Apologetics for the Masses - Issue #113

General Comments

Hey folks, a quick word about Facebook. A whole bunch of you (a whole bunch!) have recently discovered that I have a Facebook account. I got onto Facebook for the sole reason of being able to track down classmates from my high school graduating class – I’m the Chairman of our Reunion Search Committee. It’s not something that I’m big into or that I even understand all that well. For example, I don’t understand things like posting comments letting everyone know that you’re drinking a cup of coffee or watching television or going to bed or some such thing. That kind of thing is antithetical to my nature.

Anyway, when I started receiving “Friend requests” from all sorts of people I didn’t know, I couldn’t figure out why these people wanted to, as Mr. Rogers said, “be my friend.” Was this a standard thing on Facebook…folks you don’t know wanting to be your friend? Then, because I started to recognize some of the names and because I happened across the Facebook group “John Martignoni & BCS: Apologetics with a Southern Accent,”, which was not started by me, I realized that all these folks knew me through the Bible Christian Society (I can be a little slow at times).

So, what I want to say about all of that here is that I hope you’ll understand my desire to keep my personal Facebook account separate from the Bible Christian Society “world” so as to allow me some separation of my private and public worlds.

I am open to suggestions, though, as to how I could use Facebook to interact more, or to “get the word out” more. Is it possible to have more than one account on Facebook? I could maybe have my current account and then another account for the “world” of the Bible Christian Society. Or, is there a way to make use of that group I mentioned above, “John Martignoni & BCS: Apologetics with a Southern Accent” – which I just recently joined? Maybe that’s the way to go with all of this?

In other words,I’m open to being schooled on how to best use Facebook to better interact with you and to better get the message of the Bible Christian Society out there. What do you think?

Back to the newsletters: once again, thank you for all the comments, editing suggestions, etc. regarding last week’s newsletter. Many of your suggestions will appear in the final versions of these chapters. I’m sorry if I can’t respond to each of you individually, but there are just too many emails coming in to allow me to do that. But, again, I am reading and considering all of them.

I’ll be speaking to a youth group at a Methodist church in Huntsville, AL next weekend, but other than that, no speaking engagements on my calendar until April 19th when I speak at a pro-life conference at the Univ. of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

If anyone would like to have me come in to speak to your parish, please float the idea with your pastor and then get in touch with me. My standard fee is $950 per night (plus expenses) – which makes me one of the least expensive speakers out there.

Introduction

This week I’ll be getting into chapter 4 of the book. This chapter is on Sola Fide – Salvation by Faith Alone. Below is the perspective provided by logic. Next week I plan on having the perspectives provided by history and by Scripture.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Chapter 4

Sola Fide – Salvation By Faith Alone?

The doctrine of Sola Fide – or Faith Alone – is one of the two pillars of Protestantism. Sola Scriptura, as we discussed in chapter 3, is the other. Sola Fide, the belief that faith alone saves us – that works play no role in our salvation whatsoever – is a belief held by the vast majority of Protestants, but it is not a universal Protestant belief. I have run across those in the Protestant camp who do in fact believe that works play a role in our salvation; however, these folks, from my experience, definitely hold a minority view in Protestantism.

I have often heard the doctrine of Sola Fide expressed in this way: We are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It is God’s grace alone that saves us, but we have access to that grace only through faith alone…faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and that it is His actions, and His alone, that play any role in our salvation. No works that we do can ever play a role in our salvation.

A person is said to be saved by faith alone when they make a profession of faith in Christ, either through a “sinner’s prayer” or by accepting Jesus Christ into their heart as their “personal Lord and Savior.” Once that is done, if it is a “sincere” profession of faith, then that person is “saved,” they have been “born again.”

An almost necessary corollary to this doctrine is the doctrine of once saved, always saved. I will talk in depth on this in the next chapter, but suffice it to say that the belief of once saved, always saved, flows naturally from the Sola Fide logic in that, if there is nothing we can “do” to be saved, then there is nothing we can do to be unsaved. So, once we’ve accepted Jesus into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior, there is then nothing else that can ever have any impact our eternal destination. Our ticket to Heaven has been punched. We now have “eternal security” that our names have been forever written in the Book of Life.

Now, before delving deeper into the doctrine of Sola Fide, I want to briefly summarize the Catholic belief in salvation. Catholics also believe that we are saved by God’s grace alone, and nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in our belief and practice of infant baptism. The infant can do absolutely nothing that would affect his or her salvation – whether an act of faith or any works. Yet, through Baptism, this infant is saved…saved by the grace of God alone.

So, again, Catholics believe we are saved by God’s grace alone. However, we also believe that God’s free gift of His grace calls for a response from us – a twofold response of faith and works, as opposed to the Sola Fide belief that God’s grace calls for a response of faith alone. A very good scriptural summary of Catholic belief can be found in Galatians 5:6, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.” Faith working through love. Faith and works…both by the grace of God.

Now, back to Sola Fide. I want to do with Sola Fide what I did with Sola Scriptura – approach this doctrine from the perspectives provided by logic, history, and Scripture:

The Perspective Provided by Logic:

Sola Fide believers say that there is nothing we can do to impact our salvation. Jesus did all that needed to be done for us through His death on the cross. I have heard over and over and over again that we can do nothing to “add” to Jesus’ finished work on the cross. “After all,” Sola Fide folks say, “Jesus Himself said from the cross, ‘It is finished,’ so that means there is nothing else that needs to be done.”

First, and I’ll cover this particular argument more in depth under the “Perspective Provided by Scripture,” to give those particular words of Jesus from the cross a Sola Fide interpretation, is just that…an interpretation. And it’s a bad interpretation.

Next, if Jesus has done everything that needs to be done in order for us to be saved, if there is nothing that we can “add” to Jesus’ death on the cross that counts towards our salvation, then you have to assume that everyone is saved – no exceptions. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, New-Agers, and even atheists are all saved.

Think about that for a moment: According to the doctrine of Sola Fide, Jesus did all that is necessary for me to be saved. There is nothing that I can “do” that counts towards my salvation. There is nothing that I can “add” to Jesus’ “finished work” on the cross that counts towards my salvation. If everything that needed to be done in order for me to be saved was finished two thousand years ago; and if there is nothing that I, nor anyone else, can do which could add to what Jesus has already done, then I’m saved…and so is everyone else. Universal salvation thanks to Jesus’ finished work on the cross!

“Wait a minute,” the Sola Fide folks say, “you have to believe…you have to have faith in Christ in order to be saved.” “Wait a minute,” I respond, “if the work of my salvation is already completed, then what does believing do for me? Hasn’t Christ already done all that needs to be done for me to be saved?” Here is where the logic of Sola Fide has a problem. We have to “do” something – profess belief; make an act of faith – to be saved, but they cannot call this something we have to “do,” a work. After all, that would be against their religion. So, they’ll say that believing isn’t a work, it’s merely an act of faith in someone else’s – Jesus’ – work.

Believing isn’t a work? Do I not have to confess Jesus? Do I not have to make an act of faith? Do I not have to accept Jesus into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior. Are not these things actions that have to take place in order for me to be saved? Are they not things that have to be done in order for me to be saved? What is a work if not an action that someone does? Believing is an action. It is something we do. Saying a sinner’s prayer is an action. Confessing Jesus with our lips is an action. Believing is indeed a work…an action…it is something that needs to be done in order for one to be saved. Furthermore, it is a work that I do…Jesus doesn’t do it for me.

To illustrate all of this, let’s say that as of March 10, 2008, I had never accepted Jesus into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior. I had never said a sinner’s prayer. I had never been born again. Would I be saved? “No,” says the Sola Fide believer. But, if Jesus did all that needed to be done for my salvation, and that happened two thousand years ago, then why am I not saved? If the work of salvation is “finished,” and there is nothing that I have to do, or can do, that counts towards my salvation, why am I not saved? What work has been left undone that keeps my name from being written in the Book of Life?

To continue the example, let’s say that on March 11, 2008, I answered an altar call and “came to Christ.” On March 11, 2008, I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior! On March 11, 2008, I said a sinner’s prayer and asked God to forgive me of my many sins. Would I be saved? “Yes,” says the Sola Fide believer.

Now I’m really confused. I was unsaved on March 10, 2008. I was “saved” on March 11, 2008. What was the difference between my being unsaved on March 10 and my being saved on March 11? Was it something I did, or was it something that Jesus did? Well, according to the doctrine of Sola Fide, Jesus’ work was finished two thousand years ago on the cross. “It is finished,” He said. So, it can’t be something Jesus did.

On the other hand, according to the doctrine of Sola Fide, there is nothing that I can do during my lifetime that counts towards my salvation. Everything that needed to be done for my salvation was done by Jesus two thousand years ago on the cross. So, it cannot be something that I did. How then was I unsaved on March 10 and saved on March 11, 2008?

This is the logical dilemma of the folks who believe in Sola Fide. A logical dilemma that results from a bad interpretation of Jesus’ words on the cross (as well as other Scriptures) and from the logic of Sola Fide that absolutely requires them to hold fast to the illogical assertion that the act of believing is not, in and of itself, a work.

I often ask people to draw a big circle on a piece of paper. I then tell them that circle represents all those who were redeemed by Christ’s death on the cross. In other words, the circle represents all of humanity, because Jesus died that all men might be saved. He paid the price for all men’s sins, whether any given individual accepts that or not.

Next, I ask them to draw a smaller circle within the first circle. I tell them that this second circle represents those who have not only been redeemed, but who have also been saved. Which means that those outside of that second circle represent the redeemed and unsaved. I then ask, “What is the difference between the two circles – between the redeemed and unsaved and the redeemed and saved – is it something Jesus did, or is it something that the saved did?”

I can almost hear the first thought through their heads, “It’s something the saved did.” I know they’re thinking that because they generally give me this really strange look as they grasp for an “appropriate” response. They know they can’t say it’s something Jesus did, because they have just finished telling me that Jesus’ work was finished on the cross some two thousand years ago. Plus, 1 Tim 2:4 tells us that God wants all men to be saved. So, the difference between the saved and unsaved cannot be something Jesus did – He did the same thing for all men so that all men could be saved.

They also realize, however, that they cannot answer the question by saying it’s something the saved did, because they also just finished telling me that we can do nothing to effect our salvation. We can do nothing that impacts our salvation. Jesus did all that needs to be done.

The answer to the question, however, is obvious. Both groups are redeemed. Jesus has already died for both groups of people. So the only possible difference between the redeemed and unsaved and the redeemed and saved, is something the saved “do”. Now, they do it by the grace of God, but they do it and the unsaved don’t do it. They confess their sins. They ask for forgiveness. They make an act of faith. They say a sinner’s prayer. They accept Jesus into their hearts as their personal Lord and Savior.

All of these are things that each individual believer does. They are verbs…action verbs. They are “acts” of faith. They are “acts” of believing. They involve our body, our mind, and our will. We “confess” with our lips that Jesus is Lord. We “accept” Him into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior. It is an act of the mind to understand that Jesus is Lord and Savior. It is an act of the will to accept that understanding and have it give our lives meaning. We “make” a commitment to Christ.

This is the true irony of the doctrine of Sola Fide, the very act of having faith, the act of believing, is a work (which I’ll also back up with Scripture in the “Perspective Provided by Scripture" section). It is something we do. We do it by the grace of God, but we indeed do it. It is not forced upon us, it is a decision we make. It is not done on our behalf without our involvement, but rather it is done through our cooperation with God’s grace. As one of the saints said, “God created us without our consent, but He will not save us without our consent.”

So, the doctrine of Sola Fide is a logical contradiction. You cannot have faith “alone,” when the act of having faith is a work in and of itself. It is something the believer does that sets him apart from the unbeliever.

Questions to Ask:

1) Was the work of our salvation “finished” with Jesus’ death on the cross? Yes or no?

2) Did Jesus death on the cross pay the price for all men’s sins? Yes or no?

3) If, “yes,” then that means that all men are redeemed, but not all men are saved. Which means you have some who are redeemed and saved, and some who are redeemed and unsaved. Is the difference between these two groups – the redeemed and saved and the redeemed and unsaved – something that Jesus did, or something that the saved did?

Strategy: How to be Offensive (Aw-fensive) Without Being Offensive (Uh-fensive). Normally, I don’t get an answer when I ask Sola Fide folks the question about the difference between the redeemed and unsaved and the redeemed and saved. They simply start talking about something else and no matter how many times I come back to the question, I simply do not get a straight answer.

One time, however, when I used the particular illustration of the circle within a circle, I worded it using the terms “set” and “subset.” “This [the first circle] is the set of all the redeemed and this [the inner circle] is the subset of the redeemed and saved. What is the difference between the two, is it something Jesus did or is it something the saved did?” This particular gentleman looked at the paper for a few seconds and then he looked at me and said, “Salvation has nothing to do with sets and subsets,” and immediately proceeded to change the topic.

In Conclusion

As always, comments are welcome and all will be read and taken into consideration.

Hope you have a great week!

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