I was taught, like most Protestants, “salvation by faith alone.” The problem with this is that I was taught that “salvation” meant “going to heaven.” The two, however, are not equivalent. This is the story of how I found out that “saved” does not always mean “going to heaven,” and that if you don’t understand the difference, you will continually misinterpret the apostle Paul and his letters.

I wrote this in response to someone who argued that we should not launch off on our own, but make sure we have good counsel before we start delving into questionable or controversial ideas.

Like most Protestants I was taught–in my case by the Assemblies of God–that salvation is by faith alone. As I pointed out above, we all thought this meant “going to heaven” by faith alone. So, the first time I ran across Romans 2:6, which says we will be judged by our works, I wrote it on the last blank page of my Bible. It only took a year or two to fill the back page and then the inside of the back cover with Scripture references, dozens of them. At the top of the list was the only occurrence of the words “faith alone” or “faith only” in the Bible, James 2:24, which says “not by faith only.”

Of course I know that “faith apart from works” is the equivalent of “faith only,” but it is nonetheless intriguing that the actual phrase in found in a verso that says “not by faith only.”

Nonetheless, I just could not figure out how to reconcile “not by works so no man can boast” with “know this for sure, that no unclean, immoral, or covetous man has any inheritance in the kingdom of God and Christ,” both written by Paul and both in the same letter, Ephesians (2:8-9 & 5:5).

When I married I was still writing all those references and struggling to reconcile them. After a year or so of controversy with the pastor of the Baptist church we were attending, Lorie asked me, “How can you be the only one who is right?”

As an aside, to help you understand her question, I was beginning to question whether baptism was really a symbolic public testimony in Scripture. The apostles baptized immediately and there is no record in Acts that they ever prayed a sinner’s prayer with anyone. Most pointedly, when Ananias baptized Paul, he told him, “Arise and be baptized, washing away your sins and calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). I was teaching Sunday school at the time, but I chose to talk to the pastor rather than teach the things I was seeing. It did not go well. He first said greater minds than ours have discussed these things, then that I needed to go to a different church.

I told her, “I can’t. If I’m the only one seeing these things, then I have to be wrong. But the Baptist church we’re going to can’t be right either because they don’t even care what these verses say.”

Finally, a friend brought me David Bercot’s Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up right after it was published in 1989. I read it, brought it to my wife, and said, “I’m not wrong; I was just born in the wrong century.”

Still, Bercot’s book did not resolve the conflict between Ephesians 2 & 5 because he just said, “It’s faith and works.” Later, reading the fathers themselves, I found the same contradiction in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians. Chapter 1 says we’re saved by faith apart from works, quoting Ephesians 2. Chapter 2 says God will only raise us up if we keep his commandments, don’t return evil for evil, etc.

Polycarp didn’t resolve the conflict for me, but he must have known how someone could believe we are saved by faith apart from works but also believe that we can only enter the kingdom of God if we patiently continue to do good (Rom. 2:6-7). I began anxiously expecting to find the secret.

In 1992, reading the Letter to Diognetus (ch. 9), I finally found what should have been obvious to me. The letter points out that what we received by faith is the power to enter the kingdom or, in other words, the power to do good works (cf. Eph. 2:10; Tit. 2:11-14). Entering the kingdom, though, requires us to do the good works we are created in Christ Jesus to do (cf. Gal. 5:19-21 & 6:7-9; Eph. 5:3-7; 1 Cor. 6:9-11).

I felt dumb. How did I not see for SIX YEARS that all the “faith only” verses are in the past tense! All the verses requiring works are in the future tense. During those 6 years, I’m sure I read Romans at least 6 times, but never caught “we were reconciled by his blood” and “we shall be saved from wrath by his life” both in Romans 5:9-10. Saved from wrath is future. Saved from being dead in sin and enslaved to sin is in the past tense. Slaves to sin can’t save themselves by not sinning. Once Jesus saves us, though, reconciles us to God and makes us new creatures, we have to stop sinning because sin has always been what separates us from God (Isa. 59:2). To stop sinning has always been what God wants from us, not sacrifices but obedience (Isa. 1:1-20; 1 Sam. 15:22).

Thus, the central purpose of Jesus’ death was not the forgiveness of sins. God offered forgiveness of sins for repentance in pretty much every book of the Old Testament (e.g., Isaiah 1:1-20; Jer. 7:21-23; Ezek. 18:20-30; Micah 6:6-8; etc.). The primary purpose of Jesus’ death was ransoming us out of slavery to sin just as he ransomed Israel from Egypt.

All of this happened not quite on my own, but it would never have happened if I had listened to the counsel of the Assemblies of God and the Baptists. If you dig deep and find something that absolutely contradicts your teaching then, apparently, you need to go to another church because your church sure isn’t going to change just because of the Bible. At least, that was my experience.

Worse, if you convince some of their sheep of the truth of Scripture and the faith once for all delivered to the saints, you’ll be branded a sheep stealer and a divisive man.

It is, and was for me, a tough row to hoe. God saves people who don’t have their theology right. Those saved people know they have to do good works, but they cannot admit that the Bible says so no matter how many verses are presented to them. I admit they’re really saved, but if I try to teach them the Bible, which tells me to “contend earnestly” for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, they run me off.

I’m older now, so I let God do the teaching bit by bit, except online and in books where people can read and consider without the pressure of toeing the party line. In person I content myself with trying to obey the things I teach by loving and serving, making every effort to live out my own teachings. I’m trying not to be a hypocrite and thus be disqualified even while preaching to others (1 Cor. 9:24-27).