Saving Faith
Author: Steve Amato
Description: Topical Bible Study on saving faith
Keywords: bible, bible study, faith, save, eternal life

# THE CHRISTIAN'S

# SAVING FAITH

Eternal life is a free gift from God

Ro 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nonetheless, it is not unconditional, but requires faith.

Rom 3:21-24 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

But what kind of faith qualifies one to receive this gift of eternal life?
The scriptures speak of this faith in various ways.
- This faith has a content or object,
- Beyond the object of faith, it has certain qualities - which describe the manner in which one believes
- It has inevitable outworkings as applications are inferred from such faith

## THE OBJECT OF SAVING FAITH

The object of faith is simply what it is that the Christian believes in order to be saved.

Here are a number of verses speaking of this:

- Ro 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
- Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- Joh 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
- Joh 5:24 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
- Joh 6:40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
- 1Jo 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

So it appears that there is not one particular statement or promise that one believes to be saved, but rather one believes in the person of Jesus Christ as he is defined in the Bible, this would include what he says about himself as well as what he promised concerning eternal life.

This is slightly different than believing a particular promise of Christ, in that one cannot believe one thing that he said and then not believe another thing. For example, there are some who see Jesus as a good teacher and accept some of his sayings, but then reject other of his sayings, such as:

- Joh 6:53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
- John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
- Mr 10:11,12 He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

Rejecting such concepts would be contrary to the faith that one claims.

## THE QUALITIES OF SAVING FAITH

So can one merely say that he believes, like signing a fire insurance policy and have done with it? Or does he have to believe in a certain manner, with certain qualities to his faith beyond just having correct doctrine? Paul, in describing the quality of faith that saves, gives Abraham as an example that "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Rom 4:20,21 This describes an unwavering conviction, as opposed to mere intellectual assent. Here is a summary of some of the qualities of saving faith mentioned in the New Testament:

- It applies itself by making inferences from the propositional truths in the scriptures. That is, saving faith considers the implications of the faith and takes action in light of such implications.
- It is an unwavering conviction

- fully persuaded (as opposed to a sort of "let's try this out and see what happens" type of faith) Rom 4:20,21
- full of confident assurance Heb 3:6,14; 10:39; 13:6
- enduring to the end 1Cor 15:2; Matt 24:13

## THE OUTWORKINGS OF SAVING FAITH

What kind of outworkings of one's faith would you expect from a Christian?

- He has a contrite heart - he calls sin for what it is and repents. (1John 1:9)
- He loves other Christians. (1John 2:10; 3:14; 4:12; Matt 25:31-46)
- He makes decisions in life according to God's will (1John 2:17) whether determining such by making inferences from scripture or by simply following His direct commands (1John 2:3)
- Though still a sinner (1John 1:8,10) he does not accept sin as part of his lifestyle. (1John 3:3,6,9; 5:18)
- And in doing so finds he can overcome sin. (1John 5:4; Rom 6:11; Gal 5:24)
- He as a hopeful anticipation of being with Christ. (Phil 1:21; Rom 8:23,24; 1Cor 5:19)
- He develops Christlike characteristics in an ongoing process of sanctification as he cooperates with the Spirit of God. Typical characteristics are listed in a number of places as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal 5:22,23) The characteristic of love being described in more detail in 1Cor 13:4-8. And Peter describes some of the characteristics you should expect see in Christian growth as: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. (2Pet 1:5-8)

## THE PERMANENCE OF SAVING FAITH

One of the common issues concerning this faith is whether one can have the confidence that "Once Saved, Always Saved" or whether to live with a fearful uncertainty that perhaps one will lose his salvation if he doesn't live up to certain standards. On the surface, the scriptures seem to be contradictory on this issue. For if we take the position of "once saved, always saved", then it implies that our salvation status is not dependent on our performance, which seems contrary to a number of scripture such as:

"If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 2Pet 2:20-22

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. 1Jo 3:15

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'" Matt 25:41-43

We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. Heb 3:14

On the other hand, eternal life is spoken as a free gift, not dependent on a person's performance.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Rom 3:23,24

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. Rom 4:4,5

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. Eph 2:8,9

Therefore some have taken the position that one obtains salvation purely by faith as receiving a free gift, but one maintains his salvation status by his good works. Yet whether one obtains or maintains his salvation status by his works, both are a righteousness which comes by the law. They are both performance based salvation. And those who hold such a position have yet to realize the grace of God and the gift of eternal life, a righteousness which comes from God based on faith alone.

However, there is another position which resolves these difficulties and apparent contradictions. And that position is to infer that, having believed with the content and quality of faith which is acceptable to God, as defined in scripture, one obtains eternal life. He becomes regenerate - that is, he is born of the Spirit of God - and as such will have the permanence of faith with its inevitable outworkings which are described in such conditional passages as those given above. In this case, the outworkings of one's faith reveal one's salvation status, rather than obtain or maintain it.

Here are a couple of scriptures to verify this concept:

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 1John 3:9

This passage is often not understood because the significance of the greek is not brought out in the English. "Continue to sin" is in the present tense, which in the greek emphasizes the continuity of sinning, which would indicate sinning in a professional or lifestyle sense. (Otherwise it would contradict 1John 1:8,10) The greek word used for "Cannot" does not speak of permission, but of ability. In fact it is the word from which we derive the word "dynamite" from. In other words, this verse says that no one born of God has the ability to accept sin as part of his lifestyle, because God's seed dwells in him.

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 1John 2:19

Here John sees some people "fall away" from the faith. He concludes that such people were never really believers, for if they had been, they would have remained. Or you might read it this way:

"if they had belonged to us (once saved), they would have remained with us (always saved)"

If one "falls away", or otherwise demonstrates characteristics contrary to the Christian faith, these are evidences that they were never really saved to begin with.

This concept that "true believers" never fall away, nor even turn away, is also confirmed in the book of Jeremiah.

"I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me. " Jer 32:40 (NASB)

Therefore, rather than worrying about losing your salvation, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-- unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2Cor 13:5 Otherwise, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." Heb 10:26,27 For we have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. Heb 3:14-19

But how can we hold such confidence firm to the end if we admit that our faith is not on the finished work of Christ, but on our own performance? Such are still wandering in the desert of legalistic nominalism, living under the old covenant concepts of performance based righteousness, rather than salvation based performance, not entering into God's rest because of their unbelief. Yet it is not surprising that the church contains a good number of these type of people, as it also contains people who take salvation for granted and do whatever they want to do, regardless of whether it's sin, for the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matt 13:47-50

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources