Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: davidbu@tekigm2.men.tek.com (David Buxton) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: TWO SIDES of the $10 BILL - Further Discussion Message-ID: Date: 22 Oct 89 15:14:53 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Lines: 57 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , mrh@drutx.att.com (Mike Hudson) writes: > "...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." James 2:17 > "...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." > Book of Mormon - 2 Nephi 25:23 I certainly do subscribe to your James 2:17 text in the sense of Christ doing those works through me. The works must be revealed but it is not my works but rather the works of my Jesus. Sorry Mike, but I simply cannot subscribe to your Nephi quotation. In my $10 Bill analogy I wish to be clear that SIDE_A must come first. Without SIDE_A there can be no SIDE_B. The full Gospel, IMHO, must deal with both sides of the $10 Bill, else we have a counterfeit. Let me re-state my oppening summary. ----- Two of my neighbors each ask a different question. Each of these ques- tions has a different answer: QUESTION_A: One neighbor asks "What must I do to be saved?" ANSWER_A: Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. QUESTION_B: I Love Him, what would God have me to do? ANSWER_B: Jesus said - "If you love me keep my commandments." The Gospel Commission. Until my first neighbor becomes a 'Born Again' Christian and is sincerely asking Question_B the second answer will mean little to him/her. We hand out a counterfeit if we offer the same answer to both questions: Legalism is offering ANSWER_B for both questions. It is also a fraud when we insist that "Just Believe" is the answer to both questions. ----- You are proposing one of the many variations by which people offer the same answer to both questions. You propose that the 'Born Again' experience must come out of Faith and Works. No, emphatically NO!! The works flow out of the 'Born Again' experience. Any other works flow from the human heart and are perverted by human selfishness. We keep His Commandments because we love Him; out of a heart filled with Love for Him and for the humans that He created. Until God's Love and God's Law become an inseparable unity we know not what love is or law is in the true spiritual sense. They must be welded together in our hearts; and only Jesus can do that. Step #1 is the Born Again experience - we come to Him just as we are. There is no other way by which we can be saved. Friend, Dave