Protestant doctrine is firm in the belief that no action is required for our salvation. If we could do something, that might mean we earn our salvation and the Bible is very clear we cannot earn our salvation. That is why Jesus came to this earth to die for our sins—we could not do it ourselves.
Also, there is no particular action that we can take to be saved. What action is acceptable to God is different depending upon the person and their situation. C. S. Lewis gives us an example.
When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.
It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. . .God does not judge [a man] on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. [1]
In this blog we have demonstrated that belief in Jesus and his death for our sin will not in itself give us salvation. See last week’s blog for an example and look at the “What the Bible Says about Salvation” tab on this blog. So if our action and belief will not in themselves give us salvation, what must we do to be saved?
All the above reasons are why in this blog we maintain that salvation is the renovation of our soul. God’s main concern is the type of person we are and are becoming. Beliefs and conduct are only tools that we have used to become the person we are. We need to use these tools to become more like God.
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[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952, p. 71.
