Right now, there are a lot of YouTube preachers that say you have to repent to be saved. Not only you have to believe Jesus but you have to repent to be saved. And I’ve been telling you the same thing on this YouTube channel but many Christians believe that you just have to believe to be saved by the grace of God.
But the interesting thing is both of them are in the Bible. Many Christians believe that half gospel because they are in the bible. And what I believe is in the bible, too.
So there are 2 verses that show clearly those 2 gospels.
This is Romans 3:28, “There fore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”
So it’s saying a man is justified by faith. So he is justified to be pardoned of all the sins by faith only, apart from the deeds, the works.
But on the other hand, this is James 2:24, “you see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.”
So James is saying here you are justified by works not by faith only.
So they are 2 conflicting verses on the same topic. And they are both in the bible.
You might say, how can there be conflicting verses in the Bible, but they are the verses in the bible, and they conflict with each other.
If I say this, some people might say, if you believe Jesus, then the works have to follow the faith. So if you have faith the works will automatically follow. Because we are weak, we are humans so we’re not perfect but we can’t be perfect in all the laws but in some of the areas we get to produce the works. So if you have faith, the works will be produced in some of the areas.
But when James says about the works, he’s talking about being complete in the works. So he’s not talking about doing some of the works. What he’s talking about is being perfect in all the works and in all the laws.
So he says, this is James 2:10, “for whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For he who said, do not commit adultery also said do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.”
So if you keep all the laws but break just one law then it’s like breaking all the laws. So if you don’t commit adultery but kill someone then you still become a lawbreaker.
So when we’re talking about the works, we’re talking about being perfect in works, not just in some of the works.
And furthermore, I’ve been telling on this YouTube channel that the repentance includes repenting from disobedience of not following Jesus. So anybody who wants to be a Christian, God has calling for them. So if anybody doesn’t answer that call, then he’s being disobedient.
So he has not repented from that sin of disobedience. So the repentance includes that repentance.
And also denying oneself to follow Jesus is the key to being holy.
In the book of John, in the parable of vine and branches, it says if anyone who doesn’t have Jesus in them then he cannot produce the fruit – the fruits of Holy Spirit which includes holiness.
So if Jesus is not in the center of them, that means he denied himself to obey Jesus. If he hasn’t done that then he doesn’t have the power of Jesus to overcome the temptation to be holy.
So what’s happening now is that when Christians read the bible, they read John 3:16 and they believe they’re saved by faith and by grace of God. But when they look at other parts of the bible about repentance, they think they have to repent but because they don’t realize that they have to repent from the disobedience of not following Jesus and denying himself, they don’t have the power to overcome the sin.
So no matter how hard they try, they cannot get out of that slavery of sin. So they live the life of immorality just holding on to the half gospel found in the bible which is John 3:16.
Also another thing is most Christians believe that this bible is the word of God. So they believe that this bible has no fault in it. So whatever that’s in the bible, it must be true.
So although they are alarmed by other verses about repentance and those who haven’t repented are not saved, they read that and they are alarmed by it but because they believe the bible is the word of God, they believe that John 3:16 is the truth so they still believe that they are saved although they are living in sinful life.
So actually this bible is helping them to stay in deception and false peace that they are saved.
So we’re gonna continue to study the bible and find out how the bible was written and how those 2 conflicting verses came to be in the bible, and find out if the bible is really the word of God with no faults or conflicting verses or is the bible written by humans with God’s influence that includes all the imperfect knowledge about salvation by the writers to accomplish various purpose for God.
So if we have to find any answer we have to find in the bible but the truth is that bible has those conflicting verses.
So we’re gonna keep studying bible and find out why it happened that way.
