The Role of Faith in Salvation

The Role of Faith in Salvation: God’s Provision and Man’s Response

Faith stands at the very heart of the biblical message of salvation. Yet few subjects are more easily misunderstood. Faith can be treated as though it were a work man performs to earn God’s favor, while at the opposite extreme it can be described in such a way that believing is no longer meaningfully the response of the person who believes. Scripture presents neither picture.

Salvation originates with God. God provides the Savior. God provides the sacrifice. God provides the Gospel. God reveals the truth. God makes the promise. God provides the faculties by which His revelation can be perceived and understood. Man creates none of these things. Nevertheless, Scripture repeatedly calls upon man to hear, believe, trust, repent, obey, and receive what God has graciously provided.

Understanding saving faith therefore requires that we distinguish between God’s provision of everything necessary for faith and man’s genuine response to that provision.

What Is Faith?

The principal New Testament word translated “faith” is pistis (πίστις), while the closely related verb pisteuō (πιστεύω) means “to believe,” “to trust,” or “to place confidence in.” The adjective pistos (πιστός) commonly carries the idea of being faithful, trustworthy, or believing.

Biblical faith is therefore much more than merely acknowledging that something is true. Saving faith involves trust. It has an object. It rests upon someone and upon something that has been revealed concerning that person.

This is why Scripture can speak not merely of believing facts about Christ, but of believing “in” or “on” Christ. Christian faith is directed toward the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Paul writes:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

Notice the relationship. The believer does not create the saving power. The saving power belongs to God and is revealed in the Gospel. Yet salvation is associated with the one who believes.

This distinction is essential. God provides salvation. God reveals salvation. Man believes what God has revealed.

Faith Requires Revelation

No one can place faith in something of which he has absolutely no awareness. Before something can become the object of faith, there must first be some revelation of that object.

This is particularly important when discussing whether faith is a gift from God.

Saving faith is bestowed by God as a gift through His revelation. Apart from God’s revelation, we would have no knowledge or awareness of Him upon which to place our faith. God provides both the truth to be believed and the God-given faculties by which that truth may be perceived, understood, and believed. Thus, faith does not originate independently of God, nor is it a meritorious contribution to salvation. Yet God’s provision of the capacity and object of faith need not mean that God necessitates the act of believing. Faith remains man’s genuine response to what God has graciously revealed and provided.

Paul makes the relationship between revelation, hearing, and believing particularly clear in Romans 10:

“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone to preach?” (Romans 10:14).

He shortly concludes:

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Faith does not arise in an informational vacuum. God reveals Himself and His saving work. The Gospel communicates that revelation. Man is thereby presented with the truth upon which faith may rest.

God therefore precedes man’s faith at every point. Without God, there is no Savior. Without God, there is no atonement. Without God, there is no promise. Without God, there is no Gospel. Without God’s revelation, there is nothing concerning Christ for man to hear and believe. Without the faculties God created and sustains, man possesses no capacity by which to perceive, understand, deliberate, or respond.

But none of this requires us to conclude that God must therefore irresistibly determine whether a particular individual believes what He has revealed.

Provision is not causation, and enabling a response is not the same thing as necessitating that response.

Faith Is Not a Meritorious Work

One of the most important distinctions Scripture makes is between faith and works.

Paul writes:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28).

Again:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

And:

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16).

If exercising faith were itself a meritorious work that earned salvation, Paul’s repeated contrast between faith and works would become extremely difficult to explain.

Faith is not the price paid for salvation. Christ paid the price. Faith does not accomplish the atonement. Christ accomplished the atonement. Faith does not make God’s grace available. God graciously made salvation available in Christ. Faith receives what God has provided.

This is why Paul can simultaneously insist that salvation is entirely by grace and that salvation is received through faith:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

Grace and faith are not competitors. Grace identifies the source and character of God’s provision; faith describes the response by which the sinner receives and rests upon that provision.

Believing therefore gives man no grounds for boasting. Paul specifically makes this argument in Romans 3. After describing justification by faith, he asks:

“Where then is boasting? It is excluded” (Romans 3:27).

Faith excludes boasting precisely because faith does not present God with something deserving payment. It acknowledges dependence upon what another has accomplished.

A drowning man who accepts rescue has not thereby become his own rescuer. Likewise, the sinner who trusts Christ has not saved himself. His faith rests entirely upon the saving work performed by another.

Abraham: Faith in God’s Promise

Abraham provides one of Scripture’s clearest illustrations.

God made Abraham a promise. Abraham did not create the promise, determine its terms, or possess the ability independently to bring about its fulfillment.

God provided the promise. Abraham believed God.