Another problem with the faith-is-a-gift view relates to sanctification. According to advocates of this view[,] true believers will never fail to live godly lives. This is because God, having infused them with faith, guarantees their sanctification throughout their lives. However, this diminishes the seriousness of the commands of Scripture for believers to pursue holiness. […]
If faith is a gift, then many commands in Scripture that exhort, command, prompt, and warn believers to live obediently become superfluous because the ultimate end of infused faith guarantees the sanctification of believers without their involvement. Followed to its logical conclusion[,] the gift-of-faith view lessens the urgency of putting forth effort to obey scriptural exhortations. (p. 275)
The assumption that people are spiritually unresponsive and thus unable to exercise faith for salvation does not stand up to biblical scrutiny. Since faith is never considered a work in the Scriptures, God need not endow individuals with faith in order to avoid a merit-based salvation. Instead, the Bible presents faith for salvation as a human response much like that of a beggar holding out his hand for food. Passages that supposedly teach the gift-of-faith view do not, on careful examination, support that view. (p. 276)
René A. López, ‘Is Faith a Gift from God or a Human Exercise?’, Bibliotheca Sacra 164 (Jul.–Sept. 2007)[1]
Copyright © Dallas Theological Seminary, 2007. All rights reserved.
Note
1. For the full article, see René A. López, ‘Is Faith a Gift from God or a Human Exercise?’, Bibliotheca Sacra 164 (Jul.–Sept. 2007): 259–76, <https://www.dts.edu/download/publications/bibliotheca/BibSac-Lopez-IsFaithAGiftfromGodoraHumanExercise.pdf>. (Regrettably, as from no later than Saturday, 18 September 2021, the aforementioned link is broken, thus no longer providing access to López’s article.) —J. D. Gallé