Invent conditions

Many Christians, touched by God’s grace and love, like to emphasize God’s “unconditional love” for everyone. More than a few, however, find that “unconditional” is a relative term. In fact, some teachings set many conditions that people must follow in order for God to be pleased with them. Various conditions have been invented that people must accomplish in order for God to work according to their understanding.

What should you think about? The widely popular view that one must “believe in order to be saved” is one such condition that people have set. Such a view sees faith as a work. Man must “perform” this faith, otherwise God cannot “work”. Therefore, whoever wants to be saved must believe. Those who do not believe will end up in hell. These are roughly the narratives of these views.

This is astonishing in any case, especially since the proponents not infrequently speak of God’s experienced grace. This grace of God is real. So you speak of the love that you yourself have experienced. This also contains the confident knowledge, as Paul describes it in the core of the letter to the Romans:

“If God is for us, who will be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him grant us all these things in mercy?”
Rom 8:31-32

The Gospel speaks of God’s own righteousness (Rom 1:16-17). This has nothing to do with my performance, but with His performance. Grace works like this.

But there are a few caveats here in particular. Some teachings comment on this with “Yes, but …”. The but then usually follows with a precondition that someone has to fulfill in order for God to work. Something has been put between our life and God’s reality. That’s a hurdle to overcome. In other words, God wants to love you, save you, justify you, and much more, but cannot do so unless you say “yes.” Such “faith” is therefore a “work” that man must do so that God activates the cross and resurrection for you and me as well. It is the switch by which God’s work is activated.

However, this condition is set by people. It is not contained in Scripture, even if various biblical passages are quoted on the subject. The dualistic understanding, which leads to this, is mostly the doctrine of “heaven and hell” or at best “heaven and annihilation”. Man must perform works so that God can be gracious.

Man must perform works so that God can be gracious.

Various contributions on this subject have already been recorded here on the website and are listed at the end. Recently, two videos were also created for this purpose:

What is faith?

Has faith degenerated into a work? Yes, in some teachings it does. Faith was reinterpreted as a performance that should be made. It should be the performance that people must make in order for God to be gracious. Unfortunately, without this performance, He is bound by our word and powerless if we do not “want” Him.

A powerless God? Really? All pious sayings about a “free will” are to hide the fact that one has robbed God of His omnipotence with this view. It contradicts Scripture. God is in charge of everything. Always. That is why He is God, that is why He is above all. This does not make us puppets by any means. The dark legacy of the doctrine of hell distorts the good news beyond recognition.

So what is faith? Faith is not an achievement that you have to make. Faith is the consequence of preaching, not the precondition to salvation. There is a correlation between faith and salvation, but no causality, as if man’s faith is necessary for salvation. Salvation is not a two-component glue, wherein my faith would be as important as God’s work, and salvation works only in combination. This is what you are led to believe, what is taught up and down the land, but is not confirmed in Scripture. Faith is the antithesis of works in the Bible, but that does not make me lawless. Salvation is not earned. Faith is not an “ingredient” of salvation. The call that one must believe because only through this could God work is absurd. This is essentially nothing other than magical thinking.

The last idea comes from a very specific interpretation of the doctrine of heaven and hell. The reformulation into a condition is read into the scripture. Exegeses on some of the biblical passages misused for this purpose can already be found on this website. Faith is rather a simple trust. It is the reaction to the Good News. The Gospel brings about trust. Those who are touched by the message of grace respond to it with their lives. Faith will realize that everything is God’s work, as Paul puts it in Philippians:

“For it is God who works both in you: the willing as well as the working according to His good pleasure.”
Phil 2:13

Paul writes these words to the church in Philippi. It is not a statement about unbelievers being “encouraged to be lazy so that God can do His thing.” It is the experience of a person who has recognized God’s grace in truth and therefore also emphasizes this grace for the church (cf. Col 1:6). Grace is real. Grace does something in you and me. It needs my doing as a response, but not as a condition for salvation.

A vivid example of this is the story of Paul himself. His name was still Saul and he was a persecutor of Jesus’ disciples:

Saul then, still snorting threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found some men as well as women who adhered to the way of the new teaching, he might carry them off bound to Jerusalem.

As he approached Damascus on his journey, it happened that a light from heaven suddenly surrounded him. Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Then he answered, “Who are You, Lord?” But he said “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting! But get up and go into the city! There they will tell you what to do”.
Acts 9:1-6

Paul as an example

Saul, who was called Paul from the time he later began his ministry (Acts 13:9), persecuted the disciples. He considers himself “first of sinners,” namely, first in rank. On a fictitious list of all sinners, Paul saw himself first.

So how did Paul’s salvation take place? How did he come to believe in God’s work through Jesus? Nowhere do we read that he first expressed deep repentance or, for example, said a prayer of surrender. It all happened rapidly. Paul himself did not want to. His conversion experience was not a “decision for Jesus” of his own. On the contrary – he wanted nothing to do with this Jesus. Looking back, he describes the significance as follows:

“The word is credible and worthy of every welcome that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. However, for this very reason I obtained mercy, so that Jesus Christ may display all patience in me, the first, as a pattern for those who will believe in Him in the future, for eternal life.”
1Tim 1:15-16

The grace that Paul experienced was to become exemplary. It should become a pattern for all who believe in Him in the future. If we look at the story of Paul’s “conversion,” it was not something he initiated himself. God triggered it in him. Paul was overwhelmed. Today we would say “it knocked his socks off”.

In Paul we see that the encounter with the Risen Lord turns everything upside down in seconds that he had assumed until then. It is not Paul who takes the initiative, but Jesus whom he persecuted. And this experience became an example for all who would later believe in Him. In Paul we see that God works, not that man must work. It is this Paul who later also writes:

“For in grace are ye saved, through faith; and this is not of yourselves, but of God’s nearness; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship.”
From: Eph 2:8-10

Unbelief in God’s work

In Paul we can see that it is not our work but God’s work that is decisive. Accordingly, anyone who places human “faith performance” centrally fails to recognize the reality of God’s grace. It is unbelief in God’s work, and a massive overestimation of human decision-making power.

Anyone who says that man must believe in order for God to work is putting the focus wrong and has probably never experienced the power of God’s grace. There is a tragedy in it. Believers are thereby stimulated to religiosity, not to faith. Those who have to trust in their own performance instead of God’s grace will not become free. The core of the good news then remains hidden. In contrast, grace always speaks of God’s activity, never of my activity.