What we consider here is crucial to our experience of the Christian gospel and to salvation itself. There is a Saviour to rescue rebels from sin, its power and its consequences, but in order to benefit we must have saving faith.

The Bible insists that faith is absolutely necessary. Hebrews 11:6: But without faith it is impossible to please Him John 3:16, 18, 36: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

All who belong to Adams' family are implicated in his initial rebellion, they inherit sin and death. All who are in Christ's family inherit righteousness and life. Romans 5:12, 15, 17: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned - But the free gift is not like the offence. For if by the one man's offence many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. For if by the one man's offence death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.  Now it is clear who are Adam's family. We are naturally descended from that man. But who are Christ's family? We are not naturally or biologically descended from Him? He had no natural sons. No, we are spiritually descended from Christ. We are grafted into His family by faith. That is why it is necessary.

This faith is not mere optimism or positive thinking. We hear people talking like this: "She is always so bright and cheerful. Such faith". But that is not what the Bible means by faith. We may hear people saying that if we believe something sufficiently then it will come true in our experience. But faith does not make reality; it admits to reality. Our faith does not create what it wants like Peter Pan's fairies which exist or do not according to whether people believe or do not. Go to the bottom of the garden and believe in fairies - see how many you can create! No. Faith admits to what is true quite apart from that faith itself. The little boy who announced that "Faith is believing what is not true" could not have been more wrong. Biblical faith is believing what is true. It is believing what we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence (or "confidence") of things not seen.  Faith is not confidence in what does not exist, but in what is not seen. There is an important difference. Biblical faith is confidence in God, in Christ, in His power to save. None of this can be seen, but is very real.

One might ask how confident is faith to be genuine saving faith. We must answer that it must be sufficiently sure to act. In Hebrews 11:7, for example, we are told that Noah had faith because he built the ark. He probably had his wobbly moments when he found it hard to believe, when he was unsure, but he still acted on his basic conviction. He carried on building. Faith is more comfortable when it is really sure, but even when it is weak and struggling, it is still genuine saving faith.

The definition of saving faith implies that there is content. Note: Hebrews 11:3, 6: By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  In both of these verses faith is referred to in terms of its content. Or see Hebrews 11:7: By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.   Again, God spoke to Noah and Noah believed God.  God has spoken to us in holy Scripture and saving faith believes. What is the content of saving faith? It is all of the Bible.  Of course, when you first become a Christian it is too much to take in.  You don't understand Leviticus, don't know where to find Song of Songs and have never heard of Obadiah.  Learning the bible is a life time's work.  So here is what we can start off with as a minimum summary: the Apostles' Creed.  For nearly two thousand years this has been respected and used by the church (of all denominations) as a statement of essential biblical truth. We only accept it because we see that it is what is in the word of God. Here is the content of saving faith.  You may ask "What if I cannot accept one of the articles of the creed. Do I have Christian faith?" Well, you have a faulty faith. It is damaged. It is still saving faith.  I probably have a damaged water pipe to my house judging by the water in the lane. For all that the mains pipe is broken and faulty, it is still an effective pipe in that I have water in my kitchen tap. If you have a faulty faith, it is still faith, but get it mended! Get it sorted before it gets worse.