What Does the Bible Say About Why Am I A Member of the Church of Christ #17?

In this episode, we continue our discussion about faith and works that James relates to us in Chapter 2. In verse 16 James tells us that the demons believe and tremble. We talk about why this is important for us to know and how that relates to faith and works. James then tells us what makes faith dead. He tells us this important fact a number of times in chapter 2. We note the example he uses of Abraham and what he did in offering his son as a sacrifice that James uses to illustrate faith and works. James also uses Rahab's hiding of the spies and why this is also important for us to know about her faith. We note the conclusion that James draws in verse 24. We close out this study of faith and works by noting the problem that most denominations have with this issue. We move on to talk about whether a Christian can fall away or be lost. Is it true that once an individual is saved, becomes a Christian, he is always saved and cannot be lost? We note that this is a false doctrine that comes from the theology of John Calvin. We look at what sin is and how that relates to being lost. Then, we look at the Bible passages that show that a child of God can indeed live in sin and be lost. We spend some time with what we know as the Beatitudes of Jesus and how important they are to us. We close out this episode by reading 2 Peter 1:2-11 and run out of time to discuss it. We will begin our next episode with a discussion of those passages. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on what we have to say. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

Transcript

Fred Gosnell: 0:00

This is a presentation of the Woodland church of Christ meeting at 3370 Broad Street in Sumter, South Carolina. We meet for worship on Sunday at ten thirty am and five thirty pm. We meet for bible study at nine thirty am on Sunday and seven pm on Wednesday. If you have questions or comments on this lesson, you may email them to Arnie Granke at agranke440718@twc.com or to Glenn Landrum at scbamaboy2003@yahoo.com or to Eric McClam at ericmcclam50@outlook.com or to Fred Gosnell at fgosnell@ftc- i.net.

Arnie: 0:55

Good afternoon. This is Arnie Granke, and I'm with the church of Christ at Woodland and here in Sumter, South Carolina, with me this afternoon are Fred and Glenn and and Eric and Eric good to have you back.

Eric: 1:10

Appreciate it.

Arnie: 1:13

And this is what does the Bible say. And we want to talk to you as a little bit more about some Bible principles that we began a discussion of, actually several weeks ago, and just trying to be as realistic and detailed as we can, to give you as much information as as possible with regard to biblical things. So I think, without any further ado, let me give you the Glenn, and you can introduce it from there, Glenn.

Glenn: 1:50

Last week, we we ended up, we were talking about this idea of grace and works. How many say that we can, we are saved by by grace, but they, they fail to, to follow up with how works, works, works operates in that in that procedure. The passage that we had just read was James 2, 14 through 24 and we're working through that. Is what we're doing, working through that James 2, 14 through 24 and we just read verse 17, we'll be picking up with verse 18. And verse 18 says, but someone will say, you have faith and I have works. You have faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. And this was James was speaking as the Holy Spirit was guiding him to speak. And he was talking about this situation with Abraham, and how Abraham demonstrated his faith. And then in this part, he hadn't quite gotten to that that example yet, but he's given this example of two people, one saying that that he has faith, and the other one saying, Well, I've got faith and works. And the one who has has just faith, he says, Well, I have faith without works. And then the other one says, Well, I will show you my faith by my works. The two people are discussing this concept and are discussing faith and works. Think about this of the two people, which one really has faith? It is the one who demonstrates their faith by how they live or their works. It is not the one who has nothing to demonstrate that he has faith. Then verse 19 says, You believe there is one God. You do well, even the demons believe and tremble. This is a great example, and it is one that we can all answer, even the demons or the devils, know and believe in God, but they're afraid of God. And why are they afraid of God? Because they know what the consequences of or of them not living like God wants them to do, in other words, not doing the works that God wants them to do. They believe that is, they have faith, but they did not respond or do anything about their faith.

Fred Gosnell: 4:31

So James goes on to verse 20. He says, But do you want to know a foolish man that faith without works is dead? So once again, the statements made faith without works was dead. I haven't counted, that's a statement made a number of times here. So it's a simple statement of fact, no works, no faith. So our manner of living must reflect our faith. If our lives do not reflect what God wants from us, then our faith is dead, or it's useless. Of course, an important question comes to mind, so how much of God's word do we need to demonstrate our faith in? This also requires us to define what sin is. Romans, 14, 23, says, But he who doubts is condemned if he eats because he does not eat from faith. For whatsoever is not from faith is sin. So what is sin? So anything that is not of faith is sin. That's what the passage said. So what does that mean? So it simply means that anything that we do that is not supported by God's word is sin. So everything we say and do must be supported by God's word for it not to be sin. So how can we cover all that? So go back to look and at what we were talking about in one of the recent lessons, talked about being diligent in your study of God's word, so that you can use it for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, righteousness, and so that we may have grace and peace multiplied to us in the knowledge of God and Jesus. So this is why those who have been raised in the church have a great advantage, generally speaking. They've grown up learning the basics of right and wrong. They have learned about the church that Jesus built. Also, generally speaking, our society teaches many of the basics of right and wrong and how to be a good person. Get a lot of that from our parents. But to know all the things that are considered sin. We have to study, to learn from others, be able to distinguish what things are similar to others we may know are bad or evil. Most of us grow up learning that being kind to others is good, that it's wrong to steal, to lie, to hurt others, to kill, to covet, to disobey parents and others of authority. So what we need to understand is that to do those things we know are wrong, it is sin that separates us from God.

Arnie: 7:10

So let's look in James, chapter two, beginning in verse 21 and James writes, he says, Was not Abraham, our father justified by works when he offered Isaac, his son on the altar. Do you see that faith was working together, with his works and by works, faith was made perfect? Verse 23 says that, And the scripture was fulfilled, which says Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. And I think that's a point of confusion for for a lot of today's religions, a lot of the lot of our neighbors, are mistaken on that and don't understand that that principle. This is an example of faith being demonstrated by Abraham when God had told him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. You recall when, when he had been instructed, and he had gone out with a sacrifice was going to be made, they had built the altar and and were prepared to offer the sacrifice. And then he was told that that it would be his, his son. So then, then again, of course, God interceded in in this and and stopped that before the sacrifice actually was made. So Abraham followed through with what God had told him to do and and the angel actually of God stopped Abraham before he could bring down the knife into his son Isaac and slay him there on the on the altar. Abraham didn't just believe in God. He actually put into action what God had told him to do, even when it was going to be something he would great, something that would greatly cause him grief. Hebrews, chapter 11 and and verse 17 says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said in Isaac, shall your seed be called according that, concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him. In a figurative sense. It is said in this passage that Abraham had faith that God would raise Abraham, Isaac, rather, up from from the dead before Abraham knew that even if he offered and killed Isaac, God would raise Isaac up. What an example, what an example of faith Abraham exhibited, willing to offer his own son because he knew that God would would raise him up, raise him back to life. Many will use this statement in this passage, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him as righteousness, to mean it was simply the belief, the faith, that caused God to give him righteousness as credit. In this, we have have to distinguish what the true belief is. We have quoted a few passages about this before. Two of them are John chapter 14, verse 15. And first, John chapter two. John chapter 14, verse 15, says, If you love Me, keep My commandments. And then in First John chapter two, beginning in just verse three, really. Now by this, we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. True belief is showing that we believe by doing what we have been commanded to do. If we do not what we have, do not do what we have been commanded to do, then we don't really believe. And this is exactly the message that James talks about Eric, do you have James two beginning in verse 14 available there?

Eric: 12:13

Yeah, start with verse 25 it talked about Rahab, how she was justified in verse 25 it says, Likewise. was not Rahab, the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out of the way. You know this passage here is referring back to Joshua, chapter 20, chapter two, verses one through 24, when the when the spies came into the area, and she hid the spies and and that's how her works were justified. But how did, how did Rachel show that she had faith? By doing what she did. She hid the spies and helped them escape. That's what she did. For, as the body without the spirit is dead, so without works, Faith without works. So read that again. I apologize for that. For, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Now the Holy Spirit through James reiterates the concept faith without works is dead or useless. Faith does not exist without demonstrating that we truly believe. The world is full of people who say they believe in Christ and God, but do not live the lives that Jesus and his apostles taught should be lived. They don't worship as they have been commanded in the New Testament. How many people will say whether they're two or three, are gathered in my name? There I am also? And that reference goes back to Matthew chapter 18, verses 20. They say, as they say, that the justification that they are not assembling with the saints of the church to which they have been added, they are wrong, and they are not showing their faith by their works. As the end of this segment, we want to point out our we want to point out again in verse 24 you must then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. So it should be very clear that we are justified saved by our faith, but not only by our faith, and if only, and if only, our faith is demonstrated by the works we do. Is it true faith? Yes, salvation is a gift from God, and that is grace, but we have to accept that gift by first obeying the gospel. And then by living faithfully, that is living like God has told us and taught us to live.

Glenn: 15:08

There are many denominations that teach we are saved by faith only, and that it is not true according to the Scriptures. Yes, many scriptures say that we will be saved if we believe in God and Christ, but we must look at the scriptures to show what true belief is. We believe we have accomplished this in this lesson. Do you believe in God and His Son, Jesus, Christ, as well as the Holy Spirit of God? If you do, then the gift of God, that's grace, can be yours. Another false teaching that we will cover soon is that God selects, or has selected, those people who would be saved or would accept His grace, and that our choice has nothing to do with it. We believe that the Bible clearly teaches that we do have a choice, and a choice is ours to make. God desires that we all make that choice. If God had predetermined or chosen individuals who would be saved ahead of time, there would be no need for the Bible at all. The Bible, God's word, is given us, given to us so that we can learn and make conscious decisions about what to do and how we are to live. Do we honor God in our lives by living like he wants us to live? This is what demonstrates our faith. We look forward to continuing our study with you, and truly hope that you are benefiting from the lessons that we're presenting. As always, if you have any questions about the lesson, or if you believe that we have taught something incorrectly or in error, please let us know about it. We're going to move on to the to the next lesson now, and so Fred will pick that up.

Fred Gosnell: 16:47

Well, so we just finished a lesson on faith and works, and we believe we have shown by the scriptures that our salvation is not by faith alone. Faith must be accompanied by works that demonstrate that we really do have faith. So always remember that passage in James 2, 14 through 26 that demonstrates this concept so well. We went through the passage verse by verse in the last lesson, we saw a number of times where the Holy Spirit directed James to write that a faith without works was dead. And we even saw that in verse 24 it was recorded, You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. So you can't get past that verse written by God that more than simply faith or belief is required to be justified. Justified, in this case, equates to salvation, being saved. So where do we go next? So we're going to look at a subject that is closely related to what we just talked about, that the child of God, someone who is in a safe condition, a Christian, a saint, a disciple of Christ, all talking about the same people, just different aspects, can go into an unsaved or a lost condition. The opposite of this is what many call Once saved, Always saved. So we're going to show that once saved always saved, or perseverance of the saints of the Calvin Calvinistic tulip of T, U, L, I P, acronym doctrine that that's a false doctrine.

Arnie: 18:23

Fred just mentioned the Calvinist doctrine, which is summarized in an acronym specified as tulip T, U L, I P. John Calvin was a French theologian. He was a church reformer who lived from 1509 to 1564, his research and published doctrine have affected really, most Protestant denominations, even to this present day. In other words, most Protestant denominations follow the tulip or the Calvinistic, if you will, doctrine, either in part or in whole. When we discuss this doctrine, we must admit that its basis is founded in the Scriptures or the Bible. John Calvin did, just as we talked about in in the last couple of lessons that we've presented. He used scripture, but he did not properly divide the Word of God as as the New Testament uses that word. We may remember us. You may remember us talking about a number of things related to this Rightly dividing. We're separating the time periods and how the Word of God applied to the people during those times. Using God's word as a whole, or using all of his word, and not picking out individual passages or verses without considering their relation to other verses or passages in the Bible. And knowing when passages are literal or figurative, they're not all just figurative, and they're not all all literal. They're one or the other. We need to be able to identify which which that is that's occurring in each passage. We would say that all of Calvin's ideas with his tulip. Remember, that's that's an acronym, his his tulip doctrine have basis in Scripture, but are not completely supported by scripture or in Scripture, and therein lies the problem.

Eric: 21:00

This idea of once saved, always saved, is simply saying that once a person has entered a saved condition, he or she cannot be removed from that condition in any way. Thus perseverance of the saints. This idea comes from the idea that God is totally sovereign, for he has all authority or rule over everything in every way, and he can do whatever he desires to do and how he wants to do it. We will completely agree with that. God is completely sovereign, but he has given us His Word, the Bible, that gives us the direction, the pattern, the commands that we need to follow. It may sound strange that we say Calvin based his doctrine in Scripture, but we say it is false doctrine, or is a false doctrine, because that's because every point contains in the tulip the T, U, L, i, p. Doctrine has flaws. We may talk about some of the other points of that doctrine later, but now we're going to discuss the idea that a child of God, a person who has entered a saved conditions, can, in fact, lose their salvation or fall from grace. Really, it could be simple, as can a Christian sin? If we can answer that affirmatively, we can say that a Christian can fall from grace or enter in an unsaved condition. We looked at Isaiah 59 two, which says, But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins has hidden His face from you so that he will not hear. This is a simple definition of what happens when a person sins. Sin, separate a person from God, so that God hide his face from them and will not hear them. First John, chapter three, verse four says, who's Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Thus, sin can also be called lawlessness. We also see that the word used in this passage we have read quite a few times in Matthew seven, verse 23. In this passage, Jesus told those who claim to be doing what he wants them to be doing to depart from Him those who practice lawlessness. In verse 21 of that passage, Jesus had defined what that lawlessness was, the opposite of doing the will of God. Since we have mentioned it, we will read it again to refresh and let you actually hear the passage in Matthew seven, verses, 21 to 23

Glenn: 23:59

Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father, Who is in heaven, Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me you who work or PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS. So Jesus says the ones that enter the kingdom of heaven will be those who do the will of the Father. That is, do the things that we find written in the Bible, not do the things that that are written in the Bible that it says are sin. So Jesus says that the ones that enter the kingdom will be those that do the will. We're going to look at a quite a number of scriptures that show that a Christian can so sin as to fall from grace or lose their salvation. We have talked about the idea that Christians must do a number of things in order to be saved, hear, believe the gospel, repent of their sins, and. Confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to earth to save sinful man be baptized or immersed in water and live faithfully unto death. We discuss that at length in this last lesson, in addition to doing those things to enter the saved condition, a Christian is called to do all, to do good to all people everywhere. Galatians, 6, 10. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those of the household of faith. That is, that is not a suggestion, but as a directive or a command, even though this verse does not give any information about the consequences of doing what it says to do, we can make an assumption, anytime we are commanded to do something by someone in authority, there are either rewards or negative consequences for doing or not doing what we have been commanded. And that's common sense. We are sure that that every one of us have worked for somebody and had a boss that sometimes suggested that we do something, and they don't tell us directly that that we we have to do it, but we understand there, there will be negative consequences, or there may be negative consequences if we don't what do, what has been suggested for us to do. It doesn't hold water if you haven't done what your boss told you to do, for you to say, Well, I just thought, you know that was a suggestion. We all know that there will be some kind of negative consequences for not following up on what your boss suggested or ordered. In the above passage, it doesn't read as a strong command, but it is a directive for us to follow. If we do not follow direct, the directive or the command, then we have not done what God told us to do, which is sin. We covered what sin is and its consequences. We will be, we are sure you have read the beatitudes in Matthew five, three through 12, and then the the next four verses following, you know Fred will pick that up.

Fred Gosnell: 27:12

Okay. So Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they should be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after for righteousness, for they should be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake, Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing to thrown out and trampled under foot of men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. So this was at the beginning of Jesus' three years of going around preaching to the Jews about them doing what they needed to do in order to please God and accept Him as their Savior. Most of his commands for living can be summed up in these few verses. Many people think these teachings that we call the Beatitudes are suggestions for how followers of Jesus should live, and that if some of these attitudes are not attained, it will be okay. Actually, Christ was teaching that any follower of his must possess these attributes throughout the remainder of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Jesus teaches many things about how people must live to please God, be acceptable to God. If we fall short in any of these teachings, we are sinning. They sound like an insurmountable task, and it is, it is if we say that we are instantly accountable for every command given, in a sense, we are but God also knows that we need to grow in Second Peter one, two through 11, a great passage we read that the first part of it a few times. That passage says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in knowledge of God, Lord, Jesus, Christ, our Lord, as his divine power, has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have given us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions in the world through lust. But also for this very reason given all diligence, add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self control, self control, perseverance, perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness, brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that lacks these things is short sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore brethren be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, then you will never stumble, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly and to the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So at this point, it looks to me like that we're out of time. So we're going to have to pick this up next next session, we'll talk about what that passage has is telling us. We'll, note that we have to do some things in order to continue to live and to learn more about God and to be faithful to Him. So grateful for you listening to us see you next week. Lord willing.