- Romans 5:1 KJV
I often hear people say, “I am afraid I don’t know if I have enough faith.” How much faith do you need in order to be saved? The Bible does not teach that you are justified because of your faith. Faith is not works.
Faith is nothing more than the instrument to receive our salvation. Nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified on account of our faith. The Scripture says that we are justified by faith or through faith. Faith is nothing but the channel by which this righteousness of God in Christ becomes ours. It is not our faith that saves us.
What saves us is the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect saving work. It is the death of Christ upon Calvary’s Cross that saves us. It is God putting Christ’s righteousness to our account that saves. Faith is only the channel and the instrument by which His righteousness becomes mine (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:24). The righteousness that saves is entirely Christ’s. My faith is not my righteousness and I must never define or think of faith as righteousness. Faith is nothing but that which connects us to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.
The whole emphasis on salvation by faith is clearly on the object of our faith: Jesus Christ. Jesus saves! Faith does not save us. Jesus alone does that.
If we are saved at all it must be through faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).
Spurgeon once said, “It does not take a strong faith to save you, just faith. The weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift.”
The object of our faith is the all-important thing (Acts 16:31). Our faith must be focused on Christ Jesus and His saving work on the cross. He died as our substitute. We must trust in Christ to save us.
The righteousness that God has graciously provided becomes ours through simple faith. Ponder over Romans 3:22, 24-25, 26, 28, 30 and observe the emphasis the apostle Paul is making in these verses. Faith will not earn your salvation. If it did then faith would be works and God would owe you something. Faith is essential because only those individuals who put their trust in Christ will be saved.
The apostle Paul wrote, “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (v. 22). Sinners are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (vv. 24-25a). God did it this way as a demonstration “that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (v. 26). You cannot boast if you are saved by grace through faith in Christ, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law” (v. 28). Moreover, “He will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcised through faith” (v. 30).
If you have never done so, will you believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved today? “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” (Rom. 5:1).
Are you Saved?
