Below is my response (with a minor edit or two) to an internet friend's recent blog post: You Are Saved By Your Works
"You Are Saved By Your
Works ... because you're the only
variable in the equation."
The heresy expressed here is call
'Pelagianism'. While
The One True Bureaucracy has *officially* condemned this belief as heresy since
the 5th century, it *also* inculcates the heresy in its adherents, even to this
day. If it helps to ease your mind,
there are also some so-called Protestants who are actually Pelagians, such as
the 'Holiness Movement'.
"I've never understood
the position some Christians take that you can do nothing on your own and you
cannot be saved by your own actions. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but as far
as I can tell, when it comes to salvation, there are only two actors: you and
God. Since He is constant and His Universe is a given for all people
everywhere, the only variable is you, your decisions and your actions.
…
If we
aren't saved by our own actions, then what was the point of free will?"
Does this help? -- You are reasoning
from a dichotomy, false as it turns out, between Pelagianism, on the one hand,
and “ultra Calvinism”, on the other.
The Pelagian position is that one
can become righteous-unto-salvation by one’s own works. Or, put another way, that Christ’s death and
resurrection is superfluous to one’s salvation; that if one has made oneself “good
enough”, then God *owes* one a spot in Heaven, as it were.
The “ultra
Calvinist” position is that human nature is so enslaved to sin that not a one
of us can even so much as *regret* that we sin, much less repent of it;
and thus that only those few in whom God works some mysterious change-of-nature
which over-rides Original Sin can ever repent and be saved.
And, by
the way, IF you were to look into the *reasoning* presented to justify the
Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, you will find that that reasoning is
just “ultra Calvinism”, but applied to a single individual only … despite that
The One True Bureaucracy *officially* condemns Calvinism as heresy.
The *Biblical*
position is that *all* our righteousness is as filthy (menstrual) rags compared
to the perfect (i.e. total/complete) righteousness of God. That is, no matter *how* “good” we are, we
can never be “good enough” to escape Sin/Death (Understand, that sin *is*
capital-D Death).
The *Biblical*
position is that *no one* is good, but only God. Jesus himself asserts this.
The *Biblical*
position is that the only contribution we make to our own salvation is to stop
fighting/rebelling against God.
Or, to put it another way, it’s not so much that repentance of our sin causes or
leads to our salvation, but rather that repentance of our sin allows the sin to
be tossed into Hell without dragging us with it. Sin is Death, and those who do not repent of their sin clutch
their own Death to their breast as being more precious to them than Life
Himself. To truly repent of one’s sin
is to stop refusing to be saved from Death.
Accepting
a freely-given gift is not even on the same plane as earning a reward, much
less on the same axis.
The *Biblical*
position is that “good works” are the result of salvation, not its cause.
“If
we aren't saved by our own actions, then what was the point of free will?"
The point
of free-will is that you are free to open your hands, thereby letting go the
Death which you have been heretofore tightly grasping to your breast, so that
you are free to receive the Life which has always been there for you to
receive.
=====
ADDENDUM: We are not saved by our own works any more than we are damned by our works. You see, from our origin, we are already damned, we are already carriers of the infection of sin and dearth, we are already dying and headed for Death -- this is merely what the doctrine of Original Sin means. Much as people misunderstand what 'Immaculate Conception' (which is false) refers to, most people also misunderstand what 'Original Sin' (which is true) refers to.
Think of it this way: We are not sinners because we commit sins; rather, we commit sins because we are sinners.