28 Bible Verses about Salvation Not By Works

For it is by his mercy that you have been saved through faith. It is not by your own action, it is the gift of God. It has not been earned, so that no one can boast of it.

I refuse to nullify the mercy of God. For if uprightness could be secured through law, then Christ died for nothing!

For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature,

So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God.

But if it is by his mercy, it is not for anything they have done. Otherwise, his mercy would not be mercy at all.

Why, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ can do nothing for you.

You people who propose to be made upright by law have finished with Christ; you have lost your hold upon God's favor.

and that through union with him everyone who believes is cleared of every charge of which the Law of Moses could not clear you.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin. But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. It is God's way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction.read more.
For all men sin and come short of the glory of God, but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus. For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men's former sins)??26 to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is shut out. On what principle? What a man does? No, but whether a man has faith. For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it. Does God belong to the Jews alone? Does he not belong to the heathen too? Of course he belongs to the heathen too; there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs."

Then what are we to say about our ancestor Abraham? For if he was made upright by what he did, it is something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God, for what does the Scripture say? "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness."read more.
Now paying a workman is not considered a favor, but an obligation, but a man who has no work to offer, but has faith in him who can make the ungodly upright, has his faith credited to him as uprightness. So David himself says of the happiness of those to whom God credits uprightness without any reference to their actions, "Happy are they whose violations of the Law have been forgiven, whose sins are covered up!

while Israel, straining after a law that should bring uprightness, did not come up to it. And why? Because they did not seek it through faith, but through doing certain things. They stumbled over that stone that makes people stumble,

I will show you a far better way. If I can speak the languages of men and even of angels, but have no love, I am only a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal. If I am inspired to preach and know all the secret truths and possess all knowledge, and if I have such perfect faith that I can move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. Even if I give away everything I own, and give myself up, but do it in pride, not love, it does me no good.

but who know that a man is not made upright by doing what the Law commands, but by faith in Christ Jesus??ven we believed in Christ Jesus, so as to be made upright by faith in Christ and not by doing what the Law commands??or by doing what the Law commands no one can be made upright.

For there is a curse upon all who rely on obedience to the Law, for the Scripture says, "Cursed be anyone who does not stand by everything that is written in the Book of the Law and obey it." That no one is accepted as upright by God for obeying the Law is evident because the upright will have life because of his faith, and the Law has nothing to do with faith; it teaches that it is the man who does these things that will find life by doing them.

Is the Law then contrary to God's promises? By no means. For if a law had been given that could have brought life, uprightness would really have come through law.

but now that you know God, or rather have come to be known by him, how can you turn back to the old, crude notions, so poor and weak, and wish to become slaves to them again? You are observing days, months, seasons, and years! I begin to be afraid that perhaps the labor I spent on you was wasted.

For in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the want of it counts for anything, but only faith acting through love.

For neither circumcision nor the want of it is of any importance, but only a new creation.

We are the true circumcision, who worship God by his Spirit, priding ourselves only on Christ Jesus, and not relying on physical advantages, though I at least am entitled to rely on them. If anyone thinks he can rely on his physical advantages, still more can I! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a descendant of Israel. I belong to the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew, and the son of Hebrews. As to the Law, I was a Pharisee;read more.
as to my zeal, I was a persecutor of the church; and by the Law's standard of uprightness, no fault could be found with me. But for the sake of Christ I have come to count my former gains as loss. Why, I count everything as loss compared with the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have lost everything, and think it rubbish, in order to gain Christ and be known to be united to him, with any uprightness I may have not based on law but coming through faith in Christ??he uprightness that comes from God through faith.

If you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things, why do you act as though you still belonged to the world, and submit to rules like "You must not handle," "You must not taste," "You must not touch"??22 referring to things that are all meant to be used up and destroyed? This is to follow mere human rules and regulations. Such practices pass for wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, and their ascetic discipline, but they carry with them no real distinction, they are really only a catering to the flesh.

He saved us and called us to a consecrated life, not for anything we had done, but of his own accord and out of the mercy which he bestowed upon us ages ago through Christ Jesus,

But when the goodness and kindness of God our Savior were revealed, he saved us, not for any upright actions we had performed, but from his own mercy, through the bath of regeneration and renewal by the holy Spirit,

For we who have believed are admitted to that Rest, of which he said, "As I made oath in my anger, They shall never be admitted to my Rest!" And yet God's work was finished at the creation of the world, for he says somewhere of the seventh day, "On the seventh day God rested after all his work," while here he says again, "They shall never be admitted to my Rest!"read more.
Since then it is still true that somebody will be admitted to it, and those who had a gospel preached to them before were not admitted because of their disobedience, he again fixes a new Today, saying long afterward through David, as already quoted, "If you hear his voice today, Do not harden your hearts!" For if Joshua had really brought them rest God would not afterward have spoken of another day. So there must still be a promised Sabbath of Rest for God's people. For all who are admitted to God's Rest rest after their work, just as God did after his.

Let us therefore leave elementary Christian teaching alone and advance toward maturity. We must not be always relaying foundations, of repentance for wrong-doing, and of faith in God, with the teaching of baptism and the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and final judgment.

For anyone who obeys the whole of the Law but makes one single slip is guilty of breaking it all. For he who said, "You must not commit adultery," said also, "You must not commit murder." Now if you abstain from adultery, but commit murder, you are still a violator of the Law.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.

To some who were confident of their own uprightness, and thought nothing of others, he used this illustration: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood up and uttered this prayer to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like other men, greedy, dishonest, or adulterous, like that tax-collector.read more.
I fast two days in the week; I pay tithes on everything I get.' But the tax-collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, and said, 'O God, have mercy on a sinner like me!' I tell you, it was he who went back to his house with God's approval, and not the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted."

For I tell you that unless your uprightness is far superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never even enter the Kingdom of Heaven!