What Does Not Prove Genuine Faith
How important is the matter of salvation and our understanding of it?
Is it possible for there to be people who have made a profession, attend church, do good things, and still be dead in their trespasses and sins? WHY?
There is much confusion around what it means to have genuine faith in the church because either people don’t understand the doctrine of regeneration, what true repentance is, or they want to protect the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone.
Or some have been taught that if someone has made a profession of faith, walked an aisle, were baptized at some point in the past that they were saved.
Nothing about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Nothing about new affections, a new will, or new desires. Nothing about a life that produces fruit of good works. Nothing about what a life looks like to be keeping with repentance.
Matthew 3:7-10
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
John 15:8-10
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
Just because one associates with the people of God does not automatically mean that they are in the household of God.
A BRIEF PRIMER ON REGENERATION:
Titus 3:5
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit
Regeneration is a secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us.
Another way of saying it is being born again (John 3:3-5), being made new (2 Cor 5:17), being made alive (Eph 2:4), or given a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26).
This means that a person is given new affections, new desires, and a new will where the love of Christ is in control (2 Cor 5:14) and God is at work to will and work in us for his good pleasure (Phil 2:13).
Essentially, it is that work of God that awakens the believer to behold his glory in the face of Jesus Christ and makes him a new creation.
Apart from this work no man will ever be converted to Christ. Unless God saves no man will be saved.
WE LOVE (that is conversion) BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US (that is regeneration) - 1 John 4:19
2 Corinthians 4:6
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
One thing we can never conclude is that God will leave a person in the same condition that he saved him from. There will be some evidential change because of the simple reality that when God saves someone, that person has been made new.
One thing that we want to be careful of is not to take external changes as the marker for a transformed life. The issue will always come back to the internal conviction to love Christ, even in our most fumbling of ways. We are not after behavior modification, we are after the affections of the heart towards Christ, and from that we will see the behavior change.
When we appeal to those who have professed Christ, we are not appealing to their obedience, we are appealing to the Spirit of God in them, if indeed they are born again.
SIX BEHAVIORS THAT DO NOT PROVE (nor disprove) GENUINE SALVATION
VISIBLE MORALITY
Matthew 23:27-28; Matthew 19:16-22
Morality is a good thing but is not the metric by which someone’s faith is measured. An absence of morality is concerning but morality in and of itself is not the test.
There is a law that is written on the heart of every human being that promotes morality in the world.
Romans 2:14-16
14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Good behavior can be a fruit of salvation, but it is not proof of salvation.
It is the motivation towards obedience, not obedience itself.
BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE
Romans 2:17-24; Titus 1:16
Knowing the Bible is paramount to the growth of believers, but knowledge alone does not guarantee salvation. Someone may have a fundamental understanding of the Biblical text and still be in darkness.
Romans 1:21
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Matthew 7:24
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
A person can know much about Christ without truly knowing Christ.
RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT
Philippians 3:4-7; Revelation 2:1-7
Being faithful in attendance to church, being faithful reading God’s word, being faithful to engage with the saints are all good and right things that are necessary for growth. But those things in and of themselves are not a marker of one being saved.
Just as Paul lived a very religious life but it profited him nothing.
The great danger is a form of self righteousness that flies in the face of the righteousness of Christ.
Luke 18:11-12
11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
Religious activity cannot replace genuine faith.
ACTIVE MINISTRY
Matthew 7:21-23
Just because someone is active in the ministry does not automatically equate to salvation. There have been a number of former Christians who held influential positions, such as musicians, pastors, and authors who have deconstructed and abandoned Christ.
Those who serve Christ and continue to serve Christ all the way to the end shall be saved, even in the midst of good times and persecution. We see this clearly articulated by the Apostle Paul after he was stoned and left for dead in Acts 14, and after going back through the city he informed the disciples that it was "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).
CONVICTION OVER SIN
2 Corinthians 7:10
The feeling of guilt over one's sin is an absolute good thing, but what someone does with it matters. The conviction itself is not enough to say that one is responding to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The outcome of that conviction is what is going to give evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work. The Holy Spirit, if he is at work, will always lead his people to repentance.
One of the greatest comparisons that we get in the Bible is that of Peter and Judas. Judas betrayed Christ and felt remorse for it, so much so that he returned the blood money that he was paid and he went and hung himself from a tree. Peter on the other hand denied Christ three times and when he heard that last crow he was broken. But intstead of running to his guilt and shame he ran to Christ. When he learned of that Christ had been raised from the dead, he made hast to run to him.
Judas ran to the wrong tree while Peter ran to the right one.
Another example is that of David. When he was confronted by Nathan regarding the sin he commited with Bethsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, David's response was "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13). From David's repentance we get Psalm 32 and Psalm 51.
Conviction should lead to repentance, not merely remorse.
PAST OBEDIENCE
Hebrews 2:1-3; 3:12-14; 10:26-31
As one pastor put it, it's not “were you obedient”, it's "are you obedient”. It’s not “were you saved”, it’s “are you saved”.
Our hope cannot be in our profession, our baptism, the walking of an aisle, praying a prayer. Those are not what proves one has genuine faith, but the declaration of the object of their faith.
1 Corinthians 15:9-10
9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
Philippians 3:12
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
EVIDENCES OF GENUINE SALVATION
An abiding love for God through an obedient life that hungers and thirsts for his righteousness.
There is a healthy practice of repenting of the sins one still commits, a devotion to God’s glory, a life marked by prayer, and a desire to walk in a manner worthy of Christ.
There is a maturing that is happening over time from looking like the old man to looking like Christ.
A STRONG CONFIDENCE THAT CHRIST IS THE GREATEST TREASURE AND THAT HE IS ENOUGH.