God…has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time… (2 Timothy 1:9)

The doctrine that it is God and only God who saves us extends to the nature and role of faith in salvation. Christians are accustomed to the idea that we are “saved by faith,” but they are not always clear as to what this means. Paul puts forth faith as the contrast against works in his expositions of salvation. However, the simple ideas of faith and works are but abbreviations for fuller views on the matter. The apostle opposes the view that says “I save myself by my works” but he does not replace this with “I save myself by my faith”! Yet sometimes Christians talk and preach as if that is the apostolic doctrine, that we do not save ourselves by works, but we save ourselves by faith. When Christians forget that salvation by faith is posed as a contrast against salvation by works, they tend to put the focus on faith as such as the way or the means to salvation. But faith itself cannot save. Faith is a relational term – you believe in something. It is that “something” that saves you. Faith is only a descriptive term for the relationship.

This is essential because Paul does not say that God saves you because you put your faith in him. In fact, this would be true from one perspective – it depends on what “because” means – but Paul is considering the root of the matter. He says that God saves you because of his purpose and grace. That is, he saves you because of his own reason and his kindness. If so, then at least when we are speaking on this level, we cannot say that God saves you because of your faith, since your faith is not the same as his purpose, and your faith is not his grace. And if God does not save you because of your faith, then he does not save you because of foreknown faith. God has not chosen you for salvation because he knew ahead of time that you would believe in Christ. Rather, he has chosen you because of his own purpose, apart from your faith.

We are ready to address a widespread defect in the understanding of salvation by faith. Many Christians fail to define faith in such a manner as to meaningfully distinguish it from works. They acknowledge that we are saved by faith, not by works. However, faith, or to believe, is something that we do, is it not? They reply that faith is not an action that produces merit in order to earn salvation; rather, the believer is like a person who extends his hand to accept a gift, not earned but freely given by someone else.

There are at least two problems with this. First, it is arbitrary to insist that this action is not meritorious or at least a moral good, especially when the Bible calls unbelief sinful. Faith is indeed a moral good. Second, it cannot explain why one person believes while another does not. There must be some difference between the two. Since it is morally good to believe in Christ, and since it is morally evil to reject Christ, if faith is like a man who extends a hand to accept something, then the difference between the two people must also include a moral dimension. In other words, under this view, a person who accepts Christ does so because he is already a better person than the person who rejects Christ before he actually accepts Christ. Christians are better people than non-Christians before they became Christians. However, Paul calls himself the worst of sinners.

Scripture defines faith in a different way. Paul says that faith itself is a gift (Ephesians 2:8). And if faith itself is a gift, what is the hand that receives faith? The analogy of the hand is inaccurate and unhelpful, but if we are going to keep it for the sake of illustration, then it must be drastically modified. Since faith itself is a gift, then salvation cannot be that God extends the gift of righteousness to us while we reach out with the hand of faith to take it. Rather, we begin with no hand at all, but God creates a hand where there was none before. Then, he reaches out and takes our hand and pulls it up, and puts the gift of righteousness in the hand that he created, and after that he pushes the hand back to our side. It is “our” hand only in the sense that it is attached to us, but it is a gift and a creation of God, and subject to his control. It is only in this sense that God saves us “because” of our faith, that is, in the sense that faith is part of his work of salvation in us and that faith is part of the process by which he saves us. Thus it remains that he saves us because of himself. It is more precise to say that we have faith because he saves us, and not that he saves us because of our faith.

We are not saved by faith as such, or faith itself; rather, we are saved by Christ alone, and he saves us by giving us faith. Faith is our consciousness of his operation in us as he establishes a spiritual relationship with us. It is correct to say that we are saved by faith, as long as we realize that this is a shorthand for saying that it is Christ who saves us by giving us faith, and the matter is put this way in order to make a contrast against the view that it is we who save ourselves by our works, or that God grants salvation to some and not to others on the basis of our works. The gift of righteousness is given to the chosen ones through the gift of faith. If you have faith, it is because it is God’s purpose that you have faith. If you believe in Jesus Christ, it is because God decided, apart from anything in you or about you, that you would believe in Jesus Christ. Salvation is wholly a work of God, so that there is no place for us to boast, not even in the fact that we have faith.