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Actual Lord Jesus Christ

For faith to be saving faith, the person must place the faith in the actual Lord Jesus Christ.  This means He is the Christ, not an impostor.  It is not saving faith if it does not direct toward the saving object, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Accompanying this necessarily, the faith must attune to the Person of Jesus Christ.  He is not Christ if the said “belief” does not acquiesce to the reign and lordship of Jesus Christ and relinquish the personal will and way.  This is in essence the offering of “self” or one’s soul to God.  Scripture explicates all of this paragraph.

Believing that Jesus is the Christ is not something arbitrary.  He becomes the Christ to the person who believes in Him.  That means the one believing in Jesus Christ abdicates his throne to Jesus Christ.  The person who believes in Jesus Christ is not on the throne of his own heart, but Christ is.  When the Apostle Paul received Christ, he said immediately, “What wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6)

Count One’s Life as Loss or Deny Self

When the Apostle Paul later testifies about his conversion, he says that he counted everything as loss and dung that he might win Christ (Philippians 3:8).  Paul is saying that you do have to count you and the best of you as loss and dung.  This is the denying self of Luke 9:23.  You can’t believe in Jesus Christ and yourself.  Jesus can’t be put on an altar with all someone’s other gods, including himself.

The way of Jesus Christ is in contradiction to the way of you.  You’ve got to leave you in order to have Him.  You can’t have both.  This is the same challenge of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-22 (Mark 10:17-22, Luke 18:18-30).  You don’t need to give all of your money to the poor to be saved.  No, but if you believe in Jesus Christ like he said he did, then you can give up everything for him.  If you don’t, then you don’t believe in Him.  You can’t serve idols and Jesus both.

People conflate what I’m explaining to “salvation by works,” even “frontloading works.”  Works aren’t involved at all.  This is just biblical faith.  Saving faith is exclusive.  It must be in Jesus Christ, so He must be Jesus Christ.  If He is Jesus Christ, then He is Christ and He is Lord.  Christ and Lord means control and ownership.  You are giving yourself up, so that He is the owner.  This is the commitment of believing that is the volitional aspect of faith.

More Than Intellectual Assent to Facts

Faith is more than intellectual assent to facts, essentially head knowledge alone.  This is like the check in the box.  As I explain the above and state that saving faith is not just intellectual or even worse, just emotional, what is different about faith that includes volition?  This goes along with two things Jesus said that are parallel or synonymous with saving faith:  (1)  Follow me, and (2) Lose your life for my sake.  Jesus said among other places in Matthew 16:25:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.

“Lose it” or “shall lose his life for my sake” is not meaningless.  It’s not that we can’t know what Jesus is talking about.  We should assume we can know.  This is that relinquishing of your will or your way.  It dovetails with repentance.  You can’t keep going your way and get to heaven.  Anyone who comes after him must deny himself (Luke 9:23).

When Jesus talked about the gospel or salvation with the woman at the well in John 4, He told her that God the Father sought such to worship Him and to worship Him in spirit and in truth.  What does worship have to do with salvation?  The first act of worship is the offering of your soul to God, what Psalm 23:3 and Psalm 19:7 call the restoring of the soul or the converting of the soul.  God takes the real you and restores you or converts you, but to do so, He must have you.  He wants you.  Faith offers the soul to God.  This is believing He is Christ and Lord.

More to Come