Chapter 11
Is Salvation Based On The View One Holds?
There are some who believe in free grace salvation who also believe that those who reject the free grace view and believe in free will salvation cannot be saved. They base this belief on several verses from Scripture.
Saved by Grace and Not of Ourselves
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
This verse is saying that we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. This grace and faith are gifts from God. It is not of us or from us. It is not of works or things we have done in our lives. Otherwise, we could boast about our salvation if it had anything to do with what we did to get salvation in our lives.
Therefore, as some would say, if you reject God’s free grace and replace it with salvation by a free will ability to come to God, you have something of which to boast. You were able to accomplish something spiritually others couldn’t. Also, you have made faith, which in truth is a gift from God, part of a work of your own doing. Faith is a work of salvation. It is a work of salvation by God in you. However, if you claim you were responsible for achieving faith by the use of your will, then you have accomplished a work of salvation in some measure apart from God.
Many Christians think that if a person believes he is saved by the good deeds he accomplishes, that person is not saved because he has rejected grace. Some advocates of free grace say that those who follow the free will salvation plan really are doing the same thing in their works or ability to use their dead wills to generate their own faith and come to salvation. They see no distinction.
The Election of Grace
Perhaps the main passage of Scripture used by those who hold to the view you must believe in God’s free grace plan to be saved is the following verse.
Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. (Rom. 11:5-6)
Those who say you must believe in free grace to be saved interpret this verse as follows. Election cannot be separated from grace. To try to remove election from grace seriously damages grace. If one makes grace a work of his, then grace is no longer grace. It has been damaged. Grace has been replaced by works. No man can be saved by his works.
…not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)
My View
It is my opinion that one’s salvation is not dependent on which of these two views one holds. We are saved by our repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ. Those who follow the free grace view and those who follow the free will view are both saved if they repent and believe in Jesus Christ. However, the free will view is mistaken regarding why people believe and how they believe. Believers didn’t produce their faith through the application of a free will, it was a mighty display of grace from God the Holy Spirit that gave them their faith, after being chosen by the Father and redeemed by the blood of the Son.
Please note also the following two verses:
So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)
…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10:9)
Those in both salvation belief systems confess Christ and believe in His resurrection. They have repented of their sinfulness and have faith in the Lord. It just comes about as a result of the free grace of God and not from any ability of will within the spiritually dead sinner to bring about faith.
The Thief on the Cross
Did the thief on the cross, who turned to faith in Jesus and was saved right before he died, know any of the theological details of election? No, he came to faith by the grace of God while the other thief did not believe. The thief who believed had nothing of which to boast since his faith came from God. If it came from him, from his own will, then he does have something to boast of over the unbelieving thief. He accomplished something spiritually that the other thief didn’t.
No, the reason why the one thief believed was because he had been chosen by God before the foundation of the world and was given his faith by God’s grace at that appointed time. He cannot boast because it was all of God. God chose not to give that same grace of faith to the other thief. The reason the unbelieving thief didn’t receive the same grace from God resides in the secret counsel of His will. It is not for us to know.
If we have repented of our sins and have faith in Jesus Christ, we are saved. This is the only requirement for salvation.
Is it Really Important Then Which Way We Believe?
As stated earlier in this book, free will salvation, for the most part, has replaced the biblical view of salvation of the free grace of God. Although one’s salvation does not hang in the balance, the free will view is not pleasing to God. Believing in the wrong way of salvation or rejecting the true belief in salvation is a serious thing. We all will be accountable to God for what we believe regarding the Word of God and His holy doctrines. What we believe affects how we live our Christian lives.
What we believe on this issue is important. We must give all the glory, credit, and honor for our salvation to God. We must not take any of that away from Him to be “well pleasing” to Him. We must teach others the truth of salvation and not teach error. Finally, we all must stand before our God one day and be judged on what we believed and taught others.
9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Cor. 5:9-10)