A review of Grace, Faith, & Salvation

Earlier this year a friend of mine told me to visit a website called “The Voice of one Crying in the Wilderness.” I did just that and stumbled across an article titled “Grace, Faith and Salvation” which I would like to review here. Actually, I just want to discuss a few main points that the author brings forth.

Aside from the author saying a few things that just don’t make sense there are some things he says that I believe are worth discussing in this series on Salvation.

One of the first verses he begins with is Ephesians 2:8-10 which says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

What he points to in this verse is the relationship between grace, faith, and salvation. How grace alone is not what saves us but simply what makes us savable. As I read and re-read the article my interpretation of the author’s intention is that he is unsatisfied with the way eternal life is often presented to society. He mistakenly believes that most Protestant Theology teaches that grace alone is all that we need for salvation. Therefore, the intent of his article is (seems to be) to unpack the meaning of faith and show how it brings us into the grace of God.

Now, most of us are familiar with the “Solo” cries of the Reformation—more specifically “Solo Fide” (faith alone). Wherever salvation by solo fide is taught, it is done in such a way that we look not at our own works but upon the work of Christ for our salvation. We are taught (and rightly so) that none of our works will save us and nothing we do will cause us to earn it. The author takes a slightly different approach and though some may be quick to place him under a works theology I will take a rain check on it for now.

Grace is what puts us in a position to be saved and that position he says is what is undeserved. Without God’s grace we would have no hope of salvation. Here is the crux. But just because we do nothing to deserve God’s grace (none of our works have earned it) does not mean we do nothing for our salvation. Faith for him, is much more than just a transaction of thoughts in the mind and heart.

In the author’s rather aggressive opinion, faith can be divided into three parts: hearing, submitting, and obeying. Read how he explains it:

“First and most importantly, they (faith & Believe) require revelation from God. You cannot exercise faith or truly believe anything from a Biblical perspective unless you receive revelation from God. You have to learn to recognize His still, small voice. That’s a real problem for all those religious types who don’t think that God is able to communicate with men today, or that He chooses not to. The second thing involved in the meaning of faith and believe involves surrender. We have to submit to what He says. It’s proof that we agree with Him. And the third aspect of these two words is obedience. We have to do what He says. So, faith includes all of these. We have to hear God, submit or agree with Him, and then we have to be obedient and do what He says.”

My immediate thought was that this definition for faith and belief that he has given sounded a bit cumbersome. And the more I have thought about it the more uneasy I am becoming with it. For several reasons.

The excerpt I quoted from him is what he believes to be an “amplified” translation of faith (pistis) and belief (peitho) from the Greek Language. And my opinion is that he has taken the liberty to elaborate and collaborate his own feelings into the Biblical notion of faith.

I am in complete agreement with him when he says that biblical faith cannot occur without revelation. As I understand Scripture, Biblical faith can only happen in reaction to a revelation of Jesus Christ—God always makes the first move.

Where I become uneasy with his definition is when he begins to say that surrender and obedience are parts of its meaning. Recall with me Romans 10:9-10 where Paul states “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Paul isn’t teaching that if a person doesn’t confess with their mouth that they believe in Jesus that they won’t be saved. I believe that what the Scripture is getting at there is that what one believes in their heart will be made sure/confirmed by the words they speak (as well as their actions). It is a truth that Jesus taught us when He said that “from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Saving faith begins in the heart, and the heart is what God looks at when He looks upon us.

When we hear the gospel and decide to place our faith (trust) in Christ we are responding not to a “submit and obey” call but to the good news of God (to the wooing of Love). We are not responding to a slave master who is looking down from heaven with a stick in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other, but we are responding to the desperate call of God’s Love. When one falls “in Love” what once looked and felt like works of slavery becomes the works of pleasure. When we experience the Love of God, work’s definition changes. It isn’t that the acts of submitting and obeying aren’t happening as we place our faith in Him but it is that to bring such loaded terms into the definition of saving faith brings a lot of confusion.

Imagine telling a friend about the gospel, and you say “to be saved all you must do is place your faith in Jesus, and believe…..” Then your friend’s following question is “so what is faith?” Now here is where I want you to really use your imagination. Imagine telling him/her that to have faith he/her must receive revelation, submit to God, and obey.” Now it seems to me that what you would have done by giving him that definition is contradicted by what you said in the first place—that all you must do is place your faith in Jesus.

In my opinion, when the Bible talks about faith and belief it talks about them as if everybody reading knows what they mean. The reality is, most people do have some kind of understanding. Perhaps this is so because most everybody has a concept (be it weak or strong) of what it means to love and be loved. It is “in love” with other people that we exercise faith (trust) in some form or fashion.

When the revelation of the incarnation of God’s Love for man occurs we choose to either respond by faith in love or to reject Him. By speaking of saving faith in the manner the author has done will eventually confuse people and lead them into the works of slavery. The better way is love. Yes, it is true that submission and obeying are happening when we respond in faith to the Gospel but it is so much more than that. When the love of God grips our heart, submitting and obeying become our pleasure and delight.