A Case for the Necessity of Faith

 

The Apostle Paul preaching in Athens; image from WikiMedia Commons

Is faith necessary for salvation?  To be more specific, is faith in Christ as he is presented to us in the gospel necessary for salvation from sin?  I would argue, yes, and in what follows are my reasons for believing this as well as an answer to a common objection that I hear leveled against such a necessity.  

The Bible clearly teaches that we are to tell unbelievers that they are in a state of condemnation before God, and that apart from repentance and faith, they are not saved. It also teaches that they ought to believe in Christ and repent of their sins, and if they do so they will have all their sins forgiven, will be adopted into God’s family, and given good hope through grace.

We see this taught again and again.  This is not something taught in a remote part of Scripture; it cries on every street corner of the gospels, lifts up its voice in every epistle of the apostles, and we hear it preached in both the old and the new covenants. We see that all men are called to be converted (to faith and repentance), and there is both a warning and a promise connected to this call.  The warning is that those who remain in unbelief will not be saved.  The promise is that those who believe will be justified. 

The message of the gospel in its extent and content

First of all, where do we see a universal call to conversion in the NT?  We see it in Mark’s version of the Great Commission: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mk. 15:15-16). This clearly shows that the gospel is meant to be preached to unbelievers, and that those who believe shall be saved and those who do not believe will be condemned.  We see it in the practice of the apostles.  When Peter preached in the temple, and said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19), he was speaking to “all the people” (9), not just those he thought were regenerate, and he even describes them as those who “denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you” (14).  This is not preaching to the choir; this is outdoor evangelism to a hostile audience.  

You see it in the example of Paul.  When he preached in the Jewish synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, we are told that there was a mixed response to his message, and that some of them “were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming” (Acts 13:45).  And yet it was to these very people that the apostle said, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (38-39).  He said to the elders of the church at Ephesus, giving himself a pattern for ministry for them to follow in, that he testified “both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (20:21).

In fact, the very commission of the Lord Jesus to the apostle Paul was to send him to Jew and Gentile (no other qualification added, by the way, like “regenerate Jew” and “regenerate Gentile”) to “open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (26:18).  And we see this was his method and manner even to the very end of the record of Acts: “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him” (28:30-31).

Now what is the message of this gospel?  It is that those who hear it, even those who are unconverted, need to be converted and repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  And, importantly, it tells us that those who do so will be forgiven of their sins.  Paul describes the outcome of conversion in terms of justification (Acts 13:38-39).  Peter describes it in terms of sins being blotted out (3:19).  Our Lord describes it in terms of being saved (Mk. 15:16).

There are those who try to water down the effect of such passages like these by arguing that these references only speak to the purely temporal effects of salvation.  I don’t want to deny that there are temporal effects of salvation.  That’s not the issue, and it is obfuscation to make it so.  The issue is whether temporal effects are the only effects of faith and repentance.  The NT is clear that they are not.

Justification by faith

One way we can see this is that justification is said to be by faith.  Sometimes I hear people say that Paul’s justification by faith is a justification in the court of one’s conscience whereas justification by grace is a justification in the court of God’s justice.  No: Paul once and forever prevents anyone from plausibly making such an argument in Romans 3 when he sets the context of all this in the words, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (3:19-20).  The context is guilt before God, and the eternal importance of being justified in his [God’s] sight.  It is in the court of God’s justice that we are justified by faith.

In Paul, justification is the act of God by which he acquits and accepts the sinner, and it is precisely this which is said to be by faith.  We can talk about the differences between James and Paul; that’s fine and dandy, and needed.  But whatever is said to that point, it does not undo the clear point that Paul repeatedly makes in his letters.  As he put it to the Galatians, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Gal. 2:16).  Notice that Paul does not say that we believe because we were justified or that faith is just the evidence that we were already justified. Paul doesn’t take that position at all; he says that we believe that we might be justified. Faith precedes justification, not the other way round.  And this is actual justification, for the legalizers were in trouble precisely because they were teaching that a person is really saved by adherence to the works of the Mosaic law.  Paul is saying, “No, we are really saved by faith apart from works!”

I’m emphasizing justification by faith because it seems to me that this is the nail in the coffin of any doctrine that teaches that faith in Christ can only have temporal benefits and nothing more.  If we are justified by faith, and justification is the divine declaration that the sinner is just, then faith is necessary for eternal salvation.

Now it is important to see how faith is connected to justification.  It is not connected to it as its ground.  We are not justified because of or on account of faith.  Faith is not the meritorious reason why a person is justified.  The only and sole ground of the justification of any person is the righteousness of God in Christ.  In fact, the righteousness of faith (Rom. 10:6) is the righteousness of God (3) in the sense that the righteousness which faith receives is not its own but the righteousness which is from God and which he gives.  The declaration of justification is not the declaration of our own righteousness, but the declaration of God’s righteousness imputed to those who believe (Rom. 3:25).

However, faith is the instrument of justification.  We see this in the language of the apostle.  He says that we are justified through and by faith (Rom. 3:21, 25-26, 28, 30; 5:1).  It is in this sense that we are to understand what it means for faith to be imputed for righteousness (4:3, 5-6, 11).  And it is in this sense, and this sense alone, that faith is the condition of our justification, that righteousness “shall be imputed [to us], if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (4:24-25).

Faith is simply the open hand that receives the free gift of righteousness in Christ.  As Paul would put it to the Philippians, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:8-9).

To illustrate the connection between faith and justification, there are a couple of episodes in Luke’s gospel that are helpful here.  One is in Luke 18, in the story of how a blind man received his sight from the Lord.  This is what our Lord says to the man as he heals him: “And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee” (Lk. 18:42).  Now it is clear that the man’s faith was not in itself the power that healed him.  But it was the instrument by which he received the healing and his sight.  And what faith received was not simply the assurance that he had already been healed, but the healing itself.

This is significant, because our Lord had used precisely the same language with respect to the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus, speaking to a Pharisee and rebuking him for his self-righteousness attitude towards a sinful woman who had just washed his feet with her tears, said this to him: “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.”  Luke goes on to record what followed: “And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Lk. 7:47-50).  Just as the blind man received actual healing through faith, so this woman received actual forgiveness through faith.  In neither case was faith the thing itself that saved, but it was the means by which the salvation was given. 

This is what it means to be saved by faith.  It is for this reason that salvation by faith is not salvation by works.  It is why Paul can simultaneously say that we are saved by faith, not by works (Eph. 2:8-9).  It is why he can say that the way of salvation is by faith that it might be by grace (Rom. 4:16).

Now this faith is itself a gift of God (Eph. 2:8).  Faith is a condition of salvation; but it is a condition that God effectually fulfills in all his elect.  There is no way that such a condition even for a moment places in doubt the salvation of a single person for whom Christ died.  God’s decree is in no way liable to defeat, and God’s glory is in no way compromised.

But what about infants?

The problem is not about infants per se, but infants dying in infancy.  The claim is that since infants cannot comprehend or respond to the gospel with faith, they cannot be saved if gospel faith is necessary.  Sadly, I have heard of a pastor who claimed that infants dying in infancy are not saved.  All I can say to that is that I grieve for the parents in his congregation who have lost little ones.  

In fact, it’s not just about infants, but all those who are incapable of being called by the ministry of the gospel.  This actually is personal with me because I have such a daughter.  She’s not an infant anymore, but she is disabled and will probably never be able to intellectually comprehend the message of the gospel. Does that mean she can’t be saved?  God forbid.

I am happy to say that I do not believe that.  I am happy to say that I agree with what the 1689 London Baptist Confession states, in chapter 10, paragraph 3: “Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit; who works when, and where, and how He pleases; so also are all elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.”

The category of those “who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word” is really important here.  The ministry of the Word has its orders.  Those orders are to tell unbelievers to believe, that they will be lost if they remain in unbelief, and that they will be saved if they turn to Christ in true faith and repentance.  But note, those orders tell me nothing about those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the gospel.  The necessity of faith, which is baked into the NT gospel proclamation, is not a necessity which is aimed at them.  It is a necessity which is directed to those who are capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the gospel, and no one else.

Does this mean that there are two different ways of being saved?  No, of course not.  For as we have already pointed out, faith is not the meritorious ground of our salvation; faith in Christ is the instrumental means of it.  Faith is not the righteousness that justifies.  Christ’s obedience and death for us compose the righteousness by which we are declared right before God (Rom. 5:19).  All who are saved are saved by the righteousness of Christ.  This is true whether it is received by faith or, in the case of infants, whether it is received apart from faith.

To think that because infants can’t believe and be saved, therefore no one believes and is saved, is faulty logic (not to say, unbiblical).  For example, my daughter (mentioned above) also cannot eat with her mouth.  She receives all her nutrition through a tube that feeds directly into her stomach. A fork for her would therefore be a useless instrument.  But that does not mean it’s not a useful instrument for others!  In the same way, arguing that faith is a useless instrument in salvation for those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the gospel does not require us to hold that it is not a useful instrument for others. Especially when the Bible says over and over again that we are to tell people that they cannot be justified any other way than by faith in Christ: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Conclusion

Our Lord said to his interlocutors, “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (Jn. 8:24).  How can you get more clear and plain than that?  Our Lord plainly says that faith is a condition of salvation, not just of temporal benefits, but of a salvation that delivers a person from dying in their sins.  These are not the words of some wild-eyed Arminian.  These are the words of the Master himself.  Can you agree with him?  Or does your theology cause these words to make you squirm a bit in your seat?

This is why this subject is so important to me.  God has clearly spoken in his word.  We have been given a message; we are ambassadors for Christ, and we do not get to choose what message we preach (2 Cor. 5:20).  And that message contains the imperative of faith in Christ for salvation. As Paul put it: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (1 Tim. 1:15-16).  Let us be faithful to this message which our Lord has committed to us, for to be faithful to his message is to be faithful to him.