Wednesday, August 19, 2020

By grace, through faith, yes. But what does that entail?

In short, we cannot say in an unqualified fashion that final salvation is by grace and by faith apart from embodied obedience, for this misunderstands the nature of both charis (“grace”) and pistis (“faith”) in antiquity and in Paul’s Letters. We must recognize the bankruptcy of our current selves, especially our self—centered indulgences and ambitions. Through participation in the Christ’s death and resurrection, we must die to our old selves with the Messiah and become new selves, and in so doing follow the road of obedient service that our Lord commands by enacting allegiance. For Paul “faith” recognizes we are utterly dead and totally undeserving of God’s grace, but the grasping of God’s life-from-the—dead grace demands a trajectory of loyal obedience.—Matthew Bates in Salvation by Allegiance Alone, 105

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