The basics matter. As the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run. You won’t succeed in baseball if you can’t hit, catch and throw the ball. And no matter how beautiful a building might be, it won’t remain standing for very long without a solid foundation. In the same way, our lives as sons and daughters of God require a solid foundation. There are things we need to understand, and things we need to practice, if we’re going to grow to maturity in Christ.
The book of Hebrews mentions certain “elementary teachings” that are basic to Christian growth, including repentance, faith in God, instructions about baptism and laying on of hands, the coming resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment (Hebrews 6:1-2). I recently wrote an article dealing with repentance, so now let’s look at what it means to have faith.
If you’ve been following Jesus for more than ten seconds, you’ve probably heard that we are saved through faith and not by anything we’ve done to deserve God’s love. This is true. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
In another of his letters he put it this way:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17).
And in yet another letter:
For we live by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
There’s an important implication in this verse: if we take seriously the idea that it’s possible to live by faith, then faith can’t simply mean that I affirm the truth of certain statements. Living by faith, if it means anything at all, has to mean that my life is different in some way because of my faith. I believe, for example, that the earth is not stationary, but rather that it orbits the sun. If I were responsible for planning deep space missions for NASA, that belief would profoundly influence my work. I’m not working in the space industry, however, so believing that the earth circles the sun once every year doesn’t directly affect anything I do. And if I, somehow, became convinced that the flat earth theory was correct and it’s the sun that moves, I most likely still wouldn’t do anything different that I do now. In the say way, simply believing facts about Jesus does not count as faith. As the Scripture says:
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder (James 2:19).
But if that’s the case, what does count as faith? The Bible defines faith this way:
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for (Hebrews 11:1-2).
Immediately following this verse is a whole litany of faithful men and women, example after example of people whose faith led them to do seemingly impossible things. Things they would not have even attempted had they not first believed. Those examples give context to the definition, so we can understand that faith is the assurance that if I do what I know God wants me to do, it will somehow work out. The confidence that, whatever happens, even if I die in the process, I won’t, in the end, lose anything that matters. Much more than simply believing facts, faith is trusting those facts when it counts.
Now, it’s one thing to say you trust God – to have faith, in other words – when the topic is end times prophesies, or the timing of events in Genesis, or even to loudly proclaim that you’d die for Jesus, at a time when you’re not being threatened (John 13:37). It’s quite another thing to have faith when it comes to forgiving somebody who has badly hurt you (Matthew 5:44). Or when obeying Christ puts your financial security at risk (Matthew 6:25-34). The faith that matters continues to trust even when there’s a cost. This is also the faith that can admit its own weakness and say, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
It is through this kind of faith, this trust, that we are justified from whatever sins we have committed. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).
I hope you caught this key point: God requires his children to be righteous, but the righteousness that he requires he also gives, freely, to those who trust in Christ. Righteousness that does not come from my efforts to do good, but is “by faith from first to last” (Romans 1:17). This is absolutely crucial for everyone who follows Jesus to understand. In our culture, we have somehow gotten the idea that God will balance everyone’s good deeds against their sins to decide whether each person ends up in heaven or hell. But that is not what Jesus taught. It’s not what any part of the Bible teaches. That idea, in fact, is entirely false. Salvation has exactly nothing to do with any human markers of worth, whether innate (ethnicity, gender, birth order) or earned (good works, religion). God treats us as rebels against his lawful rule, which we are, and offers amnesty on the condition that we surrender, that is, that we stop rebelling and accept that he really is the king (repentance), and that we trust that the pardon he offers is genuine (faith). That’s it; just surrender and trust. That’s why Paul can write:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved (Romans 10:9-10).
Sounds simple, right? So what’s the catch? Just this: if Jesus really is Lord, then he has the right to give orders and expect us to obey. As the Scripture says:
We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person (1 John 2:3-4).
But what God requires, he also gives. This is what is meant by the “righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Romans 1:17). That’s the secret, the hidden truth that most of the world gets wrong. Righteousness, the ability to please God and obey his commands, is not something we do, it’s something God does, that we receive by faith. I am, little by little, changing to be more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18), but I can’t take any credit for becoming a better person because I’m not the one doing it, God is. That’s the paradox of following Christ; I work because it’s actually God who is working:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).
And notice that it says “work out,” not “work for.”
This, then, is the faith that allows us to take hold of God’s salvation; it’s no more, and no less, than trusting that he told the truth when he told us what we must do. It’s by faith that we are declared righteous in God’s sight, and it is by faith that we become righteous in our actions. By faith we trust that, not only have we been rescued from the penalty for sin, we have been rescued from sin itself, and given the freedom to live as we should have been living all along. By faith we become the image of Christ; not all at once, but little by little, as we continue to trust him, because by faith we say, “I can’t do this, but I trust the one who can do it through me.”
Our life in Christ begins in faith, continues in faith and ends in faith.
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).