How many professors of Christian religion today have lulled themselves to sleep of the state of their own souls? The great majority of professors are content to have grasped a certain degree of spirituality as to not give the slightest care about true and genuine conversion, true saving faith. Whether or not they really have saving, regenerating faith in Christ.
What a frightening reality would it be, come judgment day when many a professor on earth who professed the name of Christ: “Lord, Lord! Have I not prophesied in Your name? Cast out demons in Your name? Done wonderful works in Your name?” Yet the reply they would get is: “I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” (Matt 7:22-23)
Oh! Dear reader! If you value your soul, dismiss not this issue lightly! Examine yourself, to see whether you truly are in the faith. Test yourself! Or do you not realize this about yourself, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Cor 13:5)
A most solemn example of those having faith, but not a saving one, is seen in the stony-ground hearers, of whom Christ said, “which for a while believe” (Luke 8:13). Concerning this class the Lord declared that they hear the Word and “with joy receiveth it” (Matt. 13:20). How many such have we met and known: happy souls with radiant faces, exuberant spirits, full of zeal that others too may enter into the bliss which they have found. How difficult it is to distinguish such from genuine Christians—the good-ground hearers. The difference is not apparent; no, it lies beneath the surface—they have “not root in themselves” (Matt. 13:21): deep digging has to be done to discover this fact!
Have you searched yourself narrowly, my reader, to ascertain whether or no “the root of the matter” (Job 19:28) be in you?
But let us refer now to another case which seems still more incredible. There are those who are willing to take Christ as their Saviour, yet who are most reluctant to submit to Him as their Lord, to be at His command, to be governed by His laws. Yet there are some unregenerate persons who acknowledge Christ as their Lord. Here is the Scripture proof of our assertion: “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?’ and then will I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity’” (Matt. 7:22–23).
There is a large class (“many”) who profess subjection to Christ as Lord, and who do many mighty works in His name: thus a people who can even show you their faith by their works, and yet it is not a saving one!
It is impossible to say how far a non-saving faith may go, and how very closely it may resemble that faith which is saving.
Saving faith has Christ for its object; so has a non-saving faith (John 2:23, 24).i Saving faith is produced by the Word of God; so also is a non-saving faith (Matt. 13:20, 21). Saving faith will make a man prepare for the coming of the Lord, so also will a non-saving: of both the foolish and wise virgins it is written, “then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps” (Matt. 25:7). Saving faith is accompanied with joy: so also is a non-saving faith (Matt. 13:20).
Perhaps some readers are ready to say, all of this is very unsettling, and if really heeded, most distressing. May God in His mercy grant that this article may have just these very effects on many who read it.
O if you value your soul, dismiss it not lightly.
If there be such a thing (and there is) as a faith in Christ which does not save, then how easy it is to be deceived about my faith! It is not without reason that the Holy Spirit has so plainly cautioned us at this very point.
“A deceived heart hath turned him aside” (Isa. 44:20).
“The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee” (Obad. 3).
“Take heed that ye be not deceived” (Luke 21:8).
“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3).
At no point does Satan use his cunning and power more tenaciously, and more successfully, than in getting people to believe that they have a saving faith when they have not.
The Devil deceives more souls by this one thing than by all his other devices put together. Take this present article as an illustration. How many a Satan-blinded soul will read it and then say, “It does not apply to me; I know that my faith is a saving one!”
It is in this way that the Devil turns aside the sharp point of God’s convicting Word, and secures his captives in their unbelief. He works in them a sense of false security, by persuading them that they are safe within the ark, and induces them to ignore the threatenings of the Word and appropriate only its comforting promises. He dissuades them from heeding that most salutary exhortation, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves” (2 Cor. 13:5). O my reader, heed that word now.
In closing this first article we will endeavour to point out some of the particulars in which this non-saving faith is defective, and wherein it comes short of a faith which does save.
First, with many it is because they are willing for Christ to save them from Hell, but are not willing for Him to save them from self.
They want to be delivered from the wrath to come, but they wish to retain their self-will and self-pleasing. But He will not be dictated unto: you must be saved on His terms, or not at all. When Christ saves, He saves from sin—from its power and pollution, and therefore from its guilt. And the very essence of sin is the determination to have my own way (Isa. 53:6). Where Christ saves, He subdues the spirit of self-will, and implants a genuine, a powerful, a lasting desire and determination to please Him.
Again; many are never saved because they wish to divide Christ; they want to take Him as a Saviour, but are unwilling to subject themselves unto Him as their Lord.
Or, if they are prepared to own Him as Lord, it is not as an absolute Lord. But this cannot be: Christ will be either Lord of all, or He will not be Lord at all. But the vast majority of professing Christians would have Christ’s sovereignty limited at certain points; it must not entrench too far upon the liberty which some worldly lust or carnal interest demands. His peace they covet, but His “yoke” is unwelcome. Of all such Christ will yet say “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19:27).
Again; there are multitudes which are quite ready for Christ to justify them, but not to sanctify.
Some kind of, some degree of sanctification, they will tolerate, but to be sanctified wholly, their “whole spirit and soul and body” (1 Thess. 5:23), they have no relish for. For their hearts to be sanctified, for pride and covetousness to be subdued, would he too much like the plucking out of a right eye. For the constant mortification of all their members, they have no taste. For Christ to come to them as a Refiner, to burn up their lusts, consume their dross, to utterly dissolve their old frame of nature, to melt their souls, so as to make them run in a new mould, they like not. To utterly deny self, and take up their cross daily, is a task from which they shrink with abhorrence.
Again; many are willing for Christ to officiate as their Priest, but not for Him to legislate as their King.
Ask them, in a general way, if they are ready to do whatsoever Christ requires of them, and they will answer in the affirmative, emphatically and with confidence. But come to particulars: apply to each one of them those specific commandments and precepts of the Lord which they are ignoring, and they will at once cry out “Legalism!” or, “We cannot be perfect in everything.” Name nine duties and perhaps they are performing them, but mention a tenth and it at once makes them angry, for you have come too close home to their case. Herod heard John gladly and did “many things” (Mark 6:20), but when he referred to Herodias, he touched him to the quick.
Many are willing to give up their theatre-going, and card-parties, who refuse to go forth unto Christ outside the camp. Others are willing to go outside the camp, yet refuse to deny their fleshly and worldly lusts. Reader, if there is a reserve in your obedience, you are on the way to Hell. Our next article will take up the Nature of saving faith.
—A. W. Pink, Studies in Saving Faith: It’s Counterfeits
Footnotes
- Original text includes: “Saving faith is wrought by the Holy Spirit; so is a non-saving faith (Heb. 6:4).” Omitted because of the vague use of language. I deny the opinion that “non-saving faith” is Holy Spirit-wrought in any way, shape or form. It is a misuse or a misunderstanding of the text of Scripture in Hebrews 6. It is only indicated that such men have “shared” the Holy Spirit in such a way as in the benefits in the context of a local church, see the rest of Hebrews 6. [↩]
