Rethinking faith…

What is faith? I’ve been pondering that question of late, reflecting back on many of the things I’ve taught, thought and “believed.” To be brutally honest, I fear I might have misrepresented faith, and led others into a way of thinking of faith that can have nothing other than long term pernicious effects.

At its basic level faith is simply believing, trusting and/or relying on the word of another. It is our submission to a claim made by an other that we ourselves can neither establish nor prove. The apostle Paul wrote that faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Rom 10:17). Therefore biblical faith is produced from first hearing and then accepting the claim of God. Faith then is a product of a genuine, God-oriented spirituality.

We might say that faith is produced within the context of a relationship. Faith results from a willing submission to and dependence upon another. This means that it has no life of its own. Faith is not a thing acquired, but an interpersonal dynamic produced. We could say that faith is a connection between partners in a relationship. In the context of biblical spirituality, faith is the connection we have with God. Faith is the life blood of our relationship with Him.

In previous years I paid lip-service to that definition of faith, choosing instead to emphasize faith as a supernatural force available to believers. By faith we could achieve the success, health and wealth that was due to us as children of the covenant-making God. Faith equipped believers to exercise their will upon the world around them. I taught that God gave us this power and delighted in our exercise of it just as a father delights in seeing his children do what he does! Because I viewed faith through this prism, I held to the conviction that the development of faith was the paramount Christian discipline. Therefore, the acquisition, development and exercise of faith became not only my personal goal, but the primary content of the vast majority of my teaching.

By holding to this view of faith, I turned it into a badge of honor and a tool of the ego. Faith was objectified, turned into an instrument believers could use to escape the vicissitudes of human existence in this sin-scarred world. The extent to which someone walked in success, health or prosperity demonstrated their level of faith. And the opposite held true: failure in any area of life or ministry indicated a deficiency of faith. I confess I didn’t recognize it then, but once I adopted that way of thinking and teaching (and, for what its worth, I was not alone), I departed from biblical teaching and moved into a counterfeit spirituality of the human will.

Thank God for His grace and mercy! He gives space for reflection, growth and repentance. Where do I stand today? While I am even now re-evaluating my definitions, I continue to recognize that God gives us faith as a gift and that that faith is a powerful supernatural force. Yet biblical faith will always have God alone as its object. Therefore biblical faith is both for and in God. A faith that has any other object is not of biblical spirituality; it is a product of the human mind and will. Whether that kind of faith is good or bad is unimportant to this discussion; what is important is that we not confuse it with biblical faith.

Faith is the pursuit of a relationship with God. In the past I taught about the exercise of faith for something, such as healing, prosperity or direction. Yet the result of that kind of faith teaching is the redirection of the heart away from God and on to things. And even if those things are good, godly or necessary, the pursuit of things over the pursuit of God leads to nothing but destruction. In any and every situation of life, human beings need God. God, by His Word and Spirit, gives us faith as we submit to His claims. This unites us to Him in an unbreakable, eternal relationship. This is the purpose of faith. In this day and hour I become increasingly convinced that what we need is genuine faith in God. This is the kind of faith then, that I must begin to teach.

Thoughts on being saved…

From the beginning of my Christian walk I have wrestled with an understanding of what it means to be “saved.” Now for any one who is unacquainted with this evangelical jargon, “saved” is the term used to describe the result of trusting Christ (i.e., exercising faith in him) to be your personal Savior. He saves those who trust him from the penalty that has been imposed upon all humanity as a consequence of humanity’s progenitors’ fall into sin through disobedience (Gen 3; Rom 5). That penalty is physical & spiritual death—which together lead to eternal death, an eternal separation from God. The apostle Paul wrote that one is saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8)—faith in the work of God in Jesus Christ (Rom 10:5–11). Jesus distilled this teaching into the simple phrase to be “born again” (John 3). Therefore the terms “saved” and “born again” are essentially synonymous. The term “Christian” came from outsiders who used it to describe followers of Christ (Acts 11:26). Presumably followers of Christ would hold to the teachings of Christ, therefore the term Christian should encompass the terms saved and born again, although admittedly it does have a wider syntactical field. So, back to my struggle. What does it indicate when we say we are “saved?” What does it mean to be born again? And finally, what does calling oneself a Christian actually entail?

Contemporary answers to these questions leave me largely unsatisfied. Being a Christian is equated with church attendance or the adoption of a distinct philosophy of life, a code of ethics, or a set of morals. The terms “born again” and “saved” identify one as belonging to a particular camp within evangelical Christianity, and frequently are used to describe the experience of coming to faith. Each of these answers does in fact describe an aspect of the Christian life, yet they fail to plumb the essence of what it really means to be a Christian. They treat the terms as cultural or social identifiers rather than as descriptions of a kind of life. And unless we in the church are careful, we will allow these definitions to infuse our own understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Being a Christian is far more than an affiliation with a particular institution or the possession of a new morality or worldview. Being a Christian is—at its root—not a description of what one thinks, does or has. Instead it is a description of who one is. In other words, when we claim to be saved, born again, or a Christian, we are not merely describing the character of our lives, but rather we are describing the nature of our life itself. Although many today use these terms to describe external habits or associations, they are actually about our existence as a human being.

Before anyone can be born again—or, as John put it, be born from above—one first has to die. Have we considered what that simple truth really means? Death is a dramatic life-altering event! It is the ultimate discontinuity. What once was, utterly, completely, irrevocably ceases to exist. Life has to come to an absolute and unqualified end before a new life can begin. Death then qualifies us for a new birth. Once the product of our first birth is extinguished we can indeed be born again.

Being born again, then, means that we have received a new life, a new existence. Who we were dies; now we are made new. Or, as Paul wrote, “Therefore if anyone (is) in Christ—new creation! Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17–18).

Have we seriously considered what that means? Now before I go further, I recognize that the experience of dying and living anew in Christ is a spiritual event; our actual physical body and mind do not cease to exist. By faith we are placed into Christ’s death and by faith partake of Christ’s resurrection—but it is no less real for being spiritual as opposed to physical. To be born again, that is, to become a Christian, we receive a new life. We magnify the forensic declarations of righteousness, justification and peace that accompany salvation—and well we should, for they are vital. Yet I want to suggest that salvation entails much, much more than these. It is the gift of a new life, that is to be lived for different purposes according to different principles and defined by different measures, goals, and terms. Although when we’re saved we (and others!) may still recognize us in the mirror, in the sight of God we have been newly created and given a new life. This new life is wonderfully depicted by Paul when he wrote that “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Imagine if we could grasp this truth and live it! It pains me to admit that for years I have tried to live my own life, according to my own principles, plans and hopes—for Christ as a Christian. Yet a Christian is one in whom Christ lives His life! In other words, a Christian doesn’t live for him- or herself; a Christian lives like Christ for God. Perhaps we need to stop and think of the practical implications of this truth. As Christians, what are our objectives for life? How do we make decisions? What are our aspirations? And not just what we would like to do in a so-called “perfect world,” but how do we actually live? Are we living for ourselves, by ourselves, according to ourselves? Or is Christ completely in control? How would someone describe us from the outside?

I have lived deficiently. I have allowed my church membership, ministerial activity, behavioral modifications and world-view adjustments to define my Christianity. I have accepted a philosophy and endeavored to order my life according to its dictates. I have not died and let Christ abide in me. What a terrible thought! But to tell you truthfully, when I consider what it really means, I wonder not only if I am saved, I wonder if I want to be saved! Am I really ready to die? Am I honestly ready to abandon my own life and let Christ live His life in me? Because that is what it actually means to say that I am saved and born again.

The more I ponder this, the more I appreciate how deficient my faith has been. What else could hold anyone back from fully surrendering their lives to God in Christ? Only a lack of confidence in God and Christ! May God forgive me and have mercy on me! I do so want to lose my life to Christ, but I can only do that if and when I trust Him to take care of me. And so it seems that my journey to God through Christ begins anew. Anyone want to take a walk of faith with me?