The Gospel Coalition

Over five previous posts we’ve looked at five ways people deceive themselves into thinking they know God when in fact they don’t. And we’ve concluded that:
 

 1. It’s not enough just to pray the sinner’s prayer or walk forward during an evangelistic invitation.
 2. It’s not enough to simply remember a time in your past when you made a decision for Jesus Christ.
 3. It’s not enough just to attend church, tithe, teach Sunday school, preach sermons, or commit yourself to religious activities.
 4. It’s not enough to dive into spiritual experiences apart from relationship with the living God.
 5. It’s not enough to live a good life or be a good person.

In this final post on this subject, I’d like to examine a sixth way someone might be decieved into thinking they know God when in fact they don’t: “I have faith–Isn’t that enough?”

Having been a pastor now for 8 years, I am convinced that one of the most strategic mission fields in North America is the church. And it’s this conviction (based on Matthew 7:21-23) which led me to write my first book Do I Know God? It is in that book that I outline these six ways people might be decieved into thinking they know God when in fact they don’t.

If you know someone who might be decieved in this way, please consider getting the book and passing it on to them. In doing so, you will be loving them well and perhaps saving them from hearing the dreaded words, “Depart from me I never knew you.”

Deception 6: “But I have faith. Isn’t that enough?”

It’s absolutely true: we can enter into an eternal relationship with God only through faith in Jesus Christ and what he accomplished on the cross. God rescues us; we don’t rescue ourselves. We don’t deserve salvation, and we can’t earn it. But that doesn’t mean that once we enter into a relationship with God, he doesn’t require any effort from us.

I once heard someone say there are always two ways to fall off a tightrope. In other words, there are always two extremes to avoid. In relation to faith and justification, we’ve already examined the first extreme to avoid: that we must work for our relationship to God. Now let’s look at the second extreme to avoid: that we don’t need to work out our relationship to God.

The Bible identifies two types of faith in God. The first is living faith.

By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. (1 John 2:3)

My beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

And then there is dead faith.

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:4)

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

Dead faith is faith in God that doesn’t lead to a changed life. People with dead faith profess to believe in Christ, but their lives haven’t changed. These are people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Paul said these are people who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16).

Remember Jason in chapter 3? Jason was a young man I met a few years ago who was living with a woman who attended my church. He professed to have faith in Jesus because several years earlier he had prayed the sinner’s prayer at a Christian youth conference. But he had shown no interest in living a godly life. His spiritual condition hadn’t changed one bit, and he demonstrated no interest in its changing. Based on almost every evidence, we could conclude that Jason’s faith is dead.

Living faith, on the other hand, is faith in God that leads to genuine life changes. People with living faith express it in and through their thoughts, affections, and actions. It completely changes how someone lives and what he loves. To be sure, living faith is not perfect faith that shows itself in perfect living, but it is active faith. As Ralph Erskine said, “Faith without trouble or fighting is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith.” Living faith is faith that works.

My seminary years were some of the best years of my life. But there were times when my friends and I started to believe that what we were learning was more important than whether we were actually living it. Knowing the right stuff trumped doing the right thing. We started to think that Christians who refused to drink, smoke, curse, and watch movies were weak and silly. We, on the other hand, represented a more muscular Christianity—a Christianity that put serious thinking about God above serious living for God. We forgot that the two things can’t be separated. The Bible never builds a wall between what we believe and how we live. What we believe has everything to do with how we live, and how we live has everything to do with what we believe.

Today, as a pastor, I talk to people all the time who fall into a similar trap. They understand perfectly that no one can earn a relationship with God through good works. They have no doubt we are saved by grace, “and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV). But convinced of this truth, they go to the extreme and become careless about good works altogether. In effect, they’re singing the anthem

Free from the law,
O blessed condition;
I can sin as I please
and still have remission.

Throughout history a misunderstanding about the connection between faith and works has caused tremendous confusion and led to dangerous extremes. For example, in the 1950s, many churches in America practiced a strict, legalistic, behavior-focused version of Christianity that reduced knowing God to little more than adhering to a strict set of rules and regulations. As a result, several Christian movements rose up in the 1960s, particularly among youth, that emphasized a faith that was more focused on God’s love and grace, his forgiveness and mercy. Sadly, some went too far and took God’s grace as a license to sin. And as a result, some of the leaders of these movements ended up out of the ministry altogether because of extramarital affairs, financial indiscretion, and other moral failures. Events like these can warn us of the serious consequences we should expect when we think that because of God’s grace and mercy, we don’t need to live up to his holy standards.

The Bible is clear that salvation comes through faith alone. But at the same time, it never says you and I can do whatever we want to do and live however we want to live and still possess true assurance that we have a relationship with God. Faith is essential to the Christian life—and so is right behavior.

Some followers of Christ are confused about the role of good works in the Christian life because of the apparent contradiction between what the apostles James and Paul said about it.

Paul, especially in Galatians, seems to have taken a negative view of works. For example, going back to Galatians 2:16, Paul said, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” He also said, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV).

James, on the other hand, seems to have thought that works are not only important but essential in our relationship to God. In his letter he said, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” and “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” and “Faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:17, 24, 26).

So are works necessary or not? Who’s right—Paul or James?

A good place to start resolving these apparent contradictions is to understand that James and Paul were writing to different audiences. Paul was writing to a group of Christians who had started to believe (because of some false teachers in their midst) that they had to meet certain conditions in order to earn a relationship with God. Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to correct them, teaching them that salvation depends entirely on God. No one can earn a relationship with God. James, on the other hand, wrote to a group of Christians facing brutal persecution. James wrote his letter to encourage them not to give up but to press on. Throughout his letter James made the point that when things get tough, what we do demonstrates who we are better than what we say. As Alan Redpath said, “The flavor of a teabag only comes out when put in hot water.”

What Paul and James had to say about faith and works are not contradictory at all. In fact, they are complementary. Paul talked about the role of works in becoming a child of God; James talked about the role of works in being a child of God. Put another way, Paul said it’s impossible to “work for” a relationship to God; James said it’s necessary to “work out” a relationship to God. James and Paul agreed that works have nothing to do with spiritual birth. Works do, however, have everything to do with spiritual growth. James and Paul agreed that saving faith and good works are inseparable: saving faith inevitably produces good works.

Christians throughout history have explained the relationship between saving faith and good works in this way: faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone. If you are truly a child of God, your relationship with him will express itself in a radically transformed life. Real faith always leads to real fruit. Paul urged in Philippians 2, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (verse 12). But he added that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (verse 13). When God adopts you into his family, he plants within you new thoughts and desires, and then he expects you to live out the changes he makes within you. This is one of the most important ways to tell whether you are truly a child of God (more about this in chapter 8). A true relationship with God changes everything about you. And, to put it another way, a relationship with God that does not change everything about you is not a relationship with God.

Finding certainty in life’s most important relationship involves a whole-souled determination to work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling. As we do this, God will satisfy the inner certainty we all crave.�