Yesterday I interacted with two stories relating to the nature of saving faith.
When a man is genuinely saved, the fruit of that salvation will be evidenced in his life. That is, empowered by the Holy Spirit, he will be changed so that while prior to salvation he could do nothing good, now after salvation he is enabled to do good works — and he finds joy in those works.
Any purported belief without change is nothing but a base counterfeit. As J. C. Ryle said, “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough — a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice — which costs nothing and is worth nothing. [Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism]
There is no such thing as a faith without works, for the Holy Spirit can do nothing but produce evidence of His life within the life of the genuine believer.
Yet a faith that saves must be founded on the finished work of Christ alone. Only Christ saves. There is never anything meritorious in ourselves that can influence God in any way to be satisfied with us. Without Christ we are wholly unsatisfactory.
As John Piper noted recently, we must never confuse the fruit of our salvation (the Holy Spirit-empowered and graced gifts) with the root of our salvation (the justifying act of Christ that is based only on His cross work):
Never forget, therefore, that all moral transformation that pleases God is the fruit, not the root of justification. The Pharisee, it says in Luke 18:9, looked on others with contempt. Not even a believer in sovereign grace who trusts in inherent righteousness will escape lovelessness. William Wilberforce, who derived decades of persevering political labors of love from his joyful justified standing with God, argued in his book A Practical View of Christianity that all the immoral behavior of the nominal Christians of his age resulted from
the mistaken conception entertained of the fundamental principles of Christianity. They consider not that Christianity is scheme “for justifying the ungodly” [Romans 4:5], by Christ’s dying for them “when yet sinners” [Romans 5:6-8], a scheme “for reconciling us to God—when enemies” [Romans 5:10]; and for making the fruits of holiness the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled. (79)
This error is common right now in our day. People, in order to create greater moral seriousness (especially with the radical commands of Jesus) are making morality part of the ground of justification. This backfires, because it destroys the joyful confidence which alone can bear the fruit of Christ-exalting love. It takes away the one and only ground and source of the very transformation they long for.
Never forget that all your good attitudes, all your good intentions, and all your good works will serve at the judgment not as the ground of your acceptance, but only as the public fruit and evidence and confirmation that you were indeed born again, and that you did have faith, and that you were united to Christ, who is your sole justifying righteousness.
We are saved for good works but never do or can those good works factor into the gift of our salvation from Christ.
Words of Grace 