When I come across someone who constantly questions the meaning and authority of Scripture and I question where they really stand, many times their response is: “I believe in God. How dare you challenge my beliefs?” One of the false teachings that has been going on around the U.S. in particular (but it is by no means limited to here) is the assumption of salvation. Now I do believe that once you are born again, saved, and transformed by the grace of God and supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, you cannot lose it, because he who began a good work in us will continue it to completion. However, that is a different issue than the assumption that we are saved to begin with. Scripture is loaded with warnings to constantly evaluate yourself to see if you are indeed in the faith.
One aspect of this false teaching of the assumption of salvation is how it is achieved. In many churches, conservative and liberal, a pastor may preach a good sermon but when it comes to the response and the altar call to receive Christ, it usually involves leading someone into a confession of 4-5 doctrines, saying a prayer, and that’s it. That is NOT salvation. I grew up in that environment where that was the message preached, mostly likely due to ignorance because that is what those around me grew up with. I know I made a proclamation of faith when I was seven years old, but as I’ve been writing for Worldview Warriors, God has been showing me there is far more to this thing we call Christianity than mere “belief in God.”
There are two major caveats of this statement “belief in God” I want to address in this post. First, when most people say, “I believe in God,” they really have little clue what that means. They usually are referencing a mental acknowledgement or agreement to the statements, but said statements have little to no influence on how they live their lives. To “believe” is the verb form of faith. It requires action and it requires dependence upon that which is believed being true; otherwise I would not call it belief. For example, I can acknowledge and agree that airplanes can fly. I can study the physics and watch them do it. But none of that is belief in a Biblical sense. Belief is actually getting on the plane and taking off.
The other caveat is the distinction between “belief in God” vs “believing God.” Many may suggest the two are interchangeable, however I believe they are vastly different. Anyone can believe in God, including the heathen. James tells us even the demons believe in God, yet they tremble. Most people who say “I believe in God” don’t even make the trembling part. I wrote on the fear of the Lord a month ago and it is largely missing in our lives, let alone society. It is easy to say we believe in God, but unless we have a proper fear of God, it is not as easy to believe him. If we do fear God, we will certainly believe him.
Often, when I hear “I believe in God,” I also have to question which ‘god’ they are talking about. Most people, including Christians, have concocted a ‘god’ made in their own interests and own liking. The god they worship on Sunday is often not the One True God because if they were truly worshiping him, it would be reflected in their lives Sunday afternoon through Saturday evening. The typical images of such a god these people have are that of a divine butler who is there to come to serve them at their desires, but is subservient to them. Such gods generally like what they like, hate what they hate, supports what they support, will judge that they don’t support, and ultimately sound a lot like them, or how they would be if they were God. That is not “belief in God.”
We use “belief in God” so frequently it has become cliché, so I want to give a different angle here: believing God. To believe God is actually what we generally mean when we as true, authentic, born again believers say “we believe in God.” It means we submit ourselves to God’s authority and his message to us given in the Bible. It means we take God seriously and take what he says to be true, and we live as though it is true.
When we believe God, we do not ‘interpret’ what he says based on what we know or think. We listen to what he says and if disagrees with what we think, we change what we think to what God says. If we do not practice that, we do not believe God because we think God is wrong in that area. The typical way doubters try to get around that is to suggest that the given passage is not clear. Why are they saying that? The answer is simple: they don’t believe it, but they don’t want to say it. So when they argue about things like “what is a day in Genesis?” I have to laugh. Why? Because instead of being honest and saying “I don’t believe that,” or “I struggle with that one,” they instead throw their reading comprehension out the window and hide behind illiteracy. Yes, I mean that. It totally baffles me how someone can claim to understand “salvation” and “sanctification” and not know what a “day” is. The moment anyone brings in “interpretation” in any context other than looking for the straightforward meaning of what is expressed and then says, “I believe the Bible,” they are lying or greatly misinformed. They do not get their understanding from the Bible; they get their understanding from themselves or someone else who should spend more time reading their Bibles in prayer than in academic books. And the moment that happens, they cease speaking God’s message and instead are speaking their own.
If you are going to claim to believe God, believe him. Don’t believe what you think about him or what you like about him; believe all of him. That includes admitting that we are sinners in need of a Savior. That means submitting all of our academic learnings and knowledge to the authority of Christ. That means acknowledging that we as man do not have it figured out and we cannot and will not ever understand who God is or what he does without submitting ourselves to him and listening to him. While we never will have perfect doctrine while on earth here, we can know what it is and point that way. At the same time, knowing we do not have perfect doctrine should not stop us from preaching the standard. That should keep us humble. And with that, as we preach the truth, recognize we are going to be deemed fools for believing it. I will cover all three of those things over the next three weeks.
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