You don't get to heaven by living a good life or by doing good works, but by faith. However, living faith produces good works. Our reward in heaven will be according to our good works.
Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Copyright © 1992 by R. C. Sproul. All rights reserved.
Faith and Works
===============
Many people assume that by trying to live a good life, they have done all that
is necessary to get to heaven. They rest their confidence on the good works
they have performed to satisfy the demands of God's justice.
This is a futile hope. God's law requires perfection. Since we are not
perfect, we lack the necessary goodness to enter heaven. Thus goodness can
never be achieved by living a good life. We can only receive it by trusting in
the righteousness of Christ. His merit is perfect and is made available to us
through faith.
To believe that we are justified by our good works apart from faith is to
embrace the heresy of legalism. To believe that we are justified by a kind of
faith that produces no works is to embrace the heresy of antinomianism.
The relationship of faith and good works is one that may be distinguished but
never separated. Though our good works add no merit to our faith before God,
and though the sole condition of our justification is our faith in Christ, if
good works do not follow from our profession of faith, it is a clear
indication that we do not possess justifying faith. The Reformed formula is
"We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone." True
justification always results in the process of sanctification. If there is
justification, sanctification will inevitably follow. If sanctification does
not follow, it is certain that justification was not really present. This does
not mean that justification depends or rests upon sanctification.
Justification depends on true faith, which in turn will inevitably lead to
works of obedience.
When James declared that faith without works is dead, he asserted that such
"faith" cannot justify anyone because it is not alive. Living faith produces
good works, but these good works are not the basis for justification. Only the
merit achieved by Jesus Christ can justify the sinner.
It is a grievous error, indeed a modern form of the antinomian heresy, to
suggest that a person can be justified by embracing Jesus as Savior but not as
Lord. True faith accepts Christ as both Savior and Lord. To rely on Christ
alone for salvation is to acknowledge one's total dependence upon Him and to
repent of one's sin. To repent of sin is to submit to Christ's authority over
us. To deny His lordship is to seek justification with an impenitent faith,
which is no faith.
Though our good works do not merit salvation, they are the basis upon which
God promises to distribute rewards in heaven. Our entrance into the kingdom of
God is by faith alone. Our reward in the kingdom will be according to our good
works, which is, as Augustine noted, a case of God's gracious crowning of His
own gifts.
No one can be justified by good works. Only through faith in Christ can we be
justified.
Faith and good deeds must be distinguished but never separated. True faith
always produces works of obedience.
Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.
Dead faith cannot justify.
Faith in Christ means trusting in Him as Savior and submitting to Him as Lord.
We are rewarded in heaven according to our good works, though this reward is
one of grace.
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