Answer to Question from Reader: Salvation by Faith and Sex Outside of Marriage

Blog Date August 14th 2007

Question:

Someone contacted me and asked me this question, and I quote, "I thought that you were teaching that salvation is by faith. By saying that you cannot make it to heaven if you are having sex outside of marriage, is this not teaching salvation by works?"

Answer:

Salvation

Salvation is provided to us freely, by faith, for it is the gift of God. However, there is some work involved in this salvation process. We must do our part and take care of the gift that has been given to us by our Heavenly Father. For example: We bought our son, Jamie, a new vehicle after he graduated high school. (We bought our daughter a car too) I’ll never forget when we gave Jamie his bright new shiny red pick up truck. He was thrilled. He shined on that truck so much I thought he was going to rub the paint right off. He changed the oil himself and never asked us to do anything. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t let anyone else do anything to it. It was his truck and he kept it in tip-top shape himself. Jamie appreciated the gift we had given him and he worked really hard to keep it spotless.

Shouldn’t we appreciate the gift of Salvation God has given to us? Shouldn’t we work just as hard as Jamie did on his truck, if not harder, to keep ourselves spotless from the world? According to Romans 12:1 we are. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service."

Yes, salvation is by faith, but Phillipians 2:12 states we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. James 2:17 tells us that faith without works is dead.

Like I said above, there is some work involved in this salvation process.

Sex Outside of Marriage

On the issue of sex outside of marriage: The person that wrote me says that the way they understand it, is that sex outside of marriage is OK as long as it is in a meaningful relationship. I would like to ask this person to read these scriptures and then tell me if they still believe the same way.

1Th 4:3 -
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
Jude 1:7 - Show Context
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.


Eph 5:3 -
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;


Col 3:5 -
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

1Co 6:13 -
Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
1Co 6:18 -
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

1Co 7:2 -
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

1Co 10:8 -
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

2Co 12:21 -
And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.

Ga 5:19 -
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Until next time remember, I said it and you read it,right here on Darlene’s Blog.

Contends on Page Copyright 2007 Darlene Osborne