My "Church of Christ" friend Pat Donahue, with whom I have had a few debates, said "salvation does not come at the point of faith or by faith only" in a recent e-mail giving one of his bible lessons. Then, in order to prove this he said (highlighting mine):
"A very important one that first comes to mind is Rom 10:13-15 which starts by saying “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and therefore teaches a sinner isn’t saved until he calls upon the name of the Lord. Every Baptist I have ever talked to agreed this is the proper understanding of verse 13.
Yet calling on the name of the Lord comes after one believes according to verse 14 – “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?” ("have believed" is past tense in the Greek). Every Baptist debater I’ve ever gotten to comment on verse 14 has admitted one can’t honestly call on the name of the Lord until he believes on the Lord first. That only makes sense.
So since salvation comes when one "calls on the name of the Lord" and since "calling on the name of the Lord" comes after belief, then salvation must come after belief. My opponent's proposition that salvation comes at the point of faith/by faith only is clearly disproven! It is disproven by the Bible, and by my opponents’ own admissions. I have never understood how Baptist type apologists can make such admissions and still hold on to their position, but they always do."
So, how would you, my Baptist friends, respond to this line of argument from the Campbellites? In my debates with Pat I have stated to him that he does not understand what we mean when we say that sinners are saved by faith alone. We do not mean that the faith that saves is alone, that there is nothing that goes along with it. The same argument has been made about the necessity of repentance for salvation, Donahue saying that "faith alone" means faith without repentance. But, faith is an instance of repentance, for repentance means to turn or to change one's mind, and who can doubt that when an unbeliever believes he has turned and changed his mind? So, faith is not alone. Wherever there is true saving faith there is repentance.
The same thing may be said in regard to obedience. It could be argued that "faith alone" means saved apart from obedience and yet the scriptures say that "Christ is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him." (Heb. 5: 9) However, saving faith is an act of obedience, for all are commanded to believe in Christ. (I John 3: 23-24) Wherever there is true saving faith there is obedience.
The same thing may be said in regard to confession, whether it be confessing of sin or confessing of Christ as Lord and Savior. When a person believes the Gospel, his faith confesses that both God and the Gospel are true. It is impossible to find a person who savingly believes but who does not make this confession, first in his heart and mind and then to others. The Greek word for "confess" means to be in agreement, and when a person believes he at that very instant agrees with the Gospel message. Wherever there is saving faith there is confession. So, faith is not alone, though this faith alone saves. To believe from the heart is synonymous with confessing from the heart.
The same thing may be said in regard to calling upon the Lord out of faith. The instant an unbelieving sinner believes in and turns to the Lord he calls upon the Lord to save him. There is no such thing as a true believer who has not done so. Some might respond, however, by citing these words:
"Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue." (John 12: 42)
In response to this we may say first that it may be that those who "believed in him" did not believe in him with the heart, as Paul said "if you believe in your heart" (Rom. 10: 9), but believed only with a mental assent, with a head knowledge alone, what we call a "nominal faith," the kind of faith that the wayside hearer possessed, who "believed for awhile" but fell away when facing persecution for his faith. His faith did not proceed from a "good and honest heart." (Luke 8: 13) This "leaves only" believer had no fruit, was not genuine or sincere in his faith, and only "seemed to have" true faith. (Luke 8: 18)
Further, it may be that the ones in the above text did confess Christ in their hearts in private and later did so publicly, though they did not at the first. They may have done so as a result of hearing Christ say to them:
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven." (Matt. 10: 32-33 nkjv)
Donahue also fails to understand that salvation is progressive and continuous, having a past, present, and future aspect. A true believer has been saved, is being saved, and will be saved. There are things Christians do to be saved initially, and things they do to be saved daily, such as enduring to the end. Enduring to the end is not a condition for initial salvation, but is a condition for continuing to be saved and preserved, and to be saved in the end. Also, there may be a logical order where there is no chronological order.
When the Phillippian jailer "fell down trembling before Paul and Silas" and said to them: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas said to him: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16: 29-31)
If water baptism were necessary for salvation, then Paul and Silas did wrong in saying "believe and you will be saved." If believing is a dollar and baptism is fifty cents, would not Paul have said that salvation cost a dollar fifty? But, to the jailer he said one dollar.
If believing did not involve repentance and confession, they would have added those things in their instruction to the jailer. But, they obviously saw faith as including those things, and included obedience and calling on the Lord.
The same thing may be said in regard to loving God and Christ. True faith does not exist without love. In fact Paul says that "faith works by love." (Gal. 5: 6)
The same thing may be said in regard to placing trust in God. True faith does not exist without trust.
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