Truly Redemptive Faith, as opposed to other kinds of faith, is actually best understood to be, "an all-encompassing humility before God." And, this redemptive humility is most clearly defined by our eagerness to embrace, through Christ, God's values, truth, and meaningful daily companionship and guidance in our life.
But the contemporary American Church has allowed this true concept of redemptive faith to widely morph into the perverted idea of the believer's "non-responsibility" This is the idea that essentially the believer is impotent when it comes to resisting the sin motive. Therefore, we are not capable of being consistently faith-expressive in our heart or our lifestyle realities. So, it logically follows that a just God does not require that consistency of us.
But, the true reality is this. The first premise, that the converted believer is left impotent and therefore non-responsible is completely wrong. So also, then, is the the second premise, that God does not require the believer to be consistently faith-expressive.
This belief that man is incapable of consistently faith-expressive behavior certainly seems to have escaped the Apostle's notice as he wrote these words in the New Testament in his letter to the Church at Rome. Paul said in that letter, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!
"Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
That doctrine to which Paul refers is simply the doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ. It is the Resurrection which furnishes to the believer the promise of a divinely empowered personal renewal in the Living Christ. The mechanism of that renewal is what the Church calls The Baptism of the Spirit.
This is that life changing merger so easily seen in the records of the New Testament when God effects an integration between Christ's character essence and that of the believer. And, through this symbiotic integration with the Living Christ, the ascendance of the sin motive in the believer's heart is defeated by the power of that Christ essence which now strengthens the believer's heart.
And, by that same divine character essence of the Living Christ, the faith motive is raised to ascendance in the believer's heart and begins to redefine the believer's entire existence - both within and without. Thus, this new Living Christ-empowered heart, does, indeed, begin to consistently re-inform the believers lifestyle realty to the specifications of faith rather that those of sin.
So, indeed, we are not merely saved and forgiven only to remain broken in heart and life. The true Gospel is not merely one of forgiveness. Truly, it is a much more meaningful and completely fulfilling Gospel of forgiveness and personal renewal.
Certainly, the Christian Gospel does begin with the forgiveness of that magnificent Cross of the Dying Christ. But, from that Cross, the authentic Gospel immediately points the believer toward that spectacular "Target Event" of the New Testament - that thoroughly heart-renewing metaphysical merger with the Living Christ.
So, it follows then, that to embrace the ideas of the believer's impotency and non-responsibility, one must entirely ignore this truly life-transforming impact of the Living Christ furnished to us through the Resurrection. And if one does that, simply preferring to surrender to the baseness of their human nature, this has the same impact upon our relationship to God that we would expect it to have upon our relationships with each other. It entirely destroys both the meaning and the authenticity of the relationship.
For example, operating under the idea of "Well, since I'm not really capable of rising above my base nature, I'll just surrender to those inclinations." Obviously, this begs the questions, "Where would such a surrender leave the parent/ children relationship if that was the child's attitude? Where would it leave the husband/ wife relationship? Would not society, as a whole, actually lose all relational meaning and fulfillment since all serious relationships necessarily involve an abiding responsibility toward others.
Thus, it becomes easily obvious that the idea of personal non-responsibility before God is not only ludicrous, but indeed, it is also devastating to our relationship with Him. Again, the loss of this anchoring fidelity essentially destroys both the meaning and the actual reality of our relationship. And yet, this is the very flawed concept of Redemptive Faith which we have far too widely embraced in the contemporary American Church at the grassroots level under all of our various banners.
And, it is this widespread and serious error in our concept of the redemptive process which largely explains the Relational Gap between God and the contemporary American Church. This "R/Gap" is just the natural result of our now widespread misunderstanding of how to correctly engage God through a properly re-constituted faith enabled by the Living Christ.
And, it is a prescribed certainty that we will not be able to close the emptiness of this R/Gap until we once again embrace the correct idea of what a truly redemptive faith actually is and how it is sustained in the Living Christ. And if, in fact, we do widely fail to fill that relational gap with redemptive truth, it will most certainly be at the great expense of a great many souls.
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"Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not preached in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never intimately knew you: depart from me, you who practice self-determination." ~ JesusFor a more comprehensive look at the concept of A Truly Redemptive Faith you may want to read "The Dark Light" in Reading Room 4.
And, for a truly in-depth look at the authentic redemptive process you may want to read: Spiritual Dynamics: The Metaphysical Realities Explained
