Tag Archives: do good works

What is the difference between Everlasting Life and Salvation? Or is there a difference? Why are these terms different for the same concept? Or are they the same? I guess to most people, they could care less. However, if they have the same meaning then there is a great contradiction here.

If they are different, then there is something here that we haven’t seen before. It’s not a wonder most people don’t study and try to understand the bible for themselves, it takes a bible scholar with a doctorate degree to understand some of it. So people just leave the interpreting to the guys with the credentials and accept what they have to say as God-sent truth.

According to Jesus, Everlasting Life is obtained by keeping the commandments and doing good works. According to Paul, salvation is merely believing and one cannot be saved by good works which we have done, but belief only is “accounted” for righteousness. Apparently, salvation is being saved from Hell. The concept of Hell is foreign to the Bible. Maybe this is the reason Jesus preferred to use the term eternal life.

This is a direct contradiction of a basic concept. To make things more complicated, Jesus says in one of the gospels, “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” So in this place it seems that Jesus is agreeing with Paul in that all you have to do is believe. Weather or not he actually said those exact words is a different story.

But then in other places he says clearly that you have to keep his commandments and do good works to enter into life. What is one to believe? It’s not a wonder that people leave it up to the clergy to get their truth.

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