“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
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Faith is one of the most pivotal elements in the life of God’s people since it determines the destiny of our created existence AND our qualitative growth in grace. We are drilling down faith.
January Grace Notes listed 12 commonly known faith verses. One of many omitted is the following:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” -Romans 1:16-17, (See also Habakkuk 2:4, Hebrews 10:38, Galatians 3:11).
Lets drill down the content of this passage summarizing what it says about faith:
Contained within the gospel of Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God. This gospel also contains the power of salvation. That is, the gospel has the power to deliver a believing person out of sin setting them free or redeeming them into righteousness. The essence of salvation is delivering mankind from self deception while restoring him into his designed and intended existence at creation. This salvation, rejected by the Jews, is extended to the gentile Greeks who can live righteous, will live righteous by faith in Christ. It follows, then, righteousness and power are contained within salvation and accessible to believers through faith.
Read this passage again and listen with your heart. According to this scripture passage, the gospel contains two elements. First, it has the power to change who we are and determine our destiny. This is the meaning of salvation. Second, the gospel is a progressive pathway revealing faith, one level to the next into righteousness.
“Faith is one of the most pivotal elements in the life of God’s people since it determines the destiny of our created existence AND our qualitative growth in grace.
If we neglect our “salvation,” devoting our energy to faith, as believers, we fall prey to the very thing we argue against (I and Thou). This deceptive device robs us of the power inherently essential in salvation and dilutes our confidence. So lets take the time, here, to focus on salvation itself. In this way, we see more clearly faith’s relationship in salvation and continue our walk deeper into the faith redwoods.
God is love and righteousness. This divine standard is essential in life God created. This is how we were created. God’s integrity demands His love and righteousness be vital in His relationships. God’s own nature of love and righteousness supplies our salvation and creates our faith flow. He is our root nurturing fruit into our life which, by His grace and our faith, is His fruit. Jesus Himself is God, the cornerstone of our faith. He is the rock upon which we build our faith and become living stones. Love and righteousness must flow out of Him through us creating fruit and living stones.
The Westminster shorter Catechism puts it this way, “What is the chief end (purpose) of man?” Answer: “Man’s end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” Man was created in love and righteousness. Man must be in this created state to fulfill God’s purpose. Man polluted his created state with sin, separating himself out from personal fellowship with God. Man thereby created a barrier to fellowship with God. Our Father God is pure and only death is an acceptable satisfaction for our human transgression. Death is the required remedy for us to be who we are intended to be. Jesus satisfied God’s remedy in our behalf.
Our heavenly Father’s solution was to become a human man, the Son of Man (God-Man), reconciling Himself back to man, providing man the path to reconcile himself back to God. He died so we did not have to, providing a sure corridor for man to come back into fellowship with His creator, the lover of our soul. This is what God did. God also provided through Jesus’s work of grace a profound relationship with God in Christ. This is a literal Spiritual/spiritual union whereby we become one with the Father in Christ. This is one of the mysteries of the new covenant but it is included within being “created new in Christ,” 2Corinthians 5:17.
Divine agape love drove an eternal solution to reunite God to man. God devised an absolute solution whereby He, being sinless, would enter into flesh and become the Son of Man and die the death required for us to live. In this way, He reconciled Himself to man, that is, made the way clear for man to come back into a personal relationship if … man chooses to receive God’s free gift of love and righteousness.
This God provided but He did “so much more,” as Paul explains in Romans. God provides restoration of human fellowship but also offers His personal friendship through His Holy Spirit, preparing us to become His Bride. Creating sinful mankind into such purity to join into an ultimate intimacy with God Himself certainly glorifies Him and enables us to enjoy Him forever! This is a staggering declaration of scripture describing the ultimate, intimate relationship God offers His created beings!
The marriage occurs after the 7 year judgment and before the 1000 year reign of God’s Kingdom on earth. The suggestion a marriage feast in heaven is concurrent with Christ’s millennium reign on earth lacks scriptural foundation. Rather, the church will reign with Christ prior to the new heaven and earth.
This then, is what faith is all about. It is our human means to capture God’s provision for our reconciliation back into God’s fellowship. But this doesn’t really tell us what it is! We have been describing reasons for our walks into the redwoods. It is to discover and understand the salvation God offers, 1Peter 1:9. To know faith and understand it within our own person is “much more” than a definition, as is salvation itself.
One way to see it is in the context of 1Corinthians 13, “faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” Faith and hope are in the same space or dynamic as agape love. We are dealing with being in God’s family as children. These family qualities need to be learned and all three are qualitatively defined. We are familiar with love because it is a human experience bringing one person into the experience of another through intimacy at many levels. Faith and hope are part of this same dynamic working in and through us as we form a union with God through Jesus. This is the work Jesus completed. We have to enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus with the commitment of our personal will, that is, submitting our heart and mind, i.e., our soul. Faith is exposing and submitting our soul to the outcome Jesus Christ provides. This is not a one time event, it is a life style. Being a true believer is not easy and neither is marriage.
Believing in the sovereign, power and faithfulness of the I-AM God is the issue. Faith defines our commitment level.
We are acknowledging our created creature status and His almighty holiness. We are believing God’s demonstrated reality in historical evidence and we are submitting to His internal urge within us prompting us to make decisions. That internal prompting is God Himself giving witness to His reality and urging us to accept His gift of love and righteousness, bringing us into His care. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!” -Matt. 11:15, Mk. 4:9, Luke 8:8, Rev. 2:7,11,17,29, 3:6,13,22.
“The Just will live by Faith,”
Habakkuk 2:4, Hebrews 10:38, Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11.