You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Well, welcome back to another episode of the VC hour. So happy to be back with you guys. And I just really love this time together. And one of the things that we do on this show is we try to go a bit deeper into some of those concepts. Some of those ideas that as we've talked about in the past may seem very easy, very simple, very straightforward. But as you really think about it, perhaps some of the things at the edges aren't as obvious as you might think. So you can take a word like last week's word, regeneration. Maybe that's a word you've heard before. But did you explore it in detail? And did you really try to understand what all of God's word has to say about it? Well, that's certainly something that we try to do on this show. We want to be sure that we are reading God's Word, that we are understanding what God's Word has to teach us, because we believe so deeply here that the more we understand about God, the more we will praise him for who he is. And that's a way of saying that all theology ends in doxology, or to say it differently, The more you know about God, the more you will absolutely praise him, because you'll see him for who he is and how he truly works in the world. And that's what we're going to do today. You know, last episode we talked about regeneration, and regeneration is that new birth, how we were one thing and we become something else. And today we're working on a similar topic, and that is the word conversion. What is conversion? Well, in its simplest sense, conversion is a response to regeneration. If you were to look at the original languages, you would see that the word that we often translate as conversion or to convert comes from a word that means to turn, to have headed one way or be pointed or oriented in one way. and then to end up going in a different direction. You can see this is a change of thought, a change of desire, a change of emotion, and even a change of your mind. That's a beautiful thing for us. And the Bible, of course, gives us a ton of practical examples of this. For instance, you might think of one of the episodes we did on Rahab. You can find a bit about that from our episodes on the book of Hebrews. Of course, Rahab once believed one religion pointed in one direction, just like everybody else in Jericho. and yet confronted with how awesome God is, she was absolutely overwhelmed by his grandeur, and she wanted herself and she wanted her family to be part of the people of God. There's nothing less than a conversion there. The thief on the cross is a fantastic example. When we first meet the thief on the cross, he is saying nasty things about Jesus, just like the guy on the other side is as well. But by the end, he has completely changed. And in fact, we find Jesus himself giving the most assured assurance of perhaps anybody in the Bible. He says, today you'll be with me in paradise. Well, what an amazing gift that is. As terrible as the thief's situation was, he nevertheless heard directly from the mouth of his Savior that he personally would be with him in paradise. Of course, you know the story of the Philippian jailer from the book of Acts. This guy completely oriented in the wrong direction, and has an experience in which he sees the power of God through the life of Paul and the rescue of Paul, and in that he wants what Paul has. You might think of the Samaritan woman. John chapter 4, we find Jesus encountering the Samaritan woman, and not only does she have a change of heart, but she also wants the same for other people as well. You have to come and hear him. He has told me every single thing I've ever done. You might think about the eunuch in Acts chapter 8. This eunuch is reading from the book of Isaiah, but doesn't understand it, doesn't understand what it's saying. But the Spirit reveals to him the truth through a man who has been placed in his path. And in fact, there's every reason for him to be not only converted, but to be baptized. Of course, you know about Cornelius and his dramatic experience in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 10. where Peter is there to help him in his journey. And no less than Peter, because as Cornelius was very much a Gentile from a very powerful Roman background, took someone like Peter under the direction of God in order to be the one who could demonstrate to everyone that the conversion of the Gentiles actually was quite a good thing. And of course, you know that missionary to the Gentiles, Paul, And Acts chapter 9 has his own conversion experience, and what a radical experience that was. We could keep going on and on. There are actually quite a few more we could talk about. In fact, we could talk about times where there was a collective conversion, it seems. You might think about the judges cycle, and if you remember the book of Judges, you remember Time after time, the judges were brought into a situation where the people had seen the evil of their ways and were feeling that just chastisement, the correction of God, and they prayed out to God for someone to help them out of their trouble. God would hear them, and they would turn from their wicked ways, and God would produce a judge. And for a period of time, that judge would protect them from outside, but also protect them inside as well. Or you might think about In Jonah, Jonah chapter 3, having heard what I often tell people is probably one of the worst sermons I've ever heard as Jonah's sermon to Nineveh, the Holy Spirit nevertheless uses it. Jonah chapter 3 verses 8 to 10, But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger. So we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Man, what a picture for us. You notice here in Jonah chapter 3 that God turns to them, and isn't that exactly what he promises time and time again? that the people who turn to him will find that he is a God who turns to them. And it's one of our great fears in life, isn't it? That we will try to reach out to someone and that person will reject us, and that person won't accept who we are, that we'll have exposed ourselves for no reason. And yet you have assurance from God himself that he will, in fact, accept you and accept your turning to him. Now, who does the converting? Well, that's really the central question. That is, why does God accept you? And it's because He's the one who's doing the converting from the beginning. I mean, it'd be a surprise to you, but that's what it says. Acts 11, 18, when they heard these things, they fell silent. They glorify God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. So that granting of repentance that leads to life comes from God. Now, is that to say that the people are not being converted? They very much are. But who's doing the work? That tells us that God is. 2 Timothy 2 25, God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. Paul indicates in 2 Timothy 2 that it is for God to grant repentance. Now, you may have noticed in this that I just quoted two passages that talk about repentance. And that's because if you study conversion, you see that the very word that we use in the Greek for conversion is often actually so closely related to the word for repentance that sometimes they are actually, in fact, used interchangeably. This idea of turning away. Now there's more than one word that's used for repentance, that's for sure, just as there's more than one word that's used for converting, and yet you see that they are somehow very closely tied together, so closely that one might even say they're essentially synonymous. We have repentance so closely tied to converting because repentance is nothing less than a turning away from our former ways, our former thoughts, and our former directions, and being headed instead into a new path and in a new direction. Repentance is an important element, or you might say an important concept, attached to the idea of conversion. And you can't have conversion without repentance. And that is because repentance itself is a turning away, just as we would say that conversion is as well. And what type of repentance, or what level of repentance, is necessary? And the answer is total. It is something that the scriptures attach to our mind, to our emotion, and even to our will. You might find, for instance, it attached to our mind in something like Romans 3 20, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin. That is to say that the scriptures teach that you have to have a knowledge of sin in order to be able to Without a knowledge of sin, there is no repentance. Well, here in Romans chapter 3 verse 20, Paul makes it so, so clear that the law that God provides gives us a knowledge of our sin. If we don't have that knowledge, then there's absolutely no chance that we will be able to repent. Just think of it this way. Can you turn away intentionally from something that you don't even know you're doing? Of course you can't. You have to know it in order to be able to repent. And of course, how do we know it? Well, it's God who has to reveal it to us through his law. And this is one of the primary elements when we think about one of the uses of the law. There's other uses as well that we could talk about in greater detail at some other time. We've talked about it briefly before. But the fact of the matter is, it's as simple as this, that you need to know that you've done something wrong. And how will you know it? Well, what's right and wrong for us is revealed through the law. The law is an expression of God's character as he has given it to us. And so when we encounter God's law, we see God for who he is, that he is high and holy and set apart. Not only that, the law acts as a mirror for ourselves so that we see ourselves as we are as well, which is that we are sinners in need of repentance. And who does that work of revealing to us who we are? Well, we have to have a mind that knows our sin, and that mind must be provided for us by God's words, the work of God in us, that we see ourselves as we are. Not only that, but there is the emotion involved as well. 2 Corinthians 7, 9, and 10 says this, This is quite interesting here in 2 Corinthians. Paul is telling us that our emotions are involved in repentance, but not just emotions in general. Notice here it says that there is a other type of grief. There is a worldly type of grief. You don't have to be anybody special, and you don't have to be particularly led by the Holy Spirit to be grieved in general. Of course, you can hear that you have done wrong things, and it can make you sad that you did something wrong. But a grief that you have that does not take you to repentance is not a godly grief, but it is a worldly grief instead. So having been convicted of your sin, you have to have the correct emotional response. I can tell you from personal experience, There have been times in my life, in my capacity in the Church especially, but occasionally also in my work, where it has been necessary for me to confront people with their sinful behavior, doing things that are clearly wrong, that are clearly against God's teaching. And I am in a position where I have to show them that. I show them what God's Word has to say about their actions, and then I call them to some form of repentance. I can tell you that despite what you might think, it is often true that the person who's confronted in that way shows some type of grief. Now, sometimes, of course, there's denial, sometimes there's anger and bargaining and all those other things, but very often it's true that there is some type of grief. I have seen people weep. the fact that the Bible says that they ought to be acting in certain ways, and they are acting in different ways, and they grieve. I can tell you also from experience, the bare fact of them weeping, that is, them crying in front of me, as much as it is very much moving on a human level, does not itself mean that they have repented. They can be experiencing a very deep grief, and yet it's not a godly grief. So they're having some kind of emotional response to what they're hearing, conviction of their sin or knowledge of their sinfulness as they see God's law, realization of what that might mean for them. Certainly sometimes it's an emotion attached to the consequences they don't want, but I can tell you for a fact that if God is producing that grief in them, if it is godly grief, then they are going to be grieved into repenting. And I can tell you for sure that a person who's very sad that they've done something wrong, or very sad that they've been told they've done something wrong, or very sad that they've been caught, who in turn does not end up then repenting, Well, they're just being grieved in a worldly way. They've been grieved in a way that's just common to everyone. And that type of grieving, we're told, well, it leads to death. That is, the grief that doesn't lead to repentance, it's not like it doesn't lead you anywhere. It does. leads you to death instead. To the point for today, repentance does involve the emotion. Some people might think of it being only emotion, and for that I would say no, it requires a knowledge. But others might think that no, no, repentance is a matter of the mind alone, and to that I would say no. We ought to be grieved by our own sin, and there is a good type of grief, and it is of course, as I just mentioned, the type of grief that produces repentance. Repentance also involves the will. And hear this from Acts chapter 2 verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Repent and be baptized are commands. Those are things that they have to do, and in fact that they should want to do. And if you're being told to repent means that you're being commanded to repent, which means that you must want to repent in response to that command. And in fact, repentance does involve our will, our desire to change. It's not enough simply that you know that you've done things wrong and that there is another way. It's not enough As I mentioned earlier, that you have a deep grief, that you're very sad about it, even sad enough that you are thinking about the wrongness of your actions. But you must also want to repent. And this is the reason why we know for sure that godly grief produces repentance, because as we are grieved in a godly way, we have a desire, we have the will to want to do what we ought to do, which in this case is to repent. So conversion is very closely tied to the idea of repentance. In fact, they often use the same word, or I should say the same word is translated in some passages as being conversion and others repentance. But conversion is not simply repentance. There is another component to it as well, which is faith. That is, we receive what Christ has offered to us by faith. Now, in the past, we've talked about faith quite a bit as we went through all of Hebrews chapter 11. And in fact, I would encourage you, if you want a more prolonged discussion of what it means to have faith, you might look at that with some specific examples. But for today's episode, I just want to briefly go over some elements of what faith is, because I think faith is one of those words, precisely as we mentioned before, that we use quite a bit, but we're not always sure exactly what we're talking about. I found this with my students, that a lot of times when I ask them, what's faith, they can come up with elaborate and partially correct answers that are, in fact, incomplete. So allow me to simplify it for you, and then I'm going to give you some biblical examples of exactly what faith is. Traditionally, we think of faith as being composed of three parts, and this is the thing I want you to keep in mind as you think about the word faith, and that is knowledge, assent, Knowledge, assent, and trust. Knowledge, of course, is what you know. We find in places like Romans 10 14 that it says this, Here in Romans chapter 10, Paul is working through how salvation works, and he's asking, how could you believe in somebody if you don't know that that person even exists? You've never heard of them. And so it does require that someone to be sent to preach the Word of God so that you can hear it and so that you can understand it. This presumes, then, that any belief that we have—of course, that word belief is so closely associated with the word faith—it's necessary to have belief that you actually have some knowledge. Does that blow your mind? Well, I think if you've been listening to my episodes. It actually won't surprise you that much, because we've talked at length before about the fact that people often assume, in some very wrong categories, that you have knowledge in one hand and you have faith in the other, and that the two don't belong together. But the Scriptures actually teach something very, very different. The Scriptures teach us that we actually have very good reasons to believe. We have very good reasons to believe. That is, our belief is attached to some things that we know. So God doesn't ask that we have something called blind faith, but he actually roots our faith in something solid, that is, in himself. And we can see him in the way that he's worked in the world, we can see him as he has worked in history, we can see him as he illustrates himself, demonstrates himself in his word. So we have ample reason to believe. And of course, Paul in Romans 10 makes it very clear The reason you believe is because you have a knowledge of him, and without that knowledge, then you couldn't possibly believe. Listen to this from John chapter 20. Now, this is fascinating. If you were to think about why did John write some things and not other things, he tells you. He tells you that Jesus did a lot of stuff, and they're not all in this book. In fact, actually, if you look at what's in the book of John and you look at the other Gospels, you'll see that it seems like John gives us some stories that the other Gospels leave out. Actually, that's incredibly helpful for us. None of the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—none of them is completely identical to each other in the stories or the way that they arrange the information and so forth, and this is so hugely to our benefit. But the reasons the others arrange them the way they do, I think we can figure out by looking at the books themselves. But in John, we don't have to be worried or concerned about how or why he arranged these stories and not others. He tells us outright. He writes them so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. If you want to have a saving faith, if you want to have a faith that saves you, And he says it's by believing in Jesus Christ, and in order for you to believe in Christ, he has told you about Christ. He has written to you about who Christ is and what he did, so in doing, you might believe. So you see, John isn't asking you to believe in something you don't know, but instead he's telling you so that you will know, so that you will believe. So our faith is attached to what we know. Does that mean we know exhaustively? No, of course. In fact, I'm not sure I know much of anything exhaustively. But God has given us sufficient knowledge of himself as he's revealed himself in the world that he created, the handiwork of his hands. but also in his scriptures, so that we have sufficient knowledge so that we should believe. Not only knowledge, but also assent. You might go to places like John chapter 5, verses 46 and 47. If you believed Moses, You would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" So ascent really is tied most closely back to this idea of belief. You believe something to be true. You know it, that is, you have the content of what has been taught to you, and you believe that it's true. If you believe Moses, believe me, for he wrote of me. And here at John 14 11, believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. So you have heard these things, you have the knowledge, now you've been called on to believe as well. Notice in both cases, whether it's John 5 or John 14, there is a content that you ought to believe. The content is the thing you have to know, The belief is the assent that you put into it. And then finally, we have trust. That is, when we assent, we trust believing in something, believing upon something, or believing into something. In this case, it's the work and the person, the work of Christ. John 3 16, we all know this one so well, don't we? For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 14 1, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. When we believe something, this is not a mere assent. But in fact, we are relying upon something. It's not just the content that's being talked about here, but it is an utter reliance upon a trusting in, upon, or into someone. Acts 16, 31, they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. If you believe, you'll be saved. 1 Timothy 1, 16, I receive mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might be displayed. His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. Believing in Christ. I don't just know it, I don't just take it to be true, but I'm resting upon His person. That is trust in Him. 1 John 5, 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, you may know that you have eternal life. Notice here in 1 John 5, this idea is that eternal life is attached to the name of the Son of God, that we rely and trust in Him. That's where our object of faith is. We are putting our faith, we are resting in the work of Christ. Now, how is it described in Hebrews 11? That's a question that comes up quite a bit. Again, I did a whole episode on this, the first episode on the series. You can, if you're listening to me on radio ABC 993 FM, you could listen to me instead on vchour.buzzsprout.com. If you miss one of my episodes, go there and you can hear me, or you could just Google VC Hour and you'll see all of my episodes there. We're on everywhere that you get podcasts, you can find our episodes, including the ones on Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11 is interesting because it says that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. But those two words, substance and evidence, are a bit tricky to translate. Pretty much everyone will agree that that's the case, and so you might find that they may be better described in terms of certainty and demonstration. So it might read something like this, a certainty of things hoped for, demonstration of things not apparent, not obvious. And you see that flavors it a little bit differently than what some modern English translations would have us to believe. In fact, New Testament scholar S. M. Baugh makes a good case that these work in parallel simply to mean proof that faith, in a way, is the proof of what we had hoped for and the things that we have not seen. They are themselves the proof. You have to remember, of course, that the author of Hebrews is writing to a people who want sensible signs, signs that they can see and taste and touch. They, in the past, had had regular visible sacrifices. They could see them, they could taste them, they could touch them, they could smell them, and so forth, and those sacrifices for the believer had ceased. Why? Because Christ had come, and Christ is the superior sacrifice. We do have still the Lord's Supper, it's certainly in effect and is itself a sensible sign, just as baptism is a sensible sign, but both of those things remember in a sense something that happened in the past. The emphasis instead is on a true certainty of faith, and that is what the author of Hebrews is trying to say. As much as in the past you had sensible signs, you had sacrifices that were regular and prolific, there were so many of them, Even then, those were the occasion for faith. You should have been doing them, I should say, by faith. And what is the certainty of faith? Well, the certainty of faith is the object of the faith, which is Christ. That is, your faith can be as strong as you want it to be, but if the object of your faith is worthless, then your faith is worthless. So what is the object of your faith? Well, the object of your faith ought to be Christ and Christ alone. You see, he's the one who is worthy of your faith, and so the true certainty of our faith is found in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ. Interestingly, the faith has a future component, a past component, and a present component as we see it in Hebrews chapter 11. Old Testament saints were looking forward to a Christ who was to come. They were saved the same way that we are saved. Instead of looking to the past or the present, they were looking to the future of a Christ who would come. They had a promise of a mercy that they were to receive. We see this suggested in passages like Hebrews 11, 13. These all died in faith. not having received a thing's promise, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." See, there's a future component. If you imagine that the people in the book of Hebrews that had been described at this point did not get the full realization of what they had been promised. So to you, you don't have the full realization of what's been promised to you. Now, if the promises are not true, then there really isn't any faith. And yet the promises are true. So while they had not yet fully received what had been promised, they would receive it. Christ Jesus. And so they were relying upon the goodness of God for a future blessing. Not only is there a future component to faith, but believe it or not, the Scriptures teach there's a past component to faith as well. For instance, the cause of creation is an object of faith. Hebrews 11 3 says, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. You and I are know by faith that the universe came into existence by the powerful work of God himself. So one element of our faith is a looking backwards on things that happened in the past. Specifically, the example here is God as the cause of creation. It's very reasonable to believe that God is the cause of creation, and we receive that by faith that it happened by the very Word of God. Not only that, but of course there is a present component to faith. Every person that's mentioned in Hebrews 11 did certain things in their present, as in the moment they acted by faith in their present, and as in our present, we act by faith today. So that faith isn't just in something that happened in the past. but not also just something that happens in the future, but it affects us even now. Of course, the scriptures also teach that it is an instrument of salvation. Hebrews 10 39 says this, we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Our salvation is worked out for us through faith. Acts 16, 31, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. As we're saved by grace, the scriptures teach, and through faith. Ephesians 1, 13, and 14 say, In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. John 1.12, which we've heard about just recently, says, the children of God, who were born, not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God. So even as you receive him by faith, it is yet God who is acting. Where does faith come from? Well, we're told in the Scriptures that faith is a work of God by His Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12 says, no one can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. It's a very simple statement to say, but if you say it by faith, that's because the Holy Spirit has caused you to say it. Even your faith is something you receive from him. It is by the Word of God. As we mentioned earlier, Romans 10 tells us that we have faith as a result of the preaching of the Word of God. The culmination of that is verse 17. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. 1 Corinthians 121 says this, For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. That is, especially the preaching of the Word of God is a thing that helps us to have faith. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God, especially the preaching of God, to bring to life faith in us. Now, there's a number of things that are often confused with faith. There's a good number of people who think that faith is just bare knowledge. That is, they have a knowledge, they know the Bible, and they assume that the knowledge of the Bible, or the knowledge of who God is, is itself faith. But just to know something is not to believe it, nor is it to trust in it. So simply knowing is not enough. There are many men and women who are scholars of the Bible in the sense that they know a lot of things about the Bible, but nevertheless are not believers. They do not believe the things that they know. And so bare knowledge is simply not enough. You must have, instead, a true and lively faith. Not only that, but you can actually believe the knowledge is true without trusting in it, and that also is not faith. I know that may come as a surprise to you, but just knowledge and assent is not faith. How can we know that? Well, imagine what demons believe. I think you probably know the passage, don't you? James chapter 2 verse 19 says, You do well, even the demons believe and they shudder. This might well be a reference back to one of the early creeds in the Old Testament who says the Lord our God is one. So you believe that God is one. Okay, fine. Don't you know that demons believe that and shudder? That is, they have a knowledge. They know who God is. They know what God is. Do they believe it's true? They absolutely believe it's true. Do they trust in it? No, not at all. And for that reason, we know for sure that the demons are not saved. They do not have faith. Take this, one of the earliest and best proclamations of who Christ is comes from Mark chapter 1. verses 23 and 24. We don't find it earlier than this in the Gospel of Mark. I don't think we have anything as good as what this unclean spirit says. Immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." That is such lofty praise of this Jesus of Nazareth. I don't remember if we talked about this before, but to be of Nazareth is to be nobody from nowhere, and yet he says he's the Holy One of God. So this unclean spirit had a knowledge of the person of Christ that it seems like even Jesus' own disciples at that point didn't know. And yet this unclean spirit is an unclean spirit. He has knowledge, he believes it's true, but he is not trusting in the person or the work of Christ. Acts 26-27, this one's about a man. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. Well, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? I mean, this King Agrippa normally would think, hey, you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. You'd think, hey, that's a good thing. I mean, how could it be bad that he believes? Well, he has a knowledge, and he has some assent that what is being said is true, but is that for his salvation? That is, is he saved by it? If you were to read that passage, you'll find that the quote doesn't end there, does it? No. In fact, unfortunately, he goes on to say something else. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe, he says. And Agrippa said to Paul, in a short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian? That is, he's very closely persuaded, but he's certainly not fully persuaded. He has some knowledge, he has some assent, but he doesn't have trust. He's not a Christian. He says so himself. So belief without trust is simply not enough. Belief without trust is not faith. And finally, the thing I think probably most often associated with faith incorrectly is faithfulness, that is, works. You should know that while faith does save you, it is contrasted with works. Works, in fact, do not save you. Galatians 3.11, it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. This idea that the righteous shall live by faith is not a New Testament concept, it is a whole Bible concept. And here Paul in Galatians is quoting from the Old Testament. Romans 3.28, "...therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." That is, it is not faithfulness which will save you, it is faith, by grace through faith. Romans 4.5, "...and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith counted as righteousness. Some might take the saying that we are saved by faith to mean that's one of the components but is not a sufficient component. Here Paul in Romans 4.8 says no, that's the whole thing, that's the whole kit and caboodle. To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So we find that works are fruits and evidence of a true and lively faith, that is they are a product of of the work of God in us, but faith is not itself faithfulness. In fact, if you are putting your reliance upon your faithfulness, well, you're relying on yourself, aren't you? And is that what God would have us to do? To trust in ourselves, believe in ourselves? No, he calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order we can be saved. Well, this is conversion for us. It is repentance and faith. Praise be to God. He does the work of regeneration in us, and it produces repentance, and it produces also faith in us, open hands that receive what God has given, knowledge, assent, and trust. Thanks be to God. We can trust him. As long as Christ is the object of your faith, you can be sure you will not fail because the object of your faith will not fail. Thanks be to God. You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. you