Justified by Faith, Apart from Works

BetterThanSacrifice.org uses a poor sermon as an occasion to explain the biblical doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, highlighting the necessity of distinguishing between faith and its fruit. The post beings:

I recently listened to a train wreck of a sermon by a local Purpose Driven pastor. In his 44 minutes on the subject of faith, he achieved the remarkable feat of avoiding any mention of the proper object of Christian faith: Christ, and His life, death and resurrection for sinners.

The pastor defined faith by a number of its purported attributes. The fourth was this:

Faith is giving when I don’t have it.

Let’s leave aside the aspect of ‘giving when I don’t have it’, problematic though that is. There is a more fundamental error lurking in this statement.

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