Orland Evangelical Free Church | How Does Faith Save Me?

Justification by faith alone is the classic reformation doctrine. It became so because the reformers rediscovered the emphasis on faith in the whole of scripture. So our temptation when confronted with a question about saving faith is to lurch back into the mode of systematic theology, feasting on the whole Bible in gulps.

Let us dine with greater refinement. John has prepared the word "believe" in rich ways.

Beyond question, salvation by faith is one of John's top priorities. He asserts in his prologue (1.12) that those who "believe" in Jesus' name have "the right to become children of God." He says he wrote the gospel (20.31) "so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in his name."

Close examination shows how John uses the word "believe".

In the prologue, "believe" is used parallel to the word "receive" (1.12). Jesus is the light of the world, the source of all life (1.3-4). But when he came into the world he was not recognized (1.10-11). "He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him." The breach between the world and its creator is a breach of kinship.

So those who "receive" Jesus, who take him into their lives as kin, are reborn into the Father's household. This receiving of Jesus is what John calls faith.

Kinship is the issue with the Samaritan woman. She cannot acknowledge a relationship of any kind with Jesus because he is a man and a Jew (4.9, 27). She will not receive him. But Jesus speaks of "the Father" as being unrelated to ethnic traditions of worship, Jewish or Samaritan.

When she and the other Samaritans receive Jesus as the Christ, taking him into their city as one of their own, John says they "believed" (4.25-26, 28-30, 39-42).

By contrast, the Pharisees do not "believe". They are among the earthly family of God's people, yet they do not acknowledge Jesus as one of their own (5.37-38). Jesus himself rebukes them. "And the Father who sent me, he has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. You do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he sent."

The Pharisees in fact belong to a different spiritual family, the lineage of the devil (8.44-45), because they do what he does - lie and murder.

The issue of kinship is at the heart of the disciples' faith. Jesus teaches them in the upper room (16.26-27) that he reunites them with their Father. "[T]he Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the Father."

The disciples are saved by the fact that they receive Jesus as kin.

Today we present faith as assent to a series of propositions. This is certainly part of what John means by faith, but not nearly all. We would see more progress in evangelism if we presented faith the way John does - as a matter of receiving Jesus as kin. We can always expect progress when we see life as God does.