Saturday, April 21, 2007
An Inner Look Into The Gospel
The word faith is a noun and has no verbal form in English. Instead the word believe is used, as in Acts 16:31, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." What does it mean to believe in Jesus, that is, what is it we are to believe? We are to believe that as the Son of God, clothed in our humanity, He lived a perfect life and then died on the cross for our sins. This message is called the gospel, that is, the good news about Jesus Christ.
Jesus Himself is always to be the object of our faith. We sometimes say we are saved by faith alone, meaning apart from any works. That expression, however, can be somewhat misleading, as though faith itself has some virtue that God respects. It is more accurate to say we are saved by God's grace through faith. Faith, again, is merely the hand that receives the gift of God, and God through His Spirit even opens our hand to receive the gift.
-- Excerpt from The Discipline Of Grace by Jerry Bridges