If you believe in faith righteousness, you’ve misdefined faith as orthodoxy. Which is a work. Yet faith isn’t a work… right?
Yesterday I brought up faith righteousness, the idea we’re saved by having all the correct doctrines and beliefs. I’ve found it to be a pretty widespread belief among new believers, who haven’t yet learned better; and Fundamentalists, who should’ve learned better, but those Fundamentals are just so darned important to them. Anyway they’re wrong; God saves us by his grace.
Orthodoxy is a good work, so by all means pursue the right beliefs about God. By all means do good works. But we’re not saved by works. We’re saved first, by grace, so that God can empower us to do such works. Doing the works first, and trying to achieve salvation by merit, doesn’t work either. Not that plenty of people, including plenty of confused Christians, don’t try. Karma is a mighty ingrained idea in humanity, and it’s hard to wean us off it.
But one common and odd little side effect of believing we’re saved by “faith,” is this insistence you’ll find among the faith-righteous folks: Faith isn’t a work!
’Cause it’s not. Says so in the bible.
- Ephesians 2.8-9 KWL
- 8 You’re all saved by his grace, through your faith.
- This, God’s gift, isn’t from you, 9 isn’t from works; none can boast of it.
Salvation isn’t from us. Isn’t from works. It’s from God, from his grace. It’s typically God’s response to our faith, though of course God reserves the right to save various people regardless. And since Paul said it’s not from works, but is through faith, he indicates faith isn’t a work. My trust in God isn’t something I do; it’s something I have. And if I really do have it, I’ll wind up producing good fruit and good works, Jm 2.22 because faith which produces no good works isn’t actually there, i.e. is dead. But the faith ain’t the works. It’s a whole different thing.
Well, when faith-righteous people are talking about faith, they don’t mean trust; they mean beliefs. And they try to shoehorn their new definition into the discussion about faith and works. Their doctrines, they claim, aren’t works! They aren’t things they do, but things they have. Also a whole different thing.
Except they’re not.
Christians believe what we do because we put our faith in Jesus. We trust that he’s right; we trust he doesn’t steer us wrong; we take his word for it that his teachings apply to our lives and accurately reflect God’s character. Again, trust in Jesus isn’t something we do, but something we have. Unless we don’t; then we don’t bother with his teachings, for we don’t believe him, for we lack faith.
The teachings—the stuff we believe about God—aren’t the same thing as faith. Yeah, we can have these beliefs, kinda like we have faith. But the basis of having these beliefs would be faith in Jesus. No faith in Jesus; no beliefs. (No real beliefs, anyway. Empty beliefs, or hypocrisy, ’cause without Jesus what good are they?)
So beliefs are based on faith. They’re the product of faith. The fruit of faith. The works of faith. They’re works. Works might prove that faith is real, Jm 2.18 and depending on the belief, they may do a really good job of conclusively demonstrating one’s faith. But they still aren’t faith.