Not All Who Say, "Lord, Lord!"

Occasionally, I run into people online debating the centuries-old argument of works vs. faith.

To a degree, this seems to me like people debating two sides of the same coin, or the old blind men describing the elephant, where the one holding his sail-like ears cannot agree with the one holding his truck-like legs, his hose-like nose, or his rope-like tail.

Long may the discussion continue.

It isn’t an issue that my church discusses, so this has all been new to me. People seem to throw quotes from James and Paul back and forth, but no one I saw was quoting Jesus. So I thought I would go take a look on what Our Lord said on the issue.

Since it is, fundamentally, a discussion about how to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, I thought I would look at what Our Lord has to say on the topic:

First, Matthew 7: 21-23

²¹ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
²² Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

²³ And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Hmm..

This seems to favor faith over works, because it lists “many wonderful works” as done by those who fail the test.

Next, in Matthew 25:

31  ¶ When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32  And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33  And he shall ...
34  Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35  For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36  Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38  When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39  Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41  Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42  For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43  I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44  Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45  Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46  And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Feed, cloth, visit in prison—all the things here sound like works—works that the King is judging us by when deciding whether or not to allow us through the Pearly Gates.

So far we are one-to-one.

One argument I have heard in favor of faith-alone is that doing works is like the Pharisees acting in strict accordance with the law. And Jesus objected to that.

This argument seems weak to me. Using the law to justify why you DON’T have to do good works for the poor, etc. is entirely the opposite of saying that you must both have faith and live your faith through your actions.

So we are still one-to-one.

There is one particular faith-alone argument that I find utterly baffling. That is when someone says: “Oh, I accepted Jesus, so it doesn’t matter what I do now. I can lie, steal, commit adultery, or murder a pure innocent, even an unborn child, and it won’t matter.”

This idea is so baffling—so the opposite of everything in the Bible—that I cannot imagine how anyone could come to such a conclusion. Jesus said we would know his disciples by their fruits and by their love for one another. Committing adultery, stealing, and murdering hardly seem like a way to show our love to one another.

If this rule was true, once you confess Jesus once, you can never be lost. If this were the case, why Matthew 7:14:

14  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Why would the way be straight and narrow? Why would staying on the path to reach Heaven be hard—if all that was required was to surrender to Christ once?

But, again, let’s see what the Master says in Matthew 13:

3  And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4  And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5  Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6  And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
7  And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8  But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
9  Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
…
18  ¶ Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
19  When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
20  But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
21  Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
22  He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
23  But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

So, clearly, according to Jesus, there are some who believe for a time and then fall away. Surely, Christ would not describe someone as good soil if they were going around calling themselves his follower but did not understand his teachings well enough to choose to live the way he requested people live.

One of the arguments in favor of this idea of saved once/saved always is John 10:28-29:

28  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

My husband once asked a priest friend over lunch about this issue. He quoted this verse and asked how a person who had been saved could be lost.

The priest thought about it a bit and said that it may be that no man can pluck you out of God’s hand, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t jump out.”

God makes many, many promises to the Israelites, but He always makes it clear that they have to keep their side of the Covenant. When they don’t, it’s off to Babylon!

Or, in the case of Solomon—his transgressions, after God spoke to him personally twice—lose his descendants most of the kingdom. God kept his promise to David by letting them keep Judah, but the rest is taken away due to Solomon’s iniquity.

And before you argue “Oh, that’s the Old. Now we have Christ,” John records very similar things in the letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation.

So, there is great precedence for the notion that just professing your faith once is not all that is needed. This, however, does not resolve the greater issue.

So which is it? Faith or works?

Obviously, none of us will truly know while in this world, as much as we may feel in our heart that one or the other answer is true, but I wonder if the whole question is…well, like the old blind men and the elephant.

I know that story mentioned above, of the old blind men arguing over the nature of an elephant, because my father told it to me. He was a Buddhist when I was growing up, and he would share with me the Buddhist koans—the riddle-like questions they meditate upon. One that he used to repeat had to do with the thirty-two marks (characteristics) of the Buddha.

I am afraid I cannot recall the elegant wording, but it basically went: The Buddha has thirty-two marks, but those thirty-two marks do not make a Buddha.

The meaning of this, as explained to me, was: if a man who has become enlightened all have the same thirty-two characteristics, merely having these thirty-two characteristics does not mean you are enlightened.

You don’t become enlightened just because you copy the thirty-two marks.

How does this apply? It may be that the question of faith and works is a similar one.

If a man who listened to Christ’s teaching and took them into his heart then goes to feed the hungry and tend the sick, it does not mean that feeding the hungry and tending the sick makes you a follower of Christ.

Like the characteristics that mark a Buddha being present when the Buddha is present, a man who has the light of Christ in his heart may act in a kind and virtuous fashion—but aping his actions, following the form of them, without having faith in your heart—would not make you a true follower of Christ.

So to the man who claims faith but does not do the things listed in Matthew 25, Jesus says “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.”

And, yet, to the man who does “many wonderful works” mentioned in Matthew 7, but who does not have the proper faith, he says, “ I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

If we love Christ with “all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself,” this will naturally lead us to do the things mentioned in Matthew 25.

At that point, it will not matter if faith or works are needed, for we will have both.