When it comes to humanity being saved by God to receive eternal life, the big question is, What is the relationship between faith and works? The Bible answers this question but there are different interpretations of what the Bible has to say.

The question then is, Which interpretation of the Bible is correct? In this post, we will show definitively what is the correct interpretation and, hence, the relationship between faith and works.

A Brief Introduction to God

Who is God? God is a Family of three divine Persons, namely, the Father, the Son called Christ, and the Holy Spirit. This Family is known as “the Godhead” (Acts 17:29) in the Bible.

For those who are new to Bible notation, “Acts 17:29,” for example, is a reference to the Bible, which is a collection of books. In the Bible, each book consists of one or more chapters, and each chapter has numbered sections called verses. The quotation referred to as “Acts 17:29” is taken from the book of Acts in the Bible, the 17^th chapter, and the 29^th verse.

The members of the Godhead operate as one single Family unit, and so we can say, “there is one God.” Mark 12:32. They never contradict each other at any time.

What is God like? “God is love.” 1 John 4:8.

Why Does Humanity Need Saving?

Yes, humanity needs saving from eternal death (annihilation). Why? The reason why is that even though God created the first human pair, a man named Adam and a woman named Eve, as perfect in love, holy, and righteous, they both fell into sin which is evil and wrongdoing.

How? Adam and Eve yielded themselves to the temptations to sin from an angel named Satan who had been cast out of heaven along with his “evil angels” (Psalm 78:49) for their rebellion against God.

But what does the sin of Adam and Eve have to do with me today in the 21^st century? It has everything to do with you because ALL the descendants of Adam and Eve, which includes you, have inherited their disposition to sin and, hence, they too have sinned. “For all [humanity] have sinned.” Romans 3:23.

So, God says, “The wages of sin is [eternal] death [which is annihilation]; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23.

Who is Jesus Christ? “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21) is the name that was given to Christ when He was born in human flesh as a baby boy over 2,000 years ago.

Thus, even though all humanity is destined for eternal death (annihilation), there is a way of escape from this fate through Jesus Christ, by whom we may receive eternal life.

This then is the reason why humanity needs saving.

The Bible Seems to Contradict Itself

God says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified [declared righteous by God], and not by faith only.” James 2:24. Thus, God seems to be saying that we are justified by BOTH faith and works.

God also says, “For not the hearers of the law are just [righteous] before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified [declared righteous by God].” Romans 2:13. Again, God seems to be saying that we are justified by being doers of the law, that is, doers of works.

Furthermore, God says, “For by grace [God’s unmerited favour] are ye saved [from eternal death (annihilation) because of your sins which is evil and wrongdoing ] through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10. Here God seems to be saying that we are saved by faith and NOT by works.

Now, on one hand God seems to be saying we are saved by BOTH works and faith, but on the other hand God seems to be saying that we are saved by faith ALONE and NOT by works. Thus, the Bible seems to be contradicting itself. Which is it, saved by faith ALONE or saved by BOTH faith and works?

Now, God never contradicts Himself, therefore, the problem lies in our interpretation of the Scriptures which is another name for the Bible.

An Approach to Correctly Interpreting the Bible

Since, the Bible is its own interpreter, we need to compare Scripture with Scripture to unlock the Bible’s meaning.

Using this approach, we, therefore, find that the Bible says that “we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10) and that we are to have “repentance [deep sorrow for and turning away] from dead works.” Hebrews 6:1.

So from this, we see then that we are saved by BOTH faith and good works, and NOT by faith and dead works.

Thus, we can read the Bible texts in the book of Ephesians as: “For by grace [God’s unmerited favour] are ye saved [from eternal death (annihilation) because of your sins which is evil and wrongdoing ] through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of [DEAD] works, lest any man should boast. For we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10.

But what exactly are “good works” (Ephesians 2:10)? Is it the same as being “doers of the law” (Romans 2:13)?

We will first seek to answer the question, What does it mean to be doers of the law? This should answer our larger question, Is being a doer of good works the same as being doers of the law?

So, we first need to get an understanding of what is “the law” (Romans 2:13) as defined by the Bible, since the Bible is its own interpreter.

The Law as Defined by The Bible

God says that “there is one law” (Leviticus 7:7) and this law is known as “God’s law” (Nehemiah 10:29), as “the law of God” (Joshua 24:26), and as “the law of the LORD.” 1 Chronicles 16:40.

God also referred to His law as “a law, and commandments.” Exodus 24:12. Which commandments are God referring to?

We find one answer to this question in the words of Christ when He was on earth. For “Jesus [Christ] said…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang [is incorporated (subsumed)] all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40. That is, these two commandments summarise the whole Bible.

Christ’s words above regarding God’s law are recorded in the New Testament, the portion of the Bible which was written after Christ’s death, burial, resurrection (His rising to life again from the dead), and ascension to heaven from which He came to the earth.

But God’s law is also recorded as follows in the Old Testament, the portion of the Bible which was written before Christ came to the earth: “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Leviticus 19:18.

So then, God’s law as defined in the Bible is, in essence, God’s law of love. Now that we have an understanding of what is the law, we can answer the question, What does it mean to be doers of the law?

Christ, the Lawyer, and Eternal Life

We will now consider the case of a lawyer who questioned Christ about eternal life.

“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him [Christ], saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He [Christ] said unto him [the lawyer], What is written in the law? how readest thou?” Luke 10:25, 26.

“And he [the lawyer] answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” Luke 10:27.

“And he [Christ] said unto him [the lawyer], Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live [eternally].” Luke 10:28.

We see then that being a doer of God’s law of love as defined above qualifies you to receive eternal life from God. Also, we see that being a doer of good works qualifies you to receive eternal life. Since Christ only named one ultimate requirement for receiving eternal life, we deduce that being a doer of God’s law of love is the same as being a doer of good works.

How To be Doers of God’s Law

God says, “If ye fulfil the royal law [God’s law of love] according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well.” James 2:8.

“For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8. “Love worketh no ill [harm] to his neighbour [his fellow human being]: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Romans 13:10.

Here God says that when we love our fellow human being we fulfil His law of love, but what about the commandment that says that we are to love God?

God’s answer is that every human being should say of themselves, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:2, 3.

So, God’s answer rightly understood means that we can only say that we genuinely love others if we first love God.

How can we love God? The answer seems obvious but it really is NOT obvious. The truth is that we can only love God when “the love of God is [supernaturally] shed abroad [poured] in our hearts by the Holy Ghost [Holy Spirit] which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5.

For there is no true love naturally present in the hearts of humanity. In other words, as God says, “The carnal [natural] mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Romans 8:7.

But there are conditions which we must meet if we are to receive the love of God through the Holy Spirit. These conditions are “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:21. This then is how to become doers of the law.

So, first comes repentance and faith, followed by the gift of the love of God, and, then it follows that we love others.

Doers of the Law

As was said before, if we have “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21), then “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5.

Such persons are justified (declared righteous by God), and they can say of themselves in truth, “All my springs are in thee [God].” Psalm 87:7. That is, the love of God, received as a gift from God, causes all their actions (works) to spring from a heart of true love and these are, therefore, good works. They are doers of the law.

This love which is a plant of heavenly origin, needs to be cherished and constantly nourished in order for it to flourish and grow. Therefore, the justified will constantly pray to God, saying, “Make me to go in the path of thy [God’s] commandments; for therein do I delight.” Psalm 119:35. For the love of God in their heart is in constant conflict with the selfishness of their inborn sinful nature.

Now God says, “I am the LORD [God] which sanctify you [make you holy].” Leviticus 20:8. That is, God tests the character of the justified to see if they will resist all temptations to sin. If they pass all tests from God, this is the only way any person can become holy and so do ONLY good works. This is the only way to be a PERMANENT doer of the law doing good and only good at ALL times.

Error to Avoid: The Works of the Law

All attempts then to make oneself holy without going through the above process are what God calls “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1) and these attempts cannot justify anyone. Such works are doomed to failure in this regard.

So then, “by the deeds of the law [that is to say, by dead works] there shall no flesh be justified in his [God’s] sight.” Romans 3:20. Note that “the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:20) is also called “the works of the law” (Romans 9:32) in the Bible.

It is “Christ, who through the eternal [Holy] Spirit…[will] purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Hebrews 9:14.

For “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his [God’s] mercy he [God] saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost [Holy Spirit]; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:5, 6.

In other words, when it comes to determining whether or not we should be saved from eternal death (annihilation), God looks at our hearts. God looks beyond the surface to see if our “works of righteousness” (Titus 3:5) sprang from a heart of true love or from a heart full of selfishness, which is a heart that is evil. Only those whose good works are done in love will be saved and will receive eternal life from God.

All of this God says to warn us to avoid the error of seeking to be saved by God through the works of the law, that is, through dead works.

Now, God does not leave it to humanity to speculate what the love of God looks like in real life, but God gives us examples of such love in the Bible.

One such example is the story of the thief who was put to death alongside Christ which we will now consider.

Christ Crucified with Two Thieves: The Promise

“And there were also two other, malefactors [criminals], led with him [Christ] to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him [Christ], and the malefactors [criminlas], one on the right hand, and the other on the left.” Luke 23:32, 33.

“And one of the malefactors [criminals] which were hanged railed on [spoke evil of] him [Christ], saying, If thou be Christ [the Messiah, the promised Prophet like a man named Moses who was a leader of ancient Israel], save thyself and us.” Luke 23:39.

“But the other [criminal] answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss .” Luke 23:40, 41.

“And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily [surely] I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:42, 43.

Note that the comma is misplaced in Luke 23:43 in that it should read as follows: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily [surely] I say unto thee To day, [thou] shalt…be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43. Thus, the correct meaning of Luke 23:43 is that on SOMEDAY TO COME the thief would be with Christ in paradise and NOT THAT TODAY, THE SAME DAY OF THEIR BEING PUT TO DEATH, would the thief join Christ in paradise.

Christ Crucified with Two Thieves: His Death

As it happened, “And it was the third hour [9:00 a.m.], and they crucified him [they nailed the hands and feet of Christ to a t-shaped wooden structure called a cross].” Mark 15:25.

“And at the ninth hour [3:00 p.m.]…Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost [died].” Mark 15:34-37.

“The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation [day], that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought [asked] Pilate that their legs might be broken [to hasten their death], and that they might be taken away.” John 19:31.

“Then came the soldiers, and brake [broke] the legs of the first [criminal], and of the other [criminal] which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake [broke] not his legs.” John 19:32, 33.

Christ Crucified with Two Thieves: Analysis

So, Christ promised eternal life to one of the thieves crucified with Him before His, Christ’s, death after six hours of being nailed to the cross.

The question then is, How could the thief, a sinner, be transformed into one who truly loved God within the span of six hours? What good works did he do while nailed to the cross to be saved by God from eternal death (annihilation)? How was he a doer of God’s law?

Clearly, the thief must have met the conditions of “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:21.

How can we know this? Well, we can know because we can say of the Godhead, of which Christ is a member, “Thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men [of all humanity].” 1 Kings 8:39.

So, Christ read the heart of the thief and, as a result, declared the thief to be righteous, that is, declared him to be justified. Hence, the thief on the cross instantaneously received the love of God through the Holy Spirit and, therefore, had true love for God and his fellow beings in his heart. Furthermore, the thief was “sanctified” (Acts 26:18) before his death in that He overcame all temptations to sin, for only the sanctified will receive eternal life from God.

In other words, the thief did good works by being a doer of God’s law of love.

The Sanctified

“LORD [God], who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He [or she] that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his [or her] heart.” Psalm 15:1, 2.

These are they whom God has made holy, which is to say, whom God has sanctified, and these are not those who seek to make themselves holy by dead works.

Thus, God says, “Ye see then how that by [good] works a man is justified [declared righteous by God], and not by faith only.” James 2:24.

This then is the relationship between faith and works. Now, with this understanding in hand, we can correctly interpret what the Bible says about the role of the law, faith, and works in our salvation which is our saving by God from eternal death (annihilation).

Moreover, it becomes easy to see and to understand that there has ever been only one way, as defined by the Bible, that God saves people to receive eternal life from Him.

Conclusion

At first reading, the Bible seems to contradict itself in its teaching about the relationship between faith and works and our salvation from eternal death (annihilation).

However, we have seen that BOTH faith and GOOD works are required for us to be saved.

If you have not already received the love of God through the Holy Spirit, why not seek God now in the right way and receive eternal life from God because of the love of God in  your heart?

Note that, in this blog post, I selected a topic in the Bible and brought relevant Bible texts together to get an understanding of the topic. A similar approach would be to ask questions of a selected Bible text so that you find other relevant Bible texts to help you to understand the selected Bible text.

The Bible Teaches Us How to Obtain Eternal Life from God

“In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word [Christ] was with God, and the Word [Christ] was God.” John 1:1. “And the Word [Christ] was made flesh [was born as a baby boy named Jesus], and dwelt among us [human beings], (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father).” John 1:14. Thus, Christ, whose “name is called The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13) is the One who gave the whole Bible to humanity, from the Bible’s beginning to its end. Further, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8), which is to say, Christ is love.

And every one of you as a human being are to “lay apart [put away] all filthiness and superfluity [abundance] of naughtiness [of wickedness], and receive with meekness the engrafted [the implanted] word [from God, which is the Bible and], which is able to save your souls [from annihilation by God as the penalty for sin].” James 1:21. For the word of God, the Bible, being implanted in us means that “the love of God is shed abroad [is poured] in our hearts by the Holy Ghost [the Holy Spirit] which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5. So then, “love is of God; and every one [every human being] that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” 1 John 4:7. This is known as “justification” (Romans 4:25) which is accomplished by our repentance, that is, our deep sorrow for our sins and the gift of faith from God, which when exercised to believe God’s promise of forgiveness of sins and cleansing from sin brings us the gift of love from God. Note that everyone receives the gift of faith from God but without repentance people have a superficial faith and not saving (correct) faith that takes proper hold of God’s truth by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Immediately upon our justification, God tests our character to see if we will successfully resist all temptation to sin. Our success depends on our exercising faith in Christ’s keeping power through the Holy Spirit and, hence, we become sanctified (made holy) and thus receive eternal life from God.

And this is life eternal [everlasting life], that they [as human beings] might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent [to the earth as a Deliverer from sin].” John 17:3. Thus, when the whole Bible makes our character a character of perfect love, it means that we know God and, hence, we will receive eternal life from God.

How This Blog Teaches Bible Study

My blog posts take one or more Bible verses and unpack what is often the hidden meaning in them, to help you to gain in your understanding of the Bible, and to receive insights into how to study it. For God says, “Study [the Bible] to shew [show] thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing [interpreting] the word of truth [the Bible].” 2 Timothy 2:15. There are new blog posts every two weeks on a Monday at 12:01 a.m. in timezone UTC-5 (GMT-5).

Further Reading

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