Believe Or Believing?

My Sunday school class discussed the nature of Saving faith last week. A good discussion after the debate to have. Is it possible to have a false faith? Is it possible for people to say they believe when in fact they are deceived?

An argument Dr. White used in the debate was from John's Gospel chapter 2:23-25:

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

Notice that men supposedly believed in Jesus, but Jesus would not "entrust" Himself to them. The Greek word is the same for entrust and believe. But one connotes a full entrusting oneself, and one gives the idea of a past action with no real present ongoing condition.

So is believing just being "convinced that something is true" or is it more than that? Is it without works? Can one truly believe in John's gospel and not have works as a fruit? Is believing something man does of his own free-will, or is it a work of the Holy Spirit of God within a man?

So many today think they can believe for a moment at a service where the preacher has made them "sermon sick". They were shown their sins, therefore they are convinced of certain facts of death and hell as a punishment for their sins. But as James says, "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was."

Is this not what may be a major problem in Evanjellyism today? So many think they have been saved. Perhaps this is why James spends much of the first chapter of his letter on trials and tribulations. So many people consider suffering simply of the devil. Perhaps God is conforming His own to the image of His Son.