32. Faith
FAITH Is it necessary only to have a faith which recognizes Christ as Savior, or a faith which lives in Him and for Him? The answer to this question is in the second chapter of James. Saving faith is living faith. In Romans 4 Paul describes justification before God. James in James 2 describes justification before men. Justification before God is accomplished instandy upon the exercise of living faith in the Word of God and the Son of God; but justification before men must await outward demonstration before men can know whether one really believes. We are saved by faith alone, but no man is saved by that faith which abides alone. Saving faith is living faith, as Paul puts it to the Galatians when he says that “in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” In presenting God’s plan of salvation to the sinner, is it scriptural to say one must confess Christ to be saved? There are many references in God’s Word that by believing on the Son, Jesus Christ, one has everlasting life. I believe one will and should confess after he has believed, hut many emphasize the confession as the way to be saved. Will you please show me from God’s Word which a sinner must do?
It is true that belief is the sole condition of salvation. But what is belief? The Word of God shows belief to be far more than, and far different from, a mere intellectual assent to a set of propositions about Jesus of Nazareth. In John 1:11-12 believing on His name is seen to be the same thing as receiving Him. Therefore no one who has not received Him has really believed on His name. In Romans 10:9-10 receiving Him takes the form of confessing with the mouth while believing in the heart. And in Matthew 10:32 and Luke 12:8 our Lord makes receiving and confessing a public matter It is to be “before men.” Summing it all up, I should reply to your question that what a sinner must do to be saved is to believe in his heart that Christ died for his sins according to the Scriptures, that is to receive Him as his own personal Savior, and as there is opportunity the saved sinner should give testimony by open confession of Jesus as his Lord before men.
What is involved in “believeth that Jesus is the Christ” in1 John 5:1?
Believing “that Jesus is the Christ” is equivalent to believing in Him as the Christ described in the Old Testament and revealed in the New; and believing “in him” or “on his name” means to receive Him as one’s own personal Savior (John 1:12-13).
How can those who laugh at Christians be made to believe?
It is impossible for us to make any one believe the Gospel. That is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11). It is for us to testify, and pray for them, and leave the results with God. Is it possible for a person to be truly saved without knowing it?
Without question, there are multitudes of God’s children who have definitely received the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and yet are in uncertainty as to whether they are really saved. This comes, of course, from a lack of clearness as to what the Gospel is. It is good to know that a man is saved by believing the Gospel rather than by understanding it. It takes a long time for even the most spiritually intelligent among God’s people to comprehend the beauties of the doctrine of grace, but their salvation does not rest upon their apprehension of these things. At the moment when they take the Lord Jesus as their Savior they receive with Him the gift of God which is eternal life, and His testimony concerning them is, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). First John is written for the express purpose of assuring believers of their eternal salvation (5:13).
How are we to understand the Lord’s saying inMatthew 17:20: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you”? And inLuke 17:6: “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you”? I have always been puzzled over this “faith as a grain of mustard seed,” and it seems hard to believe that the Savior in these passages means just what He says. I suppose Paul, in1 Corinthians 13:2, may refer to this saying when he says, “and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains”; though the “all faith” of the Epistle doesn’t sound as if it could be the same as the “faith as a grain of mustard seed” of the Gospels. The point of our Lord’s words appears when we observe that as recorded by Luke they were brought forth by the petition of the disciples, who said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” Think of that for a moment. It was equivalent to saying, “We wish we had greater confidence in thee; we wish thou wouldst help us to believe thou art honest and dependable and telling the truth.” There was no answer for that but to remind these men that what they needed was not an increase of faith, for they had no faith to increase. A mustard seed is a small thing but it is alive; and faith, to be real, must be, not necessarily large, but living. This is the argument of James 2:14-17.
Never doubt that Jesus means just what He says. Faith is cooperation with God essentially, and no one who knows God at all can doubt His ability to remove mountains. Indeed, that is precisely what He will do one day, and doubtless it will be in response to the prayer of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (see Zechariah 14:4).