What Is Saving Faith?

 September 5, 2024

Thursday

Sometimes you find things that you aren't looking for. While cleaning out the utility room I found my wife's aqua-size gloves. I wasn't looking for them but she was grateful that I found them anyway. So, I am doing a message on hope and got into the scripture found in Romans 5:3-4. It has a phrase that made me look further (the phrase was "not only that"). The previous two verses (Romans 5: 1-2) has a "therefore" at the beginning. Therefore, I had to see what it was "there for." I went all the way back to Romans 4: 13:

Romans 4:13-14 (ESV) ¹³  For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴  For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

This caught my attention Faith is of no use if people can do it themselves. Promises are worthless if you can do it yourself. Of course, I was thinking of salvation and that made sense. But that's not all:

Romans 4:18-22 (ESV) ¹⁸  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹  He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰  No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

Abraham acted in faith when he could see no circumstantial means of accomplishing the promise. His faith was counted to him as righteousness because it was a faith that included action that would reveal what he truly believed.

For a long time I have declared (as if I had the ability to declare) that anyone who believed in Jesus would go to heaven. I have acted like that acknowledgement is the same as agreeing that 2 + 2 =4. That just isn't the case. The faith that the Bible speaks of with regard to salvation and righteousness is one that lives beyond the original acquiescence of faith. It is lived out or there is no salvation. There cannot be a salvation that has no faith that is lived out. This is why James would say:

James 2:17 (ESV) ¹⁷  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

The faith for salvation must have a life that lives out that faith. In other words, there is no declaration of righteousness without faith being lived out. No, we do not earn our salvation but saved people will prove their faith by their works.

Fish don't swim to be fish. They swim because they are fish. The saved do not work to be saved. They work because they are saved. 

This changes my definition of saving faith. It will result in obedience to the Lord. This is true even for the thief on the cross next to Jesus. He testified of Jesus on the cross. It wasn't the amount of work that he did. It was the fact that his faith worked in him.

So, I start with a person who has declared that Jesus is their Lord and Savior but realize that true faith will result in obedience or Jesus is neither Lord nor Savior.

Did your salvation experience change you? If not, isn't it time to plunge yourself into a faith that does?