Faith versus works? Faith, in the sense Apostle Paul and other apostles spoke of it, is all a matter of persuasion. There is the gospel message, and it persuades. There are righteous acts according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and these too persuade. Being persuaded about the veracity and heaven-sent wisdom of Jesus Christ saves. The persuasion does not come from the kind of actions performed in the course of obedience to the Law, such as circumcision, keeping feasts, offering sacrifices. These were performed over and over by Jews of Paul’s time without resulting in saving persuasion. It was good, yes, but not saving. It still fell short of pleasing God. Paul himself had lived in full compliance with these works of Law, as he called them; these actions which built Jewish identity, yet he still persecuted the church and grieved the Lord Jesus Christ by it. Jesus taught people teachings which persuaded them to believe he is from God, and that he could and would save those who truly followed him. He taught that persuasion of this kind and holding to his teachings was what constituted truly following him, and he would save these followers, these disciples, from falling short of what pleases God, saving them from eternal death, giving them eternal life. Paul affirmed that such persuasion is what leads to saving righteousness; true righteousness. Obedience to the identity-forming aspects of the Jewish Law did not constitute this, not persuade in the way necessary for this salvation. Obedience to Christ and his teachings is powerfully persuasive, even though some might think it is one set of works replacing another. Keeping the Lord’s Supper, for example, is a matter of powerful persuasion, because it proclaims the saving gospel message that Jesus Christ was offered as sacrifice for our moral shortcomings, dying on the cross for them, once and for all. Baptism shows how he died and then rose again. This all spreads the heavenly, persuasive message, which saves by persuasion.
