The Doctrine of Soteriology

Jill Sutherlin

Theology II- Soteriology

Professor Nunez

October 30, 2007

The Docrtine of Justification & Faith By Grace (Not

Works)

The Doctrine of Soteriology:

Jesus is the exemplar of human existence. Jesus'

positive confrontation of death in loyalty to God has

to do with what it reveals about human existence.

This is illustrated in I Corinthians, "For what I

received I passed on to you as of first importance

that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures,

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third

day." He is the "homo verus," the true and complete

being who came not to be served but to serve. He was

faithful and merciful to the end, inviting and

inspiring us to exhibit such true humanity as well.

Thus, Jesus mediates what God wants human beings to

be, saving efficacy is shown in the form of exemplary

cause.

People turn to God when they repent and show Him that

they have faith. This faith stems from the grace that

was given to the world by Jesus dying on the cross.

True repentence is having genuine faith, giving one's

sins to God, and asking that His forgiveness would be

bestowed upon them. In return for one's faithful

devotion to Him, His grace allows for unconditional

love and forgiveness, making a person righteous in Him

once again. It is through faith, by grace that

forgiveness is attained

Justification & Faith By Grace:

Titus 3:16 states "All scripture is given by

inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine..."

yet on the surface of the writings of the authors

James and Paul there lays an obviously seeming

contradiction between the two authors writings. Paul

expresses statements in his epistle to the Romans that

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by

faith without the deeds of the law"(Romans 3:28); and

in Galatians: "Knowing that a man is not justified by

the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ,

even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might

be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the

works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no

flesh be justified" (Galatians 2:16) Coming from the

opposite end of the spectrum James states "Ye see how

that by works a man is justified, and not by faith

only." (James 2:24). In believing that God is

infallible, and scripture inspired by God, we must

therefore conclude that his word is infallible

-without error, without contradiction. Seeing that

there is a topical contradiction between the

statements of Paul and James, and knowing that there

are no contradictions in God's word we must

reconciliate the two opposing views. In order to

harmonize the writings we should grasp the idea of who

the audiences were that James and Paul wrote their

epistles towards. Not only were James and Paul's

epistles directed to different audiences they were

directed in a different time period. James wrote to

the early church, while Paul wrote to a church with

little more precise questions, a church older then

that of James era. To add to the understanding of how

the authors complement each other we must recognize

that the two authors use the word "works" in different

context. In Romans, written by Paul, "works" means

dead works that can be done apart from faith. In James

"works" means that living works can be done only

through faith and that will attest to the existence of

faith. The authors use two projections of the word

"justified"; in Romans "justified" means "declared

righteous by God". In James his definition is meant as

"shown to be righteous". Hebrews 11 consoles the

contradictions by Paul and James. The Old Testament

patriarchs show that their deeds were done "by faith";

through chapter 11 we see that grace plays an integral

part of faith. Not only do the writings of James and

Paul harmonize with each other, they complement each

other and strengthen the importance of works and

faith.

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