Here is an interesting question posed in the comments on the last post. I wanted to discuss it a little bit here if that's ok with you. Are we saved "by" faith? Ephesians 2:8-9 was touched on a bit already, but i think we need to take a closer look at it. How do we get faith? What exactly does faith "do?" What is the relation between our faith and salvation?
I don't think this will take long to talk about, but I wanted to get some thoughts out there. Thanks ya'll!
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I'll start this off by defining "faith" according to Thayer's Lexicon.
Faith (πίστις or pistis) comes from the Greek word peithō, which may mean "to persuade, to believe, to obey, to listen, to yield, to trust, to have confidence."
Pistis itself means, "conviction of the truth of anything, belief."
As faith is used in Scripture, I think a good working definition may be "the God-given conviction of the truth of God and His Son, leading ultimately unto salvation for all who believe."
Joe Arant
Faith is the instrument which unites us to Christ and his saving benefits.
To say we are saved "by" faith seems to be ambiguous and perhaps we should guard against saying it. One must than answer "What do you mean by, "by"?" Are we saved on account of our faith, are we saved because we have faith, are we saved because we put a hearty trust in God? All those are dangerous questions to answer in the affirmative. We should just say we are saved "by" grace "through" faith. Faith is only an instrument in our salvation not a cause.
That's a good way of putting it, Mr. Borg. Seems like someone put it that way once before (Eph 2:8). Why is that important? "By grace through faith" is how the apostle puts it, was that intentional.
Can we talk some more about faith being an instrument? Piper says that faith is merely what unites us to Christ, and it is being united with Christ that is our salvation.
"Why is that important?" Because we walk a fine line of demoting the sufficiency of Christ. Faith is a passive element of our salvation, that is, we are not saved on account of having faith, or because we are so faithful, etc. We are saved only because Christ is so sufficient, and Christ's work was an act of grace, God being in no way debted to man. So we are saved "by" grace-the grace of God as displayed in the person and work of Christ. So Piper is right, the only thing that saves us is the work of Christ.
However, it is not as if faith is not important in our salvation. For we receive salvation through faith, rather, faith is the open hand that receives salvation. I often liken it to a parched man in the desert. When he begs for water and someone brings him water in a bucket we do not say that the bucket quenched his thirst. No it's the water, but the bucket served as instrument for the water. Likewise, Christ is the water and faith is the bucket. The salvation we receive is given through the means of faith (lest we revert to Rome's errors)!
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