How a Man Is Saved
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Hebrews 11:1
People tell each other to have faith. They say it at hospital bedsides and at gravesides and before examinations, and they almost never say what to have faith in. The word floats free, meaning something like optimism, or resolve, or a refusal to give up. And because Scripture uses the same word for something entirely different, a great many people believe they have faith when they have nothing of the kind, and a great many others believe they lack it when in fact they have it.
So it is worth being exact. This article sets out what faith is not, what it is, where it comes from, and why the thing you are trusting matters infinitely more than how strongly you feel about it.
Begin with the commonest confusion of all.
Begin by clearing away what most people mean by the word, because the confusions do real damage.
Faith is not a warmth in the chest. A man may feel nothing whatever and be saved; another may weep through every hymn and be lost. Feelings rise and fall with sleep, health, weather and news, and a salvation that fluctuated with them would not be worth having.
Scripture never asks a man how he feels. It asks whom he is trusting.
"Now the just shall live by faith." (Hebrews 10:38)
Many people assess their faith by the temperature of their emotions. On a Sunday when the singing moved them, they judge their faith strong. On a grey Tuesday when God seems distant and prayer feels like talking to the ceiling, they conclude their faith is failing.
But feelings rise and fall with sleep, health, weather, and circumstance. If faith were a feeling, then a believer's standing before God would change with his blood sugar, and no serious person could rest for a day.
Faith is not what you feel. It is what you are relying on. A man crossing a frozen river may be terrified the whole way over and still be trusting the ice with every step — and the ice, not his composure, is what carries him.
The second confusion is more respectable and does more damage, because unbelievers and believers both repeat it.
The commonest caricature is that faith means believing without evidence — a jump into the dark, made harder the less reason you have.
That is not the biblical picture at all. Scripture repeatedly appeals to evidence and expects the hearer to weigh it. Luke opens his Gospel by naming his sources and his method. The apostle Paul lists resurrection witnesses by name and adds that most of them are still alive to be asked. The Bereans are commended precisely for checking.
"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." (Acts 17:11)
Faith in Scripture is not belief without grounds. It is trust resting on grounds — and the grounds are the character and the word of God.
It is often said that faith begins where evidence ends — that to believe is to shut one's eyes and jump, and that the less reason a man has, the more admirable his faith. On that definition faith is a kind of noble recklessness, and the honest reply to it is that nobody should be asked for such a thing.
Scripture never once commends that. It appeals constantly to evidence: to the witness of creation, to fulfilled prophecy, to named eyewitnesses, to signs done openly. The apostle Paul, defending himself before a king, said the things concerning Christ were not done in a corner. When men doubted the resurrection, the answer given was not believe harder but a list of people who had seen Him, most of whom were still alive and could be asked.
Biblical faith is not belief without evidence. It is trust that goes beyond what we can see, grounded on what we have been shown. The step is real, but it is taken onto something, not into nothing.
A third counterfeit is popular in our own time. It treats faith as a force — as though believing hard enough could bend circumstances, produce healing, or summon prosperity. Here faith is essentially aimed at an outcome, and the strength of one's believing is what makes it happen.
Nor is faith a technique for obtaining what you want by believing hard enough.
That teaching turns faith into a currency and God into a mechanism: supply enough conviction and the desired outcome must follow. It is everywhere on religious television, and it breaks people, because when the healing does not come or the money does not arrive, the fault must lie with the believer.
Biblical faith takes God at His word about what He has actually promised. It does not manufacture promises He never made.
"And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us." (1 John 5:14)
According to his will. Faith and presumption both look upward; only one of them is listening.
Notice what this does. It puts the believer at the centre and makes God the mechanism. And it is unspeakably cruel to sufferers, because when the outcome does not come, the sufferer is told he did not believe enough — a burden laid on a person already crushed.
Scripture knows nothing of it. The great chapter on faith honours a long list of people who trusted God and were not delivered — who were tortured, mocked, imprisoned, sawn asunder, and who died still waiting.
"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13)
Died in faith, not having received. Whatever faith is, it plainly is not a technique for getting what we want.
The last and most dangerous counterfeit is the one that feels most like the real thing.
This is the most dangerous confusion of the four, because it is nearest the truth.
A man may hold every article of the creed to be historically accurate and be no nearer to God for it. Correct opinion is not trust. Scripture makes the point with unusual bluntness:
"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19)
The demons are perfect monotheists. Their theology is better than most men’s — they have seen what men only read about — and it saves none of them. Agreement is not the same as committal.
A person may hold every Christian doctrine to be true. He may be certain God exists, that Christ died and rose, that the Bible is God's Word — and remain entirely unsaved. Scripture says so bluntly: the devils believe there is one God, and they tremble. Their theology is impeccable. Their doctrine is more orthodox than most people's. And they are lost.
So intellectual agreement, however complete, is not saving faith. There is a difference between believing that a surgeon is competent and lying down on his table. The first is an opinion. The second commits you.
Now the definition Scripture gives, which is the most compact in the Bible:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
Two words carry that verse. Substance — faith gives present solidity to what is still future. Evidence — it is the settled conviction of what cannot yet be seen with the eye.
The simplest picture is a chair. You may examine it, approve its construction, and believe it will hold you — and remain standing. Faith is sitting down. Nothing has changed about the chair; everything has changed about your relation to it.
Abraham is Scripture’s pattern of it, and note what is credited to him:
"He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." (Romans 4:20-22)
Fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. That is the whole anatomy of faith: it looks away from itself to the One who promised, and rests on His ability rather than its own strength.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
Two words carry it.
Substance — the word means what stands under something, a foundation; it was also the ordinary term for a title deed, a document guaranteeing property a man owned but had not yet taken possession of. Faith gives present solidity to a future promise. The believer does not yet see heaven, but he holds the deed.
Evidence — the word is a legal one, meaning proof or conviction, the demonstration that settles a case. Faith is not the absence of proof; it is a settled persuasion produced by the trustworthiness of the One who spoke.
Put together, faith is a confident reliance on God and on what He has said, so firm that the unseen is treated as real — because He said it, and He does not lie.
It helps to separate what is usually run together, because most people who are unsure whether they have faith have stopped at the second stage.
Older teachers divided it into three, and the division is useful because a man can locate exactly where he has stopped.
Knowledge. You must know something before you can believe it. Faith has content; it is not a vague reverence.
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17)
Agreement. You must accept that what you know is true — that you are a sinner, that Christ died for sinners, that He rose again.
Trust. And here most people stop. This is the committal — the resting of the whole weight of your eternity on Him personally. Knowledge and agreement can be held at arm’s length. Trust cannot.
"For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." (2 Timothy 1:12)
Notice the apostle Paul does not say I know what I have believed. He says whom.
Knowledge. You must know something before you can believe it. Faith has content. A man cannot trust a Saviour he has never heard of, which is precisely why the gospel must be preached.
Agreement. You must accept that the content is true — that these are not merely interesting claims but facts. This is where many stop, and stopping here is the condition of the devils.
Trust. You must commit yourself to the Person the facts concern — rest your whole weight on Him, with nothing kept back as an alternative.
The old illustration is still the clearest. Sitting in a chair involves all three. You know the chair is there. You judge it strong enough to hold you. But you are not sitting until you take your weight off your own legs and let it hold you. Many people spend years admiring the chair.
Here is the point that relieves more anxious souls than any other in this article, so read it slowly.
This is the point at which most anxious people are helped, so it is worth pressing.
Faith saves not because it is strong but because of what it lays hold of. The value is in the object, not in the grip.
"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove." (Matthew 17:20)
A grain of mustard seed. He did not require great faith; He required real faith in a great God.
Weak faith in strong ice will carry a man across the river. Strong faith in thin ice will drown him. The ice decides the outcome, not the confidence of the man walking on it.
And the honest cry of a divided heart was accepted without rebuke:
"And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (Mark 9:24)
That man contradicted himself in a single sentence, and his son was healed.
Faith does not save. Christ saves. Faith is the empty hand that receives Him.
This means that the power is not in the strength of your believing but in the trustworthiness of the One believed. Weak faith in solid ice will carry a man across the river. Strong faith in thin ice will drown him. What matters is not the confidence of the traveller but the thickness of the ice.
The Lord Jesus Christ made this explicit when He spoke of faith as a grain of mustard seed — the smallest thing in the garden. He was not setting a minimum quantity; He was saying that quantity is not the issue at all.
So the question to ask is never do I believe enough? — a question with no possible answer, which will torment you for ever. The question is: whom am I trusting? A trembling hand may take a gift as truly as a steady one.
And Scripture gives us a model prayer for exactly this condition. A desperate father, asked whether he believed, cried out that he did believe — and in the same breath asked the Lord to help his unbelief. Both things were true of him at once. The Lord did not rebuke him or send him away to work up more conviction. He answered him.
That man is the patron of every honest doubter who has ever wanted to believe more than he does.
If faith is required, and we do not naturally have it, the obvious question is how anyone gets it. Scripture answers plainly:
If faith is required, and I have none, what then? Scripture answers that it is not manufactured but given.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)
And it comes by a means, which is why the answer to weak faith is never to try harder at believing:
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17)
Faith is not summoned by concentration. It grows where the Word is heard and read. A man who wants more of it should stop straining and open the Book.
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
Author and finisher. He begins it and He completes it. It was never yours to originate.
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17)
This is enormously practical. Faith is not produced by concentrating, by trying to feel more certain, or by waiting for a mysterious experience. It comes by exposure to what God has said.
Which means that a person who wants to believe and cannot has a plain course of action available. Not try harder to believe, which is like trying to fall asleep by effort. Rather, read the Gospels. Read them slowly and honestly, asking whether the Person described there could have been invented. Faith grows the way a plant does — not by straining, but by being placed where the light is.
And this also explains why faith is not a work we perform to earn something. If faith were a meritorious act, we could boast of it, and Scripture is emphatic that no one will boast. Faith is the receiving, not the earning:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Two passages of Scripture are often set against each other here, and the apparent conflict distresses sincere readers. One says a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Another says faith without works is dead, and that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.
The apparent conflict between the apostle Paul and James troubles many, and it dissolves once you see what each is answering.
The apostle Paul is answering the question how is a sinner justified before God? His answer: by faith, without works.
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28)
James is answering a different question: how do we know a professed faith is real? His answer: by what it produces.
"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17)
The two are not rivals. One states the root, the other tests for it. A living faith works as a living man breathes — and nobody breathes in order to become alive.
Note also that they use Abraham as the example, and both quote the same verse. They are not opposing each other; they are describing the same man from two sides.
The resolution is not difficult once the two questions are separated.
The apostle Paul is answering the question: how is a sinner made right with God? The answer is by faith alone, apart from any work — and his proof is Abraham, who was declared righteous before he had done anything at all.
James is answering a different question: how can we tell whether a professed faith is real? His answer is that a living faith produces something. He is not writing to men trusting Christ too much; he is writing to men who claimed belief and whose lives showed nothing.
The two agree perfectly. Faith alone saves — but the faith that saves is never alone. A living tree produces fruit. The fruit did not make the tree alive, and it cannot; but a tree that produces nothing, year after year, is reasonably suspected of being dead.
So works are not the root of salvation. They are the evidence of it. Nobody is saved by his fruit, and nobody is genuinely saved without any.
Scripture attaches several things to faith, and they are worth naming, since they are the ordinary inheritance of every believer.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1)
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." (John 3:36)
"That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:15)
Peace with God. Everlasting life. Not perishing. None of these are described as prospects to be earned later; each is stated as a present possession of the man who believes.
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." (1 John 5:4)
It brings peace with God.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1)
Not merely peaceful feelings — an ended war. The hostility is over, and it was ended from God's side.
It is the only way to please Him.
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)
Note how modest the requirement is: that He is, and that He rewards those who seek Him. Not a full system of theology. Enough to come.
And it gives a certainty that rests outside yourself. The apostle Paul, awaiting execution, did not write that he knew what he believed, nor how strongly. He wrote that he knew whom he had believed, and was persuaded that He was able to keep what had been committed to Him. The confidence was in a Person, and it held to the end.
If all this has been clear, then the last step is not complicated. Faith is not a mood to work up; it is a decision to rest on Someone.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
And then the plainest instruction ever given to a man who asked what he must do to be saved — one sentence, with no conditions attached beyond the one:
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
If you have been waiting until your faith feels strong enough, you will wait for ever, because that is not what makes it valid. If you have been waiting until every question is answered, you will wait for ever too, since no one has ever had every question answered about anything.
Faith is not certainty about everything. It is reliance on Someone who has proved trustworthy in the things that can be checked — and who has said He will not cast out any who come to Him.
You do not need more faith. You need to put the faith you have onto the right Person, and let Him hold you.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."Acts 16:31
A good deal of unnecessary distress comes from expecting faith to perform work it was never given.
It is not required to remove all doubt. Doubt and unbelief are not the same thing. Unbelief refuses; doubt wavers while still holding on. Thomas doubted and was not cast out; he was given the evidence he asked for.
It is not required to be constant. Peter walked on water and then sank, in the same event, and the hand that caught him was there both times.
"And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matthew 14:31)
Read what happened between the rebuke and the rescue. He caught him first. The correction came from inside the grip.
It is not required to produce a feeling. You may trust a surgeon completely and be frightened of the operation. The trust is in the operating theatre, not in the calm.
And it is not required to sustain itself. The faith that saves is kept by the One it rests on.
"Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:5)
Scripture sets these two in contrast, and the contrast explains a great deal about the Christian life.
"(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)" (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Walking by sight means acting on what can be seen and measured now. Walking by faith means acting on what God has said, when what can be seen appears to contradict it.
Hebrews 11 is a chapter of people who did exactly that. Noah built for a flood nobody had seen. Abraham left a settled country for a place he could not name. Moses gave up a palace for a people in slavery. Not one of them had the outcome in hand when they moved.
"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went." (Hebrews 11:8)
Not knowing whither he went. He knew Who had spoken; he did not know where he was going. That is the ordinary condition of faith, and it has not changed.
And the chapter is honest about the cost. Not everyone in it was delivered:
"And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment... These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise." (Hebrews 11:36,39)
They died without receiving it, and Scripture calls that faith too — which quietly demolishes the teaching that faith is measured by outcomes.
Scripture describes several kinds of belief that fall short, and it is worth being able to recognise them.
Belief caused by miracles alone. A crowd believed after seeing signs, and He did not entrust Himself to them:
"Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men." (John 2:23-24)
Belief that will not bear a cost. The seed on stony ground sprang up quickly and had no root, and withered when the sun rose — a picture of enthusiasm that has never counted what it may cost.
Belief that is never confessed. Some among the rulers believed, and would not say so:
"Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." (John 12:42-43)
That is a sobering verse, and it names the reason plainly: they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
The test in every case is the same. Not how the belief began, not how it felt, not how much of it there is — but whether the whole weight is genuinely resting on Christ, or still on the man himself.
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who is the author and finisher of our faith. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You that we have often trusted our faith instead of trusting You. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to turn every reader from confidence in himself to confidence in Your Son, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).