What Is Saving Faith

What does it mean to have faith in Christ for our salvation? People have funny ideas about faith. Some see faith as believing what you know to be untrue. Others see faith as some kind of a leap in the dark against reason. Still others see it as simply affirming a series of facts. (This is the kind of faith even the demons have; see James 2:19.) Real faith is trusting in the promises of God. In Romans 4:17-21 it gives the example of Abraham, who in spite of the physical impossibility of having a son, nonetheless trusted God, and God fulfilled His promise. You see, the real enemy of faith is not reason but sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). We may be able to believe intellectually that God can accomplish something; it is another thing to genuinely trust Him to do it. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for faith is related to the word for pillar. The underlying meaning is “to be firm.” A pillar is firm to hold the roof up. We must regard a building’s pillars as being firm (have faith in them) before we will enter it. In the same way we must regard the promises of God as being firm in order to have faith in them. Or to use a modern example, an individual may be absolutely convinced an airplane can fly but be afraid to actually get in the airplane and fly in it.

God says that when Jesus died on the cross, it paid the whole price necessary to redeem us from sin (Romans 3:24). God also says that if we will have faith in what Christ has done, we will be declared righteous in the courtroom of God. (“Righteous” or “justified” are judicial terms; they refer to the verdict of a court; see Deuteronomy 25:1.) This results in our possessing eternal life (1 John 5:11-13). The problem is we do not now see any of these things. Now I am convinced, though I am not going to cover it here, that there are good reasons for believing this is true. But the issue is: Can I rely on this being true, even though I do not now possess it? God comes to us and says, “I will give you forgiveness of everything you have ever done wrong, eternal life in My presence, fullness of joy forever, but there is one catch. You need to trust Me for it.” It is not enough to simply affirm that such things are theoretically true; we must genuinely stake our eternal destiny on God’s promises. Not on what we can do, but on what Christ has done. And for those of us who have done this, we need to be willing to trust God with the rest of our lives. It seems ironic that we can trust God with our eternal destiny, but we may not trust Him to provide the money tomorrow to pay the bills. But I know from my own experience it is so.