The Problem of Faith

We're all good Christians, right? (Okay, not all.) We all know that Christianity is different because we are saved by faith, not by works where, in all other religions, it's the works that get you there. So far, so good. Most of us also know that once Christ saves you, you're saved. You know ... "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:28). Okay? So we see the logic. Once saved, you remain in that condition, and you arrive in that condition by faith. Clear enough. So we could state it "If faith, then eternally saved." Or ... can we?

Jesus gave His disciples the parable of the sower (Matt 13:3-9). In this story there was someone throwing seeds on various types of ground. The first seed was picked up by birds. The second "sprang up" but died in the sun. The third fell among thorns and got choked out. The fourth produced a crop. Jesus explained (Matt 13:18-23) that the seed was "the word of the kingdom." Evil snatched the first. The second "immediately receives it with joy" but lost it to "affliction or persecution" because it had "no root." The third heard it but it was choked out by the worries of the world and "becomes unfruitful." The fourth, obviously, was received, understood, and produced fruit. You see, therefore, that there is one soil that doesn't receive it and two soils that do, but don't keep it. "Don't keep it?" you might well ask. "Didn't we establish that faith equal eternally saved?" And now you see the problem.

James says, "Faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself" (James 2:17). That's "dead faith." It's the faith of demons (James 2:19). It is faith, but not effective faith. It is dead faith. This is the kind of faith that appears in multiple warnings in Scripture. John warned that false teachers would come out of the church. "They went out from us," he says, "but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). And there you see the concept. It is possible to have a kind of faith -- dead faith -- that has some appearance of faith but is not real, functional, living. This is the faith of the shipwrecked (1 Tim 1:19). This is the faith of the "many" who say, "Lord, Lord, look what we've done for you" and haven't (Matt 7:21-23). According to Jesus, the primary difference is that the effective faith includes understanding (Matt 13:23), but Paul warns that "a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (1 Cor 2:14).

So, it seems, there is a faith that is dead. It holds to a form of godliness but denies its power (2 Tim 3:5). Peter warned "If, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first" (2 Peter 2:20). This dead faith looks okay, but it's actually built on self. Genuine faith is a gift (1 Tim 1:14; Rom 12:3; 1 Cor 4:7; Php 1:29; etc.) that gets exercised and is effective only when it is accompanied by regeneration that produces works. It is entirely, biblically possible to have faith that is dead. What is needed is the functional faith of His sheep (John 10:26). Is that yours?