There are some who say that believing in Jesus and confessing Him as your Savior will get you into heaven, regardless of how you live your life. They say obedience to Him just gets you rewards when you get to heaven, and obedience has nothing to do with salvation, because you are saved by faith alone. When presented with James 2:24, “You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone,” they say this verse only refers to works to get rewards in heaven, and do not pertain to your salvation. You are saved whether you do these works or not.
I tell you with the Lord’s permission that they are wrong. Jesus appeared to take away sins, not just cover them like the blood of animals did. The first Adam disobeyed God which brought sin into play within every descendent of Adam. The Law was given to bring that sin to light. No one could keep the whole Law because of the sin that dwelled within them. When the Law said, “Do not covet,” they coveted.
Now Adam was created as a mature adult and placed in a garden without any suffering. And since obedience is learned from suffering, Hebrews. 5:8, he had no occasion to learn obedience. Jesus came as an infant child and was trained up in the way He should go, and He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
Having lived a life on a cursed earth full of suffering and learning obedience as He grew to His full stature, He became the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all mankind; and having done this, He left us an example that we should follow in His steps.
“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed,” 1 Peter 2:21-24.
Peter speaks more on this in chapter 4:1-2,
“Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”
Then Hebrews 12:5-8 says this,
“You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.’ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”
So those who do not follow the example of Jesus and learn obedience through that which they suffer, are illegitimate children, and not sons of God, regardless of what they think or believe.
Jon David Banks, God’s most unworthy servant
Please weigh everything I say on the scales of the word of God.
jondavidbanks.com 