One of the rallying cries of the Reformation was "sola fide!" or "faith alone". Salvation is obviously by faith, but it is interesting that the only time I could find the phrase "faith alone" in the ESV Bible was in James 2:24 "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone."
Biblically other items are tied to salvation:
Baptism: Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12, Galatians 3:27
The Lord's Supper: I Cor 10:16, John 6:53-54
Good Works: A ton of passages, but a couple to mention: Matthew 25: 32-39, James 1:27, James 2:14-26
I know in Paul's epistles he compares faith and works, and says that man is saved by faith without works. There are also a ton of passages here. A few to consider: Romans 3:21-30, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 3:1-14, Ephesians 2:8-9
Traditionally Protestants have put more emphasis on the Pauline passages. I have come to the point where I think it is clear that the Bible ties our salvation to more than our faith in Christ, but I am still struggling with how it shakes out.
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A game in which players toss a jackknife in various prescribed ways, with the object being to make the blade stick firmly into the ground. [From the phrase mumble the peg, from the fact that originally the loser had to pull up with the teeth a peg driven into the ground.]
3 comments:
Jed,
What are the founding doctrinal confessions of your church (of which you are a deacon)? Do you find yourself at variance with the doctrinal confessions of the reformation? If so, don't you think you should let the session know of your change of position and resign from the diaconate?
I tried to quit but they wouldn't let me.
If everytime I struggled with some doctrine, I reported to the session and offered to resign, I would have resigned almost every other Tuesday.
I do think my session would be ok with tying Baptism and the Lord's Supper to salvation some kind of way (but only with faith).
The WCF says:"Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification:[4] yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.[5]"
I don't think I'm outside of that.
Also having an exception to the WCF would not necessarily mean you would have to resign--nearly everyone has an exception or four.
J...your struggle has a name, and it might be "Federal Vision" (Don't throw this phrase around too loudly if you happen to be in a PCA church).
The WCF must always be read through the lens of scripture. The minute you start to read the Bible through the lens of the WCF you are both backwards and wrong-headed.
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