CHAPTER 8 Faith

Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

That stanza, penned by Charlotte Elliot in the nineteenth century, has probably been used as background for the evangelistic invitation more than any other hymn in history. The thought these words convey is a glorious biblical reality: sinners may come to Christ just as they are solely on the basis of repentant faith—and He will save them. The Lord’s own wonderful promise is in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Later He added, “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

The erosion of the gospel in our day has given this truth an insidious twist. The language of the modern message sounds vaguely similar to “Just as I Am,” but the difference in meaning is profound. Sinners today hear not only that Christ will receive them as they are, but also that He will let them stay that way! Many erroneously believe they can come to Christ, receive absolution and immortality, then walk away to continue living life as they please according to the desires of their own flesh.

A few years ago leaders of a Christian ministry for young people asked me to preview a training film they produced. The subject was evangelism, and the film instructed youth workers not to tell unsaved young people they must obey Christ, give Him their hearts, surrender their lives, repent of their sins, submit to His lordship, or follow Him. Telling the unsaved they must do those things confuses the gospel message, the film said. It advocated giving only the objective facts about Jesus’ death (making no mention of the resurrection), and pressing on them the need to believe. The film concluded that the sum total of saving faith is understanding and accepting the facts of the gospel.

I once spoke at a Bible conference where a well-known Bible teacher brought a message on salvation. He suggested that telling unsaved people they must surrender to Christ is the same as preaching works. He defined salvation as the unconditional gift of everlasting life given to people who believe the facts about Christ, whether they choose to obey Him or not. One of his main points was that salvation may or may not alter a person’s behavior. Transformed conduct is certainly desirable, he said, but even if no change in lifestyle occurs, the one who has believed the facts of the gospel can rest in the certainty of heaven.

Multitudes approach Christ on those terms. Thinking He will not confront their sin, they respond eagerly-but with no sense of the severity of their guilt before God and with no desire to be freed from sin’s bondage. They have been deceived by a corrupted gospel. They have been told that faith alone will save them, but they neither understand nor possess real faith. The “faith” they are relying on is only a superficial nod of agreement rather than a wholehearted embrace of the truth. It is not saving faith.

Eternal Life from Dead Faith?

Scripture expressly deals with that brand of non-redemptive, notional “faith.” James 2:14-17 says faith without works is dead and cannot save. James describes spurious faith as pure hypocrisy (v. 16), mere cognitive assent (v. 19), devoid of any verifying works (vv. 17-18)—no different from the demons’ belief (v. 19). Obviously there is more to saving faith than merely conceding a set of facts. Faith without works is useless (v. 20).

Today’s popular approaches to evangelism often foster and encourage precisely that kind of barren faith. The gospel appeal is tacked onto a wholly inadequate explanation of what it means to believe. Because the modern definition of faith eliminates repentance, it evacuates the moral significance of believing; it obviates the work of God in the sinner’s heart; it makes an ongoing trust in the Lord optional. Christians who adjust the gospel in that fashion typically insist they are safeguarding the truth that salvation is by faith alone. Ironically, they have turned faith itself into a wholly human work. Such “faith” is a fragile, fleshly, cursory presumption that cannot endure.

Scripture expressly refutes the notion that a person can truly believe at the moment of salvation and then later abandon the faith. Professing Christians do sometimes abandon the faith, of course. But speaking of such people, the apostle John wrote, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 2:12 also speak powerfully to this issue: “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us.” Endurance is the mark of those who will reign with Christ in His kingdom. Clearly, enduring is a characteristic of true believers, while disloyalty and defection reveal a heart of unbelief. Those who deny Christ, He will deny. Paul goes on to say, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself” (v. 13). Thus God’s faithfulness is a blessed comfort to loyal, abiding believers but a frightening warning to false professors (cf. John 3:17-18).

Faith as Scripture Describes It

We have seen already that repentance is granted by God; it is not a human work (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25). Likewise, faith is a supernatural gift of God. Ephesians 2:8-9 is a familiar passage: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” What is “the gift of God” Paul speaks of? The answer is not simple, because the phrase “that not of yourselves” has no clear antecedent. The Greek pronoun translated “that” is neuter, and the word for “faith” is feminine. The antecedent of “that,” it would seem, cannot be the word faith. “That” might refer to the act of believing, employing an antecedent that is not stated but understood. It is also possible that Paul had in mind the entire process-grace, faith, and salvation—as the gift of God. Both possibilities certainly are in keeping with the context: “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (v. 5). Spiritually dead, we were helpless until God intervened to quicken us. Faith is an integral part of the “gift” His grace bestowed on us.

Consistently the Scriptures teach that faith is not conjured up by the human will but is a sovereignly granted gift of God. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). And “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father” (v. 65). Acts 3:16 speaks of “the faith which comes through Him.” Philippians 1:29 says, “To you it has been granted for Christ’s sake… to believe in Him.” And Peter wrote to fellow believers as “those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours” (2 Peter 1:1).

How do we know that faith is God’s gift? Left to ourselves, no one would ever believe: “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11). “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). God draws the sinner to Christ and gives the ability to believe. Without that divinely generated faith, one cannot understand and approach the Savior. “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). That is precisely why when Peter affirmed his faith in Christ as the Son of God, Jesus told him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). Faith is graciously given to believers by God Himself.

As a divine gift, faith is neither transient nor impotent. It has an abiding quality that guarantees it will endure to the end. The familiar words of Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous will live by his faith” (cf. Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38), speak not of a momentary act of believing, but of a living, enduring trust in God. Hebrews 3:14 emphasizes the permanence of genuine faith. Its very durability is proof of its reality: “We have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.” The faith God gives can never evaporate. And the work of salvation cannot ultimately be thwarted. In Philippians 1:6 Paul wrote, “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:8; Col. 1:22–23).

The faith God graciously supplies produces both the volition and the ability to comply with His will (cf. Phil. 2:13: “God… is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure”). Thus faith is inseparable from obedience, and the person who has believed will yearn to obey. Because we retain the vestiges of sinful flesh, no one will obey perfectly (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 3:10), but the desire to do the will of God will be ever present in true believers (cf. Rom. 7:18). That is why faith and obedience are so closely linked throughout Scripture.

A concept of faith not producing surrender of the will corrupts the message of salvation. Paul spoke of the gospel as something to be obeyed (Rom. 10:16 KJV; 2 Thess. 1:8). Here is how he characterized conversion: “Though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart” (Rom. 6:17). The result he sought in his ministry of evangelism was “obedience… by word and deed” (15:18). And he wrote repeatedly of “the obedience of faith” (1:5; 16:26).

Clearly, the biblical concept of faith is inseparable from obedience. “Believe” is treated as if it were synonymous with “obey” in John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life.” Acts 6:7 shows how salvation was understood in the early church: “A great many… were becoming obedient to the faith.” Obedience is so closely related to saving faith that Hebrews 5:9 uses it as a synonym: “Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” Hebrews 11, the great treatise on faith, presents obedience and faith as inseparable: “By faith Abraham… obeyed” (v. 8)—and not just Abraham. All the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 showed their faith by obedience.

Obedience is the inevitable manifestation of true faith. Paul recognized this when he wrote to Titus about “those who are defiled and unbelieving….They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him” (Titus 1:15-16). To Paul, their perpetual disobedience proved their disbelief. Their actions denied God more loudly than their words proclaimed Him. This is characteristic of unbelief, not faith, for true faith always embodies righteous works. As the Reformers were fond of saying, we are justified by faith alone, but justifying faith is never alone. True faith is manifest only in obedience.

Faith and faithfulness were not substantially different concepts to the first-century Christian. In fact, the same word is translated both ways in our English Bibles. The faithful (believing) are also faithful (obedient). Fidelity, constancy, and trust are all inherent in the biblical description of faith. Righteous living is therefore an inevitable by-product of real faith (Rom. 10:10).

Of course, that is not to say that faith results in anything like sinless perfection. All true believers understand the plea of the demon-possessed boy’s father, “I do believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Those who believe will desire to obey, however imperfectly they may follow through at times. So-called “faith” in God that does not produce this yearning to submit to His will is not faith at all. The state of mind that refuses obedience is pure and simple unbelief.

Faith as Jesus Presented It

The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12) reveal the character of true faith as well as any passage of Scripture I know. These traits-poverty of spirit, hunger and thirst for righteousness, purity of heart, and so on—are not just an unobtainable legal standard. These are characteristics common to all who believe. The first of the Beatitudes leaves no doubt about whom the Lord is speaking: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). He is describing redeemed people, those who have believed, those who are part of the kingdom. Here is what their faith is like.

Its foundational characteristic is humility-a poverty of spirit, a brokenness that acknowledges spiritual bankruptcy. Genuine believers see themselves as sinners; they know they have nothing to offer God that will buy His favor. That is why they mourn (v. 4), with the sorrow that accompanies true repentance. It crushes the believer into meekness (v. 5). He hungers and thirsts for righteousness (v. 6). As the Lord satisfies that hunger, He makes the believing one merciful (v. 6), pure in heart (v. 7), and a peacemaker (v. 9). The believer is ultimately persecuted and reviled for righteousness’ sake (v. 10).

That is Jesus’ description of the genuine believer. Each of the characteristics He names-starting with humility and reaching fruition in obedience—is a consequence of true faith. And note that the obedience of faith is more than external; it issues from the heart. That is one reason the righteousness of the redeemed is greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20): it is not just superficial. Jesus goes on to characterize true righteousness—the righteousness that is born of faith (cf. Rom. 10:6)—as obedience not just to the letter of the law, but to the spirit of the law as well (Matt. 5:21-48). This kind of righteousness does not merely avoid acts of adultery; it goes so far as to avoid adulterous thoughts. It eschews hatred the same as murder.

If you see that God’s standard is higher than you can possibly attain, you are on the road to the blessedness Jesus spoke of in the Beatitudes. It begins with the humility that grows out of a sense of utter spiritual poverty, the knowledge that we are poor in spirit. And it consummates inevitably in righteous obedience. Those are characteristics of a supernatural life. They are impossible apart from faith, and it is impossible that someone with true faith might be utterly lacking these characteristics that are common to everyone in the kingdom (Matt. 5:3).

When Jesus wanted to illustrate the character of saving faith, He took a little child, stood him in the midst of the disciples, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). A child was the perfect picture of obedient humility, an object lesson about saving faith.

Jesus used this illustration to teach that if we insist on retaining the privileges of adulthood-if we want to be our own boss, do our own thing, govern our own lives—we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. But if we are willing to come on the basis of childlike faith and receive salvation with the humility of a child, with a willingness to surrender to Christ’s authority, then we are coming with the right attitude.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish” (John 10:27-28). Who are the true sheep? The ones who follow. Who are the ones who follow? The ones who are given eternal life.

Faith obeys. Unbelief rebels. Christians can and do fall into sin, of course. But the long-term direction of one’s life will reveal whether that person is a believer or an unbeliever.

Merely knowing and affirming facts apart from obedience to the truth is not believing in the biblical sense. Those who cling to the memory of a one-time decision of “faith” but lack any evidence of the outworking of faith had better heed the clear and solemn warning of Scripture: “He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).