Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

Here are my thoughts on the relationship of faith and works with regard to salvation. 

I affirm that no one will be saved by works as a condition for regeneration and salvation (John 3:3; 8:24); The believer gets no credit for faith because there is absolutely no merit in faith since faith is the antithesis of works ( Romans 4:2-5). Faith is the means for receiving not the reason for receiving. Faith is giving up on oneself and placing all hope, in another. Faith is the total abandoment of any and every hope of offering anything on our own to prompt divine favor or establish ourselves before God.  Further, I affirm that faith is God’s condition for receiving salvation but not the condition for the offer of salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9).  

I affirm that faith is a gift of God, but not in the sense that God only gave the gift to some. Faith is a gift from God since it affords man the capacity to believe, possibility of believing, the content of belief, the persuasion of truth, and the enabling of the individual to believe.¹ Had God not freely chosen to both enable and respond to our faith our believing would have no consequence at all.

I disaffirm that faith is works and is not required prior to regeneration and justification. Paul says, “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all“(Romans 4:16). See also Romans 3:27-28, 4:2-5, 10:3-5.

I further disaffirm that salvation is synergistic in any sense in which man is seen as contributing rather than merely receiving. Here, I would agree with the words of J.I. Packer, “Faith is a matter first and foremost of looking outside and away from oneself to Christ and his cross as the sole ground of present forgiveness and future hope.”² Moreover, I disaffirm that salvation by faith can be reduced to meaning “justification by faith” since salvation by faith is used biblically to mean more than merely justification³ (John 1:12, 3:13, 36, 5:24; Acts 16:31; Galatians 3:26; Ephesians 1:13, 2:8-9; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1John 5:1).

Final Topic: Preaching of the Gospel

1. Grace Faith Free Will, Robert E Picirilli p167 [↩]
2. J.I. Packer, What Did the Cross Achieve? (Theological students Fellowship, n.d., booklet reprinted from Tyndale Bulletin 25 [1974], 30. [↩]
3. Some Calvinists have argued that when the Bible speaks of salvation by faith, it is actually speaking of justification, which according to Calvinists comes after regeneration and the irresistible bestowal of faith. [↩]