For those that believe in the doctrine of sola fide, why is love necessary? If our salvation is by faith alone, and you truly believe that, why bother with love?

Clearly, Jesus Christ commanded us to love. And despite the citation of Romans or Ephesians as prooftexts for salvation by faith (alone), Paul also states in Corinthians that love is greater than faith. And that faith without love is nothing. In Hebrews Paul states that we sould motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And late in Romans that love is the fulfillment of the law, and in Galations that what really matters is faith working through love.

I believe that the message of salvation thru faith has been polluted and made rigid thru the centuries. There are many who claim the Catholic Church believes that works attain our salvation. Nothing is further from the truth. Salvation is by faith, but works are the product of our faith and are a necessary manifestation of our faith. Even Martin Luther seemed to believe this:

“Works are necessary for salvation but they do not cause salvation; for faith alone gives life.”

This is a restatement of Catholic theology. He goes on in his introduction to Romans that saving faith is 'a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever.'

R. C. Sproul seems to concur, 'The relationship of faith and good works is one that may be distinguished but never separated...if good works do not follow from our profession of faith, it is a clear indication that we do not possess justifying faith.'

These themes are echoed throughout the Catechism of the Catholic Church in dozens statements. To post but a few:

183 Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).

620 Our salvation flows from God's initiative of love for us, because "he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins" (1 Jn 4:10). "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).

2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits"- reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

I will gladly admit that many in the Catholic Church have a poor understanding of this concept and are ill-equipped to explain the Church's teaching effectively. But clearly the teachings of the Catholic Church on this subject are NOT so far removed from that of Luther or anyone associated with non-Catholic protestant denominations.

I guess I should also add love is a must from a follower of Christ. Jesus loved radically during his time on earth and we are called to be like our master. He who has been forgiven much loves much.

That is precisely why I made the original post. You are mistaken on your assumption. If you care to read the Catechism from paragraph 1987 forward, the text firmly states repeatedly that justification is solely the gift of God, that Jesus Christ merited salvation for us and that it is a gift given by the Spirit - over and over again. Our works simply are the manifestation of the change in the inner man when we accept Jesus Christ through faith. Paragraph 2010 begins:

Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion.

There should be little or no argument on this point.

Love is necessary because it is the proof of the heart that has been changed.
If you have not been changed you will not love.
But to be changed you must first place your faith in the One who first Loved you.

R C Sproul

Love and its Counterfeit

The key to remember is that we are not saved (brought from darkness to light) by our love for him but by his love for us.
We are saved by placing our faith in his love and by seeing that love we reflect it 1 John 5:3 2 John 2:6 we obey out of love.
1John 4:10 points out “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”
We place our faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and his love for us….we then love other as he did us…we obey because we love.
The Fruit of the Spirit is Love….but the Spirit is not sent to us because we love.

Look at the interaction Of Jesus with sinners….his comments are always regarding their faith…after this interaction we see their response through their love.
The Religious people claimed to have loved God by what they did for him....but refused to place their faith in Jesus.
While the sinners and broken placed their faith in Jesus because of his forgivness and love for them.
How does Jesus tell us to interact with those who have done us wrong?
By first establishing ground rules and gradually loving them as they learn to obey?
How do we forgive….by insuring that they gradually become worth our forgiveness?

As far as Phil 2-12 Paul is in no way telling people to work "for" their salvation but to work "out"....the vs starts with the phrase "as you have always obeyed"
Paul is not talking to men striving to earn anything.... but men who have something that he is telling them to use.
When we read the entire book of Philippians we get a larger picture of what Paul is talking about…It is my belief that Paul is not commending those who love Jesus to strive or work out for their eternal salvation but slavation from temporal dangers and struggles.

Discussing salvation through the medium and form of Jesus Christ is the correct one. But, as that is and will always be as God does credit our personal faith toward Him as a righteous act and righteously so, because God gives a measure of faith as a seed to every man as the Bible states.

The sacrifice that God gave through physically, but not spiritually dying on the Cross of Jesus, at Calvary, does lead many to believe that the gift of salvation from that act has been from eternity potentally extended to the all of mankind.

But, we also know that through the Scriptures of God's holy word that all will not be saved. This reality for us who are by command to love our neighbor as we should love Christ, which is our Banner, and our Standard, for that love shown to others is supposed to be for us, a reality in that when we love our neighbor for the most part unless prompted with some details through the medium of the Holy Spirit, and if not, many times we haven't a clue about them according to their own personal status concerning them being saved through God's grace, or especially even if or when their not saved.

So then, if God really does give a measure of faith as a seed unto every man then why is it that you, or I, might be saved and then ultimately not someone else as anyone who denys, or even betrays Jesus Christ as the same, as Lord and Savior, will die at the appointed time what the Bible calls a second death, after Judgement and sentencing by God?

The Bible does state that salvation through Jesus Christ is a gracious gift from God toward us, and we know through the Holy Bible of the One true God, that this is truth and should be everyone's all over the earth now.

But as this is not the case at the present, what is it that makes the saved in Christ at one point in his, or her life, come to Christ and accept Him as the Lord of one's life, thus attaining eternal life through that earnest pledge toward God, and the public profession of faith if time permits before physical death, and then again not others who will die this,''second death'' at God's own will for them to do so.?

The Bible clearly states in John 3:16 that as most of know that,'' For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever belives upon Him should not perish, but have eternal life.''

And so through this we all should know that God loves all people with a love sometimes for us that surpasses our own natural man's capacity to love and understand our own neighbors with that same kind of love and compassion, but is it possible for us to love our neighbor as our ownselves if Christ the Holy Spirit, or,''One'' does not live on the inside of Us as a matter of residence, and authentication, for us to love other people correctly as God would have it for us, toward that Spirit who resides on the inside of Us first, and then with a return of God's love now magnified toward others through us?

Who is it that decides this process according to any living creature that has ever drawn a breath from the very mouth of God as Spirit ,''In Him,'' as a legal right to heir-ship in God's Kingdom with Christ as Us ,''In Him'' as He is supposed to be in us?

If we as people are to understand that there is absolutely nothing that a man, or a woman can do to be saved, because the Bible does state that this, salvation through Jesus Christ, has nothing to do with our own determination toward salvation such as works, that's any way that we think that this process could work for us through our own determination, then how does this initiation and then flourishing process work concerning who is truly delivered from sin through Christ, and who will to be, or I Am, qualified not?

Well ,the Bible states here again that this is a gift from God to the ones of us who will, and already are, and a curse from God on, and to, the rest of humanity who will not inherit eternal life as we will as shown among other things, approved from God, to be with Him forevermore as Sons of the light, or'' The Enlightenment,'' which is Christ, and justified because we testified correctly at God's own will for us to do so here on earth, a living testamony, and sacrifice ourselves to that light, in which the world looking at that as God's own word about Himself, and Us with Him now, and even for those attempting to thouroghly exaimine it, about being with Us, could not understand it or us, in the true and correct sense in which it was given.

To us.

So, as it is, if we are to stay right here about salvation being a gift from God, and then go back and cover the area about God and all that He can possibly do for us, during this temporary life down here on earth, then these Biblical statements about salvation and or God's love within our own lives, then who will come into God's kingdom as a matter of a possession, and a matter of being a joint-heir with Christ, and with that Mind, can dead-end out, so to speak, or it becoming a thoroughly circular process for many people, who might wonder why me as saved, and then again not someone else, and should this be important to the christian believer in Christ?

Well, the Bible states in the last part of the gospel of Mark about these things, that is as a matter of salvation to as many as might be called of God a most important thing as the Bible calls what we as christians are suppossed to do about it according to the,''Great Commission'' of God and that is to go out into all of the world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ as seed, and seeds, for the Kingdom of Heaven.

But, here again too, no matter how much and fervently that this Great Commission is applied, worked, and re-worked by many as seeds planted for a bountiful harvest for God's kingdom, still many will not come into God's Kingdom as the Bible states that they won't. And the main reason the Bible states that a certain portion of mankind will not, is because of the hardness of their own hearts.

So you see, if this is the correct way of viewing the reason that a man, or a woman, will not come to the full knowledge that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, and eternal life, then there must be a real and valid reason that this is so, and has been that way for some since the first two human beings who fell from God's grace into sin and the inability to commune with God on a personal and physical level.

And according to this, if a person believes that when sin entered into man, that sin had not abounded somewhere else before then, then maybe one should pour back over the Scriptures of God's word and find out what the true origin of the nature of sin really comes from, for sin, is a real and lasting substance just as faith is, or it least it will be that being sin, somewhere away from the saved in Christ and the Kingdom of God throughout eternity in incarceration still residing in the Devil, and Satan, his fallen angels, and all the ones who died without Christ accepting Him as their own personal Lord, and Savior, while still physically alive down here on earth.

So as this is a reality now for some because they now reside spiritually in a holding place where tyhe Bible states that there is and will continue to be a great torment for the dead to Christ and seperated from Him , the Bible states that in that place there will be,''much wailing and the gnashing of teeth,'' and by the description of that punishment, then seeing that God is no respector of persons in the flesh, then why them and not the truly saved in Christ Jesus for all time?

Does this sound like God's love for all people, working for them, that being the unsaved in hell where the,'' fire quencheth not, and the worm dyeth not''?

Thanks,

SAE

I think some folks may be talking past each other. ONLY God can save, it is a gift from him and nothing we can do will save us. All of our works are in vain without His forgiveness. That said I don't disagree with you that we need to get out and do works.

I think Patriarch Jeremiah II summed it up nicely in this 16th Century reply to the Lutherans


The entire reply at the link is worth reading if you are interested in this topic.

I never fonted anything less than it is INDEED a gift from God. My writing had to do with the OPs questions which I think I answered. The Latin 'Sola Fide' has to do with 'by faith alone" idea that once it is done ...it is always and forever more done. I beleive that yes it can be done...but you must give up all your sins ...right the wrongs you have done if possible and DO THEM NO MORE. You can be saved by grace; but TO KEEP IT.....you must act. This is my premise as evidenced by the bible passages and even by Christ himself to the rich man asking what he must do. "Sell all your possessions and follow me." He knew the heart of this man and knew where his shortcomings were. Salvation occurred but was not maintained as he had issues he could not go past.

This thread has been on my mind for a while now in trying to come up with a good answer. I was reading something last night and this scripture hit me and thought it should be posted here. I was looking for something that explained my thoughts on Love as it pertained to the OPs post. As in can you truly have Salvation without Love on your part! I just couldn't come up with the words to write what I was thinking. But I think the scripture in 1 John chapter 4 should suffice...

(1 John 4:7-14 NASB)



(1 John 4:7-14 KJV)


Basically I don't think you could really be saved and not have Love. Sure it might start small but it should grow. I know for many it is a process but for others it is a natural flowing to Love one another as it should be.

 “If you love me, keep my commands." 
John 14:15

“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. 
John 4:23-24

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
John 15:9-12

The essence of our faith is that we BELIEVE and OBEY. I know this is simple, but this is why LOVE is necessary: Because we believe in Jesus and He said so.

1 Cor 13:13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love is greater than faith....something to ponder.

One would think that it is apparent. But, if we are saved by faith, and as many will say 'works are not necessary,' (and for sure, I would agree that works do not win us salvation), then why would there be judgement at all.

And in 2 Corinthians 2:10 what is it we receive for the good or evil we have done. Is Paul speaking of eternal life vs. damnation? Why is a judgement of deeds necessary if we are saved by faith or damned by lack thereof?