Number DOI: https://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2018-6-15-22

VB. – № 6, 2018. – P. 15-22

Summary

The purpose of this article is to research the role and crucial importance of faith in the sal- vation of a human-sinner. Faith in Christ is the means by which a man reveals the love of God, that is, the fact that a committed sin does not interfere with the convergence of God with the man, that God has forgiven sin and all his home-building is oriented to some- how direct a sinful person to Himself. “The Christian’s chasuble, that covers the ugliness of our sin, is faith in Christ,” says St. Vasyliy the Great.
The relevance of this study is the importance and significance of faith for a Christian in the case of his salvation. It is human existence that is grace, because it corresponds to the will of the Creator and is given or otherwise assigned, to man who is the creation of God. Faith in Christ is a means of knowing the love of God. “No one has ever seen God”; and therefore, no one himself can know that He is love. He revealed to mankind as “the only begotten Son, being in the bosom of the Father” (I.1, 18). “Love (God’s), we have learned from this that He has laid His life for us” (1 John 3:16). Thus, a person can know the love of God, only on condition that he believes that Jesus, who was hurt and crucified, is, indeed, the Son of God.
Why is it so hard to believe for a sinful person? The presence of faith already shows the beginning of human change; because, as St. Athanasius of Alexandria says, “faith is a sign of spiritual indifference”. In order to actually turn from sin and accept grace, to join the union with God, it is not enough only to be sincerely convinced of the mercy and close- ness of God, but indeed to give up sin and turn to God.
In faith, therefore, the very essence of the rebirth is concentrated. Showing the love of God to man, faith morally connects him with God. Faith has revived a man, faith has developed and raised him in spiritual life, and faith will lead him to eternal bliss. Salvation means that man finds it himself, but it comes to him only by means of faith. But in the transition to the future world, faith turns into love, and love, which ties a person to God, lasts forever.
Thus, faith, showing God’s love to man, makes a human being morally connected with God. A man sees in God the Father, who is ready to accept him. This moral convergence ends in baptism, in which a man, affirmed in the love of God or in the consciousness of this love, is indeed combined with Christ and since the baptism moment he is “created to do good things”.
Faith is not only a cause, a driving force in the spiritual development of man, it is, rather, the heart of spiritual life. As faith grows, love grows, the more love grows, the more faith increases: the moral development of man and his expression, and his fruit is found in the strengthening and growth of faith. Faith facilitates affairs, and affairs improve faith (Jn 2: 22). Faith is indeed an alpha and omega of moral life, as the Lord Himself, which it reveals to man.
Faith is not something that a person can do without. It is necessary for salvation. The doc- trine of the important role and significance in personal salvation has a direct and solid foundation in the Scriptures and the works of the holy Fathers.

Key words: God, faith, salvation, man, sinner, love.

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