Faith Comes By Hearing
We can be brought to Christ through a person’s witness but it must be with the Word of God because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). We can be salt and light but words are necessary to save those who are perishing, and so the Apostle Paul asks us, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching” (Rom 10:14)? They answer is, “They will not, unless someone tells them.”
The Power to Save
We cannot save anyone. It is an act of God to save those who were once dead in their sins (Eph 2:1-2), and God uses us as a means to save some, but it is the gospel that has the power to save, not us. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16), but we must understand that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1st Cor 1:18).
The Object of our Faith
Our faith in Christ is how we are saved but it’s not so much our faith that saves but the Object of our Faith, and that is Jesus Christ. He alone saves (Acts 4:12) and there is no other way to be saved (Acts 16:30-31), so our faith in Christ links us to God because Jesus Christ has ended the separation that we once had (Isaiah 59:2) and reconciled us back to God, therefore we cannot be separated from God ever again (Rom 8:35).
Saved by Faith
We know the Bible teaches that we’re saved only by faith in Christ and not by works (Eph 2:8-9) and that faith makes us the children of God, so what greater connection is there to God than to be one of His own children? Our faith in Christ links us to God permanently and it is a link which cannot ever be broken (John 6:37-39, 10:28-29).
Conclusion
Our faith in Christ does link us to God because faith comes by hearing, it has the power to save, it is the Christ alone Who saves, and this salvation is not something that God is going to start and then end in us. As Paul writes, “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).
– Martyn Lloyd Jones
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