Here’s an old discussion forum post of mine, slightly edited to fit the blog genre better.
I’ve seen several people in online discussions about faith suggest that the true or best test of whether someone has a “saving faith” (or whatever you might rather have it called) is in whether you see the effects of that faith played out in their lives. In other words, they suggest that if the faith is really there, it will lead to the good “fruit” of godly behavior.
Well, I agree with that fully. (And it seems quite obvious to me that Jesus does, too, by the way.) But here’s what I don’t get. A lot of these same people seem to draw the line at the idea that God would judge believers based on this same exact principle. That is, that he might not grant them eternal life because they didn’t authentically demonstrate the faith they claimed to have in him. They can’t abide a verse like this one without trying to twist it away from its plain meaning:
Revelation 3:1 ….I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
They will strain for a way to make this somehow be something other than Jesus warning of a nearing condemnation over the incomplete status of human deeds. And they do the same with many other passages that speak to this topic as well.
But here’s the really freaky part: Those same people are the ones who go around saying, “The proof’s in the pudding.” So it’s as if they understand the principle, but want to deny that God himself adopts this principle. Let me say that again: It’s as if they understand the principle, but want to deny that God himself adopts this principle.
And they cheat. A lot. If you ask the question, “Are there any behaviors that God requires of a believer before he will grant them eternal life?”, they’re going to twist that question into a question they’d rather discuss instead. They’ll turn it into: “Can you earn your salvation?” And to that, they’ll give you a dogmatic, “NO!!!” in response.
But these are not the same questions, of course:
- “Are there any behaviors that God requires of a believer before he will grant them eternal life?”
- “Can you earn your salvation?”
To suggest or imply that these questions are practical equivalents is to cheat in one’s reasoning. Whether they realize that’s what they’re doing or not, they’re cheating. You know, if you win Powerball, they don’t track you down and bring the money to your house. Rather, they require that you initiate a claim and go through the process of proving that you are the rightful winner. Now let me be clear that I’m not saying that there’s any strong resemblance between being granted eternal life and winning Powerball. But I mention it as an example to show that we are quite used to the need to DO STUFF in order to get what we want.
But does that Powerball winner “earn his winnings” by filing a claim and showing his ticket? Of course not. Nor did he “earn” it by the 2 or 3 dollars he put into the venture. And again, I’m not saying that Powerball and eternal life are the same thing. What I’m pointing out is that when we think about a mundane matter like a lottery, nobody gets a bur under his saddle about whether Billy believes in winning-by-works or a winning-by-luck. But when it comes to the question of eternal life or what a lot of people like to call “salvation”, they feel compelled to snatch off their everyday thinking cap and to put on this special thinking cap for this one particular topic.
They’re cheating, of course, but that’s what they do.
Now, to be fair, they do have a few champion one-liners from the texts that they like to use to support their witch hunt against whomever they consider to be salvation-earners. But to use these passages as they do, they have to ignore many other passages in which is sure does seem, at a plain reading, that God completely agrees with them that “the proof’s in the pudding.” They’ll read a passage like this, and assume that it must not apply to them:
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.If you press them, they will actually tell you that the Christian gets a pass in this meeting—and perhaps even that Jesus himself will consider on their account only his OWN deeds, and not the deeds of the person standing before the judgment seat.
Here’s another passage they will ignore as not pertaining to them:
Matthew 12:35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
And if you press them on it, they’ll often come up with something like, “Uh, well, see, the account I will give is this: I will claim the blood of Jesus in my defense.” (It’s the same trick, basically, as what they do with 2 Corinthians 5:10 above.) So they develop a position of incorrigibility—one of exemption from the same moral code that Jesus condemns the rest of the world for violating. In other words, they insist that Jesus himself—after having given all these warnings and condemnations that he gave—didn’t really mean it after all, and that all he really wants is pudding that claims to be pudding, whether the proof’s in it or not. Never mind that he made really radical and consequence-heavy statements like this one:
Luke 6:46 “Why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but don’t do what I tell you?
The way I read it, in that passage, Jesus is unequivocally and unambiguously implying that he is not really their Lord—or perhaps more to the point, that they have not really submitted themselves to his lordship over them. It sure seems to me here that he’s saying, “Uh, you say you’re pudding, but I see no proof of it in you.”
He goes on, of course, and tells of a “great crash” in store for those who would continue on not doing what he says:
Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.[c] 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
But this, too, is ignored—even by so many of these proof-in-the-pudding people.
To hold the proof-in-the-pudding position while also holding that God and Jesus will not judge this way—that’s just messed up. It’s logically incoherent. It’s irrational. And it’s quite obviously dishonest and irresponsible when all the scriptures are in view. Sure, maybe somebody believes this erroneous position because they’re just getting the approved bullet points of the church’s What We Believe page. But if they’re actually giving careful thought to all the Bible’s discussion of this topic, and they still think that God doesn’t also think that the proof’s in the pudding, then they are certainly irrational, and most likely immoral in their thinking.
In the Bible, God seems to hold people accountable both for what they know, and for what they should know based on the information available to them.
John 13:17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
James 4:17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Matthew 22:31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:….?
Mark 12:10 have you not read this Scripture: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
Where in all the accounts did anybody ever answer Jesus–as moderns tend to do–“Lord, I don’t need to know these things, for I have a saving faith in you.” Or, “Lord I don’t need to do any of these works because I have a saving faith in you.”?
Some might have thought it, but I don’t see anybody in the Bible stories bold enough to say it to his face. And perhaps that’s because, deep down, they all knew it was false. (No, I can’t prove that.)
Some proof-in-the-pudding people don’t seem to have any trouble at all submitting to the truth that God will indeed judge them based on that proof. Others, however, stridently object to that truth. They are like the Jews that Paul was speaking about here:
Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
If you won’t submit to God’s role as the judge of your soul, and if the problem is ignorance, then you need to study the whole counsel of scripture on this subject. You can’t submit to the truth of a matter if you don’t yet understand the truth of the matter. If your problem is that you know what all it says, and you just don’t like it—well, you’re in utter rebellion to God’s authority, and you’re just being stupid. He goes out of his way at both the beginning (Chapters 2 and 3) and the end (Chapters 21 and 22) of the Revelation to warn people both of the sins of commission and of omission that will disqualify them for eternal life in the Heavenly Jerusalem. It’s a matter of record, and only the fool chooses to ignore it. And surely the Author is no fool.
Jesus is not a Get Out of Jail FREE card for the ungodly—and contrary to popular opinion, just believing that Jesus raised from the dead does not by itself make someone godly. In another thread I asked which problem is more important—that the unsaved are not saved, or that the ungodly are not godly. Many focus on the salvation as more important—and that seems to match the set of errors that lead people to the double-minded belief that the proof’s in the pudding, but that Jesus won’t take that proof (or the lack of it) into account. You can’t have Jesus if you won’t allow him to be the judge of your conduct as he claims to be. The two go together and are inseparable. Those who reject his godliness have no claim to his eternal life.
Part of the reason that many stumble in this way is that they think that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was done to rescue them from God’s righteous requirements. This couldn’t be further from the truth. To the contrary:
Romans 8:3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
If he “condemned” sin, why would he tolerate it in those he wants to bless with eternal life? And if the righteous requirements of the Law of Moses were to be “fully met” in the Christians, what makes us think we’re Christians if we’re not diligently trying to fully meet them ourselves? No, whatever the cross was about, it was not about suspending the rules of righteousness so that the unrighteous could get into heaven in spite of themselves. Hence, the massive message of repentance all throughout the writings.
The kingdom of God is not a matter of mere talk, but of power, it was written. Why, then, do so many talk so very, very much about “faith” and “believing loyalty” and such, while demonstrating so very little of the power to lead godly lives? Think about this.
And do not those same people also tend in their rhetoric to defend the ungodly against the actual warnings of Jesus? How ironic that so many cling so desperately to the whole “I’m a worm” business, celebrating their low state and doing little to improve it, as if they think that the call of Jesus is to grovel in helpless wormhood, rather than to “overcome”. And among them, it is typical to find talk of a super-heavy reliance upon the indwelling Holy Spirit of Yahweh. Do they then claim the Spirit’s power to overcome—to mature, to repent, to grow, to change, and to be made new by the renewing of their minds? Nope. They still cling to the “I’m a worm” mindset, and they “claim his grace” for their plea—as if it was ever his intention to grant the Holy Spirit to keep the believers wallowing in helplessness. This, too, is double-mindedness. They want the grace of the Spirit, but not its fruit, just as they want the faith, but not its responsibilities. They do not realize it (probably), but they make a mockery of the gospel and of Jesus–and of their own lives. It is a tragic thinking error, made by millions and millions of believers whose downfall lies in the fact that they do not want to be righteous in reality, even if they might like for God to pretend they were.
