Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLegalist
I think this is the problem many have... God's righteousness toward us is seen in several ways. This righteousness that saves in the sense of what brought about salvation or the offering of it. It is not of "anything" we can do or did. Christ purchased salvation with his life so that he could "offer" it. Yet at the same time the "grace" or "offering" of God that was God's righteousness manifested toward us by which we are saved does not include the righteousness to obtain salvation. We are asked for a proper response to obtain.
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Amen! Bravo, that's it!
ANY CONSCIOUS CHOICE made is actually a WORK whether folks admit it or not. Bias often blinds people to the obvious. Focus on the personal shows this when it is present. They'd sooner not admit error than know truth.
Repentance is a conscious choice that WE MAKE, not God. And there is nothing wrong with that. But the reason people refuse to call it a work is because they think ANY WORK is wrong, and not to be done. So they somehow reinvent the idea of repentance to dismiss it from a work, but actually use a synonym of what a work is and apply it to repentance, and claim they did not say "works"!
Baptism is no more a work of salvation than repentance is. Salvation by works means that God has nothing to do with GIVING US THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness is a gift! Earning something is working for something that is not a gift. And repentance and baptism BOTH do not earn righteousness,
because if they did they would not require the cross to have occurred, and be efforts that, in themselves, God looks towards in order to see WHY He should PAY us righteousness.
Righteousness has been bought and paid for, alright. But by the cross alone, and not any baptism or repentance we exert. But you cannot take righteousness freely from the Lord IF THERE IS SOMETHING IN YOUR HANDS CALLED SIN. Notofworks will not acknowledge the "SOMETHING IN YOUR HANDS" example to see my real point. Whatever...
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