The Fact Of Faith

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

If you are saved from sin, you are saved through a personal faith in the Gospel of Christ as defined in the Scriptures. Though it may at first seem dogmatic and narrow to you, the fact remains that there is no other way. The Bible says, “I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you . . . for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1, 3, 4). The Bible says that we are saved when our faith is in this objective fact. The work of Christ is a fact, His cross is a fact, His tomb is a fact, His resurrection is a fact.

It is impossible to believe anything into existence. The Gospel did not come into being because men believed it. The tomb was not emptied of Christ’s body that first Easter because some faithful persons believed it. The fact preceded the faith. We are psychologically incapable of believing without an object of our faith.

You are not called upon to believe something that is not credible, but to believe in the fact of history that in reality transcends all history. We call upon you to believe that this work of Christ for sinners is effective in all who will risk their souls with Him. Trusting in Him for your eternal salvation is trusting, not in a figment of someone’s imagination, but in a fact.

Our Father and our God, I trust in the facts of the Gospel of Christ. I put my faith in those facts and in Your marvelous grace. I know my salvation is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, and raised. Help me to walk in His steps so the world will see Him through me. In Christ I pray. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).