New Testament 277

Last updated on: October 25, 2015 at 11:17 am by Dan Peterson

A pair of scissors — “Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.” (C. S. Lewis)

Compare Luke 7:29-30

A simple observation: Someone setting out to demonstrate the Protestant teaching of salvation by grace alone, without works — sola fide, sola gratia — would, I think, have a very difficult time doing so solely from the teachings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the four New Testament gospels.

You can’t find it in this passage. You can’t really find it anywhere else in the gospels, either. For that matter, I don’t believe that you can find it in Paul. Not in the way that many of our Evangelical brothers and sisters think they can.

That said, we also shouldn’t understate the importance of divine grace in salvation. There’s a temptation to overcompensate when responding to exaggerated distortions, in this as in other matters both theological and non-theological. It can lead to equal and opposite errors.

Posted from San Francisco, California