How does justification by faith work?

Yes, almost, it's not a tick-box one-off thing.
I mean you receive the "Spirit of grace" (Zechariah 12v10, Acts 2v4, 33) through faith, when you want nothing more.

Having received that grace you are a child of God but you still have free will to do what you want but now you have the opportunity to have a daily 2-way relationship with God, who's will for you is infinitely better than your will for you.

So wait Satan believed Jesus was the son of God. Undoubtedly the two met while in spirit mode back in the day, and then he tempted him later. So Satan's going to heaven/will be resurrected after God destroys him.

yes, you are correct grace is free, at least in Christianity; you don't have to do anything to earn salvation except have faith

Ephesians 2:8-9
'For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.'

John 3:16
'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.'

I find it unhelpful to cherry pick Bible verses to support a viewpoint as there will always be verses that offer an opposing view.

The Bible is a confusing collection of books which I personally think should not be taken literally for the above reason.

For example consider these verses:

Matthew 7:21
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

Hebrews 10:36
"For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised."

1 John 2:17
"And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."


Three verses of many others that very clearly highlight (imo) that simple belief is not enough. You must "do the will of God".

Then there are other verses like this one:

John 6:53-58
"“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread[a] the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Like so many verses of the Bible I believe this is totally cryptic and allegorical. These are the words of Jesus himself and he is making a very stark and clear warning. If you don't "eat the flesh" and "drink the blood" then you are effectively dead, you have "no life in you". The understanding of what this verse is truly referring to is critical. He's clearly not being literal. You're not being asked to be a cannibal or a vampire. Jesus is saying you NEED to eat and drink "something" and the understanding of what that something is, is absolutely vital because if you don't you're basically going to die.

All of the above clearly show that :

1. The Bible can't be taken literally because when you take it literally it constantly contradicts itself.

2. The Bible is greatly allegorical and so to understand the truths and secrets you have to understand the allegorical language used

3. It's clearly not enough to simply believe in the existence of Jesus to get your ticket to Heaven. You MUST do the will of God and you MUST eat of the flesh and drink of the blood (and thus understand what that refers to)

So it behoves Christians to seek to understand what the will of God actually is for them personally. No coincidence that Christians constantly pray the Lord's Prayer which says "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven"

This is probably an emotive topic for some. Lots of aspects of Christianity are hard to reconcile and much of it stems from a bad understanding of what the Bible is saying. Too many read it literally and that just gets you going around in circles. It's allegorical in large parts of it and it's absolutely crucial to understand what those allegorical areas are referring to imo.

this isn't a religious debate thread. if you want to start one in D&CA tag me.

Nevertheless a debate was underway in regards to whether God's grace/salvation is free to which you made the assertion:

"yes, you are correct grace is free, at least in Christianity; you don't have to do anything to earn salvation except have faith"

That was your viewpoint which you expressed and to which you provided Bible references.

I didn't agree and offered my own viewpoint backed up with Bible verses just as you did. I don't see the issue here.

no, it wasn't. and i encourage you to read the guidelines under Faith and Spirituality

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3323835

So basically, it means trusting God that God will endow you with grace to help you become good so that fulfilling God's commandments will be easier, yes?

No person is completely free from the guilt of sin, unless we are talking about Mary.

Didn't Judas have faith that Jesus was the son of god? If eternal life is granted just by belief and not action I suppose Judas will will swanning around for eternity then.

Do you believe that humans can become "good" ?

You say this about Mary and not about Jesus?

When the Bible explicitly says Jesus was sinless, and never says Mary was (that's an inference/speculation of sorts).

You must be a "Good Catholic" (TM) then

I mean, the way people talk about it, it's like you don't have to do anything good to curry favor from God, since God bestows grace on you for free.

So, that kinda makes me think that justification by faith means that you simply need to ask God to endow you with grace to become virtuous and that God's commandments are simply ways to put your virtue into good use.

Did I get it correctly?

If you look the whole of the scripture carefully, you'll come to know justification happens by faith in Christ which is capable of good works.
Faith and works are both very interconnected.

Key thing to note is that good action or works are not the cause of salvation but they are the aftermath of the faith in Christ

Isn't that my point exactly?

simply need to ask God to endow you with grace to become virtuous and that God's commandments are simply ways to put your virtue into good use

Yeah to a certain degree...



Since God has already imparted the grace through Christ, we'd need to put on Christ² so to speak and walk by Holy Spirit³ which would enable us to obey the commandments without having the tendency to establish own righteousness¹

I think we've come full circle here, because we need grace to be able to please God.

I haven't denied it

Faith and works are both very interconnected.

Key thing to note is that good action or works are not the cause of salvation but they are the aftermath of the faith in Christ

Yes, this is similar to what I posted earlier about doing the "will of God". According to the Bible an amount of action or "doing" is a requisite.
Hence "Not all who shout Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom Of God". The whole "deal" is more complex than just believing.