by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
Those brethren who now teach that salvation is at the moment of faith before repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins (they say that is “faith plus works”) never seem to get around to telling us what all is included in their “faith only” concept. For example, how many facts, and what are those facts that trigger the grace? How much “work” will it take to learn those facts? Doesn’t the work of learning those facts shoot the whole argument of faith only in the foot?<\/p>\n
Does someone have to learn and believe that Jesus came in the flesh (I John 4:1ff)? A person might believe in a “Jesus” but not believe He was deity come in the flesh. Must he work to learn the truth on this issue? John says yes.<\/p>\n
So, faith must include learning the right facts about Jesus. That takes a form of effort or work. Is that “faith plus works”? There was faith in a Jesus and work to ensure it was the right Jesus. Must a person “labor for the food that does not perish<\/em>” (John 6:26)? Is that faith in Jesus plus <\/b>the labor it takes to obtain and utilize His food? Is that “faith plus labor?”<\/p>\n How many facts about Jesus must be learned and claimed before that faith is the saving kind? Was Muhamed’s faith in Jesus as a prophet the saving kind? No? Then there has to be a certain content <\/b>that must be obtained to have the right saving facts, and that, my friend, takes far more effort than letting someone dunk you in the water in Jesus’ name.<\/p>\n “Labor” (work) is involved in learning and coming to the correct and sufficient facts that enter us into salvation. You can’t believe anything you want to about Jesus and be saved. Jesus made that very clear in Matthew 7:21-23.<\/p>\n Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey <\/b>Him (Hebrews 5:9), not to all those who believe a few selective facts about Him. The Bible never says you can be saved by faith alone, and it certainly does not let us choose which facts we will believe. Be careful that you have not been fed the wrong information that results in you having “another Jesus<\/em>” (II Corinthians 11:3-4), the wrong one, and the wrong content of faith in the wrong Jesus. The wrong Jesus will never save us! Be very careful here!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton Those brethren who now teach that salvation is at the moment of faith before repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins (they say that is “faith plus works”) never seem to get around to telling us what all is included in their “faith only” concept.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[53,1008],"class_list":["post-84508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-faith-alone","tag-faith-only"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17435,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/facts-about-faith-healing\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":0},"title":"Facts About Faith Healing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Rick Duggin via Westvue Messenger, Vol. 29, No. 7, July 1986 Members of the Faith Assembly, an Indiana-based religious sect, have lost as many as eighty-eight members to treatable illnesses or injuries because they believe that going to a doctor is wrong. A federal and state study concluded that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":761,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-water-baptism-a-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":1},"title":"Is water baptism a work?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is water baptism a work? Answer: I have always been amazed at the dread shown by people toward the word \"work.\" You would think that it was a dreaded disease or something equivalent to sin. The word \"work\" by itself is neither good nor bad. It simply refers to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86998,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/faith-plus-works\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":2},"title":"Faith Plus Works?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 6, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Faith-only advocates have actually worked hard to convince themselves that if you include any activity in faith, such as obedience, you have added \"you\" and your effort to Jesus' perfect and complete work. Yet, who is doing the believing? You are! How does faith come? It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61739,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/lessons-on-evangelism-addressing-faith-alone\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":3},"title":"Lessons on Evangelism: Addressing Faith Alone","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Andrew S. Hamilton Class Objective Preparing the members to handle common questions that will come up when running the tables. (1 Peter 3:15) Foundation Material Statements and Logic All chickens have three legs. Henry has three legs; therefore, Henry is a chicken. Only chickens have two legs. Henry has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sermon"","block_context":{"text":"Sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/sermon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":87257,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-martin-luther-taught-about-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":4},"title":"What Martin Luther Taught About Baptism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton While Martin Luther may have taught the idea of salvation by \"faith alone,\" you might be surprised to learn that he did not think faith alone excluded baptism. It was an umbrella term that included repentance and baptism. So, he didn't place baptism in the category\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48719,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-more-than-faith-required\/","url_meta":{"origin":84508,"position":5},"title":"Why is more than faith required?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm a bit confused about what Jesus is saying about how one gets to heaven. In John 3:16 he says that we just need to believe in God and we will be saved. And that there is no judgment for those who believe in Jesus. Yet, in Mathew 7:21\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}