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Religion

2008-12-31 10:43:00

Accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior

Question: All my life I have heard that all one has to do is to accept our Lord Jesus Christ as his or her personal Savior, and he or she will be saved. But I also read in James 2:14-16, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” Can someone tell me, saying and meaning you accept our Lord as your personal Savior seems to be a lot easier than doing that plus a non-quantified number of works. What does it really take?

Answer: Open your Bible to the New Testament Epistle of James and read the whole of chapter 2, from which you cited only two verses. A better translation of the first part of verse 14, which you cited, is: “My brethren, what good is it to profess faith without practicing it?” Then read again the text you cited., and continue to read verse 17 and on through the end of that chapter 2. St. James answers your question in no uncertain words. Verse 17 says: “So it is with the faith that does nothing in practice. It is thoroughly lifeless (worthless).” St. James goes on to cite some persons of the Old Testament, who proved their faith by doing good works. He concludes that chapter with the statement: “Be assured then that faith without works is as dead as a body without breath!” So, to answer your question, what does it really take: to save our soul it is necessary to have both faith AND good works, which give evidence of that faith. I agree with you that it is a lot easier to say that you accept our Lord as your personal Savior, than to have to undertake a lot of good works. But without the good works, which are inspired by true faith, and merely saying “I accept our Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior” is only words, words, words, which are useless in the sight of God. Read the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and you will find: “not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven, will enter heaven.” All of Jesus’ teaching insists that Faith and Good Works go together, hand-in-hand. A person, who says that he/she accepts Jesus as his/her personal Savior, proves that acceptance by good works. A person, who claims Jesus as his/her personal Savior, but does nothing about it or goes on to commit terrible sins: is really a liar. On the other hand, a person, who undertakes good works, without professing in words to have Jesus as his/her personal Savior, demonstrates his/her basic faith in Jesus. Without words, he/she is saved by that hidden faith, which God sees as evidenced in the good works. Among many of Jesus parables on this topic, I would recall the parable of the two sons, related in Matthew 21:28-31. “What do you think of this case? There was a man who had two sons. He approached the elder and said: ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son replied: ‘I am on my way, sir’, but he never went. Then the man came to his second son and said the same thing. This son said in reply: ‘No, I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. Which of the two did what the father wanted? They said: ‘The second.’” Then Jesus goes on to commend persons who, without formally professing faith (accepting him as their personal Savior), undertake works of mercy and generosity out of love for God and their neighbor. These works demonstrate the faith in their hearts, whereby they have already accepted God (and Jesus) as their personal Savior, perhaps without realizing it. Such persons enter the kingdom of heaven. Martin Luther rejected this whole Epistle of James and excluded it from his version of the Bible, because of this teaching of James about the necessity of good works for salvation. Luther was so insistent on the importance of faith, that he declared: “Faith alone is sufficient for salvation.” Hence, the Protestant practice of professing to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. In rejecting the importance of good works for salvation, Luther intended to reject the excesses in certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the abuse and misunderstanding about indulgences. In the time of Luther there were some abuses and excesses in the Catholic teaching about indulgences, which abuses were corrected by the Council of Trent. But, in rejecting the whole Epistle of James, Luther “threw out the baby with the bath-water” - so to speak. Happily, in our own times, Lutheran and other Protestant scholars have restored the Epistle of James to their New Testament Bibles. Happily, also in our own times, the Catholic Church has down-played the matter of indulgences, while correcting misunderstandings about that practice. An indulgence is a remission, in whole or in part, of the temporal punishment due to sin. But let’s save that topic for another time.