This question (and answer) is an explanation of the answer to Question 29, which you may recall is the most personally significant question that anyone can ever ask: How can we be saved? That answer began with these words: “only by faith in Jesus Christ.” The meaning of those words is now the subject of Question 30. Thus, since we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, what then is faith in Jesus Christ?

There are plenty of proposed answers in the world around us. To the average secularist, faith is either an outdated relic from the unenlightened past or simply one of many necessary components for maintaining one’s wellbeing. In the Word of Faith movement, which often goes hand-in-hand with the prosperity gospel, faith is sort of like the force in Star Wars. However strong or weak your faith is determines how much or little of God’s (material) blessings you will receive.

But how should we think about saving faith in Jesus Christ? Our answer consists of four active verbs: acknowledging, trusting, receiving, and resting.

First, faith in Christ means acknowledging the truth of everything that God has revealed in his Word. This is indeed the proper place to begin since we can only come to know Christ through His Word. The New Testament is obviously about Jesus, and within the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly declared that the Old Testament Scriptures were ultimately about Him as well. Today, as we read or hear the Scriptures, the Spirit illuminates our hearts to behold Christ through His Word. Or as Paul says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Our faith then begins whenever we acknowledge the truth of all that God has spoken. Faith must certainly be more than this acknowledgement that God’s Word is true, but it cannot be less. If we reject the truthfulness of the Scriptures, we sever ourselves from our only means of truly knowing Christ.

Second, faith in Christ also means trusting in him. This is the essence of what faith is. Faith is trusting in something that cannot be seen, as Hebrews 11:1 makes clear. Faith is not a means of manipulating or forcing God’s hand; rather, faith is placing one’s trust and confidence in God rather than in ourselves. Yes, a person can certainly have a larger or smaller, stronger or weaker, faith, but the amount or quality of a person’s faith is not nearly as important as the object of their faith. For example, my confidence in a chair’s ability to support my weight has no impact upon the chair itself, only whether I will actually sit down or not. The same is true of God. He is supremely trustworthy, so saving faith, however big or small, is faith that trusts in Him. Conversely, no faith outside of Christ, however great, can be saving, for salvation is only found in Christ.

Finally, faith in Christ means both receiving and resting on him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. The word receiving ought to bring to mind that our salvation is “only by pure grace” or as Paul says, “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9). By definition, a gift can only be received, not earned. To receive what is earned is a wage, not a gift. Our salvation is by grace because it is a gift, and it is through faith because faith is the means by which we receive that gift.

And though we have been saved to do good works, we do so while resting in the free gift of salvation that we have received. This means that while we ought to desire to obey God’s will, we never place our trust in our own obedience in order to be accepted in God’s sight. Instead, we rest in the finished work of Christ from the moment that we first believe to the moment that we come into His presence for all eternity.

Indeed, the essence of faith in Christ is captured in these words:

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s demands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.