Romans 10:13-17 “For "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (14) How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? … (17) So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
We have seen in the previous section that even though God gives to each person the gift of faith as part of their DNA so to speak, by the time they reach maturity many no longer exercise their faith, and especially not in God. So how is it possible for people in that condition to get saved, for we have also seen that without faith it is impossible to be saved? The above quoted passage of scripture gives us some insight into the answer to that question. Many, in reading this passage “faith comes by hearing”, interpret it to say that people get faith when they hear God’s word proclaimed. In other words, their viewpoint is that people initially don’t have faith and the faith to be saved is only imparted to them when they hear the gospel of salvation proclaimed. But that interpretation of scripture contradicts the truth that everyone is given faith by God when He creates them. A more accurate translation of the above passage however, would be “faith emerges by hearing” or a better way of saying that would be “faith is activated by hearing”. In other words people already have faith, but their faith has become dormant so to speak, and so when people hear the truth of God’s word proclaimed to them their faith becomes activated once again, and they can thus exercise their faith by believing the message of the gospel and thus be saved. And so, we can see that when we rightly divide the word of truth that there is no contradiction in scripture.
Michael E.B. Maher
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