Does God require works relative to salvation? Is righteousness on the part of the believer necessary in order to inherit eternal life?  The Counterfeit Church says “NO” to both questions.  Why?  Because saying “YES” would be admitting that salvation requires both “WORKS” and “RIGHTEOUSNESS” on the part of the believer.  It is for this reason that Martin Luther rejected the book of James in which God commands man to work for holiness (4:7-10).  Scripturally, saints are commanded to submit, resist, draw nigh, cleanse, purify, be afflicted, mourn, be doers, believe, pray, endure, humble themselves–all are works prompted by God and carried out by the believer through obedience to Him.  God both wills and does the works of righteousness He requires of man.  Man enters into that righteousness by emulating what he “sees” God do and “hears” God say–man, like Jesus, walks in God’s footsteps.  Where do we see and hear God?  Where do we find His “footsteps?”  In His Holy Bible.  God provides the Way, the Power to walk that Way and the example of walking that Way as seen in the life of Jesus.  This constitutes the “works” required by God.

The concept of “works” relative to salvation is rejected outright by the professing church for the same reason it was rejected by Martin Luther–it requires more than a faith/grace-only mindset on the part of the believer.  Therefore, any reference to works is automatically labeled “legalistic” and totally out of step with the New Covenant the Lord supposedly made with Gentiles.  More on the Gentile New Covenant Church fallacy later.

Righteousness produced by man’s effort is rejected due to a misreading of some scriptures and the rejection of others.  We have been told that, being a born sinner, man remains a sinner as long as he draws breath in this life.  Man, we are told, is a life-long sinner because of an inherited sin virus which renders him incapable of resisting (overcoming) Satan’s tempta-tions.  His innate sinfulness is due to Satan’s seed (spiritual DNA) that, having been miraculously embedded in Adam and Eve, has been passed down to succeeding generations throughout the ages.  And because man must sin, Jesus came, suffered and died so that man could do what he must do (sin).  But man can get away with it, provided he follows a prescribed ritual, takes Jesus into his heart as his personal Savior, is baptized, then follows the rules prescribed by the particular sect with which he is involved.  I have been told by a bastion of “the church” that God knows that we must sin, therefore He sent Jesus to enable us to obey Satan and defy God with impunity.  Grace and faith supposedly immunizes the church sinner from the penalty of sin–death.

As defined by the Institutional Church, God’s grace is nothing more than a license to sin.  This is not new.  God warned the church about this heresy through the apostle Jude: “For certain men have crept in (into the church) unnoticed … ungodly men who TURN THE GRACE OF OUR GOD INTO LACIVIOUSNESS (A LICENSE TO SIN), thereby DENYING THE ONLY LORD GOD AND OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.”  When the church gifts herself the right to sin with impunity she is denying God, Jesus and their Word.  That the Lord’s warning through Jude 4 has been rejected by the whole of Christendom was brought out by a famous t.v. preacher who said to his congregation quote, “You are nothing but a society of sinners; don’t even try to be righteous–you’ll just make yourself miserable,” unquote.  The camera then panned the nodding crowd.  I can assume that his vast t.v. audience also agreed with him.  Nothing makes a church sinner feel better than to be told that Christ awaits with an unending supply of grace, ready to immediately forgive each sin as quickly as it can be confessed and repented of, thereby allowing the churchite to sin again and again and again ….  This false prophet’s deadly statement made me spiritually ill.  I do not normally waste my time listening to preachers, so it was quite by “accident” that I heard this particular “minister of righteousness” at that particular time as he voiced the words of the “angel of light.”

I have found that when God places something on my heart He will often send a messenger–not necessarily a saintly one–to confirm what He previously told me through His Spirit.  In this instance He led me past a room where someone was watching t.v.  As I passed by I heard the preacher speak the above-mentioned words that had come straight from the heart of Satan.  In the Spirit I could almost hear him hiss: “Believe what my servant tells you; follow me and ‘you shall not surely die.'”  Millions believe him to their peril.

Are works of righteousness exhibited through strict obedience to the Word of God necessary for salvation?  The church says “no,” contending that faith, grace and church membership are all that are necessary to assure eternal life.  But what does God tell us by His Words and His Son’s example?

In John 9:4 the man Jesus said: “I must WORK the WORKS of Him that sent Me.”  In 1 John 2:6 Jesus said that if we claim to be His we must “…WALK even as He walked” (work as he worked).  In John 14:12 He said that those who believed in Him would do the WORKS He did and even greater works.  Along with the miraculous acts he performed, he was referring to those “works” which defined His character, namely His manifestation of righteousness, holiness and purity which He demonstrated through His meticulous obedience to the WILL of the Father.  If we are to be joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17), we must manifest joint heir traits–“… walk as He walked” and “… purify ourselves as He is pure” (1 Jn. 3:3).  This is accomplished only by yielding to Him (not try to use our own power) and being led by Holy Spirit.  God provides a way out of any temptation to sin; it is man’s job (work) to embrace God’s way and thereby overcome Satan.  Man fails when, bowing to his pride, he tries to defeat the devil using his own power.  Satan will win that battle every time.  God tells us how to overcome the devil: “Not by (man’s) power, nor by (man’s) might; but by (the power of) My Spirit, saith the Lord.”

Man’s commanded righteousness, holiness and purity are the end result of man’s overcoming Satan’s attempt to lure him into sinning.  This struggle is perfectly demonstrated in Genesis 3 where he deceived Eve into obeying him, a fact which she later admitted: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”  Notice that Satan did not force her to eat–he could only entice her.  It was, as she said, her decision and her act–“and I ate.”  Satan enticed her to eat (all he could do); Eve embraced the enticement and ate (her decision and act).  Eve admitted that the act was totally voluntary on her part–an admission not heard in the Counterfeit Church where “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” is the universal mantra used to explain one’s obedience to Satan and rejection of God.  According to church doctrine, Satan miraculously planted his sin DNA in Adam and Eve’s reproductive systems.  This act on his part makes resistance on the part of their descendants impossible in that sin is now as much a part of their human make-up as eye color and height.  But church members are not to worry because they’re all saved–the God-fix is in.  But what does God say?  To be continued.