Does One’s Salvation Depend On Their Performance?
Here we will analyze a quote from Calvinist author James White.
The quote goes “If my salvation depends on my cooperation and my performance, I am doomed.”
It is interesting that Calvinists who say such things expect others to cooperate with their claims and to perform accordingly.
Merriam Webster’s first definition of performance is a) “the execution of an action” and b) something accomplished” (i.e. a deed or a feat).
There is the matter of performing for people. Those who put on a show to try to persuade people that they are something which they are really not are putting on a performance in a hypocritical sense. This is obviously bad performance according to the Bible.
The Bible gives a stark warning about multitudes practicing Christianity superficially while living in sin. Though those warned about may put on a good show before men, their performance in the true God’s eyes is unacceptable.
2 Timothy 3:1-5: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud (i.e. arrogant), blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection (that would include those who support abortion), trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent (i.e. without self-control), fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady (i.e. rash or reckless), highminded (i.e. blinded by their own conceit), lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
Someone cannot cling to a form of godliness while denying its power without rationalizing their own unacceptable performance. Though there are many ways to do this, embracing doctrines like Calvinism which blatantly teach that one’s salvation doesn’t depend on their performance is a chief way.
There are many groups like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. which replace the Bible’s performance requirements with a different prescription by supplanting the authority of the Bible with another authority. Altered performance requirements which are arrived at by devaluing the authority of the Bible shouldn’t be confused with the Biblical prescription itself.
Without the availability of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, everyone would surely be condemned since all have transgressed against the true God’s authority and deserve condemnation as a result. No one’s performance can atone for their sins and earn them deliverance from the wrath of God. This is what the often quoted and often misused Ephesians 2:8-9 is teaching.
Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
While this passage is teaching that no one can atone for their own sins or in any way work their way into God’s favor, it is not teaching that acceptable repentance and faith in Christ can be exercised without corresponding works. The Bible sets forth necessary conditions for entering and continuing in an authentic living faith in Christ. This logically means that there are performance requirements for being in God’s grace since His grace is only obtained through such a faith. One cannot respond to His grace as He has prescribed without demonstrating a change of mind about sin and submission to the authority of Christ by one’s works.
Many who consider themselves experts on grace assume that it is given to people without conditions. They are wrong. Yet when Calvinist author James White says “If my salvation depends on my cooperation and my performance, I am doomed”, he is technically right. He is indeed doomed as long as he continues to embrace the lie of Calvinism. Nobody is going to forsake the broad road of sin that leads to destruction for the narrow way that really leads to eternal life in Christ if they are choosing to believe that being saved from God’s coming wrath does not depend on their performance.
Luke 3:7-9: “Then said he (i.e. John the Baptist) to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
Luke 3:10 goes on to prove that John’s audience understood that he was preaching about the necessity of repentance from sin and teaching that true repentance must be accompanied by works worthy of repentance. John’s answer to them in the following verses proves that he indeed intended to be understood that way. You cannot logically claim that acceptable repentance is not a matter of performance nor logically claim that one can possess authentic faith in the Jesus of the Bible without this.
Mark 9:43-44: “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
In order for one to place their faith in Jesus Christ and be accepted, they must turn from their sins and submit to be governed by the Bible’s counsel.
Colossians 1:21-23: “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;”
This means that the following exhortation, which the Apostle Paul wrote directly to Christians who had already experienced a real new birth in Christ, is intended as a matter of eternal life or death.
Colossians 2:6: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:”
Now consider 1 Timothy 1:19: “Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:”
1 Timothy 1:19 shows that having a good conscience towards God is necessary to continue in faith in Christ after one has been born-again. Maintaining a good conscience then is necessary to continue in His grace since this is an essential element of continuing in a living faith in Christ. Since the instruction in 1 Timothy 1:19 is for man, fulfilling it is a matter of individual performance. Paul gave this warning to Timothy, a man he knew to already be a genuinely born-again Christian. Even if one were to recover after having been shipwrecked, there is obviously performance involved in doing so.
Those who resist the true God’s goodness in leading them to repentance cannot perform their way out of facing His wrath on the day of wrath and revelation of His righteous judgment. Yet there is performance involved in doing what is necessary to cooperate with His goodness which is intended to save people from their sins through the supreme Lord and only Savior Jesus Christ. Those who deny this are enemies of His authority that are teaching rebellion against Him.
James 1:21-27: “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
No one can read the preceding passage and honestly say that one’s salvation does not depend upon their performance. The reference to the perfect law of liberty in James 1:25 can be cross-referenced with Romans 8:1-4. It is a reference to the deliverance from sin’s power and ability to acceptably do God’s commandments which are promised to those who exercise faith in Jesus on Biblical terms. Another appropriate cross-reference along the same lines is John 15:1-6.
There is no partiality with God. Those who practice what is evil in His eyes are His enemies. Those who die as His enemies will be condemned to hell as such. Anyone who reads the last two chapters of the Bible will see repeated warnings within them which many who say they believe the Bible take absolutely no heed to at all. Overcoming is necessary to be saved (Revelation 21:7). That is evident since those who practice evil deeds will have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). A similar warning is given in Revelation 21:27. Another one yet is found in Revelation 22:14-15 (one could even say that this warning stretches all the way from Revelation 22:10 to Revelation 22:19).
Those who deny or downplay individual performance in relation to morality as defined by the Bible are very likely to admire people who have evidently done heinous things that they are not repentant about and to oppose just consequences being handed out to those who have done wrong by the appropriate authorities. This is extremely common in churches. It is also extremely common in relation to politics.
Malachi 2:17: “Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?”
Aaron’s email is: gospeltruth768@yahoo.com