In the last post the effort was to set out that the true act of faith is to receive grace. In one sense faith is the sight of the soul (Hebrews 11) in that it is by faith that people looked ahead to see Christ and saw the certainty of the promises of God. Faith is what receives grace in order that there is nothing in the human being that merits or works for salvation. That is why only the humble receive grace because only those who are empty of self can have true faith which does nothing but receive grace. Salvation is by grace alone and must be received in a way that keeps all merit away from those receiving grace. That way is faith. We must point out this nature of faith or we will be in great danger of treating faith as a work. When we tell people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they will be saved, it is most likely that we will be understood as telling them that they need to make an act of the will to believe what Christ has said and therefore be saved. It sounds to them like they are being told to do something of themselves that they can do. But in fact they are being told to do something that is impossible for a proud and self-reliant person to do. If the very nature of faith is to receive grace, then it is the most humbling thing that we can tell a person that s/he must do if we tell them what it really means.
When we tell people to believe the Gospel, it must not be just an intellectual assent that we want them to give. The type of belief that saves is not one that just believes the facts but is a receiving faith. Understanding and believing facts is nothing more than the devil and any unbeliever can do. In fact, when Scripture uses “believe” in many cases what it really means is that one is to have faith but it is hard for people to understand what “faithing” is so it is translated as “believing.” In reality what we must tell people is that they are to believe (faith) in Christ alone in such a way that their faith is receiving grace alone to be saved. Only those who are broken from self and are truly humble can have true faith in Christ because to believe in Christ alone is to receive Him by grace alone and grace requires nothing of merit or works in those who receive it. The function of faith is that it receives grace. We cannot receive grace if we trust in ourselves in any way. This is a basic issue of faith.
John 1:11-13 shows how this works: “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is clear from this text that those who received Him were those who believed in His name, but those who did not receive Him were those that did not believe in Him. Colossians 2:6 tells the same story: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” It is by receiving Christ/grace through faith that one is saved and it is by receiving grace through faith that a believer grows. If a person truly believes, that person receives Christ. If a person receives Christ, then that person truly believes. A true faith has nothing to do but to receive Christ.
This points us to a vitally important part of justification by faith alone. If we take the word “by” as if to mean that faith is what we must come up with and it is faith itself that justifies us, then we are left with a justification that is by a work. If faith is something we come up with of ourselves (or even some of ourselves) then justification is by a work of man. This is an important point between Arminian and Reformed teaching. Both use the words “justification by faith alone” but both do not mean the same thing by it. The Gospel of justification teaches us that justification is by grace alone through faith alone. It would be more understandable to say that we are justified through faith alone. In fact, the longer phrase of “justification by grace alone through faith alone” shows this. Sinners are only justified by grace (Christ) and not by faith but through faith. Grace comes through faith and when it is said that a sinner is justified by faith alone it is an effort to say what Scripture says about men being justified through faith apart from works. What we must do is realize that Scripture is stripping men of any worth, merit, value, or works in terms of justification when it says that they are justified through faith without works.
The reason that Scripture strips men of anything they are or can do for justification is because justification is by grace alone which is to say that it is by Christ alone. Faith must be what receives Christ alone by grace alone because there is nothing else that strips man of all that he is or can do. What we must see is that a person must be stripped of all that s/he is or s/he will trust in his own merit or worth to some degree and so it is not grace alone that the person trusts in. A person that is not completely stripped of all merit or works cannot look to and have faith to receive grace and Christ alone by grace alone for salvation. This is not just playing with words or pointing to differences of semantics, this is an essential of the Gospel. The Gospel is by grace alone because it is earned by Christ alone and comes to human beings through faith alone. Anything else is a false gospel.
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