Home pageThe Bible has some places where it says, 'only believe'. Two of those are about the same incident, where Jesus tells Jairus, the father of the girl who had just died, not to be afraid but to only believe. Another place where the meaning comes near to this was when the children of Israel were standing before the Red Sea with the Egyptian army pursuing them, where Moses told them to stand by and see the salvation which God would accomplish for them that day (Exo.14:13). David told Goliath when he went out to fight with him that the battle was the Lord's (1Sam.17:47). A similar thing happened when a prophet told Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, when a huge army came to fight against them, that the Lord would handle the battle on their behalf (2Chr.20:17).The common lesson from all these passages is that when we face difficult situations in life, we must not give in to fear, but know that the Lord is with us. He will not forsake us.
But this is how many Christians think of our experience of salvation. They quote the Bible saying, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph.2:8,9). It says very clearly that salvation is not from ourselves nor the result of any work we do. We receive it through faith. So, they say, isn't God saying here that our part in salvation is only to believe? They point out that the most well-known verse on salvation, Jn.3:16, connects salvation only to believing. In other words, it appears that we need to just place our trust in Jesus as our Saviour, and then stand still and witness the salvation God will work out in us. It fits the symbolism of the Old Testament examples we looked at, doesn't it?
Don't drop off at this stage thinking that you know what is going to come. I am not going to show that salvation is by works, or faith plus works. Salvation is certainly by grace. But since salvation is a subject that personally affects all of us, it is important for us to know how to experience it to the full. What I want to do is to try to make things as clear as possible so that those who are saved will be assured about it, and those who are only assuming that they are saved will get to know what to do to be really saved. Some people are afraid of testing their faith because they are afraid they might lose it. Our goal here is to make everyone understand how to be saved. If you follow that, you will be safe.
We must say that 'grace' has a great appeal to us, because we think it is a great blessing being offered to us without any responsibility placed on us! When we see all around us religions that point out different rituals and practices that we must do in order to find favour with God, this offer from the God of the Bible appears to be very attractive. That is the glory of grace, an unmerited favour from God towards us, by which He offers us a salvation as a gift that we do not deserve. So you ask, where is the catch?
Even though it may sound unnecessary for those who already know, for the others' sake let me make things simple and clear. Those who already know can strengthen themselves. Our starting point is to sit down and think about why Jesus, the Son of God, had to die this cruel death on the cross. If there was any other way for salvation for us without that cross, God would not have let His Son go through this. Our problem was so severe that it needed God to make that ultimate sacrifice to rescue us. Most of us would have heard the word sin, and we may have even admitted that we have committed some sins. But maybe we have never thought that God would need to take such a drastic step in order to be able to forgive us. To put it in reverse, we can see that if the sacrifice had to be so severe, our sins must be very serious, and not as we thought before.
Generally we don't think of sin like that. Many of us have not committed sins like murder or adultery, and we think our sins are only petty ones which God can easily forgive. That is because we don't know what God thinks about sin. God is absolutely holy. He can be thought of as being light, where sin would be darkness (1Jn.1:5). Every time we have sinned, we have brought darkness into our life, and that has separated us from God. God is the Giver of life, and every time we sinned, we have brought death into us (Rom.6:23). When we sin, the separation from God which we come into is the same as spiritual death. Our physical death comes later as the consequence of being away from God.
We must also realise that most of us have committed many sins without realising it. For example, we may have thought that we have not committed murder even though we have hated people in our heart, which God considers to be the same as murder (Matt.5:21,22). We may think we have not committed adultery, but have we looked at people with desire (Matt.5:27,28)? What about other sins like telling lies, fighting with people, stealing, using God's name as a curse word or exclamation, sinning in our imagination, etc.? If we are honest, we must all recognise that we stand as sinners before God (Rom.3:23). Then we must also realise that one day is going to come when all of us will have to give an account for our life to God (Rom.14:12). God knows everything about us, and we cannot hide in front of Him behind any excuses or justification for our sins.
When people realise they have sinned, they try various things to get out of the punishment. Some hope that the good things they have done will cover for the wrong they have done. That won't work even with an earthly judge. If we have done wrong, we deserve to be punished. Some others try various religious rituals looking for forgiveness of sins. But see what God says about what can provide us forgiveness (Heb.9:22). In the Old Testament, some things could be cleansed with water, but here God says that forgiveness is only going to be made through shedding of blood. In the Old Testament, the system of blood sacrifice of animals was started as a picture of the ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God who was going to come later. The animal sacrifices were only a picture, and could not actually take away sin (Heb.10:4). But having to shed the animal's blood in sacrifice was meant to teach us how serious sin was.
So, that is why Jesus had to come and shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus was always God (Jn.1:1). In order to be able to die in our place, He took the form of a Man. When He died as the sinless Lamb of God, it made possible the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world (1Jn.2:2). Even though forgiveness is available to the whole world, only those who accept Jesus as their Substitute and Saviour will actually receive it (Jn.1:12).
Now we must understand that as sinners we do not have any right to go near God based on our own merit. But then we can also see that now there is a way for our sins to be forgiven so that we can be accepted back by God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (Jn.3:16). It is very important for us to understand what this verse means by 'believe' because our salvation depends on that. We have already seen that it is those who 'receive' Jesus who get adopted as children of God. So this 'receive' is included in this 'believe'. We must understand that what we believe about Jesus matters. If we truly understand our condition as sinners who deserve death in the sight of God, and also why Jesus died in order to bear our punishment in our place, it will be with an attitude of sorrow over our sins and a desire not to sin again that we will go to Him. This is all part of believing in Jesus and receiving Him as Saviour. When we understand how He gave His life for us out of love for us, even when we were virtually enemies to Him living in sin, our desire will be to submit to Him and live for Him the rest of our life (2Cor.5:14,15). All this is part of our believing in Jesus and receiving Him. Remember that the Greek word in the New Testament that is translated as 'believe' in English means "total trust, reliance, adherence, and commitment."
When we return to God like this from our sinful ways, He washes us with the blood of Jesus and cleanses our hearts (1Jn.1:7). He adopts us as His children (Rom.8:15). He takes away our filthy garments of sin and robes us with the righteousness of Jesus (Isa.61:10; Speaking of how God accepted Abraham, looking at his faith, Rom.4:22-24). He gives us a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek.36:26,27). This gives us a new attitude towards sin. Where we used to go after the pleasures of sin in the past, now we want to stop sinning (1Jn.3:9). These are the results of our believing in Jesus which we can see for ourselves. Others will also be able to notice these differences in our life after we have been born again.
Believing in Jesus is thus different from believing things about Jesus. When we believe in Jesus, it establishes a relationship between us, as a sinner with the Saviour and as a creature with God. There is an automatic submission from our side to Him and His laws when we get into this relationship. That is how believing in Jesus is different from what the huge number of people think, for example, those who have grown up in Christian families, who believe many truths about Him but have not entered into a personal relationship with Him.
This 'salvation experience' of seeing ourselves as sinners before God, confessing our sins and receiving mercy, and desiring not to sin again, as a result of the Holy Spirit working in us and our responding to Him, is the proof that we have been born again. Being born again gives us the status of spiritual babies, however old we may be physically. We are not perfect! But then we have the opportunity to grow towards becoming like Jesus. If people claim that they believe, but they have not had a change of heart and direction in their life, their belief is only nominal, and only in their mind.
What I have described here is the initial experience of salvation when we find acceptance from God. This is called being justified with God. Our acceptance with God is based entirely on the undeserved gift of the righteousness of Jesus being credited to us after wiping away our sins. We receive this by faith, and then we respond to God according to what we have come to believe. After this, if we fall into sin, there is forgiveness made available to us (1Jn.2:1). When we look at ourselves, especially after we have fallen, and see how 'far' we are actually from Jesus in our character, we can overcome our sense of guilt by remembering that our acceptance is not based on how we perform but on the righteousness of Jesus that clothes us. God Himself knows that after we have come to Him we are not going to become perfect all of a sudden, and that is why He has specially made a way for us to be restored to Him through confessing our sins.
Now comes the second part of salvation, which is meant to deliver us from the power of sin in our life and to transform us little by little into the character of Jesus. This again is not automatic once we have been born again. God does not force anyone to be saved. He works inside us through the Holy Spirit giving us a new desire to become like Jesus, and empowering us to live like Him in daily life. We can then respond to this by doing whatever the Holy Spirit leads us to. In this context, Php.2:12,13 is very important to understand where it describes how God works in us and how we are to respond. We will be thoroughly mistaken if we just believe and expect God to do all the saving while we carry on with our usual life. No. Jesus said very clearly that the only way to follow Him was by denying ourselves and then doing what He wants (Lk.9:23). Finally, when we are in eternity, we will be given a new, resurrected body that will have no sin in it. That will remove even the presence of sin from our life.
All the exhortations and warnings in the New Testament make no sense if we just have to 'believe' and God will do all the actual work! God will not forcefully save those who do not want to be saved. And those who truly want to be saved from sinning will not sit around and wait for salvation to come while they keep falling into sin. We make every effort to live like Jesus but find ourselves unable, and then we learn to cry out to Him for help. But if we think we 'believe' and wait for God to supernaturally transform us, we will be disappointed.
Those who have been truly born again have the holy Spirit in them who will keep leading them to more and more truth, about themselves, about God, and about what He wants them to do. The more they come to know the truth, and the more they submit to the truth, the more they will experience God's freedom in their life (Jn.8:32). But many who comfort themselves thinking they 'believe', but who do not have any evidence of God working in them, are going to be disappointed, because they are deceived about salvation. They cannot find any fruit in their life even after years.
But some people are genuinely confused about this. It seems to be clear to them that salvation is entirely by the grace of God which we receive by faith, and not by anything we do. So they try to believe, and they cannot understand when someone tells them that we have to do certain things from our side, like repenting, denying ourselves, obeying God, etc. We need to understand what Eph.2:8 means by "not as a result of works".
What the apostle Paul is saying there is that we cannot earn salvation by anything we do, but that it is a free gift which God is offering us, which we totally do not deserve. We know that many people do many religious things in order to gain favour with God. But we can never earn merit to obtain salvation. We cannot ever deserve it because we have already alienated ourselves from God by disobeying Him. Now salvation can be obtained only by God showing grace to us.
The things we do now, repenting from our past sins and seeking not to sin again, are not works meant to earn salvation. Now that we have been given a new heart that hates sin, we are just obeying God who tells us not to sin (1Jn.2:1). In order to do that and follow Jesus, we have to first deny the sinful desires that come from our flesh (Jas.1:14,15). What we believe about Jesus has caused us to put our trust in Him as our Saviour and Lord, and now we obey Him. This is what James tries to explain in his letter. He says that those who truly believe will show it in the way they live (Jas.2:17,18). These 'works' are the actions that proceed from our faith and from our new nature. They are very different from the works people do in order to gain favour with God.
There is one more thing we must understand here. The usual meaning of grace is as an unmerited favour from God. But it also has another meaning as 'help' which God gives us at different times. "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb.4:16). We receive grace as mercy for the forgiveness of sins, and also as help. One such help is what enables us to overcome in times of temptation (Tit.2:11,12). This is the help that God gives us by directing and strengthening us, and then we carry out what He tells us to do.
So, our Christian life is not a passive one where we wait for God to do everything for us. We cooperate with the Holy Spirit to experience what Jesus has prepared for us.