Doctrine of Salvation?

[Wayne in Maine]

Most of the evangelical “Salvation Gospel” neglects important features of the Good News of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. In the very least it treats the whole of Jesus’s message and mission as one of bringing a person to a state by which they will have eternal life when they die. And most formulas for doing that are synthetic – they borrow widely from disparate scriptures pieced together to create an almost liturgical method of “salvation”. Concluding in a “salvation prayer” and an assurance that you will go to heaven when you die. This process is often accompanied by an emotional experience identified as being “born again”. Revival meetings specialize in creating an environment for that emotional state to occur with the style of preaching, the music, the mood... Much like “filling someone with the hold Spirit” and getting them to practice glossolalia. I’ve seen the same methods used in both.
I should mention I want through this experience (not the tongues speaking one, I always have recognized that for what it is). I could have told you the hour minute and second when I was “born again” (I forget it now). I recognize the path Jesus set out to His eternal Kingdom had to follow the map Jesus laid out, not some synthetic route that includes even deceptive words added to scripture like “The Just shall live by faith alone (Luther added “alone” – it fit his theology better). While casting as straw important modifiers in scripture (like the whole book of James) to the meaning of faith.

Jesus preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God. He had round about ways of talking about it. He called some people to follow Him, some just did so. Some got close to him and committed themselves to being his disciples - pupils in the school of Jesus Ben Elohim. He taught them, He loved them, he taught them to love each other. He made demands of them, he warned them that this would not be an easy path, he promised that He and the Holy Spirit would help carry that burden. He welcomed them into His Kingdom because not only could they, have experienced a spiritual birth which made them to decide to be His disciples, but they could see the kingdom, they could enter it here and now. They had the spiritual insight to find a pearl of great price, a treasure in the field and they gave up everything to obtain it. They had been saved from the circumstances that made them blind to the kingdom and had changed their minds about what was right and wrong, putting on instead the mind of their master. And Jesus promised them eternal life in the Kindgom of God . in which they dwelt because they believed and acted on that belief. They could maintain that as long as they persisted in following Him – Jesus gave them a living hope. And when time came to suffer for His sake and to give testimony to the reality of His Kingdom, as they had been told might happen, they could draw from a deep store of peace and joy not merely because their hope of eternal life wight soon be fulfilled, but because they were living in that Kingdom with God in control to their fully yielded selves. And when the time came they would transition into the fullness of the Kingdom shedding their broken bodies and obtaining spiritual bodies that would dwell in “the upper kingdom” with their Lord and master forever.

That is, I believe, what the early Anabaptist and many of their descendants discovers themselves about the message and mission of Jesus as it relates to their obtaining eternal life.

[Neto]

Salvation has always been on the same base - by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Not in a church or church community or good deeds or living by some law. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." Eph 2:8-9

https://www.gotquestions.org/Old-Testam ... ation.html

This is entirely Lutheran soteriology and isn’t shared by other branches of Christianity; specifically, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anabaptism, and many more.

If he had said "by faith alone" I would agree with you here, but there is a big difference between "by faith" and "through faith".

Some in our congregation say that salvation is by God's grace, but that we keep our salvation by our "works of faith". Now I'm not really sure what they meant - at the time I took "works of faith" to mean "good works" in general. If they meant a life of obedience, then I'm closer to agreement, but not quite. First, I would say that no one's faith is sufficient to be the vehicle through which the grace of God is applied to their life. That is, I cannot "earn" my salvation even by having great faith. It is never enough. It is said of Abraham that "He believed God, and He (God) counted or 'reckoned' it as righteousness." It is noteworthy, I think, that it doesn't say "He RECOGNIZED it to BE righteousness." Jesus told some people about having faith as large as a mustard seed, and says that they would be able to do miraculous deeds if that were so. But he said this in response to the disciples plea that he INCREASE their faith. There isn't a great deal of context in Luke where Jesus is quoted in these words, but I think that he recognized that they were side-tracked about "faith" and were forgetting the object of that faith. I understand him to be saying "Don't be preoccupied with how much faith you have, or think you have, be preoccupied with the Father. He will make your minuscule faith of exponentially more power than it has a right to." Back to Abraham. I think that it's as if God was saying, your tiny bit of belief is not enough, but I am going to, in my boundless & unlimited grace & love, RECKON it as much, much, more than it is. So no one's faith has ever saved them. It is God, in his grace, that saves. I know that this is not the entire picture. Belief, which is defined as obedience in the Scripture, is required. But not as that something that earns or keeps salvation, but the condition under which God will consider our faith as "enough", even when it is not.

Is a view of salvation like this ever expressed in Menno Simons' writings? I do not know without searching. But I am thoroughly "anabaptist" in that as far as I can accurately recall, I first learned to look at the Scripture as my authority for all matters of faith and practice from those writings. As the early Dutch Baptism-Minded often said when challenged in their beliefs, "Demonstrate my error from the Scripture, and I will repent, and believe it."

[Josh]

Abraham had to do a lot more than just simply have faith; he had to be obedient to the point of leaving the city he was from and later putting his son on the altar. Those were very much real actions and “works”.

[MaxPC]

For the sake of comparison to my own church, this thread has been quite interesting.

A very brief summary of Catholic teaching:
Salvation is a gift of God through His Son Jesus (we recite both the Apostle's and the Nicene Creeds).

We also believe that faith without works is dead as delineated in James 2: 14-16 which in turn, is clearly derived from Jesus' lesson on the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 and Mark 4.

Matthew 13:1-9 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”

YMMV.

[Neto]

Abraham had to do a lot more than just simply have faith; he had to be obedient to the point of leaving the city he was from and later putting his son on the altar. Those were very much real actions and “works”.

If a person is thinking in terms of the common non-biblical concept of what 'faith' or 'belief' entails, then I fully agree. But as I said in my last post "Belief, which is defined as obedience in the Scripture, is required." I realize that some readers will not understand what I mean, but I'm attempting to use these terms in the context of how they are used in Scripture. and as I said previously, the opposite of belief in the way Jesus uses it consistently is disobedience. So, it seems to me that belief means obedience. So I don't think we are really in disagreement here.

[Wayne in Maine]

Abraham had to do a lot more than just simply have faith; he had to be obedient to the point of leaving the city he was from and later putting his son on the altar. Those were very much real actions and “works”.

If a person is thinking in terms of the common non-biblical concept of what 'faith' or 'belief' entails, then I fully agree. But as I said in my last post "Belief, which is defined as obedience in the Scripture, is required." I realize that some readers will not understand what I mean, but I'm attempting to use these terms in the context of how they are used in Scripture. and as I said previously, the opposite of belief in the way Jesus uses it consistently is disobedience. So, it seems to me that belief means obedience. So I don't think we are really in disagreement here.

Thank you. The interesting thing about defining belief as obedience is that it harmonizes the other scriptures regarding these matters.

[Josh]

A good question is what “belief” means to a typical English speaker.

[silentreader]

Abraham had to do a lot more than just simply have faith; he had to be obedient to the point of leaving the city he was from and later putting his son on the altar. Those were very much real actions and “works”.

If a person is thinking in terms of the common non-biblical concept of what 'faith' or 'belief' entails, then I fully agree. But as I said in my last post "Belief, which is defined as obedience in the Scripture, is required." I realize that some readers will not understand what I mean, but I'm attempting to use these terms in the context of how they are used in Scripture. and as I said previously, the opposite of belief in the way Jesus uses it consistently is disobedience. So, it seems to me that belief means obedience. So I don't think we are really in disagreement here.

Rahab also believed, and in order to be "saved" she had to obey.

[Sudsy]

I posted earlier how Mennonite Brethren express what is involved in salvation. The video I posted was a simple way of saying that salvation is a change of heart that results in a mindset of 'I have to' to one of 'I want to'. This I believe to be the core of what it means to be born again. Just because this video comes from a Reform source does not say it is promoting an easy beliefism form of salvation. Rather this fellow is talking about a real change in life to serve the Lord.

I know the 'more conservative' are criticized as legalists when they emphasize obedience. Some of that is the result of requiring Christians to adhere to what they have added to Jesus words. And if we look closely at what Jesus said and take it all literally, the most devote believer does not live accordingly. At least I have not met one who does. But a true follower will have a desire to be obedient and will seek the Holy Spirit's guidance in what this obedience requires of them.

It seems that some Anabaptists are quick to judge Evangelicals that present the Gospel and find those 'converts' who do not show signs of repentance. This is going to occur, one of which, can be an 'easy beliefism' way of presenting the Gospel. Sadly, some go this route as numbers sometimes is the driver not conversions. On the other hand, some will present the Gospel in such a way that salvation depends primarily on the individual's dogged obedience, a works based salvation that saves no one.

And Evangelicals will also be quick to judge some Anabaptists. One reason being, they see a similarity in the Pharisees of Jesus day and how Jesus rebuked them for making converts like themselves who had the same basic unsolved issues (Matthew 23). They lacked compassion, thought themselves better than others, were rule followers, kept away from sinners, viewed themselves as the 'holy' ones, etc. I think Anabaptists need to consider these charges and see if in their own life and church there is some truth here and repent.

To me, it comes down to a view of what being 'born again' means. Unless the change is within (a work of God) that creates new desires to want to be obedient (believing that obedience is the way to abundant life and pleasing God) then the new birth has not occurred. Are we following the Lord as we seek His guidance through the Holy Spirit or are we living out some form of religious ways that we are accepting as needful to belong to a certain group of Christians ?

I don't see where that video I gave conflicts at all with the MB Confession of Faith regarding salvation. It is not meant to be a full explanation but it does point to a key requirement and that being a change of heart to want to serve the Lord.

I hope Franklin who began this post will turn to God, believe in His sins being forgiven by what Jesus did and will experience this conversion becoming a new citizen of the Kingdom. Those who truly have been converted are experiencing a life now that he will not find outside of faith in Christ. We are not perfect followers but the closer we get to knowing God through His Spirit, the more abundant our lives are spiritually. It is not just going to heaven when we die (as wonderful as this will be) but it is an experience now of real living.

[joshuabgood]

"What are you saved from?"