Sunday School with redpill Are we saved by faith or faith and good works

Sun Jun 25, 2023 3:12 pm

when I was a Christian, I was taught by seminary students from the Moody Bible Institute and Wheaten College, both located in Illinois state.

They considered Roman Catholicism as a false religion.

Key to this is salvation, from Paul and the Gospel of John, we are saved solely by faith alone in Jesus death and resurrection, not by doing good works.


This was important because being a "good person" is not enough to get you saved.

A good person who practiced another religion like Buddhism or Hinduism will be damned to hell, unless they renounce their former religion and believe in Jesus and his death on the cross.

There are many verses that support this.

Personally I kinda wondered why Jesus needed to teach *anything* if this is true, if all he needed to do was die on the cross, why offer any kind of teaching on anything at all?

a fundamental claim of Evangelicalism, which is itself Protestantism, is that everyone can interpret the Bible for themselves, and don't need the Catholic church to do it, and indeed the Catholic church is the church of Satan.

Second, while there are verses whereby Paul said it is Jesus death on the cross that bring salvation, and there is no other name where one may be saved,

there's this parable, attributed to Jesus

Matthew 25:31-46

Matthew 25:31-46
New International Version
The Sheep and the Goats

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

the New International Version, not the King James Version, is the version I grew up reading.

This passage is clearly that you saved by doing good works, not by faith in Jesus.

This parable implies you can have faith in Jesus, believe in his death on the cross, but if you don't do good works you can be damned to hell.


and it does not exclude someone like a Buddhist who also cares for the poor and sick, from also going to heaven.


and it does not exclude someone like a Buddhist who also cares for the poor and sick, from also going to heaven.

this statement

42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

is a religion based on works, not faith and attributed to Jesus. Obviously the Gospel of John and Paul's theology contradicts this.

What if you have faith in Jesus but you failed to feed the poor and hungry and sick?

How much of your life needs to be devoted to these activities to ensure a place in heaven?

Do these lists of good works, for example, include providing birth control and abortion to poor women?

Is providing abortion to women something Jesus in the above parable would approve of?

What if an atheist or homosexual or Buddhist or transgender also cared for the sick, does he or she get to go to heaven?

the protestant claim you are saved solely by faith alone requires cherry picking bible verses and ignoring those verses that contradict it. three quarters of the christian bible consists of the Old Testament, and no where is there any mention of having faith in Jesus as a requirement of salvation. Quite the opposite, the Old Testament promotes a religion of works, as evidence in the laws of Leviticus such as Kosher food laws and the Sabbath.