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Can a Person be Saved
without Repenting of Sin?
Can a Person stay Saved
while practicing Sin?
"For by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH;
and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as
result of WORKS, so that no one may boast. For we are
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for GOOD WORKS,
which God PREPARED BEFOREHAND so that we would WALK IN
THEM." (Ephesians 2:8-10)
The Bible makes it clear that you can only be saved by
God's grace by putting your faith in the sacrifice of
Jesus not in your own righteous deeds. The Scriptures
assert that all have sinned and are guilty before God.
No amount of Commandment keeping can save you because
Commandment keeping cannot remove sin nor the penalty of
committing sin. So it is clear that all people are in
need of a Savior to save them for they cannot save
themselves from the penalty and judgment of Hell.
Without salvation a person is literally on death row
awaiting execution.
For example, if a man committed murder, even if he had
never broken the law before or after, he would still be
guilty of that one crime and subject to its penalty. All
the good that he had done before and after could not
make that murder go away. He would need an undeserved
pardon.
One does not have to commit murder to be subject to
Hell, a simple lie or a lustful thought is enough. Some
have committed more sins in their lives than others, but
the fact remains that all have sinned and are guilty
before God. This is where God's grace becomes important.
"Grace" means "undeserved favor." Even though you
deserve to pay your own penalty for sin which is death
in the Lake of Fire, God offers to pay your penalty for
you through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus. And this is
where faith comes in, you must believe that God will
show mercy and pardon you. This is what it means to
invite Jesus to be your "personal Savior."
Since we are saved by
GRACE through FAITH -Does that mean that we are not
obligated to obey God's Commandments?
If WORKS cannot save
us, do they serve NO PART in our salvation?
The first word of Jesus' message was "REPENT!" To repent
means to "change", to "turn around". Just what did Jesus
want a person to turn from? Well, His common reply to
those who received forgiveness from Him was -"Go and sin
no more." Obviously, it was sin that He wanted people to
turn from. The Bible defines sin as "The
transgression of the Law." (1 John 3:4)
Now, a person could not receive forgiveness without
being willing to repent of breaking God's Commandments.
As Jesus told them, they must go and sin no more. This
means that they were to stop practicing sin as a way of
life. So
the question -Can
a person be saved without repenting of their sins, and
can a person stay in God's Grace if they continue in
sin?
Let's go back to the Scripture we began with and examine
it closely - "For
by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH; and that not
of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as result of
WORKS, so that no one may boast." God
is clearly telling us here that we cannot save ourselves
and that no amount of works can save us."For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus -"In
Christ Jesus" means we are alive in Christ, and are
spiritual members of His Body now that we are saved and
under God's grace. for GOOD WORKS, -Though we are not
saved by our works, as Christians, we were created for
the purpose of doing good works. which
God PREPARED BEFOREHAND -The
works we were created to do were prepared by God
beforehand. What does it mean "prepared beforehand?"
Before what? Surely these "good works" is God's standard
for living which He prepared before Grace was realized
through the sacrifice of Christ. so
that we would WALK IN THEM." -God
wants us to "walk in them." That is, to live according
to a standard which was prepared even before Jesus
brought us grace by giving His life. (Ephesians
2:8-10
What is God's Standard
for living?
Once a young rich man came to Jesus and asked -"What
must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus
replied -"Keep the
Commandments." The
young man asked -"Which
ones?" And
Jesus began quoting some of the Ten
Commandments which
God wrote into tablets of stone with His own finger. (Matthew
19)
In Matthew
5 Jesus
said, -"Never imagine that
I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have
not come to destroy but to fulfill. And until Heaven and
Earth pass away not one comma shall pass from the Law
til it is full in force. Anyone who relaxes a single one
of the least of these Commandments and teaches others to
will be ranked least in the Kingdom. But whoever keeps
them and teaches others to will be ranked great in the
Kingdom."
In John
14, verse 21, Jesus said, -"He
who has My Commandments and keeps them is the one who
loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My
Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to
him."
In 1
Corinthians 7:19, Paul said, -"Circumcision
is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what
matters is the keeping of the Commandments of God."
In Revelation
22:14, Jesus said, -"Blessed
are they that do His Commandments, that they may have
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the
gates into the City."
But Why did the
Apostle Paul tell the Galatians that if they were
circumcised and turned to the Whole Law that they would
be cut-off from Christ?
Judaizing Christians were telling the Gentile converts
that they must be circumcised and keep the "whole Law"
of Moses, which is the 613 Commandments, Laws and
Statutes in the Book of the Law were added to the Ten
Commandments because of transgressions. (Galatians
3:19)
Christians are not obligated to keep the "Whole Law"
given to Moses at Sinai, but as Paul wrote -"Circumcision
is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what
matters is the keeping of the Commandments of God."
These are the Commandments written by the Finger of God
into tablets of stone, not the Laws and Statutes written
by Moses onto animal skins.
Paul wrote in Hebrews
6 and Hebrews
10 that
if you come to the knowledge of the truth, receive the
holy spirit and then continue or begin to practice sin
as a way of life, you will perish. So, a person can lose
their salvation if they refuse to repent when God leads
them into truth.
Why the Ten Commandments?
Jesus said that all the Commandments are summed up in
two great Commandments. Love God with all your heart,
and love your fellow man as yourself. The Ten
Commandments teach us to become like God. The first four
direct us to love and obey God, the next six teach us to
love our neighbor. Jesus magnified the Commandments by
showing us that they mean much more than what is seen in
the letter. He said, not only are we not to commit
murder but it also means do not even hate your enemy. He
said, not only are we not to commit adultery in the
letter, but we are not to even look upon another person
with lust in our heart.
By keeping the Ten Commandments, we learn to put away
our selfishness. We learn to put the interests of God
and our neighbor above our own interests. Paul told the
Corinthians that true love does not seek its own
interest. John said that the way we know that we love
the brethren is by keeping God's Commandments. Notice
John verse 6, -"And THIS IS LOVE, that we walk according
to His Commandments. This is the Commandment, just as
you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk
in it."
These are the "GOOD
WORKS" that we were "CREATED" to do; which "WERE
PREPARED BEFOREHAND", that we should "WALK IN THEM."
Notice the Apostle
Paul's answer
to this question - "What
shall we say then? Are we to continue in SIN so that
GRACE may increase? May it never be! How shall we who
died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:1-2) Christians
who are forgiven and under grace are not to continue to
practice sin. Remember -"SIN
IS the transgression of the Law." (1 John 3:4)
"Though you were slaves of
SIN, you BECAME OBEDIENT from the heart to that FORM OF
TEACHING to which you were committed, and having been
freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."
(Romans 6:17)
This "form of teaching" is the "works prepared
beforehand" for us to "walk in." It is God's holy
standard for Christian conduct. Remember Paul's
teaching, -" What matters
keeping the Commandments (1 Corinthians 7:19)
If we do not submit to God's STANDARD we will create our
own. We will come to believe that we can please God and
develop His Character through the precepts of mortal
man. Jesus
calls this "VAIN WORSHIP." (Matthew 15:9)
There are many churches and ministries who teach that
Christians should obey the Ten Commandments but who
themselves practice breaking the fourth Commandment. To
keep the Sabbath (seventh day) holy is a Commandment of
God. To observe Sunday (the first day) is a tradition of
men.
Jesus said in Matthew
15 that
if you forsake a Commandment of God for a Tradition of
men, your worship can be in vain. This is why the
Crusade Church of God obeys God by assembling for
services on Saturdays. Join us, as we worship in spirit
and in truth. (John
4)
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