Subject: Rom 7:9 What's it mean? |
Bible Note: Hi Hank, When he knocks on the door, I don't think Jesus cares if one turns the knob and opens the door believing opening the door is faith or works. But if the door isn't opened, faith was never present. There are many churches, a methodist one comes to mind, that won't even have baptismals installed in their buildings, and they will not bring the subject up. In fact, in a bible class I went to, a question in their printed material asked this regarding acts 2:38: "Why do you suppose Peter told the crowd to repent and believe in order to be saved?" Of course, you and I know that's NOT what Peter told the crowd. This was a Navigator series study. Another correspondent on this subject believes that even death is a work. Do you agree? Romans 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. We are empowered by the Spirit to DO good works, baptizing others fits that description. I see no work in being baptized and being united with Christ in his death. Death is not a work, though we do participate in it, don't we? If we have hands laid on us and are healed, the elders praying may be engaged in a work, but the person being healed is not, though he is a participant. I think Martin Luther and his fellow medieval protestors were so obsessed with the "popish" church that their considerable (though violent)intellects spent too much energy refuting roman teachings. I haven't seen it in print, but I'm told that Luther called the Book of James "the book of straw" because of it's emphasis on works. When you see "works" the way he and other reformers did, it's easy to see why he didn't like it. Love ya man! |