Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 2 Study # 5
August 12, 2018
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Heart-faith in God's resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth results in salvation.
Introduction: In our last study we considered Paul's reversal of the actual order of how a person benefits from the Gospel. He turned from the heart-to-mouth order of Jesus' words in Matthew 12:34 and Luke 6:45 to the reverse mouth-to-heart order of this text. We argued that this reversal was rooted in the reality of Hebrews 4 where that author claimed that the problem in the wilderness wanderings of Israel was that their "hearing" was not "mixed" with faith. Since Paul's message of "faith" is that the words that need to be uttered are already in the mouth and the belief that needs to be mixed with the hearing is already in the heart, the "mixing" that is required is the permission of the hearer to his mouth to "utter" the words. The "words" are "words of confession" that are directly connected to the fact that God has declared Jesus of Nazareth to be "Lord". Additionally, we saw that the "confession" is not to men, but to the God Who declared Jesus to be "Lord". Thus is begun the new relationship of a man with God as he directly addresses the God of Promise in regard to his acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth to be God's "Lord" and "Christ" (just as Peter declared in Acts 2:36). We also saw that the issue is not whether a person yields his life in totality to the lordship acknowledged; rather, it is whether a person commits to the historical, biblical Jesus of Nazareth as God's "Lord". And, we incidentally also mentioned that the promise of "salvation" is not given to anyone who refuses either to utter the words to God or to believe in his/her heart.
This evening we are going to look into the second of the concepts Paul addresses: faith "in the heart".
- I. Some Qualifications.
- A. Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 12:3, there is such a thing as "false speech".
- 1. Anyone with normal speaking abilities can say the words, "Jesus is Lord" and Paul was not denying that in 1 Corinthians 12:3.
- 2. But, according to Paul's actual meaning, no one can "say" with understanding and agreement that "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.
- B. So also does Paul recognize and teach that there is such a thing as "false faith".
- 1. James called this "false faith" "dead faith" because "faith" that does not produce the behavior that is attached to the truth "believed" is not "saving" or genuine "faith".
- 2. Many are they whose "faith" is only in their cliche-ladened speech; a fact acknowledged by Paul in his exhortation of 2 Corinthians 13:5.
- II. The Three Main Issues.
- A. The actual nature of "faith".
- 1. According to Paul's first reference to "faith" in Romans (1:5), his apostleship was designed to bring people to "the obedience of faith" (sadly mistranslated in the Authorized Version).
- 2. The primary issue is the "obedience" issue, and the secondary issue is the source issue.
- 3. This initial reference sets the stage for all discussion of "faith".
- 4. The "heart" of Paul's declaration is that "faith" is an action of submission to a truth heard.
- 5. Just as Paul declares in our current text that "salvation" is the result of the combination of words in the mouth and in the heart and that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, so he initially declared that legitimate "faith" produces actions in harmony with the truth declared.
- 6. With Paul both James and Hebrews agree: faith that produces the result sought by the truth declared is "saving faith" and faith that does not is dead.
- a. James declared the reality of a "dead" faith.
- b. Hebrews 11 illustrates the reality of a "living" faith by attaching "faith" to "actions taken".
- B. The location of the faith that saves.
- 1. Paul uses the phrase "in your heart" deliberately because of the problem of deceit and because all matters of any significance at all always have their point of origin in the heart.
- 2. "Belief in the heart" is more than a recognition of the truthfulness of a claim and it is more than an acknowledgment of that truthfulness to oneself or to others; it is a submission to that truthfulness or, to be more theologically accurate, it is a cessation of resistance to that truthfulness.
- C. The salvation that is promised.
- 1. There is a portion of the promised salvation that is both instantaneous and complete.
- 2. But there are a couple of other portions of that promise that are neither instantaneous nor complete.