Good Works Do Not Save You; It Is That Simple (Law & Gospel In Laymen's Terms)

Thesis X Of Walther's Law and Gospel In Laymen's Terms


Good works do not save a person.  It is that simple.  If this were so, everything would depend on your efforts and abilities.  No, you are saved by grace through faith!  Yes, without faith you cannot be saved.  But what kind of faith you may ask?  A faith that shows itself by good works?  Be careful here now.  It is so easy to qualify the idea of faith and bleed works righteousness back into faith.  The old nature would want nothing more than to be able to take credit for faith.  Faith saves not because of the love which spring from it.  Faith saves because it clings to and receives the promises of Jesus.  Do you hear the difference.  The first one says that faith save because of the loves that comes forth from it.  The second says that faith saves because of the object of faith, that being Jesus?  The first idea of faith leads one to qualify faith upon good works and the second leads one to qualify faith upon Jesus.  


But what about good works?  The believer engages in good works, not from a sense of duty or in a return for the forgiveness of sin, but mainly because he cannot help doing them.  Good works are not prescriptive for salvation but are descriptive of salvation.