Perhaps this rings a bell: you’re in a difficult class, your teacher or prof is explaining something really complex, and you are about ready to completely give up having any chance of understanding it. And then she says those magic words, “That was a lot of info, but I summarized what you really need to know in these bullet points on the board.” Heaven opens, the angel choir sings “Hallelujah!”, and you’re suddenly feelin’ fine.
If all of God’s words weren’t important, HE’D have given us Cliff’s Notes!
Just one problem…while such a convenient summary admittedly works wonders for test scores, being able to regurgitate a few important themes doesn’t actually help you understand the topic enough to apply it or helpfully explain it in real life, does it? Unfortunately, Christians often rely on Cliff’s Notes-like summaries to understand and communicate their worldview without realizing how incomplete and confusing that can be (Click to tweet). Faith is one concept this happens with a lot…people are told all the time to simply believe in Jesus, and they’ll be saved! Easy peasy. But is the faith God requires to provide his salvation nothing more than “Yep, Jesus saved me. Got my fire insurance. Movin’ on with life.”? If so, then what’s the rest of the Bible for? Where does church, outreach, and social justice fit into that? And if not, then what else besides Jesus’ death and resurrection do we need to have faith in?
It’s a good start, but only the first step in completing a much richer journey!
When we search God’s words to discover the kind of faith he associates with salvation, it turns out to be much more comprehensive-and make much more sense-than merely faith in a Gospel pamphlet. The final chapter of Healing Hereafter’s Booklet 4 examines how this faith relates more to everything God says than just what he says about Jesus, getting us more excited about why we’re saved than we are about if we’re saved (Click to tweet). Start exploring with the chapter summary below or more fully in two clicks (and for free) right here!
Chapter 19
We start by surveying numerous biblical examples of the faith that is bound to salvation, and we discover that its only necessary, fundamental essence is belief that God can and will do what he says, and that what he says is the best. We explain why it was not specifically faith in Jesus or the gospel that initiated God’s salvation for so many in the Bible, but we also confirm that it must always result in that to complete salvation. Knowing—not foreknowing—everything of our minds and motives, God identifies when humans are freely and genuinely demonstrating the faith that their creator can and will do what he says and that what he says is the best, which requires no specific knowledge about God or Jesus to possess. He then knows that he only needs to say the message of Jesus to them in order for them to believe that he can and will save them through the gospel and that the solution of Jesus is the best. So he does, and we already know from previous chapters how God provides meaningful access to the gospel, whether before physical death or afterwards if necessary. We explain how this free-willed human choice justifies God to only then specifically (specially) predestine that these folks will hear the gospel and believe it. In other words, once we freely convince God of the faith he seeks, he essentially runs the salvation process to make certain that it will be completed. A further exploration of this faith throughout the Bible reveals that it is fair and equal-opportunity. Moreover, it makes remarkable sense, because it directly opposes the nature of sin, continues to be useful and necessary beyond the moment of conversion, and ultimately helps to accomplish not only salvation, but the goal of salvation: eternal perfect community with God. We finish our discussion on faith, both by showing how it is a human work for which God at least partially credits us but also how we still can’t take any credit at all for the salvation that arises from it. This allows us to explain how our faith remains indispensable in proving to God that we want his salvation without allowing us to earn it.
