The Difference Between Cause and Accompaniment

For years the Spirit’s had me teaching my congregation to read their Bibles on their own time, to make a serious habit of it. I encourage them to do so in the absence of any personal agendas (e.g., reading into the Bible what isn’t there and/or looking for ways the Bible can be manipulated to endorse evil thinking). I advise them that the best way to avoid such an error is to seek the good intentions of the writers humbly and honestly (and, by proxy, the Spirit, the true Author of the Bible). All of this is accomplished by reading the Bible in context.

Suppose you’re ten years old when you and your sibling are sitting in the back seat of the family car at a grocery store and your dad sees an elderly woman struggling with putting her packages into her trunk. He announces, “One of you go help that poor old lady!” You begin revealing your good intentions to help the woman by sliding towards the door. However, your dad, tired of your sibling’s selfishness, orders you to sit still and for your sibling to help. They go begrudgingly, don a phony smile while performing the task, and even receive a tip from the grateful woman.

The woman walks back to your car as your sibling jumps into the back seat, huddling up next to you, flashing a grin and a crisp dollar bill. The old woman says to your dad, “What a wonderful child you have!” Then she turns her attention and looks directly at you and says, “You could learn a lot from your sibling!”

Why is this scene so irritating? It’s because someone chose to pass judgment about you that wasn’t fair. We humans do this to each other all the time, don’t we? In fact, we sometimes do it on purpose (I call this willful ignorance) in order to pass a degrading or demoralizing judgement on someone else for the sake of building ourselves up!

Sadly, this happens quite often in ministry. As grotesque as it may seem, and as vile as it is to God, people often misrepresent someone’s comments and/or teaching, ultimately slandering them. It has happened to me, personally, many times. When it does, I fall back on the words of Jesus.


I will now share with you a recent attack I suffered. I was told that my personal stance on salvation was perverted because I teach that a person, in humility, must repent and believe (these are two sides of the same coin), and at some point during their conversion, they must count the cost of surrendering to the Lord. Jesus said:


If I attribute repentance and belief as works of man, then you would be correct in concluding that I am mixing man’s work in with ‘salvation by grace through faith alone.’ I have never taught this, of course. While only God can judge why I was attacked, I can only stand by what Holy Scripture says, refuting the false accusations. The craziest thing is that I was accused of teaching something that I, in fact, do not teach. Here’s what I teach:

Salvation is by grace through faith. God does all the work. God is the cause. Man is hopeless and helpless in his natural estate. What happens to man once he is born again, that which accompanies his salvation, assures him of his conversion forevermore.


If someone asks me about repentance, I say that God does all the work, by grace.


If someone asks me about surrendering oneself to the Lord in order to follow Him, I simply quote Jesus.


If someone asks me to explain why I believe a true believer must bear fruit in keeping with repentance as evidence of true conversion, I refer them to Holy Scripture.



If someone asks me why I teach that good works must accompany salvation and sanctification, I simply quote Holy Scripture.


By now, you might be asking, on what grounds can anyone attack you? My response is simple, like the old lady in the opening scene, people have a bad habit of taking what I say out of context. What is the error, exactly, as I see it? People hear what they want to hear and judge precipitously, even at the risk (or sometimes intention) of slandering another person. In my case, the false assumption is actually a function of their own error (e.g., they judge me through a perverted lens). They, not I, believe that repentance, surrender, and belief are works of man, something, supposedly, man is able to do while still an unbeliever. I believe natural man can do nothing good; therefore, all aspects of salvation are grace gifts from God (re: all of the above). So, when a slanderer imposes their false beliefs onto mine, they conclude I am teaching salvation is by ‘faith + works’. In other words, they conclude that I’m teaching that works are the cause of salvation, rather than the truth, which is that all good works accompanying salvation are fruit of God’s grace. When understood in light of their error, it is understandable why they might cast accusations. I, too, reject any work of man contributing to his salvation. Again, the craziest thing is that I am accused of teaching something that I, in fact, do not teach.

You see, the disagreement isn’t with understanding that salvation is by grace alone. The issue is a bit deeper and insidious; that is, that some people believe that repentance, surrender, and belief are actually works of man. I believe they are works of God. For example, when the Bible says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31), it is implied that God must perform a work in man in order for this to happen (ala John 6:44). What the Bible never says is that man has the power to do anything in the direction of salvation without God’s intervention (otherwise, we’d have to assume that fallen man can do good, in direct contradiction to God’s Word – e.g., John 1:13; Romans 3:10; 5:8). What His Word teaches us (ala Ephesians 2:8-9) is that God, by grace, gives man the power and the humility to repent and believe. Likewise, any “surrendering” that is done during the conversion process is also a function of God’s grace alone.

To net this out: God is the cause of salvation, through and through. Any good work that accompanies the conversion process or the process of sanctification afterwards is merely evidence that God has indeed performed this good work, for His own purposes and by His own power.



We, as believers, have the ability to discern what God has accomplished in us at salvation. The more we continue to learn from His Word, the more we appreciate all that He has accomplished in us, by grace. To believe that God demands repentance and belief in order to be saved, and then to realize that He is the one who empowers these good acts, is to love him all the more.


There’s a difference between cause and accompaniment. To say that man is the cause for his salvation is a lie. To attribute one’s ability to repent and believe to man is the root of this lie (If you wish to dig your heels into this error more, I suggest you read The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther). To accuse an orthodox pastor of supposing such a lie is slanderous.

Context is key, certainly while reading our Bibles, but also whenever we judge the thoughts, words, and intentions of others.




Love in Christ,

Ed Collins