We are saved by grace, through faith alone, one of the essential doctrines in the church. Martin Luther himself has said on this doctrine the church stands or falls. But what exactly does it mean to be “saved by grace, through faith alone”?
Most Christians would answer such a question with Rom 10:9-11 as evidence anyone in the entire world, Jew or Gentile, will be saved if they believe in Jesus as Lord. But what exactly does it mean “to believe in Jesus”?
We can all agree on one important thing if the Bible has the word of Yehovah, it has to take precedence over human doctrine and traditions. So if one of our doctrines and traditions come into conflict with anything in the Bible, that is the word of Yehovah, the word of Yehovah has to take precedence.
Martin Luther, who discovered the doctrine of justification by faith, has also said you can not correctly understand the Bible without first knowing Hebrew. According to Luther, the Bible is a Jewish book containing a lot of Hebraisms. If we dont understand those Hebraisms, we will fail at comprehending what the Bible has to say.
What Luther is saying is that we have to set aside our Greek Hellenistic way of thinking, and begin to read the Bible with a Hebraic mindset.
What happens if we take Luther upon his word and read Rom 10:9-11 with a Hebraic mindset, correctly interpreting all the Hebraisms in the Bible?
Rom 10:11 quotes Isaiah 28:16. Most translations are often similar to the Greek rendering, and the one who believes upon Him will not be put to shame. If we do what Luther told us to do, and we read it in Hebrew, it says, “the one who believes will not make haste.”
The Hebrew word for “one who believes” is ma amin.
Ma amin in Hebrew has a root meaning of training, loyalty, and faithfulness and calls us to do something, not just passively believe in Jesus.
We see this in Jac 2:19, where the Bible says even the demons believe in Yehovah, but they are not faithful to Him. So the Bible clearly says there is a difference between believing and being loyal to Yehovah.
How do we show our faithfulness and loyalty to Yehovah?
Yeshua gives us the answer to this question in John 14 and Matt 23:2; He says we show our love and loyalty to Yehovah by obeying Moses.
So what does it mean “to believe in Jesus” and be saved “by grace through faith alone”?
According to Rom 10:11, John 14, Matt 23:2, Jac 2:19, it means we will repent from disobeying the law of Moses and start living in obedience again. The law of Moses says in Lev 17:11 blood atones for sins and 1. John 3:4 says sin is breaking the Mosaic law.
When we repent, we all know we have not obeyed the law in the past. So we all have guilt needing atonement and reconciliation. When Yehoshua (Yeshua/Jesus) died on the cross, His death met all the requirements in the Mosaic law for a sin offering. The temple is gone, so we can not meet the requirements of the law by going to the temple and sacrifice. The only way we can have atonement is to believe Yehoshua is our sin offering and do what the Bible says and repent back to Torah obedience.
There is, therefore, no way you can obey the law of Moses and, at the same time, reject the cross or reject Yehoshua. But at the same time, there is no way you can accept the cross and reject Moses. Rejecting Moses and/or Yeshua is the same as rejecting eternal life (Matt 7:21-23)
Yes, we are saved by grace through faith alone. But if we do what Martin Luther said, and read the Bible from a Hebraic mindset, we soon understand salvation by grace through faith can only be done if we start obeying Moses.
The question then gives itself, how does the Bible define works and legalism if works and legalism are not the same as obeying Moses. ? We will try to answer this and other questions from the Bible in the coming weeks. Dont miss a teaching, follow us on Facebook by clicking “follow” and “see first in newsfeed.”