Are We Saved By Faith Only?
By Ron Boatwright
Today the vast majority of the religious world says that they are saved by "faith only". Many good people erroneously think they are saved when they "accept Jesus as their personal saviour" and say the "sinner’s prayer". But where in the Bible are we told this? It is not there. This may sound good and impressive, but this is false. This is a lie of Satan. This is something man has dreamed up. Then two or three weeks later many churches encourage people to be baptized to join that denomination. They say that one does not have to be baptized to be saved because they say you are saved before you are baptized. I cannot think of a more flagrant crime against both God and Man than to teach lost sinners, who want to be saved something different than what God says in the Bible.
In this case if they are eventually baptized, their sins are not forgiven and they are not saved because their baptism was not for this purpose. They still have every sin they have ever committed and are still lost because they have believed a lie. As we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth."
"Faith only" will not save anyone. In James 2:19 & 24 we read, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the devils believe and tremble….You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." If all we do is believe, then we are no better than the devils. We must obey what God says to do, when God says to do it, how God says to do it, and for the reason God says to do it.
Jesus says in Mark 16:16, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved". There is nothing hard to understand about this. A person has to have help to misunderstand what the Lord says here. Until people do what Jesus says that one must do to be saved then they are still hopelessly lost.