1) How did this whole ‘salvation simply by accepting Jesus as your savior’ get started?
Was it mostly due to Paul?
If yes, why the emphasis on what Paul thinks vs what Jesus himself said?
Didn’t Jesus tell a rich young man to sell all his belongings and to follow him when the latter asked Jesus how he (the young man) could gain the Kingdom of Heaven ?
So, clearly, Jesus thinks works count.
Also, from the above, it seems that only works count, and nothing else is needed. (Because he said: do all this stuff “and you will have treasure in heaven.”, no other prerequisites )
2) How do Christians who believe in ‘salvation if and only if you believe in Jesus’ think about the ‘good works’ part?
When they are proselytizing someone and the guy asks, “so it’s OK to kill and steal, and as long as I believe in Jesus as my personal savior, I will be saved?”, what do they answer?
Why do they care about homosexuality, prostitution, etc so much? If good/bad works are irrelevant to getting to heaven, what do they care if someone is taking a dick up his ass? 3) Eternal punishment in hell for ‘not believing in Jesus’ makes God seem like more of an asshole than punishment for bad deeds
Even if it is severe, at least eternal punishment for bad deeds, such as murder, could be considered just.
OTOH, eternal punishment simply because you don’t ‘accept Jesus as your savior’ seems capricious, unjust and simply assholish.
How did some Christian denominations ever get any converts floating this stupid idea around?
Which denominations go by the ‘salvation by grace alone’ vs ‘salvation by works’?
This is the only part I feel qualified to answer: no. It’s certainly okay to convert if you have killed or stolen in the past, but someone who’s truly repented and believes in Jesus wouldn’t want to kill or steal. Beliving in Christ is not as simple as signing a document; it profoundly changes the believer. (Look at Paul, for example.)
Aren’t the particular subset of OT commandments (don’t murder, etc) included in “do all this stuff”? I guess you could argue either way, but it doesn’t look like Jesus is excluding them as prerequisites to me, at least not from your post.
That’s to say, you need to do more than just believe in Jesus.
I think the point isn’t so much the good deeds, it is that if your heart is in the right place, good deeds will naturally ooze out of you.
I question this one quite a bit. I prefer to interpret “believing in” as “following the example of.” Otherwise, you’ve got Christians running around drowning kittens because they might as well live it up, because they’re covered. I suspect that the get-out-of-jail-free-edness of that suggestion is another manipulative way of recruiting new members. Now that you’re a Christian, you can do all kinds of things and not feel guilty because you’re in the Believe In Jesus Club.
I think the emphasis on believe-and-you’re-in comes from the simplicity of preaching with only John 3:16. That lone verse has become the shorthand for Christianity. You don’t have to work very hard at persuading someone, just get a piece of cardboard, a clown wig, and, for the price of a ticket to a football game, you can preach to the masses.
IANTM (I am not the Messiah), but I personally believe that a person’s goodness is what saves them from eternal punishment. I would be utterly shocked if Gandhi didn’t make the cut at the Pearly Gates.
They argue that works are a manifestation of faith.
The argument is that, if you truly have faith, you won’t want to do those things.
I think there’s a certain appeal to saying ‘I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior’ and poof, you’re going to heaven!
Most Protestant sects tend towards justification by faith alone.
Catholics believe in justification by faith and works. The Orthodox essentially do to, but they don’t use that language.
The Mennonites and Amish reject justification by faith alone and place a lot of value on the importance of works, but I’m not certain what their specifics beliefs are.
The emphasis on salvation by faith only is a relatively recent development in Christianity. It certainly was not started with Paul, although a misreading of Paul helped it along. Paul’s emphasis on grace over works was because of his belief that Jewish rituals such as circumcision and dietary practices were not necessary for non-Jews to adopt if they wanted to be a part of the Christian community.
Of course, more conservative Protestants would disagree with me, but I don’t believe that having faith in Jesus has very much to do with believing specific things about Jesus but rather trusting that following the way of Jesus is the way to God. What we do ritually speaking may aid us on this journey, but like Paul said, it’s not essential.
My viewpoint is somewhat close to the Eastern Orthodox perspective on salvation as a process that occurs in this life, rather than just the afterlife; however, I’m finding that it’s a viewpoint that’s shared by many in mainline Protestant churches, and the so-called “emerging” movement in Evangelical Christianity.
Here is my take on it. If you accept Christ as your savior, then everything else follows in time. Christians are not perfect, however, part of the conversion is striving to do good works. Works are not required, but if one wouldn’t want to good works, he should question whether he has truly accepted Christ.
The hypothetical person who wants to kill and steal, yet accept Christ in order to go to heaven, IMHO, has not truly accepted Him and is trying to game the system. From what I’ve read, Christ distanced himself and his followers from a strict interpretation of the law, and tries to lead us to do what is right in our heart.
That’s why you have all of the stories about how it’s not good to simply say you don’t commit adultery, let’s say, if you constantly lust after other women. It’s the heart and soul that counts.
But works are still important as part of the Christian life, and most Christians believe things like pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, and the like are part of the poor lifestyle choices that separate us from God. (I would add gossip, and not loving thy neighbor in there, but the church is made up of humans, and we make mistakes) and as such we try to keep the public display and/or acceptance of those activities down. It is rare to find a person who cares what and who you are doing what with in your own home.
As far as eternal punishment in hell, I break from most Christians here. I don’t believe it; it’s not biblical and came to importance in the middle ages when the Catholic church was trying to scare the (hehe) hell out of people.
I certainly disagree with this. Most Christians will readily admit that pornography, adultery, and fornication are EXTREMELY temping because they are enjoyable. Homosexuality is enjoyable to some.
I’ve never heard a Christian say that once you accept Christ you won’t want to do those things. It’s silly; we all like those things. It’s just that you come to a point in your spiritual journey where you understand that those things separate you from a better relationship with God, your family, and your friends.
It’s part of the great deceit by Satan who tells you that this activity is good (and it does feel good, because it was meant to bond you to your spouse)…
I mean, some of these things aren’t even religious. Surely most athiests will agree that adultery is bad as you aren’t being faithful and honest to your spouse. And most athiests would admit that prostition, while in the ideal isn’t bad, is most done by disturbed young women with a disoriented sense of sexual need, and as such is bad.
I’d say that prostitution, while in the ideal isn’t bad, is mostly done by women who aren’t in the best situation and/or are being used or taken advantage of. I think there are very few who are in it because of any kind of odd sexual needs.
Note that the individual alluded to above is currently in prison for kidnapping and “stink” bomb assaults.
Me, I’ll make an end run around the whole faith/works issue by stating that Heaven is right here, right now, in the present moment, not waiting for you far down some convoluted road.
No, it’s not just Paul. For instance, the famous John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”) is attributed to Jesus himself.
As far as Paul’s teaching on faith vs. works, for one thing, one of Paul’s big themes was Faith vs. Law (Law meaning the Mosaic law as revealed in the Torah/Old Testament.). According to Paul, Jesus renders obedience all the ceremonial observances and rituals and sacrifices and such of the Law unnecessary for salvation.
For another thing, Paul insists that salvation is by grace through faith, that it is a free gift from God and not something we earn. So that thinking of “believing in Jesus” as something you have to do to earn salvation is missing the point.
Well, one of the things he said to do was “Follow me.” Which, in my understanding at least, is sorta synonymous with the kind of “believing in” that leads to salvation: Believing in Jesus, not in the sense of intellectually assenting to a proposition (let alone merely paying lip service to one), but following him, putting one’s faith/trust in him, accepting him as teacher, Lord, and Savior.
As for why particular “sins” are singled out for condemnation, that’s a whole nother thread.
The eternal punishment isn’t punishment for not accepting Jesus, it’s punishment for (or a natural consequence of) original sin: i.e. fallen humankind’s natural state of being sinful, selfish, depraved, and rotten to the core. (We may not be murderers in the sense of actually having committed murder, but we may still be the kind of person who would murder given the right provocation and opportunity, so don’t assume your soul is in any better shape than the murderer’s.)
It’s as though we have a terminal disease, but God offers us a cure.
At least, that’s one way to look at it. That may be a misrepresentation or at least a horrible oversimplification of what any theologian or Christian church would actually claim, but I think it’s closer than your way of looking at it, at least.
You are right. I chose my words poorly. What I was trying to say is that most of these women come from abusive households and as such think that this is somehow normal or okay.
I think most of them are so bad that they don’t even know the definition of a sexual need. And this keeps getting reinforced by guys with 50 bucks who want a quick roll…It’s self validating, which is why it is bad.
I can understand the Libertarian argument (and I’m not sure that I don’t agree with it) that prostitution should be legal because two adults should be free, in a free society, to engage in a contract that allows sex for money. No harm, no foul.
But the emotional distress and the need for money on the part of these women make it almost non-consensual as they would love to get out…
As **Thudlow Boink ** mentions, the dispute is not between “grace” and works but between **faith alone **(sola fide) and prescribed works (“Law”), as paths to grace. As in, ALL salvation is by the “grace” of God through Jesus, and the difference is in how God choses upon whom to shed his grace and what does the gracee do.
Of course, at the time of the Reformation the concept of justification through the works of the faith and ritual righteousness had become perverted in the Western church, leading to things like the sale of indulgences and the Borgia and Medici papal dynasties. And in more recent Awakenings and revivals there has been always a reaction against establishment churches that tended to also drift into mere social correctness. OTOH the opposite, Jack-Chickish reaction, of believing that just saying “save me, Jesus” is enough, is just as much a belief in that it’s all a matter of saying the right magic words. In real theology, things are more nuanced. The righteously-behaving are expected to be doing so because they “love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself”. And the person who has accepted Jesus on faith is called upon to stay away from the works of evil and demonstrate the works of the Spirit. (And yes, even when 'saved" you may still have the urge to do evil things… but you are expected to call upon that grace to strengthen you to hold back and NOT actually DO them)
The Gospel has JC himself talking about moral behavior and ritual compliance in a way that sounds like “So what’s special about that? Even heathens treat one another decently” and strongly censuring mere compliance-for-formality with ritual. The disciple is expected to do more than merely behave correctly (and his behavior must come out of the aforementioned love of God/neighbor). In the Gospel when JC describes his Judgement Day, the indictment he issues to the damned is not that they followed unorthodox doctrine, but: “I was hungry and you fed me not…” (and nothing about sexual behavior!); elsewhere, “some people will say to me, but we healed the sick and cast out demons in your name, Lord; I will say go away I know you not” (the JC character in the Gospel is NOTall rainbows and cuddly bunnies…). Paul writes that the righteous man will be justified by his faith; but as quoted above, James writes that faith without actions to show for it, is dead.
(Then there’s predestination, as in that God already chose who’ll get saved or not. I’m not going there…)
This is part of “Unconditional Election.” (U of TULIP, see the cite) This is the concept of predestination: that God has divided humanity into two groups. One group is “the elected.” It includes all those whom God has chosen to make knowledgeable about himself. The rest will remain ignorant of God, and the Gospel. They are damned and will spend eternity in Hell without any hope of mercy or cessation of the extreme tortures.
They’re also big on “Perseverance of the saints:” (P of Tulip, see the cite) This is the “Once saved, always saved” belief – that everyone who has been saved will remain in that state.
