Fruit Trees

Jesus taught, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life." (John 5:24) Paul assured us that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works (Eph 2:8-9). Some taught that you needed more -- obey the laws, get circumcised, that sort of thing. Paul didn't dismiss them; he anathematized them (Gal 1:6-10). He cursed them. He damned them.

Well, that settles that, right? You'd think. But it doesn't.

Jesus taught, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." (John 14:15) Paul followed the "not of works" text with "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10) Odd. It looks like they yanked the standard "saved by works" out of the equation and then slipped it back in. How do we correlate "saved by grace apart from works" with "for good works"? What do works and salvation have to do with each other?

I know people who tell me, "I'm saved because I believe in Jesus and Jesus taught that's what was required for salvation." The statement, on the face of it, is certainly true. But if you look at the lives of some of those people there isn't a shred of evidence that they belong to Christ. And Jesus taught, "You will recognize them by their fruits." (Matt 7:16) Perhaps there is a clue to my question about works and salvation in Jesus's words there. Maybe another is in Paul's warning in 2 Corinthians.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Cor 11:3-4)

Is that what we're looking at?

We live in a world with multiple "Jesuses." (I'm sorry. I don't know the plural for "Jesus.") We know, for instance, that the Jesus of the Latter Day Saints is not the Jesus of the Bible. We know that the Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge Jesus, but not the biblical version. There is more than one "Jesus" to choose from. I know people who "have faith in Jesus," but when they tell me about the Jesus they trust, it is often not the Jesus of the Bible. He's kind, but has no wrath. He's loving but isn't holy. He's warm and friendly but has no genuine authority. He's nonjudgmental and doesn't much care about what I do. They tend to mix biblical aspects of Christ with nonbiblical aspects of Christ and deny other biblical aspects of Christ to make a non-Jesus as their savior. They believe fully in a Jesus of their own making and not the Jesus of Scripture.

We are not saved by works. That fact is indisputable. We are saved apart from works. But, as a tree produces the fruit that is its nature to produce, a person born of God will produce fruit that is his or her nature to produce. The tree doesn't define its nature; neither do we. But if we know the genuine Christ -- the One in the Word -- it will change how we think and act -- over time, certainly, but inexorably -- and define us as followers of Christ. If, on the other hand, we are followers of a false Christ spawned by the father of lies, that, too will show itself in how we think and act. As the fruit is the result of the tree, so too is our actions and thoughts the result of our natures. We can have Christ-empowered, Christ-altered natures or not. The fruit will tell us which we are, even with our "I believe in Jesus" claims.