through faith to what purpose? Good works in Christ Jesus! So we see that St. James can correctly say without contradicting St. Paul, “faith without works is dead.” The works that St. James is speaking of are the good works we do in Christ. It is because they are done in Christ that they have merit. Outside of Christ they are useless and cannot save us or justify us.
But where in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans can we find any reference to this kind of works in Christ? St. Paul opens and closes his letter with a reference to “the obedience of faith.” (Romans 1:5 and Romans 16:26) In chapter two he tells us: “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who are justified.” (Rom. 2: 13) Eight times in chapter two, between verse six and verse twenty-seven, he speaks of the necessity to “do the law.” Is this the same Paul who in the same letter has told us that we are not justified by “works of the law” but by faith? Or is he speaking of two different laws?
Are we slaves subject to a fugitive slave law or are we citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven who find our freedom in willing servitude and obedience to the law of love and grace through and in Jesus our Savior who has redeemed us from slavery to sin and death and set us free? In Galatians 4: 21- 31, St. Paul uses this analogy when retelling the story of Hagar and Sara.
In Galatians he speaks of “faith working through love.” But in 1 Corinthians he makes clear the primacy of love working for the good of others.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing…So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13: 1-3, 13)
The last five chapters of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans seem to get very little attention in the controversies over justification and salvation. That may be because his pastoral advice on how to live together in a harmonious Christian community is less exciting and perhaps more demanding in its practical application than the seemingly more lofty issues of justification and salvation. But it is in the day today life of the community that we are expected to “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil 1: 12-13) For St. Paul assures us that in the end “God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.” (Rom 2: 5-8)
This was the question of those to whom Peter preached on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2: 37, and also the question of the Philippian jailer of Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30. Peter’s response was: “Repent and be baptized”! Paul’s response was: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.” But then in order that he might believe Paul at once spoke the word of the Lord to him “and he was baptized at once, with all his family.” Why not just believe in the Lord Jesus? Why baptism? Because baptism is the physical sacramental means by which God’s saves us spiritually and bodily even to the resurrection of our physical bodies. Baptism is the command of Jesus in Matthew 28: 19-20. Baptism is the means by which God effects our salvation by incorporating us into the body of Christ. (1 Peter 3:21; Romans 6)
What Did Jesus Say
on the Subject?
“Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3: 5) This refers to baptism. We know
this from the context by what follows in John 3:22.
“But he who endures to the end will be
saved.” (Matt. 24:13)
“
Not everyone who says to me, ‘ Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of my Father. On that day many will say to me ‘Lord, Lord, did
we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many
mighty works in your name?’ And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you;
depart from me you evil doers.’ (Matt.
7: 21)
“Then
the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come O blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry
and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and
you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison and you visited me...’”
(Matt. 25:31-45).
In
the final analysis Jesus is Lord and He is the Word and He will have the last
word on the matter of justification and salvation for each and every one of us.
Emmaus Road Disciples Luke 24:13-35
Baltimore,
MD 21229