It occurs to me that what a lot of people are getting at when they're asking about what is required for salvation is along the lines that Matthew noted. In another thread many gave opinions (or offered the opinion of Stott) who tried to determine what, perhaps, that minimal set of propositions might be that a person needs to believe in order to be saved.
But it betrays a misunderstanding on two fronts:
1. The first misunderstanding is that saving faith is more than assent to any number of propositions. A man can know every article of the Christian faith and not have a living faith in Christ. Nicodemus was not born again and was a teacher in Israel.
2. The second misunderstanding is that we are to base our understanding of salvation by "exegeting" the experiences of those around us. We see people who seem to be following Christ to the best of their ability and desire, perhaps, that they believe enough or rightly that Christ might save them. We even love them or have strong friendships and hope that they really have trusted in Christ. We see they are in some impoverished spiritual state and hope that, somehow, they're clinging to Christ enough. So, perhaps, we construct some sort of mental checklist of all the things that a Christian ought to believe and then decide which ones it might just be OK that our loved one doesn't believe because we see in them a desire (as far as we can tell) to love Christ.
On the second point, I have to say that I can relate to the desire. Much of my family is Roman Catholic. I do not wish to conceive of any of my loved ones going to Hell because I love them. It is not my place to know whether they have clung to Christ in reality. I have shared the true Gospel with them and yet, part of me hopes that they have read the Scriptures and that, somehow, they might just be Christ's.
Yet, how can I possibly build a theology of saving faith on looking at those that I love and deciding: "Well, if they might yet be saved then perhaps all these other things that we know from Scripture might surely be important but are they
essential?!"
The Scriptures never give us room to make decisions for the Sovereign God.
To return to my first point, the operations of the Holy Spirit are hidden. Yes we see fruits of salvation in others and we need not continually doubt that those in our Church are saved from their sins but it is not our place to take the Christian faith as a whole and then try to determine where, in the Persons of the Godhead or the nature of Christ, a true saint may just have enough faith to be saved.
In fact, this view of "faith" itself is illegitimate because it assumes that our faith (even our proper apprehension) is something that we
add to our salvation so that the Spirit looks at either the amount of knowledge we have or the amount of trust we have and says to us: "You have crossed the minimal bar of knowledge and trust. I know give to you the Person of Christ as your salvation."
What is saving faith after all?
CHAPTER XIV.
Of Saving Faith.
I. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts; and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word: by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.
II. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of god himself speaking therein; and acteth differently, upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principle acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.
III. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.
It is described here well but it would be a mistake to look at this as a checklist where I show someone who does not believe and then say to them: as soon as you meet these requirements you will be saved. What is described in this Chapter is how the Spirit works something in the heart of a believer. How the Spirit works, however, is by the ordinary means that the Church administers as Pastors preach the Word and are empowered by the Spirit or the Church administers the Sacraments. it is in the prayers of the people as the Spirit attends to their earnest pleas.
Through all of these, the Spirit sovereignly works to enliven and make the hand of a needy sinner to reach out and grab a hold of the whole Christ and His obedience and power for them and their salvation.
Yet, are all those who we think believe in Christ really saved? Is it not possible for people to be deceived about their salvation.
In all of this talk of "minimal knowledge" what strikes me is how much Christianity these days is dissonant from the warnings of Scripture. I think our default setting as we consider salvation these days is that God is really pleased with man as he makes half measures in His direction. God is love we hear and so we can't imagine that if we really want to say that we believe God or that we really want to believe that others know God just enough that God wants to save all mankind.
I think we're very different these days than most Christians have been for centuries where there was a real sense that man is very selfish and self-deceived. When I read
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and its stark warnings to those who are in the Church who are so slothful and not guarding their steps I wonder if we have so convinced ourselves of "mere Christianity" that we are deaf to the warning that Jonathan Edwards gave to that congregation.
Do we ask ourselves: are we really in the faith? Do we fear that hell might have its mouth agape and that our presumption about our salvation may be our very doom?
How do we even know that we're saved when the Scriptures themselves testify that there are those who are so certain of their salvation that they disagree with Christ on the day of judgment that they did wonderful things in His Name?
While we're busy wondering whether we've believed the minimal amount of things or shown the minimal amount of zeal have we taken our eyes off the only things that Scripture itself holds out to us as the way in which we can know that we are in the faith?
Again, it is up to the Spirit of Christ and His work of salvation and yet that work is part of a continuum of salvation. No faith is too small that is born of the Spirit that clings to Christ.
And so how can we know that we or anyone else has such faith:
CHAPTER XVIII.
Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation.
I. Although hypocrites, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions: of being in the favor of God and estate of salvation; which hope of theirs shall perish: yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God: which hope shall never make them ashamed.
II. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probably persuasion, grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God; which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.
III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure; that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance: so far is it from inclining men to looseness.
IV. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it; by falling into some special sin, which woundeth the conscience, and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation; by God's withdrawing the light of his countenance and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair.
This is why salvation is not a static entity. If we really love people or desire for ourselves to know whether we are hypocrites then we need to invest in the knowledge of the Promises of Salvaiton. We need to be attending to the Word, the Sacraments, and the Prayers with zeal knowing that this is where Christ has Promised we will be built up in Him. How can we ever be assured of the things Promised if we never study what the Promises are? How can we be sure our loved ones know Christ invisibly unless they are ever brought to a place where they are taught and prayed for?
Conjecture and sentimentalism are worthless. The Living God does not permit us to ascend to inapproachable Light by the exercise of theological speculation. There is One Mediator between God and Man - the Lord Jesus Christ. We have Christ Who is like us in every way and, in Him, we have access to human history that connects us to Eternity. Let us look to the means He has offered for our salvation and for the assurance that we are saved.
