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A gift comes to one from
WITHOUT;
Salvation by the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ
is a gift that is applied to us
individually and personally from WITHOUT.
Faith is a grace, among many others,
worked WITHIN the heart by the indwelling Spirit.
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https://www.facebook.com/sing.f.lau/posts/289799684264
January
29, 2010
This
may sound very insulting, but that's because so many are confused and deluded.
Which
is first:
-
the bestowal of the free gift, and believing it, or
-
the believing in the good news of the free gift, and receiving it.
Are
the bestowal of that free gift, and the believing & receiving of that free
gift separate and distinct activities, both logically as well as
chronologically?
Let us reason together. Gird up the loins of your mind.
Here
is the context of the inquiry:
"Those
whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth,(1) not by infusing
righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and
accepting their persons as righteous;(2) not for anything wrought in them, or
done by them, but for Christ's sake alone;(3) not by imputing faith itself, the
act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their
righteousness; but by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law,
and passive obedience in His death for their whole and sole righteousness,(4)
they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith, which faith
they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.(5)
(LBCoF
chapter 11 on Justification)
Which
is first, logically as well as chronologically...
1.
God freely justified you when you were in your dead and condemned state, and
made you alive based on the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, by which you
were made able to believe and receive that FREE justification by faith?
OR
You,
FIRST by faith, receive and rest in Jesus Christ, THEN God freely justifies you -
i.e. God freely set you free from your condemnation of death. (Justification is
the reversal of the condemnation of death). Huh? Did God work faith in you when
you were still in your un-justified condemned state????? Is that even possible?
Are you thinking or not?
If
the former, then why do so many still believe the OBVIOUS LIE that they are
justified by their faith alone before God?
If the latter, then what? Madness and delusion?
Did
God give the gift of faith [actually faith is a grace worked in the heart by
the indwelling Spirit!] to an un-justified condemned man, so that he may exercise that gift to believe and receive and rest in Jesus Christ IN ORDER THAT God
will justify him, i.e. in order that he may receive justification from God?
But
if God had not freely justified him first, what is there for him (still
condemned, since not justified yet) to receive? Do you mean to say, you believe
and receive first, and then God freely gives you, i.e. justify you?
ALAS,
that's what the Arminians and EVEN the Reformed people INSIST on believing!
Can
a condemned man, i.e. unjustified, exercise faith IN ORDER to be justified by
God? Very many insist 'yes'.
Does the Spirit of God indwell a man STILL under condemnation, i.e. not yet justified by God, to work the grace of faith in him? Very many insist 'yes'.
A gift comes to one from WITHOUT.
Salvation
by the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ is a gift that is applied to us
individually and personally from WITHOUT.
Faith
is a grace, among many others, worked WITHIN the heart by the indwelling
Spirit.
That's my poor sandy understanding.
Maam,
try reading that verse this way:
"For
by grace are ye saved through faith(fulness); and that not of yourselves: it is
the gift of God:"
The
gift refers to the ETERNAL salvation by God's free grace through the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
Since
the subject is eternal salvation, our faith (act of believing) CAN'T possibly
play any role in it.
Eternal
salvation is BASED on the FAITHFULNESS of Christ in discharging the work of
redemption - Joh 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do." His faithfulness in keeping the laws of
God perfectly and completely, thus securing the righteousness of life for us;
His faithfulness in laying down His life as a perfect sacrifice for sins
secured our complete forgiveness...
That
faithfulness is not of ourselves, it is of Christ and it accounted to us as a
gift.
[It
is a strange phenomenon that the KJ translators didn't use the word
'faithfulness' in the entire NT. But I think if 'faith' here is rendered 'faithfulness'
so much error would have been avoided.
Please
read a short article here, and tell me what you think:
May
our Lord bless us to understand His word more
