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Reformed.Faithweb.com

What is saving faith? This is an extremely important question. Christ himself said that:

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Matthew 7:21-23

There are also many exhortations, especially in the later epistles, which tell us that many will come into the church and try to corrupt it and that we are to keep watch at all times.

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."

2 Peter 2:1

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth."

1 Timothy 4:1-3

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

2 Timothy 3:1-5

We see therefore that it is vitally important to know what saving faith is and what it is not, so we can keep on our guard against these people who will come into the churches and try to deceive even the very elect, if that were possible. Of course we can never tell from the outside who the elect are and who the elect are not. This is one of the secret things that belong to God. Indeed we must love our enemies because we cannot tell whether they are of the elect or not. However, we can discern outward signs, and indeed we are called to do so, so that we may flee from all hypocrisy and see it for what it really is.

Faith and Saving Faith

There are many wrong ideas around as to what exactly saving faith is. It is usually suggested that there are at least two types of faith, "saving faith" and "ordinary faith." I wish to put forward the idea that this difference does not exist at all. There are not two types of faith at all, but only one, namely the faith that saves. Anything else that people call faith is not faith at all but merely an appearance of it.

Firstly a definition of faith. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "faith" as: "reliance, trust in; belief founded on authority; theological belief in religious doctrines, esp. such as affects character and conduct, spiritual apprehension of divine truth apart from proof; system of religious belief."

"Belief" is similarly defined as: "Trust or confidence in; acceptance of and received theology; acceptance as true or existing (of any fact, statement etc.)"

These definitions I am more than happy with, so long as you take the phrase "apart from proof" as meaning "apart from tangible, visible proof," that is. Faith is assent to propositions, belief founded on reliable authority. A knowledge of something to be the truth.

The word "Faith," or its synonym "Belief," has one simple straightforward meaning and one should never attempt to split its definition into many meanings to fit into a certain way of thinking. Faith, therefore, is believing that a proposition is the truth.

However, does this mean that the devil and the demons have saving faith?

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

James 2:19

This whole passage in James is about the difference between a saving faith and a hypocritical faith. James states that a saving faith is a faith that is firmly connected to works:

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

James 2:26

So the "live" faith (i.e. saving faith) is faith that affects the whole lifestyle and nature of the person who has it. Once a person truly believes a proposition as being true, his life will be changed in accordance with that truth. When the Holy Spirit convinces a person of the truth of Christ's teachings at regeneration, that person's whole life is changed, and indeed is continually changing as more and more truth is revealed. On the other hand, "dead" faith is all mouth and no action. These people say they believe but they do not really believe at all.

The devil says he believes, but he is a somewhat different case to man. By virtue of him being a supernatural being, and therefore unlike us, he has seen God, knows he exists and knows his terrible nature. Indeed the demons know they are destined for eternal torment (Matthew 8:29), and they know Christ is the Saviour and the Holy One of God (Luke 4:34; Acts 16:17). Does this therefore mean that there is something more to saving faith than mere assent? It does not, because the devils, remember, had sight and were not in need of faith regarding unseen things. It is only with regards to man that the whole subject of faith can be connected. The devils do indeed believe propositions about God, and so have faith in Him if you wish to put it that way. However, this will not save them because they still hate him and will never be granted repentance. In men, saving faith always comes with repentance.

"Q. 31. What is effectual calling ?

A. Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel."

Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 31

Notice in regeneration, upon the effectual calling of the believer, he receives three things: a conviction of sin and misery, and enlightening of the mind and a renewal of the will. The first and third of these belong to repentance and the second only belongs to saving faith. However, faith and repentance are always linked and never appear separately with regards men. All the elect are given both upon their regeneration by the Holy Ghost. Demons, on the other hand, know the truth about God by sight, not faith in the unseen, and are never granted repentance.

Therefore to compare men to devils with regards faith is impossible. When the devils tremble it is because they know their latter end, yet still think they are able to frustrate God's plans. An unbeliever cannot tremble in this way because he has not seen God face to face. However, did not Felix tremble upon hearing Paul?

"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."

Acts 24:25

And was not King Agrippa almost persuaded?

"For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."

Acts 26:26-28

Was not this a type of faith? Here we get into the realms of the conscience. A dictionary definition of "conscience" is "a moral sense of right and wrong". In order to make man fully responsible for his actions, God left man's conscience intact after the fall. The fall destroyed all knowledge of God, righteousness and holiness in man, but God left his conscience so that he may be without excuse.

"God alone is lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship."

Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) XX:2

Therefore unbelievers can tremble because their consciences convict them of the truth, but they never come to acknowledge it as truth in themselves, which they can only do if God perchance regenerates them. This conviction is not therefore faith, and so are they are not saved.

My definition of "Saving Faith" therefore is very simple. "Saving Faith," is assent that the propositions laid down in the Bible are true. This faith is always accompanied by repentance and always changes the lifestyle of the believer accordingly.

"By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth;..."

WCF XIV:2

The true believer truly believes and knows that what he believes is true, whereas the hypocrite may say he believes, he may even think he believes, but he never truly believes at all, i.e. he never truly assents to the propositions laid down in the Bible at all.

Rather, the hypocrite may believe in the statement that, for example, "Jesus died to save me from my sins," but he believes in the statement itself as a kind of mantra to chant rather than believing in the actual truth conveyed in that statement. In other words he believes that if he says the statement often enough and thinks it is true for him often enough, then it will be true for him. But the fact is that if he is not of the elect, he will never truly believe at all, no matter how hard he tries to persuade himself that he can and does believe. This is why the preaching connected with these people consists solely of their using human eloquence and persuasion trying their best to make the audience, and indeed themselves, believe. This is not true preaching at all. The preacher who is a true believer is not a persuader at all, rather he will simply give the sense (of the Bible passage) and cause the people to understand the reading ( as in Nehemiah 8:8) - i.e. he would give a straightforward exegesis of scripture, not try to use a humanistic power of persuasion.

There will be plenty of non-elect people who will say they believe and spend all their time trying to convince themselves that they believe, that in the end will be found not to have believed at all. Why is this? Surely Christ shall in no wise cast out all that confess belief? Surely:

"...if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Romans 10:9

The problem is that these hypocrites never do truly believe with all their heart, and never do come to believe because they are not of Christ's sheep:

"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you."

John 10:26

The true believer knows the teachings of Christ, and the Bible, to be true absolutely, because the Holy Ghost has revealed that this is the case to him. The more he learns of the truth, by diligent Bible study and the Holy Ghost revealing truth to him, the more he is strengthened in the faith:

"The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word: by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened."

WCF XIV:1

Once convinced of the truth by the Holy Spirit at regeneration, the believer will never lose his knowledge that the Bible and it's teachings are the truth. He will therefore have no need of being "whipped up" into believing, he always knows that he does believe. He should therefore always be seeking further revelation of truth in the preaching, for his sanctification (John 17:17), rather than cheap emotional gimmicks to try to whip up some sense of belief within himself. This truth shows clearly how bereft of substance most evangelical preaching really is.

This does not mean of course that a true believer cannot "backslide."

"This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong ; may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith."

WCF XIV:3

This "saving faith," i.e. conviction that Christ's, and the Bible's, teachings are the truth, will always be there in the heart of a believer, but it can be assailed in many ways, not the least in the believer's own negligence in attending the means of grace and studying his Bible. This is what the Westminster Confession means by the assurance of grace and salvation not "belonging to the essence of faith."

"This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of every one to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure;..."

WCF XVIII:3

The "essence of faith," i.e. knowing the things of God to be true, is always there in a believer, but if the believer is not diligent in "making his calling and election sure," then he may lose for a time any idea of thinking about his own salvation, thus losing assurance of it, preferring the things of this vain empty world instead. However, it is his own fault, and without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means (i.e. if he gets back to his Bible study) he can attain this assurance again. "Saving faith" is altogether other than this assurance, as saving faith can not be attained without the extraordinary revelation of the Holy Spirit convicting of truth. Assurance is more connected with diligence in making our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10) than with faith.

Now there are two major types of fallacy about "saving faith," which we need to know about. These are false types of faith, and are not true saving faith at all. They are namely that faith is a "leap in the dark" and that faith is having "Jesus in the heart."

The Leap in the Dark

The first of these fallacies is that faith is a "leap in the dark." After the style of Karl Barth, this is very popular in liberal churches, but is also very popular in others. The idea is that knowledge and reason can take us only a certain amount of the way towards truth, and where reason ends, faith begins.

So if I believe, for example, that the moon exists, then that is a reasonably obvious statement because I can see it. Reason itself tells me that. But if I believe that little green men live on it, then that is beyond the point where my knowledge and reason can take me. I can never ordinarily find that out to be fact. Therefore, for me to believe this to be the case, it has to be by blind faith, i.e. for no rational, proveable reason, but solely because I want to believe it, without any proof forthcoming. This can only ever be at best a vague hope in something, as opposed to the sure hope of the true believer. This is the reason most people end up believing in figments of their own imagination.

Of course the classic verse that springs to mind in apparent defence of this theory is:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Hebrews 11:1

Here, it is suggested, is proof that where sight and knowledge end, faith begins. However, I must point out that it states nothing of the kind. Quite the contrary in fact, as it says that faith has substance. It also is evidence of things not seen. Therefore, rather than supporting "leap in the dark" theology, it actually shows how wrong it is. This faith has substance. We know that the objects of this faith are true, there is no doubt of any kind. It is not conjecture but rather certainty. Evidence, in a trial for example, is a summary of what is known as fact, not a conjecture as to what might have happened. Therefore this faith is not a leap into the unknown, but rather a knowledge of the known (but unseen to the natural eye and only revealed to the believer) things of God.

What is the difference between the "faith" (so-called) that the unbeliever can attain to and that of the believer? After all both have the same scriptures, surely both can logically deduce truth from it, as both have rational minds, can't they? This is only partly true.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:..."

Romans 1:16-20

Here it seems that unbelievers can indeed see some of the truth. The unbeliever holds the truth, but in unrighteousness. However, it is literally "who hold down the truth in unrighteousness." We are talking here again of the conscience. That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it to them, and it is written on their consciences. The things that are made, which are the only things that unbelievers can see, are enough to leave them without excuse. So the unbeliever can see, through creation speaking to his conscience, that there is a God with whom he will have to do.

However, he not only has his conscience within him, but he also has access to the Bible and to plenty of commentaries and books written by sincere Christian believers, even books which try to discern between the true believer and the hypocrite, like I am trying to do here. Therefore the unbeliever can put on a very good show of being a true Christian, by making use of all these means. The only difference is that he can never come to see the things of God as actually being true and he perishes in his sins. Oh yes, he can say that he believes them to be true, he can even do a reasonable job of convincing himself that they are true, but if he is not of the elect, then he will never actually come to the point where he actually believes them to be true. This is the point. For example, many people can, and do, put a lot of truth into their articles or sermons, depending on how much research they have done, but you can easily tell from the tone of their address that they do not believe a word of the Christian faith as actually being true.

The believer, on the other hand, knows these things to be true, and it affects the whole of his life as he changes his lifestyle in accordance with what he knows to be true. Why does the believer know these things to be true? Because upon regeneration the Holy Ghost fundamentally changes his nature, by giving him faith and repentance, things he has never had before as they are foreign to the natural man. Now he has been given this "saving faith" he sees the Bible for what it is, the truth, and he now avidly wants to study it daily to learn more truth so he may grow in the faith. The unbeliever, who is never given this faith, consequently may try to whip up a faith of his own, but it is all to no avail because in his fallen state he can never actually know these things to be true.

"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

The wisdom given to the believer is not the wisdom of the world. Not because it is of a completely different quality and thus unintelligible to the world - we still use the same words, phrases and logic as the unbelievers - but rather it is of a different nature in that we begin to speak of the unseen things rather than the things we see in this world, and that confounds them. This is because we come to know the unseen things as being absolutely true, as it is revealed to us by the Holy Ghost. Of course this leaves the believer open to ridicule, seemingly believing in "pie in the sky." This must always be so in this world, the unbeliever will never know this "other" world that is revealed to the believer and so cannot really understand it, indeed it appears foolish to him.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

1 Corinthians 2:14-16

Try talking about spiritual things in the presence of unbelievers and tell them how you long for Christ to come again and how you hate this world and its ways. The unbeliever will not stay very long in your company and will seek more exciting, this-worldly things to do!

So saving faith is simply a belief that the Bible is really true and we are given this at our regeneration, if we are of the elect. Subsequently, for the rest of the true believer's life, he is sanctified through the truth:

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."

John 17:17

Therefore another way of discerning a true believer from a false one is that the true believer will have a zeal and thirst for the truth. God does not reveal all truth to him straight away, but, for his own sanctification, he is made to work out his own salvation in fear and trembling (Phillippians 2:12). This is done by diligent study of the Scriptures with the Holy Ghost convicting and convincing of truth as he pleases. So none of us at any one moment in time knows all the truth there is to know, but rather the true believer is discerned by the fact that he is growing in a knowledge of the truth, sometimes changing his views as he grows as more light is received. This means, for one thing, he never has a spiritual home on the earth, and is never at home in any one church, he is always a stranger and pilgrim on this earth (Hebrews 11:13).

This is in contrast to the unbeliever. He can find a home on this earth and tends to stay there.

"God alone is lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also."

WCF XX:2

The phrase "implicit faith" means an absolute and blind obedience to a church. This is another manifestation of "leap in the dark" faith. The unbeliever is quite happy blindly following the beliefs of a church and he does not want to work out truth for himself at all. All people who study their Bibles diligently are seen as hardliners and are ridiculed and hated, but this is only because it upsets the unbelievers' nice, cosy laid-back religion. They stay in their churches because they like the social life and prefer people to the things of God. Indeed, they become so comfortable there they believe all sorts of fantastic drivel rather than want to know the truth. For example, Roman Catholicism is stupid, and its doctrines are laughable - bread and wine changing into the body and blood of Christ - how ridiculous! The Westminster Confession says it is repugnant not only to Scripture but also to "common sense and reason" (WCF XXIX:6)! Yet people will believe it as a "leap in the dark," and would rather believe it than seeing sense because they are comfortable in their church and perfectly content. This is an implicit faith, and the WCF says that this is believing the doctrines of men and therefore false religion and not true faith at all.

This implicit faith means that the unbeliever is not in the slightest bit interested in working out his faith and wrestling in prayer to know the truth, nor in getting excited over the truth at all. Consequently what theology they appear to have is all received out of textbooks, commentaries from their favourite writers for example, and it is never derived from Scripture itself through struggling with it themselves, with God's guidance. Not that commentaries are unhelpful, of course it is good to know what other people's opinions are, but to then blindly believe and present things read as fact without thinking it through is totally wrong. These people become so easily refuted as their theology does not hang together at all and is a patch up job at best. Zeal for the truth is missing and, because they can only see the things of this world, love for people becomes far more important than boring old doctrine, thus they worship vile humanity rather than God.

Jesus in the Heart

It has often been said that it is possible to believe all correct doctrine with the mind but not know Jesus in the heart, and so not be a true believer. Doctrine divides, Christ unites. It doesn't matter what we believe, so long as we love Christ. Is this really true? More to the point what does "knowing Jesus" or "loving Jesus" really mean?

Firstly it needs to be said that to "believe with the heart" is an impossibility. It is like saying "smelling with the feet" or "hearing with the tongue," it is a nonsense. Those people who say that it is knowing Jesus that counts and not merely knowing about Jesus, are talking nonsense.

Most of these people have had an emotional experience in the past which they claim to be their "conversion." They then keep on harping back to this experience and call it "the day I knew Jesus for the first time" or something similar. The question needs to be raised, how do we know a person? More to the point how can we love a person? Can we know or love a person we have never met or seen? Some people would say that we can do this, and say that, for example, we can have compassion on starving orphans in the third world, none of whom we have actually met. However, firstly, at least we know of their existence. We therefore know, in our logical, rational minds, something about them, even though it is not much. Secondly, our "compassion" is nothing more than a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Lust is a feeling, but love is not. Many people today are under the misapprehension that love is a feeling, and they marry who they "feel" something towards. This accounts for the soaring divorce rate.

Love, according to the dictionary, is "warm affection, attatchment, liking or fondness, paternal benevolence, affectionate devotion, of, for,to, or towards person, for or to thing." How is it possible to love a person unless you know about that person? It is impossible! To care about a person and have "affectionate devotion" towards them, you must know about them first, otherwise how can you tell whether you like them or not? All this about there being a difference between knowing Jesus and knowing about him is nonsense. The real difference between a believer and an unbeliever is that, whilst both can know exactly the same facts about Christ, the believer knows those facts to be true and, through being granted repentance as well, consequently loves those facts about him. The unbeliever does not know those facts to be true, and does not love those facts about him. Instead he invents a Christ of his own imagination whom he can love!! A fantasy Christ indeed!! A Christ who loves all men and wants them all to be saved. Such a Christ is a figment of their own imaginations because they do not like the Christ they read of in the Bible and skip over in their minds such teachings as:

"No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

John 6:65

"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,..."

John 10:26

"I pray not for the world,..."

John 17:9

"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,..."

Luke 10:21

Therefore to love someone we must know all we can about them, otherwise we may know some things about them and fantasise the rest, thus making them to be other than they actually are. This therefore becomes faith in a different, imaginary object and not the real one.

Therefore, rather than there being a difference between those who know Christ only in the head and those who know him in the heart (which is what these people seem to want to suggest is the case), the difference is rather between those who know of the truth about Christ sincerely, and those who only pretend they know, but do not really know, and are thus insincere.

An objection to this idea is that surely the Bible teaches that we should believe with our hearts:

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Romans 10:9

However this is obviously a colloquialism, like "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). We don't actually use our tongues to find that out. To "believe with all my heart" means to know it is the truth with firm conviction, the firm conviction that only the Holy Ghost can put in us when we are regenerated. We know these things to be true, as opposed to the unbeliever who says, thinks and pretends that he believes but does not truly believe.

The exponents of the "loving Christ is all that matters" brigade will then go on to tell us that mentally handicapped people and infants cannot possibly be expected to know doctrine but they can all get gooey feelings over mentioning the name of Christ, and so doctrine cannot be important otherwise these people could not be saved.

In answer to this it needs to be said that ordinarily believing comes from hearing and understanding the word preached:

"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?"

Romans 10:14

However the Westminster Confession declares that:

"Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word."

WCF X:3

All the elect will be saved. They are the true believers. If God in his providence wishes to call an elect infant home in infancy, to take them away from the evil of this world (c.f. Isaiah 57:1), then he may do so. Similarly everyone else not capable of rational thought. These people are not useless but are there for the benefit of their carers, to humble them. All the elect amongst them will be saved.

However, there may be some mentally handicapped people who never grow to full maturity in their minds, but have some rational thought albeit that of a child. The parable of the talents comes in here. Those given only one talent are expected to make only one talent more. Those given five talents are expected to make five talents more. They can know about Christ, albeit in a limited capacity, and God will use that knowledge to sanctify them and test their faith accordingly, in just the same way as everybody else. Please note I am talking here about mentally handicapped people and those who develop a genuine psychiatric problem in later life. It seems to me that mental hospitals and psychiatric wards these days are full of perfectly sane people whom God has given over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:28), who appear "mad" merely to get attention. They are perfectly sane and are just doing it to scrounge what sympathy they can from stupid people who should know better than to give in to them. We are not talking about these folk, there is no hope for them, God has given them over.

A question that may be posed therefore is: How much of this "saving faith" do you need in order to be saved?

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

Acts 16:31

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Acts 2:38

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

Mark 16:16

To believe "on" or "in" someone means to believe what they teach and speak. It can mean nothing else, any other explanation would make the phrase a nonsense. Therefore to believe "in" Christ is to believe that what he teaches is the truth, just as to believe "in" the Prime Minister is to believe that his policies are the best ones, not just to merely believe he exists! Therefore the simplest proposition that the true believer believes is: "I believe that what Christ teaches is the truth." This the true believer truly believes upon the Holy Spirit convincing him of it at regeneration. Therefore this is the first statement the true believer actually believes. But, of course, hypocrites could also mimic this phrase.

The gospel is to repent and believe. This is a command to all men. God gives faith and repentance to his elect in order for them to believe. Therefore the answer to the question "How much saving faith do you need in order to be saved?" is actually none. God does not require anything in us in order for us to be saved. He sovereignly and absolutely saves his people from their sins. Once we have been regenerated by the working of the Holy Ghost in us, then we are given faith, i.e. assent to the truth, and repentance, i.e. a conviction of sin and a renewal of our wills to love Christ. We have restored to us the image of God, which Adam lost at the fall:

"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:..."

Colossians 3:10

"And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

Ephesians 4:24

Now having true righteousness, holiness and knowledge we can discern true spiritual things and see the things of this world for what they really are, vanity. Then, with this image of God restored in us we can, through diligent study of God's word and the Holy Ghost guiding us, grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). This is our sanctification.

Hence, true preaching is not to always give the same gospel message all the time, as though belief comes from assenting to a certain minimum number of statements such as "Christ died to save me from my sins", or "I believe in a substitutionary atonement" or "Jesus, I come to you now." No belief is necessary in order to believe, rather the gospel is the "power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth" (Romans 1:16). In other words the truth preached is its own power to draw the elect to Christ.

The "gospel" is the "good news," i.e. the good news that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17; 24:14). In other words the good news that Christ has revealed more truth about the kingdom than was in the Old Testament, enough to make the kingdom "at hand." Hence, true preaching is not simply parroting the same few verses of a "gospel" message, but rather preaching all the counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and in that preaching the elect will be drawn by the Holy Ghost to the acknowledging that that counsel is indeed the truth. So, far from there being just a few basic statements needed in order to know "the gospel," the elect will be saved under the preaching of all sorts of spiritual subjects by the Holy Ghost convicting him of truth.

So faith and repentance are gifts of God given to the elect only at their regeneration, and are useful then for their subsequent sanctification, which carries on throughout the rest of their lives.

So we see then that there is only one type of faith, and that is the one given by God to the believer upon his regeneration. All other things that people call faith are not true faith at all and are at best a vague, imaginary hope. True faith is a sure hope based on infallible propositions, which are only revealed as infallible by God to whomsoever he will. Unbelievers can never have that knowledge because man lost it at the fall.

"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

Romans 14:23

In other words everything that is not of saving faith is sin because it is believing a lie.