I am currently in a long-running discussion with a family member [dad] about the place of personal effort in the Christian experience. To be sure, this has become a 'lively' but loving dialogue at the dinner table. But in the quest to crystalize my own theology, I thought it a useful exercise to lay down in type my own view on this very important topic, partly for you and partly for myself. The issue at hand, from my perspective, is the idea of 'rugged individualism' as it pertains [if at all] to Christianity.
The Christian experience, it turns out, begins with Christ Jesus Himself. This may seem rudimentary but it deserves to be stated and restated again. Jesus the Nazarene, the prophesied Son of God who lived a perfect, sinless life in Palestine in the first century and was betrayed to a crucifixion at the hands of the Romans only to be found risen from the grave three days later. This alone is the foundation, the cornerstone of the Christian experience in the highest sense.
Every Christian worth the grace implanted with them would exclaim the previous paragraph with shouts of praise and exuberant exaltation. But this information, the very salvific content of the gospel that transforms hearts and lives in its proclamation, needs to be applied to the unrepentant sinner unto salvation. But how? Now we must look to that application of redemption which is a matter faith.
This is not meant to be derogatory in the slightest, but at this point, the 'rugged individualist' would like to smuggle personal effort into the equation. This emphasis on effort comes in the form of a 'choice' for faith in Christ, this is to say that Christ's work is applied by the individual's enacted belief. Get the covert intricacy of this: grace is applied not by God Himself but by man's personal faith.
In other words, this conception gives man the power of salvation by virtue of his personal control over whether or not he will be saved. Think about that, then think about it again.
"We are saved by grace through faith." The next question tends to be: where does this faith come from and why doesn't everyone have it? But I submit that this is not the right question. There is another more fundamental one: what is faith that saves?
There is, obviously, not enough time to give a complete definition of saving faith but one thing needs to be stated clearly: faith is not the same as saving faith. Every human being has faith: faith in tomorrow, faith in family, faith in friendship, faith in the car starting, et al. But saving faith is something else altogether.
Saving faith is faith that saves. In this way, saving faith is not just a means unto salvation, it is an end of salvation too! Saving faith is as much a matter of depending on God's grace as is the life and resurrection of Christ. Only in Christ can a person possess saving faith at all. This is to say that saving faith is God's grace. Only by an act of God convicting a hardened heart can a person cast themselves in faith upon Christ Jesus at all!
Needless to say, there is so much more to say on this but let us leave it on this point: God saves and He causes saving faith to transform the unrepentant heart unto repentance.
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