dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Your interpretation vitiates grace alone by faith alone through Christ alone. Here's why:

Faith is the avenue or the instrument God uses to bring salvation to His people. God gives faith because of His grace and mercy, because He loves us (Ephesians 4—5). Faith comes from God in the form of a gift (Ephesians 2:8). A gift is not earned by some good deed or kind word, and it is not given because the giver expects a gift in return—under any of those conditions, a gift would not be a gift. The Bible emphasizes that faith is a gift because God deserves all of the glory for our salvation. If the receiver of faith could do anything whatsoever to deserve or earn the gift, that person would have every right to boast (Ephesians 2:9). But all such boasting is excluded (Romans 3:27). God wants Christians to understand they have done nothing to earn faith, it’s only because of what Christ did on the cross that God gives anyone faith (Ephesians 2:5, 16).

Therefore, being a slave to God rather than a slave to sin, if in my later works after being given the gift of faith I refuse to provide for others, I am not gaining anything by doing so. I am, in fact, losing salvation.

Therefore, faith without works is, in fact, dead. Literally. However, works earn nothing, whether with or without faith given freely by God.

Hopefully you'll understand this position, as it also proves that he who accepts Christ in his last act ("This day thou shalt be with me in paradise") who has no works to perform other than profess faith, is in fact saved.

And that negates the whole argument of works.