Chapter 18. Faith Without Good Works Is Not Sufficient For Salvation
CHAPTER 18.
FAITH WITHOUT GOOD WORKS IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR SALVATION
However, unintelligent persons with regard to the apostle’s statement: “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,”Rom 3.28 have thought him to mean that faith suffices for a man, even if he leads a bad life, and has no good works. It is impossible that such a character should be deemed “a vessel of election” by the apostle who, after declaring that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision,” adds at once, “but faith which works by love.” Gal 5.6 It is such faith which severs God’s faithful from unclean demons—for even these demons “believe and tremble,”Jas 2.19 as the Apostle James says; but they do not “do well.”Jas 2.8 Therefore they do not possess the faith by which the just man lives—the faith which works by love in such a way that God recompenses it with eternal life, according to its works. But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise come our faith and our love, therefore the selfsame great teacher of the Gentiles has designated “eternal life” itself as God’s gracious “gift.”