Salvation
What Is True Saving Faith?
When the Apostles proclaimed the gospel in the first century, it had a certain content.
People could reject that content. But they could also accept it as true.
They could even believe in it.
Yet, that still left them with out true saving faith.
Listen: Accurate content and sincere belief in that content doesn’t amount to saving faith…
Those are necessary elements–but not sufficient elements. There’s one more element.
Let’s address the first two elements before we get to that last one.
Notitia–the First Element of Saving Faith
One, we must make sure that content is accurate. No use believing in something that isn’t true or heretical.
As you probably know, there’s something dreadfully wrong with this statement: “It doesn’t matter what they believe–as long as they are sincere.”
Joseph Kony was sincere in his belief that he was called by God to abduct children, murder entire families and displace over a million Sudanese so he could establish a theocratic kingdom.
Sincerity can go awfully wrong.
The same is true for Christians: It’s meaningless to be sincere in our belief but not know whether our belief is accurate or not.
We risk heresy if we do otherwise. Thus, the first element of saving faith is accurate content–notitia. Let’s look at the second.
Assensus–the Second Element of Saving Faith
Second, we must believe that content is true. We must assent to it. This is assensus.
But it’s still not enough to redeem us.
I believe that Augustine wrote the City of God. However, that doesn’t redeem me. There has to be something more.
Fiducia–the Third Element to Saving Faith
The third element to saving faith is fiducia–personal trust and commitment in the accurate content we believe.
This is when a Christian accepts, receives and RELIES on Christ alone.
Granted, the message of that content is important. I could put my trust and commitment in Augustine–but it wouldn’t do me any good.
He’s not offering salvation. Only Jesus Christ is.
What Saving Faith Does to Our Lives
We look to Jesus [not Augustine nor any man] for justification, sanctification and eternal life.
With saving faith, we tremble at the commands of God…yield in obedience to the mandates of Christ…and put our trust in the promises of God for now and for the future.
In essence, it radically rearranges our lives. Christ becomes our object of delight. Our obsession.
And we long to do nothing more than please him. [We don't always succeed, but that's another story.]
Here’s the core content we we confess as true, deserving of our belief and worthy of our submission:
That Christ was born, willingly and perfectly lived under the law of God and died as an atoning act. We believe he was dead, buried and rose again.
Only when we believe that information is accurate and trust it holds the power to save us can we safely say we are born again. Anything less and Jesus is not saving us.
What Does It [Really] Mean to “Call Upon the Lord”?
For all the talk of God’s sovereignty, election and spiritual bondage, the Bible unequivocally clamps down on our reaction to the gospel…
There’s no missing it: We are responsible for exercising our faith.
We are, in the end, held accountable to “call upon the Lord.”
Here’s Peter and Paul’s take on it:
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Acts 2:21
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13
But what does “call upon the Lord” mean? More importantly, is it the same thing Jesus described in Matthew 7:21 when people came to him saying “Lord, Lord”?
No, it’s not. It’s way more complex than that.
When Peter was asked what one had to do to be saved, he commanded, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.”
Paul said that this calling upon the Lord can’t happen until a sinner hears the gospel. A sinner cannot “call” until after he has heard the Word of God–and believed it.
So then, every non-believer who wants to obtain salvation does not get it by simply praying to God or saying, “Lord, Lord,” but by submitting to God’s authority.
Ultimately, a genuine Christian, among other things, obeys God’s commands, reject this evil world, longs for Jesus’ return, loves other Christians and discerns between truth and error.
Only when a person submits to the will of God can he accurately be described as “calling on the Lord.” And only then can he enjoy great confidence in his eternal salvation.
There’s no short-circuiting that process. At all.
How Faith Is Created in Your Soul
Ever wonder how you got the faith necessary to believe Christ is the Son of God?
Some people would tell you that God’s grace assists a believer to exercise his faith…
A faith that’s native to his being.
That’s the so-called semi-Pelagian view.
And on this view, everything depends decisively on a person’s response.
But this was not the view of Augustine, Luther, Calvin or Edwards. Nor is it the teaching of the New Testament.
The New Testament tells us that we are spiritually dead and blind rebels and unless the Holy Spirit raises us from spiritual death, God’s offer of grace would be like giving water to a dead man.
Dead men don’t drink water.
Neither do dead men respond to offers of grace. At least not until they are raised from the dead.
This view is spelled out in Paul’s letters. For instance, Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
What is NOT our doing? Paul is clear: the origination of our faith.
The Killer Blow to Semi-Pelagianism
Yes, it becomes our faith. We exercise that faith. Nobody else does it for us. But we can’t exercise what we don’t have, so God, through salvation, gives us faith to accept his grace.
Paul’s simple statement is a deathblow to all forms of semi-Pelagianism. It affirms that the faith by which you are justified…by which you are united in Christ…and that is the instrumental cause of your justification…did not originate in some activity or decision of your will.
It did not come from unregenerate flesh. It came from God. Decisively.
God made a promise to save every person who responds to the gospel with faith:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
Fortunately for us that response doesn’t depend on our self-absorbed, wretched will.
No. It depends on God. That way our faith is eternally stable and secure. Our preservation is a promise that can’t be broken.
In all things–from creation to redemption to glorification–he remains the sovereign, provident and all-powerful God.
And that is a God worthy of our adoration.
10 Hard Truths about Being Born Again
What does it mean to be spiritually dead? And why is the new birth so precious?
The following nine posts unpack the hard truth that we are dead apart from the new birth…
Spiritual Death
What does it mean to be spiritually dead? A biblical answer. With a little help from my friend John Piper.
Hard-Hearted Ignorance
On the surface our problem–that is, our condition apart from the new birth–looks like ignorance. But it’s something deeper.
Resist Christ as Lord
Did you know that new birth draws you AWAY from your lusts TO Christ? Yet, the drawing is not moral persuasion. It’s something different. And superior.
Spiritual Blindness
People who reject Christ are blind. And there’s only one cure. Fortunately, these people who follow this blog know the secret and aren’t shy about it.
Bondage to Worldly Wisdom
Intellectual discussions deserve exchanges of argument and counter-argument. The only problem is, sin is not an intellectual problem. It’s something else.
Children of Wrath
Why do you need to be born again? Because you are a child of wrath. And how you got to be that way may surprise you.
Enemy of God
The person dead-set on embracing all the world has to offer can never please God. And that’s a dangerous thing.
Hates the Light
Two things essentially arise from an abandonment of Christianity: Your sense of morality and your bitterness towards God. This is what it means to love the dark.
Slaves to Sin To be a slave to sin is a terrible thing. But enslavement to sin doesn’t mean one struggles against it. Quite the contrary.
Slaves to Satan
The path to new birth is strewn with opposition. And as if that wasn’t enough to discourage or depress you, let me add another one.
Update: Added Slaves to Sin on Thursday, January 7, for a total of ten hard truths about being born again.
Purgatory: How Catholics Prove It Exists
Ever wonder how Roman Catholics prove the doctrine of purgatory?
Yeah, me too.
That’s why I did a little digging recently.
Here’s what I found.
Purgatory: The Essentials
First, let’s define purgatory.
In a nutshell, purgatory is a place where redeemed souls go to purge their load of venial [forgivable] sins.
It’s a process of purification before they enter heaven.
Here’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
How long does a redeemed soul spend in purgatory? From what I can find, as long as it takes to purge those venial sins.
Two days. Two millions years. Just depends.
See, your success in purgatory depends on you. That means you can fail purgatory. No one guarantees you’ll persevere.
Not even God.
However, the good news is that the living can affect your duration. They can pray for you. [See point below.]
So how does one get purged? Fire. It’s a good guess this is a metaphorical fire, but the point is purification–and pain.
Much of what we understand about purgatory originates from Dante’s Divine Comedy–depicted as a mountain in the southern hemisphere with Jerusalem at the top, for instance [image above]–is sheer imagination.
Beautiful, but make believe. Which brings us back to our original question.
Purgatory: The Catholic Proofs
So, how do Catholics prove purgatory exists?
Well, for starters, it’s good to know that purgatory is inextricably wedded to the doctrine of praying for the dead. That means you can’t talk about one without talking about the other.
This is how it works.
Both doctrines have their seeds far back in certain pagan religions.
After that, a prayer for the dead can be found in the Old Testament. The catholic Old Testament. The Book of Maccabees to be exact. In the context of Maccabeus leaders praying for the dead.
Then, early Christian church catacomb inscriptions bear witness to prayers for the dead.
Next, Catholics find proof in the New Testament. The two main texts used occur in Matthew 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
After that, the doctrine gets it traction in the early church fathers–think Augustine, Bede, Jerome. This is the argument from tradition.
Protestants Reject Purgatory
The doctrine wasn’t seriously challenged until 1,000 years later–early 1500s–when the Reformers rolled up on the scene.
What was at stake? Justification by faith alone–Luther’s pivotal beef with the Catholic church.
The Catholics defended that justification was a life long process as demonstrated by the long history–from pagan to early church to present–of the doctrine.
But the Reformers disagreed. Fiercely.
Not to be rebuffed, the Council of Trent affirmed that purgatory is necessary to blot out the full debt of venial sins.
What Luther and Co. argued was purgatory amounted to justification mingled with sanctification. Basically justification equals prayer and fasting in this life…fire in the next.
Purgatory: The Protestant Objection
With a formidable case for purgatory, why would any Protestant in his right mind reject it? Several reasons.
First, sola scriptura.
Affirming purgatory–with it’s rich, deep roots in tradition– otherwise compromises the very supremacy of the Bible as the Protestants rule of faith.
And what does that rule of faith teach? You guessed it: Justification by faith alone.
Take Paul’s defense in Romans 4:4-5 as an example:
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
Then there’s Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector. Jesus states that the tax collector is “justified” before God.
Or what about the thief on the cross? Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Instant justification by faith alone. There was no more work to be done. That’s why Jesus, on the cross, said, “It is finished.”
What was finished? The work of atonement and propitiation.
In essence, sanctification is a result of justification. Not a prerequisite. And justification is an event that occurs at the moment of faith:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5;1
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Romans 5:9
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1
Our justification is an accomplished fact. Not an unfinished project. That’s the Protestant stand. What’s your stand? And did I miss anything? Look forward to your thoughts.
This post was inspired by a reader question. Got a question? Email me.
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