A question

[Woody]

Are we saved by the good that Christ does in our lives to produce good works? Or are we saved by His good works that He did on this earth ... His doing and dying. ???

[Just*]

Are we saved by the good that Christ does in our lives to produce good works? Or are we saved by His good works that He did on this earth ... His doing and dying. ???

only-2!

1-fruit 2

[Kevin H]

I'm too tired to really give a detailed answer, but my gut feeling from reading this is that it's a question too much like "are you still beating your wife." This quick reading seems to me to be asking "Is Jesus to make us into legalists or was Jesus the perfect leagalist in our place." Works are works. The trinity lives in a righteousness by faith relationship with each other. The angels and beings on the unfallen worlds can only exist in a righteousness by faith relationship with the only sourse of life. We seem to think that those who never sined live by their own righteousness and that it is us who have sinned who need to be covered by Christs righteousness. But the law of self sacrificing love as revealled in a righteousness by faith relationship is the foundation of the universe.

Justification and santification are two sides of the same coin. As we reach out in faith there are things that happen. The thief on the cross, Mrs. White pictures him as having at one time been a follower of Jesus, and she could well be right, but even if wrong (I believe that inspiration is focused on her frame work and not necessarly all the details) he was reflecting on this person he was dieing beside and the Holy Spirit was bringing things to his attention and he came to realize who Jesus was. On that dark afternoon who was the only source of comfort that Jesus had? On that afternoon who was the only one preaching the gospel. Is preaching the gospel a good work? Is comforting a dieing man a good work? The thief was saved by what Jesus was doing for him, but as he realized who this was beside him he did everything a man in his situation was able to do.

But Jesus did not come to make this man comfort him, Jesus did not come to make this man preach the gospel. Jesus did not do the comforting and preaching in this man's place. Jesus was just holdig on to his rightousness by faith relatationship with the Father and the Spirit, and was having self sacrificing love for us in which he was giving up his deepest desire (to be with the Father and the Sprit) While the Father and the Spirit wer also bearing our sins as they allowed my sins to sepperate them from Jesus (and being with Jesus was their deepest desire) but they allowed sin to kill Jesus in his humanity, and causing the same suffering and weight of sin upon the Father and the Spirit them instead of it killing us. Any works that happened to be done were by products.

[Woody]

Some good points Kevin.

We ALL have good works that Christ does in us. If we were saved by what Christ does in us ... either we would all be saved or we would all be lost.

[Gerr]

Are we saved by the good that Christ does in our lives to produce good works? Or are we saved by His good works that He did on this earth ... His doing and dying. ???

Can we be saved without repentance AND conversion?

[Woody]

Well. There IS a difference. We all have good works in us from God. But we don't all have repentance and conversion.

[skyblue888]

Red's question is a most important one and it needs a clear answer from inspiration.

"Although we have no merit in ourselves, in the great goodness and love of God we are rewarded as if the merit were our own. When we have done all the good we can possibly do, we are still unprofitable servants. We have done only what was our duty. What we have accomplished has been wrought solely through the grace of Christ, and no reward is due to us from God on the ground of our merit. But through the merit of our Saviour, every promise that God has made will be fulfilled, and every man will be rewarded according to his deeds." {RH, June 27, 1893 par. 15}

So the works that the grace of God, the Spirit of Christ, enables us to do, DO NOT play a part in the salvation of the soul or in merit and yet the redeemed will be rewarded for these good works as though the merit were their own but as far as they are concerned, they always confess themselves to be unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10). And yet the Lord will pronounce a blessing upon them as good and faithful servants.

This is the spirit of the Gospel. The truly righteous always confess their unworthiness, their sinfulness. They accuse themselves and God justifies them. They never think of themselves or see themselves as righteous but as chiefs of sinners and if they are glorying at all it is in the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ alone.

"The Lord Jesus imparts all the powers, all the grace, all the penitence, all the inclination, all the pardon of sins, in presenting His righteousness for man to grasp by living faith, which is also the gift of God. If you would gather together everything that is good and holy and noble and lovely in man and then present the subject to the angels of God as acting a part in the salvation of the human soul or in merit, the proposition would be rejected as treason." F.W.24.

But if there is a statement in all of the Testimonies that covers all the bases on the matter of faith, grace, works, merit and reward, it is the following one which is very similar to the first one quoted in this post. It is a direct commentary upon Eph.2:10 which says that "We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

"In His divine arrangement, through His unmerited favor, the Lord has ordained that good works shall be rewarded. We are accepted through Christ's merit alone; and the acts of mercy, the deeds of charity, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ that makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is His grace that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works, in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do, we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful natures. The Lord has bidden us to draw nigh to Him and He will draw nigh to us; and drawing nigh to Him, we receive the grace by which to do those works which will be rewarded at His hands." E.G. White, RH Jan.29,1895.

And the Lord has even told us how we may draw nigh to Him so that He may draw nigh to us.

"Draw nigh to Him and He will draw nigh to you. (James 4:8) Present your case before Him, pleading the merits of the blood shed for you upon Calvary's cross." E.G. White, Signs of the Times, July 4, 1890.

As we approach God through the merits of Christ, we are drawing nigh to Him and He is drawing nigh to us and we are greatly blessed. Our sins are blotted out and the Lord clothes us with the robe of righteousness woven in the loom of Heaven. This is the only way the sinner can be saved, the only way God can enable him to do the works which He Himself prepared beforehand and that he should walk in them. This is the only way the sinner can be made "more than conquerors" in the battle against evil and at the end of the day He will reward the "unprofitable servants" for having let Him work in them both to will and to do His good pleasure. See Rom.8:37 and Phil.2:13.

sky

[Woody]

Praise God He works in and through ALL of us.

[skyblue888]

Yes He does work in and through all of us but especially with and through those who draw nigh to Him through the merits of the Redeemer for righteousness by faith is a ceaseless approach unto God through the all-sufficient merits of Jesus Christ.