Saturday, October 19, 2019

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF: “BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED”?


One day, I posted on Facebook: “Grace and forgiveness can only be obtained by strict adherence to the Laws of God!”  Promptly, a friend responded: “If it is by adhering to the law then it is no longer Grace”.  He then went further to cite Ephesians 2:8-9. In the King James Version we read For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Now, what is written in scripture also needs to be understood.

By grace are ye saved means: by the grace bestowed through the knowledge and adherence to the Laws of our Creator we are saved!  It is GRACE that we are permitted to know of the laws of God which was also explained fully to us by the Son of God Jesus. Great grace! This Grace came about by a great sacrifice.  Jesus descended from all glory to this low-level earth to proclaim the Will of His Father which shows us the way of salvation and redemption. A  Mission  so dangerous and made even more perilous  because mankind for whose benefit all the sacrifice was made eventually sided with the darkness to wage war against the Son of God leading to the dastardly crucifixion!

We are saved through faith means that when we come across the Word of Truth and embrace it even if at first through our faith and belief, our decision for what is good will establish the good in us leading us to a clear  understanding. Thereafter follows full conviction. Our belief which has grown into CONVICTION then leads us to conscious and victorious adherence to the laws of God as brought to us through the Word of Truth.


“Not by works” in the sense of the cited scripture simply means that we are not saved by following the dogmas imposed by men and their religions! Such religious dogmas are familiar: we must fast, we must not celebrate birthdays or Easter,  we must pray 39 times a day, we must go on some pilgrimage, we must not eat a type of meat, we must wash hands and feet  and must worship only on a particular day of the week! And so on…Tenacious adherence to such dogmas are the works Paul is referring to. These types of work cannot save us and are not to be compared to the works of repentance and works based on an adherence to the Word of Truth. For example, obedience to the Law of Love as explained by Jesus is real work. However, such work will save us! Imagine giving so must love to our neighbour to the extent that such a neighbour then changes for the better. That is pure love and service. That is living in accordance with the Will of God. Such works of love redeem us and lead us back to our Creator, Who is Love!

Salvation and redemption will come to us only in the Word of God which we must absorb, so that by
living in accordance with It, we may release ourselves from the bonds of wrongdoing that holds us down through misunderstanding and distorting the true concepts.


Let us therefore constantly stand in prayer to God for the strength to live in accordance with His Will, to grant us the power to carry out ourselves the works that count towards our salvation and our redemption!






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