Part III: Questions about Salvation

103. Q. Can you repent and believe in Christ by your own power?
          A. No. I can do nothing good without God’s Holy Spirit.

(Click through to read scriptural proof.)

• John 3:5-6

  Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. [6] That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

• John 6:44

  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

• Romans 8:2, 5, 8-11

  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

  You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. [10] But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. [11] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

• 1 Corinthians 2:9-14

  [9] But, as it is written,

  “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

  nor the heart of man imagined,

  what God has prepared for those who love him”—

  [10] these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. [11] For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. [12] Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

  [14] The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

• Galatians 5:17-18

   For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

• Ephesians 2:4-6

  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—[6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesu … .

Scripture quoted from the English Standard Version.