Salvation by faith?

Yes, this is what many seem to believe that the Bible proclaims. Just believe in God and Jesus? Is it really that simple? And that arbitrary? And above all, what about those that cannot force themselves to believe the right things? 

First, I don’t want this post to be perceived as a declaration of beliefs, but rather some reflections upon beliefs and what one can deduce from them.

Let me begin by posing a couple of questions: If I say that I believe, but I don’t let it show in my actions one bit, do I truly believe? That is to say: If I don’t act as if God is watching me, do I truly believe that he is? And if I don’t allow my faith to transform me, do I truly believe? If I think that I need to lie and deceive others to get what I want or to avoid what I don’t want, do I truly believe? If I put my faith in Jesus, but don’t, in all my brokenness, with all my weaknesses and faults, strive to follow him as best I can, do I truly believe in him? 

If I look at my own life through the lense of this reasoning, I can easily see that I often fall short of it. I can see that I have faith sometimes. But I can also see that there are many times that I don’t. 

I took a course in New Testament Greek a few years ago, but never finished it. So I’m hardly qualified to talk about translations. But I remember that the original word in greek for faith is “pistis”. As may of you know, words that on the surface seem to be the same, can have very different meanings to those that use them.

I haven’t read anything more about this word than the translation, but I still believe that the full meaning of it must be something in line with the reasoning in this post. Of course, I write this with the awareness that religion during biblical times, was a natural part of people’s lives in a whole different way than it is today. But there are still numerous examples of people living as if it was no more than mere fantasy. And of people that had a hard time believing that it could actually have a tangible influence on their lives and shape the events in them. Even after having seen miracles, many couldn’t believe that something beyond ordinary reality was happening, as is perhaps best exemplified through Doubting Thomas. 

In other words, it can hardly be enough to just say: “I believe in God and I believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.” But many protestants take it to mean just that, while catholics put more emphasis on the actions. None of this seems to fit neatly with either the message of the Bible or with how reality works. And I believe that the missing component is that we show what we believe through our words, actions and attitudes. If our words, actions and attitudes don’t fit with what we say that we believe, we may have to ask ourselves how strong our faith is. And if the honest answer is one that we don’t like, the best response is probably not to judge ourselves. I would say that the best response would be to seriously ask ourselves the question: “What can I do to make my faith stronger?” I think that the answer to that question has to do with two things: How we strengthen our connection with God and what kinds of persons we choose to be in our day-to-day lives. 

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash