08/28/22 IT MAY NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS

08/28/22 IT MAY NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS

Be careful: some phrases sound right, but they aren't necessarily true, such as "saved by grace alone." What about God, faith, atonement, resurrection? Are we saved without God, faith, atonement, resurrection? Of course not. Therefore the phrase cannot be an all inclusive truth. Therefore we need to understand the danger of such a phrase.

The phrase, "saved by grace alone" is a backdoor way of saying that works of righteousness by faith are actually works of the flesh and works of the devil. Not only does the phrase point out the danger of adding human effort or human invention to grace, it leads people to the false conclusion that good works are opposed to grace, when in reality, good works are the proof of saving grace.

The appeal to, "saved by grace alone," is also used to promote the fallacious idea that salvation has only a Divine side, in other words it is used to promote that there is no human side to salvation. Those folks do not believe that faith, repentance, confession and submission have anything to do with our salvation. Those misinformed folks then think that we are saved by a unilateral, unconditional, limited, irreversible divine salvation, BY GRACE ALONE.

NO ONE IS SAVED BY GOOD WORKS, true, but salvation that does not produce good works is not the salvation of God. After all, salvation is salvation from sin, from unrighteousness, from lawlessness, from disobeying the known will of God, from transgression, from doubt, from submission to darkness, submission to the devil, submission to the world, submission to the flesh.

In a well defined, explained way, the phrase may be true, but without those explanations, the phrase confuses the mind, blurs the truth and contradicts the salvific work of God.

Denying the phrase, "we are saved by grace alone" is not the same as asserting that "we are saved by grace and works," or, "we are saved by works of the flesh," or, "we are saved by any human invention."

We are not saved by grace without faith, we are not saved by grace without repentance, we are not saved by grace without confession, we are not saved by grace without submission.

We are not saved by faith without grace. We are not saved by repentance or confession or submission without grace.

We believe, confess, repent, submit because of God's grace, but God does not save anyone one who refuses to believe, confess, repent, submit.

Grace that does not believe, confess, repent and submit is not the grace of God.