Board index ‹ Salvation

[Handsome]

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23 (NASB)

Salvation is not free. Genuine faith requires sacrificing time, money, and earthly desires. It is only "free" in the sense that it is "freely accessible" to everyone.

Salvation is not a gift. The traditional view is that you go to Hell if you do not accept this "gift". Actual gifts do not come with astronomically huge caveats for not accepting.

Salvation is the opposite of a free gift, it is a costly offer we can't refuse.

[jimwalton]

The smart way to approach it is to understand what Paul means by "free." In Romans 6.9, freedom is not having death as a master. And yet in v. 10, 13-16, & 22, we still have a master. Freedom, in this case, then, is not being our own master, but instead having a particular master. Freedom is the opportunity to choose whom and for what you are enslaved. The addict must trade his drugs for the master of self-control. We always have a master. Freedom is choosing the right master.

The word Paul uses for "gift" has a wide semantic range.
- something we didn't have to earn with good works, like eternal life (Rom. 6.23; 5.15, 16)
- special privileges granted to Israel (Rom. 11.29)
- celibacy and marriage (1 Cor. 7.7)
- deliverance from a potentially deadly event (2 Cor. 1.10)

So the smartest way to approach it is to understand what Paul means by "gift."

What he's talking about in v. 23 is that sin is a wage (you get what you have earned) but salvation is a grace (you get what you didn't have to work for). Sin is like a paycheck, but salvation is like Christmas. That's the point he's making.

> Genuine faith requires sacrificing time, money, and earthly desires. It is only "free" in the sense that it is "freely accessible" to everyone.

Of course this is true, but this isn't what Paul is talking about. Genuine faith (no matter what the object) requires much of the person. Both Paul and Jesus affirm this truth. Paul's point here is not that there's no price to pay (in terms of commitment and sacrifice) to believe, but rather that it's in contrast to a wage that one has worked to earn.

> Salvation is not a gift. The traditional view is that you go to Hell if you do not accept this "gift". Actual gifts do not come with astronomically huge caveats for not accepting.

Again, that is not the point here. Paul is talking about how one acquires life, not the consequences for refusing it.

> Salvation is the opposite of a free gift, it is a costly offer we can't refuse.

Therefore your conclusion is misdirected. Salvation, in Romans 6.23, is not something that can be bought or earned (though we know from other passages it has a great cost). Death (ultimate, eschatological death) is the only thing you can earn. It's your income for your work as a sinner. Salvation, however, and by contrast, is like a present where all merit and thought or reward is ruled out. And it can very well be refused, though also at great cost. Either way there's great cost—that's not the point.

[Handsome]

Woah, thank you. It's fair to point out that I may just be arguing over semantics. To me it looks like a rescue operation, not a "gift". We're stuck in a pit, destined to rot away, and God reaches out to pull us up. We can choose to grab hold or not, with an understanding that we will be indebted to Him. That analogy frames it better for me than the confusing "free gift".

P.S. - "Freedom is choosing the right master" is easily the weirdest sentence I've read in a while.

[jimwalton]

There's no doubt that salvation is a rescue, but that's not Paul's point here when he uses the term "gift." Here Paul isn't addressing the "rescue" perspective, but instead the it's-not-something-you-have-to-earn point of view. Here's it's not the rescue that is considered the free gift, per se, but the means of acquisition: you get salvation by receiving, not by earning.

[You Go, Kareem]

Oh works don't matter to salvation ? Why does James says in 2:24 "You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone." Why does he says "not by faith alone"?

[jimwalton]

Paul and James are talking about differing things. James is discussing the proof of faith (the good works that result from true life-change in Jesus), while Paul is talking about the initial act of being set right with God (what brings about the moment of salvation: Romans 4.1-10). We come to Jesus by faith alone, not by works. But after we come to Jesus, works have to be one of the observable results of our conversion. As John Calvin said, "Faith alone justifies, but the faith which justifies is not alone." We are justified by faith, not by works, but no one will be justified who does not have a faith that produces good works.

Bob Walton, in a commentary, wrote: "Both Paul and James use the word justification to mean that someone is declared righteous. The difference is that James uses a person’s works as the subject of the verb—good deeds demonstrate the genuineness of one’s faith—while for Paul, God is the one who justifies, and He declares a person to be righteous on the basis of faith alone; after all, He knows the heart and can alone determine the reality of someone’s profession. The two therefore do not in any way contradict one another. They are in fact fighting different enemies. James is arguing against antinomianism while Paul is opposing legalism."

[Free Thinker]

> Freedom is the opportunity to choose whom and for what you are enslaved.

Doesn’t freedom definitionally require an absence of enslavement? The freedom to put on the shackles of another master is not freedom, just trading one enslavement for another. This type of Sophie’s Choice can hardly be called freedom in any but a perverted way.

[jimwalton]

I agree that Sophie's Choice can hardly be called freedom. The only apt description of that is "horror" and "barbaric." Very difficult movie to watch.

But let me try several different analogies. You are only free to play the game of football if there are rules that everyone agrees to follow. If we want to play football with true free (no enslavement to any kind of standards or rules), what happens is not "football" but anarchy and chaos. I've played games like this for fun, where no one obeys football rules but just does whatever they want. Within about 30 seconds it's not football at all, but wrestling and chaos. The game lasts only that long. Instead, if you want to be free to play football, you have to "enslave" yourself to a set of rules.

I'll try another one. A train is only free to go anywhere if it is enslaved to the tracks. It's not like a car (though many cars will quickly bog down if they try to be free-range cars in rough terrain). Instead, for a train to be free, it has to use the "shackles" of the track.

I think it's true in life also, just in general. We all serve something or somebody, whether ourselves, a job, a spouse, money, pride, the drive to success, our fears, pleasure—whatever.

That's what I was meaning about what the Bible says. In spiritual terms, the Bible is pretty clearly a choice between two opposites: darkness or light, sin or Jesus—that kind of thing. Here the choice is whether you are going to be a slave to your sin nature or a slave to God, which is really freedom (as in the case of football or the train).

[You Go, Kareem]

They talk about the same thing with different words. James is not discussing the "proof of faith", he literally is saying both are needed. From chapter 2 James:
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verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
verse 17. So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
verse 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
verse 24. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
verse 25. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
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verses 24 and 25 go very well together, it is interesting to think about verse 25 in particular.
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I cannot find what Mr Bob Walton says in the bible in fact is quite the opposite, what's more, even Paul teaches the very same faith that James is talking and this faith is the one that is talked by Jesus in the gospels. It is not rare at all that Paul letters bring so many divisions in doctrines, as Peter says in 2Pe 3:15-16
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15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
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Paul's letters are not easy at all. We can talk in detail if you want using Paul himself to see but first I want to show you where in the bible shows truly an act of faith, the context: Jesus was talking that we need to eat his flesh and drink hi blood but many didn't believe him so they turn to the apostles to ask if they will leave and then:
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John 6:68. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life
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So we Christians do thing because Jesus tell us to, to baptize, to eat him, to keep the commands etc. That is the faith that Paul and James talks.

[jimwalton]

Thank you for your comments. Let's look at these verses from James 2.

v. 14: James is not here referring to salvation faith in Christ, but rather to a professed faith that is not accompanied by a change in lifestyle. True faith saves, but faith that is no more than a verbal profession apart from an altered life is not true faith (cf. James 1.22-25). Note that Jesus made the same point in Matthew 7.21-23. The implication is that faith that doesn't result in a changed life is not genuine, saving faith.

v. 17: James's point is that faith that has no power to act is not real faith. It's a defective concept, not the real McCoy. It's explained in 2.20: Faith without deeds is useless (ineffective).

v. 21: Abraham’s obedience didn't make him a righteous man, but rather demonstrated that God had made him righteous by changing his heart and making him a different person. Faith saves, but obedience shows that faith is genuine. In other words, faith alone saves, but faith that is alone saves no one.

Robertson comments: "This is the phrase that is often held to be flatly opposed to Paul’s statement in Romans 4:1-5, were Paul pointedly says that it was the faith of Abraham (Rom. 4.9) that was considered for righteousness, not his works. But Paul is talking about the faith of Abraham before his circumcision (4.10) as the basis of his being set right with God, which faith is symbolized in the circumcision. James makes plain his meaning also. They use the same words but they’re talking of different acts. James points to the offering of Isaac on the altar as proof of the faith that Abraham already had. Paul discusses Abraham’s faith as the basis of his justification, that and not his circumcision. There is no contradiction at all between James and Paul. Neither is answering the other."

v. 24: Again, as is consistent through the whole passage, James is discussing the proof of faith, not the initial act of faith that brings us to salvation. Saving faith is our response to God's offer of salvation by grace; if that faith is real, it will show itself in godly attitudes and actions (see also Matt. 3.8 and 7.16-20, where Jesus says the same thing).

v. 25: Rahab is an example of "If you believe it, do it." She showed her belief by acting accordingly.

Paul, when he talks about justification by faith, is talking about how one comes to Christ. James, as you read his book, is talking about something different: you better be living what you claim to believe.

> 2 Peter 3.15-16

Peter is not talking about how one comes to faith, but the passion to live holy and godly lives after coming to faith (3.11). So, once you are saved, he says, "make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him” (v. 14).

It's not Paul's fault that his teaching brings divisions. Peter says that it's ignorant and unstable people who twist the teachings of Paul. We know that the Thessalonians were misrepresenting Paul on the subject of the 2nd coming, just as Hymenaeus and Philetus did about the resurrection (2 Tim. 2.17). There is also evidence that Paul's teaching about grace were twisted to mean moral laxity (Gal. 3.10; Rom. 3.20, 28; 5.20). The problem is neither with Paul nor his teachings, but with people too willing to make the Bible say what they want it to say. By the same token, some people distort the Bible to say that salvation is by works, or that James and Paul disagree with each other.

> Paul's letters are not easy at all. We can talk in detail if you want using Paul himself to see

We can talk about Paul if you wish.

> John 6.68

I'm missing your point here. We baptize others because we're supposed to expose others to the truth, invite them to turn to Jesus and identify with Him (baptism). We don't literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. We know this because he said in Luke 22.20 & 1 Cor. 11.25 "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. No one—NO ONE— would claim that the CUP was the covenant, therefore we can't claim that the bread was literally his flesh. So we take communion (the eucharist) to remember His death and to anticipate his 2nd coming. We "keep the commands" because if we love Him, we obey Him (Jn. 14.23-24).

I don't know what any of these have to do with salvation by grace through faith, and then living it (godly works) as evidence that the faith is genuine. That is the faith that Paul and James are talking about.

in Jn. 6.68, Peter claims that Jesus has words (no definite article) of eternal life. They recognize that Jesus's carry life with them, emphasizing the quality and particular character of this "life." But I don't know what that has to do with salvation by grace through faith and the life change that comes as a result. You'll have to clarify for me what you're getting at.

Jesus is talking about eternal life in the whole passage. Here's the sequence:

1. The priority is to gain life (Jn. 6.27). It's more important than anything earthly. It's a gift from God (v. 27).
2. The only "work" required is belief (v. 28). "Work" is singular, not plural. Faith is the path to salvation by grace.
3. Jesus is the one who gives life (vv. 33, 38, 63). They cannot acquire it by their own efforts (vv. 63, 65).
4. Jesus Himself is the life (v. 35). Faith is the response required, not any kind of works (vv. 40, 47).
5. A relationship with Jesus is what is required for salvation (vv. 53-54). "Eating" is the metaphor for relationship. In their culture to eat with someone was a gin of association, friendship, and mutuality. Jesus pushes this cultural worldview even further: they are not just to eat with him, they are to eat him. He is using hyperbole and metaphor to express the most intense possible fellowship (vv. 56-57).
6. Peter spoke for the group: "We accept what you are saying." It was an acceptance of Jesus's identity (v. 69) as deity.

That is the "faith" Jesus, Paul, and James talk about: An acceptance of Jesus's identity as God (Jesus and Paul), salvation as a gift from God (Jesus; cf. Paul in Eph. 2.8-9), and a changed life as a result (Jesus, Paul, and James).