I read your earlier post and your exchange with Franklin. I don’t think you two are that far apart. Maybe I’m wrong but I think I hear you both saying that justification is completely the work of God that saves us, and that santification is also the work of God that forms us more and more into the image of Christ and that comes out in our day-to-day lives as we do good works. Those good works don’t sanctify us, the are the result of what God’s grace is doing in us.

The second would still be love others. One time A Lincoln asked his advisers how many legs a calf would have if you called its tail a leg. After they responded “five,” Lincoln said “Four — just because you call a tail a leg, it’s still a tail.”

Back to Dan’s analogy. I appreciate the imagery. I would suggest that sometimes — many times — the master mechanic does not re-paint and polish the car but instead gets the motor and tranny working better than stock. While it wouldn’t attract many buyers if put on a sales lot, His car transports better than better looking cars do.

While this is going on, there are attempts by some of the cars in the junk yard that want to be just like the restored ones. They don’t wait to be refurbished. Instead, they help each other to get back to the last gas station they recall. While they’re getting filled up, they spring for a carwash and an oil change as well. They take care of any burned out bulbs and broken springs and replace the wiper blades. Then they move off together and look for people to carry. They end up doing a nice job until the day they finally wear out, and are returned to the bone yard.

Perhaps you see the issue that I brought up at the time:

“That’s one commandment. Where is the other?”

I had no question that loving God and loving others is the greatest commandment. But I think of it as only one commandment. What was the second?

By this time I actually had some of the elders and deacons in the audience. Some agreed that there was one commandment, and some said that loving God was one commandment and loving others was the second. As Jesus said, “The other is like unto it…” He also said, “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Indicating two commandments: Love God, Love others. But if we think of that as one, then what would the second be? Because the bifurcated gospel is often riven along this line. To further your analogy, Dan, it’s like puttering around the junkyard and polishing the fenders of the wrecks in the yard.

What do you think I was driving at when I said there was a second commandment?