Faith vs. Faithfulness — What’s the Difference?
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God's children can get confused regarding the difference between faith and faithfulness. They know they have faith—knowledge of God's salvation in Christ, assent to that glorious truth, and a hearty trust in Christ their Savior—but they may also worry about whether they are being faithful—true to God, a devoted follower of Christ.
What are we to make of Jesus' words, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13), and do we need a certain amount of faithfulness to endure to the end?
We can't truly rest in Christ if our eternal hope depends on our own personal faithfulness.
Some people think that God saves us by grace through faith in Christ but we must be obedient—faithful—to keep God's grace fully. In other words, we need to do something in addition to Jesus' finished work on our behalf to be saved and have eternal life. Yet, if this were true, no one could truly have peace in Christ in this life because the final outcome for them would depend on their own personal faithfulness, and these words below that Jesus spoke wouldn't make sense:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28)
Mercifully, the Bible teaches that salvation comes from outside of us through the work of Christ, not from anything we do (for some examples, see Rom. 5:1; 6–8; 15–17; Rom. 8:1–11; 2 Cor. 3:4–5; 5:17; Eph. 2:8–9; Titus 3:4–7).
The fruit of the Holy Spirit is evidence of a person's adoption into God's family in Christ.
When James writes about the relationship between faith and works in the second chapter of his epistle, he is referring to the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in the lives of believers:
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18)
These works that show faith do nothing to save a person; rather, they are evidence of a person's adoption into God's family in Christ. All believers bear the fruit of the Spirit because they are branches attached to the vine of Christ (John 15:4–5; Gal. 5:22–23; Col. 1:10).
True faith—the saving faith that is God’s gift to us in Christ (Eph. 2:8-9)—always produces faithfulness. It isn’t the size of our faith or the amount of works we do that guarantees our status as children of God. It is in God’s faithfulness to his promise where our confidence rests:
“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” (John 6:39)
And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. (1 John 2:25)
A true believer will have sorrow over his or her sin and want to live a life that is honoring to God.
Believers will experience true sorrow over their sin because they have the Spirit indwelling them (Rom. 7:14–25). If a professing Christian consistently excuses his or her sin and is living the unrepentant lifestyle of an unbeliever, then there exists the possibility that the person has not actually been regenerated to new life by the Spirit. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul specifically addresses the importance of self-examination in the Christian life:
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Cor. 13:5)
The apostle John addresses the state of those who depart from the Christian faith:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)
Two evidences that believers are growing in holiness are an increasing awareness of their own sin and a corresponding desire to stay away from all ungodliness. Christians show gratitude to and love for God by keeping his commandments (John 14:15; Heb. 13:15; 1 John 2:3; 5:3). This obedience is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving the believer offers up to God; it is never a means to keep—or earn—God's grace.
All Christians are called to live faithfully, but our faithfulness does not save us; rather, salvation is completely the work of God alone.
Just as sometimes children disobey their parents and are disciplined accordingly, God disciplines us because we are his beloved children in Christ and our status never changes, and he will use our failures to teach us through the work of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself. (2 Tim. 2:11-13)
Dear Christian, as you strive to live faithfully, to honor and obey God in your daily comportment, remember that your faithfulness isn’t what causes you to endure to the end. Rather, you are saved by God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—nothing of yourself. And it is God’s faithfulness—not your own—that keeps you safe and secure in Christ now and forevermore.
This article has been updated since its original publishing date and is adapted from “Faith vs. Faithfulness” from BCL’s April 2022 monthly newsletter.
