Scott Price

Eph 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (ESV)

Titus 3:5-7 "he (God our Savior v-4) saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace..." (ESV)

The word of God is clear in many places that nobody is, or even can be, saved by works. It is an impossibility. But there is a wide array of opinions about what are unacceptable works for salvation. Once people enter into the conversation on this topic many inconsistencies follow. It seems there are many things that people count on and trust in to save them even without knowing that they are doing it. In a word this is called deception.

In defining a work we must mention that works are something that are conditions. They are something that, when done, these works themselves are what makes the difference whether a person goes to heaven or hell.

Those totally ignorant of the Bible or unchurched might say a person gets to heaven by being good or by keeping the 10 commandments to get to heaven. But then you spend a little time explaining what God's word says about the Law and the conscience is squeezed enough to readily admit they do not keep the Law.

At this point many would claim sincerity as a major contribution as getting to heaven. Many religious people will tell you that ignorance of the truth and sincerity seems to excuse unbelief. A man once told me that God will only expect anyone just to do the best they can. The next logical question I asked this unbeliever was if he did the best he could. Before he could answer I followed up with asking if he did the best he could all of the time. Of course he failed his own test for entrance to heaven. This is just one of the many inconsistencies I mentioned earlier.

All the levels of deception in counting on works for one's salvation must be considered to be self righteousness. Because it sounds so bad hardly anyone will admit that are self righteous of even has been. Self righteousness is the most deceiving and evil of all sins. It is the root of unbelief. It is a tool Satan uses to make people think they will be accepted by God in doing some kind of work whether it be great or small.

The next level of deception and probably the most popular is making faith a work. The act of believing, or at least what one considers believing, is most often considered a work. They key to understanding this master deception is to realize where faith is directed. If faith is directed to itself, like in most cases, then it is an evil work that will be rejected at Judgment Day.

God-given faith, the kind the word of God speaks of, is directed toward the LORD Jesus Christ alone. Faith looks to Christ NOT as a condition for salvation, but rather to Christ who fulfilled all the conditions Himself in salvation. This faith is not an offer either as something to "accept or reject." Faith is commanded of God not offered by Him. There are consequences attached to unbelief.

Most people think that faith is brought out from within themselves, something that they can be credited for. They describe this by saying it comes from the freely or based on what they call "freewill." Only people who are ignorant of the basic teaching of Man's sinful nature will use such language. Unbelief and self righteousness is the automatic response of Man unless or until the LORD intervenes with grace to change the heart and mind of a sinner.

There are two works many people count on is even more subtle, which are related to the faith as an offer or "freewill" deception. They are the twin works of cooperation and enablement. Some think that God tries to convince the sinner of salvation and the sinner cooperated with God to fulfill whatever conditions He requires. The other related work is that God actually works in the sinner and gives the ability to them allowing them the divine energy to fulfill certain conditions demanded but in the end the sinner gets the credit for acting based on his doing or at least the will to do what they do.

Many of these things are based on a system of grace PLUS works. It is a deception that Satan uses that detracts and distracts from the grace of Christ. Anyone whose faith is directed toward something else besides the finished work of Christ alone for salvation does not have salvation. If they are trusting in a work of their own added to the work of Christ this only means Christ had an unfinished work waiting for the sinner to add a condition to complete it. This is not the gospel of Christ but rather a deception.