03.01 - Why is This Important?

3.1 WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

There is no subject more important than our salvation. There is only one reality with God: either we are saved by faith only or we are not. If we are saved by faith only, then it ought to say it in the New Testament (i.e., the covenant under which we now live -- see Chapter 2). On the other hand, if the word of God indicates that this is a false doctrine, but we decide to believe it anyway, we will be eternally lost. That the denominations generally teach that a person is saved by faith only is a documented fact. It is a remnant of Calvinism which denominational leaders feared to challenge. In fact, at least since the 1950’s the trend has been to make this a central tenet of the ecumenical movement. The reason for this seems quite clear from an historical point of view. While denominational churches were relatively independent with each member practicing religion through the local congregation, each could teach its own variation of the conditions of salvation. Of course, some of these were much closer to the bible pattern than others. However, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s large interdenominational revival meetings began to develop. Radio and TV evangelists began to emerge, the largest and most successful being Billy Graham. The ecumenical plea -- to unify the denominations under some common denominator -- was embraced by the practitioner in the pew, and the clergy saw little reason to object. After all, these inter-denominational teachers never dealt with any controversial doctrinal issues, and they always encouraged their converts to return to their home church, or else to go to the "church of your choice." It seemed like an ideal marriage.

Unfortunately, the only common denominator was the lowest common denominator. The radio and TV preachers could hardly specify any real biblical condition without offending someone. Yet, they could not just return everyone to their home church without saying something about salvation. So they told people that if they "just believed" in Jesus Christ they would be saved. The exact definition of "just believing" was left to each person to interpret as s/he saw fit. This offended no one except those who were committed to the concept of a single reality, a single truth (John 8:32). However, this was such a small minority that they could be ignored. The terminology used often varied. Probably the way that it is most often stated now is "accept Jesus as your personal savior" and you will be saved. However, in all cases there was (and still is) absolutely no outward action required. In fact, often even the suggestion of a scriptural condition of salvation was militantly taught to be sinful, becoming one of the very few points of doctrine which was contentiously defended by denominationalists. Most often new converts are urged to pray for forgiveness and acceptance, but rarely is this stated to be a condition of salvation. This is not saying that salvation by faith only was of recent origin. Indeed, we can see its roots in many false teachings that are identified in the New Testament (and we plan to deal with these in this chapter). However, we are presenting what we believe to be the obvious reason that the mass-media preachers do not align themselves with clear biblical teachings as to the conditions of salvation. It would quickly diminish their large numbers, and it would put them at odds with the local congregations which teach a variety of rituals and doctrines as part of their religious practice.

Let us begin our study of this interesting topic by defining our terms. This subject is particularly fraught with potential semantical arguments, and if the differences here were purely semantic we would be extremely pleased. Our purpose in defining what we mean by faith only is to enable us to communicate effectively about the subject. Once these definitions are established we will deal with the scriptural reasons that one should never teach anyone to be saved by faith only. At that point we will proceed to consider exactly what the bible does state about the doctrine of faith only in Section 3.4. We will then present what the bible means when it teaches that we are saved "by faith." In Section 3.6 we will present what the bible teaches the conditions of salvation are -- how we get into a saved condition, and how we keep ourselves in that condition.