Is Obedience Necessary For Salvation?

Imagine Adam, Beth, Conrad and Daisy go to an evangelistic event. They hear that God loves them and wants to be in a relationship with them, but their sin has separated them from God. They hear that God still wants that relationship. They hear that God sent Jesus into the world to take their sin on Himself and to die in their place. This is good news. They can be forgiven. They can know God and have eternal life.

Beth, Conrad and Daisy believe that. They want to be reconciled to God, they believe that Jesus died for them, they go forward and pray inviting Jesus into their lives. Adam doesn’t.

Of those four people, how many have been saved? How many are now children of God?

I hope you say three. I am going to bombard you with passages that emphasise belief.

In Acts 16:30-31, Paul and Silas said to the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved – you and all your household.”

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever believes. Anyone can come to Jesus, be forgiven and receive eternal life.

Ephesians 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Titus 3:4-5

But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

READ Romans 3:21-28

It is very, very clear, isn’t it? Our salvation, which Gareth has reminded us, is not just about heaven but starts now, is a gift from God who loves us. All we have to do is have faith in the Saviour, Jesus.

Fast forward to nearer the end of those four people’s lives. Adam has done a lot of good works. Beth has not. She has lived an ungodly life despite her profession of faith in Jesus. Conrad and Daisy have also done a lot of good work. Which ones now will be saved?

What about Adam? Again, the Bible is clear that we are saved by faith and, quite explicitly, not by our works. It is all about our response to Jesus. Maybe Adam was too proud to rely on Jesus and he thought he could save himself by his good works. Let’s not be glib about this. We are saying something very serious. We don’t know people’s hearts, but the information we have suggests that Adam will go to hell.

Acts 4:12

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.

I am assuming we are pretty comfortable about Conrad and Daisy – faith and good works – great.

What about Beth? She heard the gospel message, she believed it, she put her faith in Jesus, but her life didn’t change. Will she be saved? Is that faith enough? We will come back to that.

You then discover that Conrad had done good things but not actually what God had been asking him to do. He had done good works but not God’s work. Only Daisy had sought each day to be obedient to God. Only Daisy had tried to listen to God and do the things He had asked her to do. She hadn’t been perfect at it. She had failed but her heart was to do what God called her to do, and God helped her do that.

Will Conrad be saved? He trusted Jesus and did good things. Or, is obedience necessary for salvation?

Last year we asked if there were topics you wanted us to preach on. One person suggested we preach on some of the harder passages in the Bible, including the one we will consider in a minute. If you Google what the scariest passage in the Bible is, this passage will be the one mentioned most often – the scariest passage in the Bible! It is also controversial. I am not going to tell you who asked for this because I think he is just trying to make trouble, and it wouldn’t be good if we all knew that our session clerk was a trouble-maker. Actually, he thinks we need to grapple with these harder passages. This could be the end my career!

READ Matthew 7:21-23

 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven”. Is obedience necessary for salvation?

This passage is scary because those people clearly expected to be in heaven. They were shocked when Jesus said “No”. “But… but… but, we did all these amazing things in Your name. We prophesied, we drove out demons, we did miracles.” Jesus banished them, said He had never known them and called them “evildoers”. It is blunt. Only those who do God’s will will enter the Kingdom. They had done good things, but it seems they had done their own thing, not what God was wanting. They had done good work, but they hadn’t done God’s work. Like Conrad.

Are we saved by faith alone? Is salvation a gift of God’s grace; something we cannot earn? Or, is obedience necessary for salvation? What does the Bible actually teach?

James 2:14 says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” No, faith without works is dead. He points to Abraham. It was his action, that proved the reality of his faith. The great cry of the Reformation was “faith alone”. James says, “You see that a person is considered righteous by what he/she does and not by faith alone” (2:24).

“Faith alone” said the Reformers but, intriguingly, the only place the Bible uses the phrase “faith alone” it actually says we are not saved by faith alone!

We read from Romans 3: Paul is the great proponent of salvation by grace through faith, but even Paul taught that salvation also depends on obedience. In Romans 2, he said things such as:

·       God will repay each person according to what they have done (v.6)

·       V.7: God gives eternal life to those who persist in seeking glory, honour and immortality by doing good.

·       V.13 - It is not those who hear the law of God who are righteous in God’s eyes, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

This dispute is known as Free Grace versus Lordship Salvation. The Free Grace people say we are saved purely by the grace of God that is freely given. Jesus’ death was all that was needed for our salvation. We can add nothing to it. They would say that even Beth was saved because she expressed faith in Jesus. Ideally, everyone should obey God, but it is not essential. You will be saved even if you are disobedient.

What about Jesus’ words in Matthew 7? They say Jesus talked about doing the will of the Father, but John 6:40, says that the will of God is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life. In other words, when Jesus talked about doing the will of the Father, He was not talking about how we live; he was simply saying we need to believe.

I find that very unconvincing. I think Jesus is clearly talking about how we live. For one thing, these people did seem to believe in Jesus. They called Him “Lord”. They did amazing things in His name. If all that was required was belief, Jesus would have congratulated them. Instead, He condemned them.

Look at the context. This is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is all about how we live not about what we should believe. The Sermon on the Mount calls us to a very high standard of obedience to God. Jesus finished the sermon by saying, “Now put it into practice”.

Immediately prior to this teaching, Jesus had warned people to watch out for false prophets. He said, “You will know them by their fruit”. A person’s actions and the results show what is inside. Does a person have faith? You will tell by their actions.

Just after the teaching about those who say, ‘Lord, Lord”, Jesus told the story of the wise and foolish builders. Both heard Jesus’ words and, no doubt, nodded enthusiastically in agreement. Only one of them put those words into practice - obedience. When the testing came, his house stood; the other man’s did not. The context is all about doing what God has called us to do. Maybe the parable was simply reiterating that only those who do the will of God will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Free Grace people say that all you have to do is believe. The Lordship Salvation people say, “No, you also have to let Jesus be Lord of your life. You have to obey” Who is right?

Matthew 7:21-23 is the scariest passage in the Bible because it challenges lazy Christianity. How many other people (besides the ones in this story) are utterly convinced that they will get into the Kingdom. It’s easy; all you have to do is put your faith in Jesus. Could they, could we, be in for a shock? That is scary!

Easter is four weeks away. We are currently in Lent, which is traditionally a time to pause and reflect. When we look at the Cross, we see the grace of God. We see the lengths God was willing to go to to rescue us. We see the seriousness of sin but Jesus’ willingness to die in our place. We are reminded that Jesus has done everything necessary for our salvation. We worship the God who has loved us that much.

But Lent is also a time to reflect on our response to the grace of God. Yes, God has done everything. We can add nothing to it, but our response will show our love for Him. If we have been saved by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus, the natural response will be love for our Saviour. Jesus said, several times,
“If you love me, you will obey my commands.” The natural, Holy Spirit-motivated response is obedience. I want to honour the person who died for me with a life of obedience.

More than that, if it is our desire to obey Jesus – to be listening, to be responding, to be about the work we have been commissioned to do – God, by His grace will also help us to do it.

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If we mess up, God is very forgiving. He just needs us to say we want to obey and we hate it when we fail. We are saved by God’s grace but equally, we are sustained by God’s grace.

We become children of God simply by believing in Jesus. We can do nothing to earn that. It is a gift of God’s grace. But the response required from us is obedience. We are not saved by our works, but we are saved to work. We read Ephesians 2:8-9 before but notice v.10.

Ephesians 2:8-10

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We have been created to do good works that God has already prepared for each one of us to do. What if we don’t do them? That is the question. What does the Bible say about people who claim to be Christians but are not doing the works that God has prepared for them? Can we be disobedient and still be saved? What does the Bible say? Are there some hard truths that we need to take onboard if we are to be saved – if we are not to get the shock that the people in Matthew 7 did? 

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