John's statement in 1 John 3:7 does not preclude that a man will not do righteousness because he is righteous. In asking the question, "Who is righteous?" the answer is, "the one who does righteousness." This indicates that the outcropping of being righteous is that you will do righteousness. Not that you do righteousness unto becoming righteous; but that God makes you righteous (Romans 5:19) by faith, and that the result is that you will do what is righteous.
That is because I believe that people are saved by an obedient and transformational faith. As such, those who have faith will be obedient;
because they have faith.
Actually, the context of Hebrews 5:9 is referring to obedience to Melchizedec, so you have a problem. But even if it is referring to obedience to Christ, it is not outside the realm of what Hebrews 5:9 is saying, to believe that I am obedient because of faith in Jesus, and that I am not saved by that obedience but by the faith that produces the obedience.
Hebrews 4:10 tells me that we can enter into God's rest prior to physical death.
No; for there is a difference between
ungodly and
wicked. And if there isn't, you have a contradiction between Exodus 23:7 and Romans 4:5. So if you want to insist on the matter, would you care to explain the apparent contradiction?
The only condition is faith; and obedience arises out of a living and saving faith.
So you agree with me: faith is the only condition for being justified.
Did not Aaron the brother of Moses create a golden calf for the Israelites to worship? Yet, he is called the saint of the LORD in Psalms 106:16.
An obedient and transformational faith justifies all by its lonesome.
If someone comes to a living and saving faith, and dies two minutes later, they had no opportunity to do any good works. Do they go to heaven or hell?
I believe they would go to heaven; but your doctrine would put them in hell.
I agree that saving faith is an obedient faith. I disagree with the notion that the obedience that results out of that faith is in any way salvational.
Thank you for agreeing with me there.
Perhaps you could devote a singular post into explaining how the Bible declares this difference. I am open to learning from you; and I would like to see where this conversation leads.
So then, the order of operation is: faith --> obedience --> righteousness.
No doubt.
I will say again that we must be saved wholly by grace or not at all. The alternative is to attempt to be saved by your works to some extent.
However, grace and works are mutually exclusive when it comes to salvation:
Rom 11:5, Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Rom 11:6, And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
You have it like we are climbing up a ladder and cannot reach the goal because the ladder is too short; and then an elevator lifts up the floor so that the top of the ladder reaches where you are trying to reach.
I would set it forth as a simple elevator that brings you all the way up to the place where you are trying to reach. There is no self-effort or reaching. The Lord saves you completely by His grace; and you find yourself on an elevation in righteousness that you did not have to climb anything in order to achieve.
But the natural and carnal man wants to be able to say that
he did something to achieve the righteousness that God offers to you only as a free gift.
I will half agree with you there. It is indeed an obedient faith that saves us. However, the obedience that accompanies it is not salvational; and therefore I would say that it is indeed a grace alone that saves through faith alone. It is "
not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:9).
Then I do not fully ascribe to Luther's faith only doctrine; although I do believe that we are saved through faith alone. I qualify it by saying that the only faith that saves is an obedient and transformational faith; but that it alone saves. Again, the order of operation is: faith --> salvation --> obedience --> righteousness.
Again, the generic statement in Romans 4:5 declares that
to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
What do you think it means that God justifies the ungodly?
Is it not the case that all of us are ungodly before we come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Most assuredly, he does not leave us in the state of being ungodly.
But you seem to be advocating the concept that a person can be saved through their obedience apart from faith in Jesus Christ.
Do we not become righteous through the obedience
of Him (Romans 5:19)? Through faith in His shed blood that sanctifies us (Hebrews 13:12, Hebrews 10:29)?
The things we do for God are the result of sanctification. We are made holy by Him and then we do things that are holy, stemming out of the holy character that God has created in us.
