CCC #8: Faith - Intro #1

The Corrupt Christian Concepts Series

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

(All scripture quotes are from the BSB unless otherwise noted.)

NOTE: Faith is the most extensive topic I have ever written about. Even as I think I have some good stuff, the Holy Spirit brings other ideas before me in various ways. I have written/re-written several times. Faith is a multi-pronged and nuanced concept. However, it is also simple at the same time.

I have spent several weeks trying to pare down these articles; I know, I probably repeat or rabbit trail too much! But, I simply could not find any sections I wanted to remove. So, I'm going to split them up. Thus, the introductiom will be at least two parts, and who knows how many articles the rest will be. The first two are only an introduction, and there is much more I could introduce, but I want to get into the meat of scripture as quickly as possible!

Hopefully, if the beginning is interesting to you, you will read the rest of the articles (and the follow on articles, as they will cover more scripture directly). The intro does bring up some key concepts however. My goal with all my writing is simply your edification, thus I hope if any initial thoughts meet that goal, you will be willing to finish. Appreciate both your patience waiting on these articles and time to read them.

What is Faith?

Faith is a core concept in Christianity, yet I'm not sure many really consider what it is from a scriptural perspective; they take it for granted; or they over simplify it. Of course, you don't have to understand it to have it; but certainly it makes sense as one who has put faith in Christ - thus a Christian; a new creation; or a child of God - to consider what it means.

Since the term faith is used over 600 time in the new testament alone, it is certainly important to understand. There is cohesiveness in it's scriptural meaning; yet still, I think many take it for granted. This set of articles will be a journey in scripture to better my own understanding and hopefully help you along the way.

The other extreme is that there are simply too many ideas about what faith is. Faith is attached to nearly every idea until it becomes so complicated as to lose all meaning. Even in modern American politics; where having a faith based belief system is losing its cachet; in some circles many will still claim to be a “person of faith”; at least until it is no longer beneficial to getting elected.

Of course, a “person of faith” means a hundred different things in modern society. It does not even have to be attached to a concept of the God of scripture. It is a term that could apply to any religious person.

All of this leaves the concept of scriptural faith vulnerable to corrupt ideas; thus, I had it on my list to cover eventually. However, a reader requested it as a topic awhile back, so I am covering it now. I appreciate the request, this is a vital topic! I have thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from this study so far.

A Bit About my Process

Whenever I begin scriptural research on a topic, I usually have an idea of the corruption. Most often this is confirmed in scripture; but not always of course. Yet, there is a common theme in the corruption of ideas.

I have found most, if not all, corruption flows from mindsets that refuse to see and accept that everything from God is a gift. One can usually point to this ‘earning’ mindset as the root of nearly all corruption of scriptural concepts; thus it becomes easier and easier to see over time.

I will list some of my initial thoughts about how the concept of faith can be corrupted in a bit, but let's set a foundation for the gift mindset.

A Gift Mindset is Essential for Faith

Those with a gift mindset towards God and the gospel reflect on passages of scripture and the overall scriptural narrative quite differently from those who don't have it. If you think you need to ‘earn’ anything from God, then you will find scripture that seems to support your position (along with nearly any other position frankly).

Of course, each of us is on a spectrum for nearly every idea. Many accept some promises of God as gifts; yet struggle with others. You may see “heaven” or “salvation” as a gift; yet believe that you must somehow earn forgiveness, fellowship, or righteousness.

Sadly, I rarely see the gift mindset reflected in most preaching and teaching. If it is, it is quite restricted. Most of what I hear is about what we can do for God; not what God through Christ has done for us. The root of faith is what God has done for us; what we do for Him is secondary.

Yet, ninety percent of what is taught, even in Christian circles, would fit just fine in any religious situation. The 10 steps for a better marriage or 5 steps to better obedience to God messages would fit in nearly every religion. Whether scripture is used or not, what distinguishes the true gospel of grace? How is our message different from all the rest?

The gospel declares the good news that everything from God is a gift. Only with that mentality will you ever receive the gift (salvation) and then open it and use it (the Christian life or walk). And this is the focus of living faith.

Why corrupt this truth with messages that practically mimic world religions? I don't have an answer, but it certainly happens constantly. My guess is that it is simply ingrained to walk by sight rather than faith. The only way to avoid this is a gift mindset.

A Gift Cannot be Coerced by Definition

As I covered in my last article about how scriptural descriptions of love are describing God, a gift mentality will also realize that God is not forcing Himself or His gifts on anyone. By definition, a gift is not a gift if you are coerced to accept it.

But, if it is a good gift, then those who recognize it's value will be excited to receive it! (There are multiple parables where Christ demonstrates this concept - portraying the gospel as something to treasure.) By default, teaching that emphasizes the false “Do-Do” gospel minimizes the value of the real gospel. Many cannot understand the treasure we have because it is clouded by the fog of religion.

I want to continue to emphasize this, particularly in regards to faith. It is a key to understanding living faith.

Much of the historical corruption of Christianity through religion has occurred because of an unholy mixture of power and coercion to try and force people to ‘believe’ or ‘behave’. And this continues in various forms today. That is not the way of Christ or the good news of the gospel - that is the evil way of the world!

Love does not seek it's own way by force, fear, or coercion; it requires the other person to choose because they actually want it. As we will eventually see from scripture, a gift mentality is essential for scriptural type faith (again, both to receive and use the gift of Christ). Coercion through threats, either directly or implied, is the enemy of a gift mindset and thus is the enemy of faith.

Quick Note on “Human Faith”

My references to faith in this article are in a scriptural and specifically gospel context. Faith, as a human concept, is powerful all on its own. Even though I am mostly concerned with scriptural faith, and specifically the faith that has been gifted to believers, I don't want to ignore a human or flesh based faith.

Consider the ancient near east pagans who had such faith in their “gods” that they would deliver their children to be burned. Even today, many are willing to die for their human based religion or belief system. Every human, even atheists, puts faith in something. So, faith certainly exists as a concept outside of Christianity and even religion.

However, though human based faith is powerful, it is useless spiritually if it is not pointed at Christ. It is pointing your faith at Christ through the gospel that makes it genuine scriptural faith. As we will soon see, that is the difference between living faith and dead faith. My point is - faith as a concept exists outside of Christianity, but that is not the faith I am discussing.

Christ is Offensive

This seeming exclusivity of Christ is offensive to many. But an idea that C.S. Lewis made famous applies here: Christ is either telling the truth or He is a liar and a lunatic. You cannot accept Christ and ignore His claims about Himself.

Thus, you cannot half-ass the gospel. A half-assed gospel is no gospel at all.

If Christ is the source of true spiritual life - then to become alive spiritually, we must receive life from Him. If there really is a benevolent God, Who exists outside of human time and reality, and gives us our very physical life and breath, then we must rely upon Him for all things, especially our spiritual life.

It is humanity’s choice to avoid this reality and choose their own way that has created all the messes we see around us. And God being love means He cannot simply step in and use a magic eraser on all of it. His nature of love prevents this. That is what a human type of god would do, not the God of scripture.

The “magic eraser” is the gospel. That is God's way of love and through love to help deal with humanity choosing sickness and death. Now, of course, scripture indicates there is a perfect time (that only God knows) when the gospel through love will converge and the ultimate good news will be that sin, sickness, and death will be no more. But we are not there yet…

NOTE: it is human faith that is pointed at Christ initially that accepts Him as a gift. You are now a new creation in Christ, connected to Him: a Christian. At this point, your acceptance of the gospel gift enables you to receive many other gifts - including faith. Salvation is a huge gift package. I want to emphasize that Christians are my main audience.

When I speak of faith as a gift, it is because scripture indicates that children of God are gifted faith by Him. Later, we will cover scripture that indicates this for believers. But, again, it is pointing your faith at Christ, both before and after becoming a child of God, that makes it genuine living faith. But, this is a choice everyone must make, both initially, and in your daily walk.

‘Life’ Should Not be Controversial

The gospel message is what it is. It should be no more controversial than saying you need food for physical life. Saying “humans need to eat to live” is not an exclusive statement - it is simply truth.

Imagine a world where people refuse to eat, they are starving and falling over in weakness. Someone is standing in a public area with a truck loaded with food, offering to give it out for free. But the people drag themselves by like zombies, refusing to believe that food is good for them. Some even spit on the person and call them a bigot because they are claiming that eating food is the only way to stay alive.

They cannot get their own food, so they deny they even need it. The food they are able to make is plastic and has no nurishment. And thus, those offering good food become an enemy to their identity. Eventually they all gather together and kill the person for offending their sensibilities.

Welcome to Christianity

In the spiritual world, saying you need Christ to live is no more exclusive than that - it is simply truth. If you deny the truth of physical food - then you die. If you deny the life Christ offers - then you remain dead spiritually. Both of these statement are as equally true as they are not excluding anyone. And, the gospel is as simple as this concept:

Come to Christ for Life.

A Fake Christ is Worse than No Christ at All

I respect if you consider Christ a lunatic and that there is nothing outside of the physical. I respect a genuine atheist. I think you are wrong, but you have my respect for using your reason and logic to come to that conclusion. However, I have hope based on the many stories of atheists who began to realize their logic was flawed (including C.S. Lewis), that you may eventually come to your senses.

However, don't claim to believe in the God of scripture and then think that you can somehow work your way to pleasing Him without having power that is equal to Him. That is ludicrous.

Good behavior will never connect us to God in any way; since we are not able to be perfect like God. Christ makes that clear in the sermon on the mount. His point in that message is any idea that you can work your way to God is ludicrous. The Jews thought they could keep the Torah and please God; He squashed this notion.

The power you need is Jesus Christ, and He offers Himself to you as a gift to bring you God's life, glory, and power. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I honestly have less hope for someone who thinks they have some ability to please God by works than an atheist. Since this person already thinks they have access to God, they will be reluctant to actually look for Him. A fake Christ is worse than no Christ at all. A dead faith is worse than no faith at all.

Mixing Good and Bad ‘Gospels’ will Fail

There are many concepts in scripture about how a mixture of good and bad concepts is actual as bad or worse than simply going with one or the other. Leavening is used as an example of this because it impacts the ingredients in bread to become something totally different. In Galatians, Paul emphasizes the idea of pleasing God by works as leaven that ruins the gospel.

Again, I respect an atheist more than anyone who would claim faith in God, yet deny the central ‘gift’ aspect of the gospel message. A fake gospel is worse than having no gospel at all. A “bad news” gospel is worse than no gospel at all. At least with an atheist approach, you would not be expecting it to be spiritual. It would be nihilistic.

Fake gospels fool many because they have a veneer of ‘godliness’ without the power. They promise life, yet cannot give it. The power comes from it being a gift. The life comes from the gift of Christ. And receiving that gift of life, and continuing to rely upon it for our walk of life, is what the gospel is all about. And it is all free. As Christ said, it is “easy and light”.

When discussing faith, this is something we cannot forget or neglect.

My Initial Thoughts on Ideas that Corrupt Faith

When I think of faith from a Christian or gospel perspective, there are a few corrupt things that come to mind. I'm curious if these will be confirmed by my study or not. Here’s the list:

1. We often think we must “muster up” faith, thus turning it into a flesh (human) powered work. Scripture indicates faith is a gift from God for believers - like all the gospel promises. As I just mentioned, to have faith, you must have a gift mindset towards God. That mindset is the beginning of gospel based faith. Yet, it also must continue so that we are walking by faith - not sight. The gift doesn't stop giving after salvation.

2. We seem to value size; meaning, we look at someone who does a lot of works and think this is because of the size of their faith. Perhaps it is, but scripture values the location of the faith over the size. A mustard seed size of faith is all that is needed when placed in Christ. A cup of water given in His name is enough to show faith. It is not the size of the faith, it is the location.

3. The follow on to #2 is that we become obsessed with measuring our faith. The first sign a work is not of faith is the existence of a mindset that is trying to measure the work. This idea really bothers some people who want to think their works are more valuable to God than others (think Pharisees). There is no room for pride in a gift mindset - you did nothing to earn a gift. Pride can only cause you to refuse to accept the gift because you want to earn it somehow.

4. We often treat faith as blind - as if there is no evidence. However, while the focus of our faith is towards the 'invisible', scripture never indicates there is no evidence. We can truly experience the results of having faith. We are called upon to review the evidence with logic and reasoning. “Blind faith” is not scriptural faith. Scripture says “taste and see that the Lord is good”. It never requires somehow completely abandoning reason and your own senses. However, we should never make them the final arbiter of truth. We should never reject the invisible simply because we cannot see it.

5. We often avoid pointing faith at ourselves personally. I don't mean at our own ability; but at who we are as new creations. The promises of God in the gospel proclaim good things as truth about us as His children; yet, we struggle to believe the good about ourselves, even when all of it is a gift from God. We continue to think of ourselves as sinners - not saints. We have bought the lie that it is pride to consider our own worth, value, and goodness as people of God's own possession. We let our human failures (or successes) define our perspective towards ourselves, not God's promises about us.

6. We often think our faith must be consistent to be effective. Meaning, when we fail to have faith, our self condemnation is often over-bearing (and often results in judgment towards others as we compare). This ties into the corrupt measuring mindset. However, the examples from scripture of “strong faith” include many failures (Abraham; David; Samson; etc.). It is not the consistency of your faith that matters; it is where you place it when you have it: in Jesus Christ, and the Divine Trinity revealed by Him, with whom we are intimately joined as new creations.

7. When measuring our faith (again, a corrupt idea all on its own), we often do this by comparing the results (our works) to others. This can happen with our peers; but can also happen with historical figures - even from scripture. However, scripture teaches that the impacts and results of faith are unique to each individual. Comparing our results to others is a poor way to measure faith, and can be damaging to faith. We will end up believing the accusation that we are not doing enough for God, which can put us into a flesh powered righteousness mode. Scripture specifically warns against comparing ourselves among ourselves, either as an excuse for stupidity and poor behavior, or an accusation that we are not doing enough.

Those are a few things that have popped into my head. I expect this CCC to be long (ahem) and have quite a few articles. But it is important.

Again, thanks to that reader for suggesting faith as a topic. If any of you have topic suggestions, or general thoughts, positive or negative, feel free to make a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Faith — Hope — Love

In my last article, I covered a bit of 1 Corinthians 13, aptly titled the “Love Chapter”. My focus was on how the descriptions of love found there are describing God - because He is Love - love is His nature. Thus, we can only love others because Christ, as God, gifts us His love. This description of love is not a list of things we are to strive and achieve, but again, simply receive as a gift.

The last verse in this chapter applies directly to my current topic:

1 Corinthians 13:13 - “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.”

Much like a teepee, these three concepts - faith, hope, and love - are the three rods upon which everything else that makes up the “Christian life” are built. They are the foundation of the Christian life.

Notice the word “remain”. Paul's point in context is that when all our “good works” are burnt up, when all the “great things we are doing for God” go away, only these will remain. They are eternal spiritual concepts. Much of the other stuff is carnal or fleshly (especially in the Corinthian church - it was quite a church.) Earlier in the letter (chapter 3), Paul gives the analogy of how works that don't flow from faith, hope, and love - Christ - will be burned up.

Since I am discussing one of these ‘pillars’ of Christianity - faith - I cannot dismiss its connection to the other two, especially love, since scripture indicates love is the ‘greatest’ of the three. We will find that hope (which is actually firm belief) and faith are closely connected. So, perhaps the teepee is a poor analogy. It is more like love is the cornerstone, and then hope and faith make up the rest of the foundation that leans on that cornerstone.

This would make sense as Christ is mentioned in scripture many times as the ‘cornerstone’, and Christ is Love and Love is Christ. So, this unconditional ‘Agape’ God type of love is foundational to keep in mind for any discussion of faith.

Though not intentional, I can now see that my previous article was needed in advance of this one. If you haven't read it, please stop now and do that. This was purely the Holy Spirit leading, as I now realize. Please go to my CCC index and scroll down to find that article. This is also a link to the full index if any of the other articles should look interesting and you haven't read them.

God's Love Is Preeminent

Thus, as we move through this study of faith and get into the weeds, please keep love in your mind. It is truly the connection that makes any faith real.

Only because “God is love” is He worthy of any faith. There have been many “all powerful” gods in the pantheon of human created religions. There have been many gods who know the future, who are very old, even ‘eternal’, very wise, etc. Some might suggest that humans imagine these gods because they were trying to explain the one true God, but I am not convinced.

I believe as humans conceive a god, these are the attributes they would attain to for themselves - power and other abilities that would help them get what they want - to get ahead of others. A dictator type of power. A god who is essentially selfish.

Only scripture describes a God who literally embodies unconditional love in the form of Jesus Christ. Only the God of scripture deliberately made Himself ‘weak’ to save those so far beneath Him. This is unlike any ‘god’ humanity would conceive. We would see weakness as a flaw.

Yet, unconditional love does what it takes to save the focus of that love. It does not seek it's own way - agape type love is sacrificial for the object of the love. Read the account of Christ in the garden sweating drops of blood and tell me that He really wanted to go to the cross! But His nature of love compelled Him to do it for us - the objects of that love. It was the only redemptive way of love - to sacrifice Himself.

Whether or not the word ‘love’ is specifically mentioned in regards to faith, it is always there. As we will see, you cannot have faith without believing God loves you. If God's love for you is not pure, then any gifts He offers may be tainted. Thus, faith is hindered by a lack of understanding of God's love.

But, we will get to the proof of that from scripture later. I will let Paul have the last word for this section.

Galatians 5:6b “All that matters is faith, expressed through love.”

All that matters! An important topic indeed. And we will see this crimson thread of love throughout any study of faith.

Conclusion of Intro Part One

I'm going to leave off there for now. I have a lot of material already, so the next couple of articles should come fairly quickly (at least compared to my recent schedule, LOL). But, I'm still working on the details. As always, hope this has given you food for thought.

Just remember that faith requires a gift mindset, and a belief in God's love is the foundation for faith. Living faith is faith that is pointed at Jesus Christ. Only He can give life. An ‘earning’ mindset, that is pointed at ourselves, will destroy faith. Faith is how we receive the gift of Christ and continue to use the gifts within the Gift.

Until next time, walk well in God's spiritual blessings He has promised. Looking forward to continuing this study of faith.