I said in my most recent post (You Can Be Saved Without Your Local Church) that church services aren't necessary for salvation. I did my best to emphasize that I wasn't telling the whole story. I suspect half of my readers were saying "that's right" and the other one said "you'd better tell the other side of the story before I tell your pastor on you".
Well, fellow people-who-make-sure-other-people-follow-the-rules (I'm one of you), here's the other side of the story.
As a recap, here are Paul's "How to Be Saved" instructions according to Romans 10:9:
1. Declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord".
2. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
I said before that salvation doesn't depend on what good things we do, and it doesn't.
But there's a phrase in there we just can't ignore: "Declare...Jesus is Lord."
This is inconvenient, because it can't be fulfilled by singings songs that have the line "Jesus you're my Lord" in them, or inserting the phrase "Lord Jesus" into a prayer. According to the verse, it's coupled with belief. You say that Jesus is your Lord, and you believe he is your Lord.
So what does "Lord" mean?
It means "boss". Jesus is my boss. I am letting Jesus be in charge of me and tell me what to do.
So even though salvation doesn't depend on my obedience to my Lord-boss, I must declare--and truly intend in my heart--to do what he commands.
(Yes, fellow rule-followers, there is the "by their fruit you will know them" verse--this is related and worth discussion, but we're keeping this simple for now, okay?)
IF I declare Jesus as Lord and truly intend to obey him as boss, it stands to reason that I will follow through with my promise to the best of my ability.
Obedience isn't a requirement to salvation. It's a response.
Here's where I say, GOTCHA! Now you have to attend church as a measure of obedience!
Kidding! Before I go there--if I get there--we'll have to look at some other arguments, like what "meeting together" must mean or must not mean. For example, must it happen in a church building? Or maybe it is just a good habit to meet together in a church building? Or maybe it's just an archaic tradition passed down from our Roman Catholic roots to meet in church buildings instead of homes?
(It certainly wouldn't have been as memorable if Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of a small home gathering now, would it? *snort* Sorry, homeschooled Christian nerd joke over.)
So if you're still doubtful about the local church, rest assured that I still haven't said a whole lot.
I haven't talked about whether or not the local church is useful or even good. I've only said that
1. Salvation does not depend on the good things we do or the bad things we do not do, and
2. We do good things or abstain from wrong things as a response to being saved.
I hope so far we're on the same webpage. If we don't start with what Jesus did, all discussion about what WE do--meeting together and legalism and church leaders and doctrine--is pointless.
If you thought my "You can be saved without the local church" post ruffled a few feathers, just wait for my next post! I'm going to have some real explaining to do to my fellow rule-followers...
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