🛟 Believe

In the previous post, we began to consider how we should respond to the good news of the gospel. In Mark 1:15, Jesus calls people to “repent and believe” in response to the gospel. In the previous post, we thought about what it means to repent. It means to stop living our way and start living God’s way. This post considers what it means to “believe” or “have faith”.

In the Bible, “believe” and “have faith” come from the same word group. They usually mean this: to trust in Jesus alone to save us.  

Since the Protestant Reformation, Christians have often understood that “faith” or “belief” has three elements.  

1. Knowledge

First, faith requires knowledge or awareness of the basic truths of Jesus, God, the Bible, and the gospel. However, an awareness of the facts isn’t enough. Thomas, for example, was aware of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead (John 20:24–29). But did he think it was true? He did not.

2. Assent

Faith needs more than an awareness of the facts. Faith requires assenting to, or agreeing with, the truths of God and the Bible. Shortly after the resurrection, Thomas didn’t have this level of faith.

At the same time, agreeing on the truthfulness of some key facts about Jesus doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the kind of faith Jesus calls us to.

Plenty of people will say that they “believe in God”. But we wouldn’t automatically say that they are Christians. In James 2:19, we read:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

Even the demons believe a core truth about God, that he is one. It makes them shudder. Yet, few people would think that they genuinely “believe”.

Something is obviously missing. What is missing?

3. Trust

The demons don’t trust Jesus to save them. The kind of faith Jesus calls us to is a faith that trusts him to save us. That’s the kind of faith John 3:16 (and most of the New Testament) talks about. We trust Jesus—his coming, his life, his death, his resurrection, his rule, and his impending return—to save us.

And it’s not faith plus works. We trust God’s grace to us in Jesus—and this alone—to save us.  Good works—being nice, getting baptised, taking the Lord’s Supper, serving at church—cannot save us, nor do they form part of a salvation portfolio (Faith + Good Works). Jesus—and Jesus alone—saves us. We receive this by trusting Jesus alone to save us.

Someone might wonder whether such “trust” or “faith” itself counts as a work. Isn’t Jesus telling us to “do” something when he tells us to “believe”? Three responses to that. 

First, faith is given to us. In Ephesians 2:8–9, we read:

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

Faith, like grace, is a gift of God. Since we are not saved by works, “believing” and “having faith” do not count as works.

Secondly, faith receives rather than achieves. It is characterised by dependence on God and the person and work of Jesus. This is different from our own works, which are about achieving things.

Thirdly, we believe because God enables us, by his Son and Spirit, to believe. Before the world’s creation, God devised a plan for us, his children, to have faith in his Son (Ephesians 1:3–14). In Luke 24:45 and Acts 16:14, we read of the Lord Jesus opening up hearts to enable people to receive his message. In John 3:3–15, Jesus tells us that one can only be “born again” and therefore “believe” through the work of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, the fact that we believe is a work of God.

Imagine you’re caught in a massive storm at the beach, and, like me, you’re not a great swimmer. You’re getting swept out to sea. A surf lifesaver comes by in their rescue boat to save you. What do you do? You trust them and them alone to save you as they throw out the inflatable ring (one of these: 🛟). You’re not a good enough swimmer to save yourself. There’s nothing you can do. It’s the same thing with Jesus. You’re not a good enough person to save yourself. There’s nothing you can do. You need to trust Jesus, and Jesus alone to save you.

The Faith that Saves is Never Alone

We’re saved through faith alone, in the work of Jesus alone. But the faith that saves is never alone. It leads to good works. This is perhaps most clear in Ephesians 2:8–10:

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We are saved by grace through faith alone. But we are saved to serve. This is made evident by the word “for” in verse 10, which introduces the reason we are saved: we have been saved and therefore created in Christ Jesus to do good works, works which God prepared for us to do long ago.

If faith doesn’t lead to good works, it doesn’t really exist. This is the point in James 2.

If someone genuinely believes in Jesus—and in Jesus alone—it will naturally lead to good works, as naturally as a can of coke consumed in a single gulp leads to a burp.

How We Should Respond

So, how do we respond to Jesus’ call to “repent and believe”?

↪️ We stop living our way and start living God’s way. That is repentance.  

🛟 And we trust in Jesus alone to save us. That is faith.