What Is Saving Faith?
Can 'Practicing the Way' Get You Saved?
When I wrote about John Mark Comer a few weeks ago, it struck a nerve. Comer might be the most popular Christian author writing today. His books, courses, and studies are extremely popular, and for that reason alone, he’s worth taking a close look at.
As a pastor, it’s part of my shepherding responsibility to know what’s out there, especially when it’s being read widely and used as discipleship curriculum. Given, as I mentioned in the previous article, that I’ve learned a lot from Comer, I keep an eye on what he’s doing and the trajectory of his ministry.
There’s a lot to be thankful for in what he’s doing. Following Jesus as disciples - or apprentices - and doing the things he does addresses an anemia in the American church. Especially in the Reformed world, the fear of being called a legalist has often blunted the edge of Jesus’ ethical teaching. In addition, we’ve paid far too little attention to the formative practices we engage in all the time. Our phones, and thus the social media companies, are the greatest disciplers in the world today. That should push us to do more and more counter-discipleship, but sadly, Christians on the whole are doing less.
The ends are good. What about the means?
“Engaging with ‘Practicing the Way’: Nine Thoughts on John Mark Comer’s Best Seller” - Daniel Schreiner, 9Marks
Daniel Schriener pastors in the Pacific Northwest and raises some healthy cautions about Comer’s newest book, Practicing the Way. These concerns revolve around a central point, Comer’s understanding of the gospel. Schreiner quotes Comer defining the Gospel about midway through the book,
“The gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to all. Through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit, Jesus has saved, is saving, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus, we can enter into this kingdom and into the inner life of God himself.” Practicing the Way, 135-136.
When we talk about the Gospel, we have to remember what Jesus began preaching in his public ministry: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). The Gospel is a message - it’s good news - about something that has happened. To quote one of Comer’s strong influences, N.T. Wright, “God has become King.” He rules the world through his Messiah, Jesus Christ. In the first two sentences of Comer’s definition, so far so good.
But how do you get into this kingdom? Comer writes, “Through apprenticeship to Jesus,” we can be saved and enter into the kingdom. This is not exactly what Jesus says. The entrance into the kingdom is repentance, because you’ve got to deal with your sin.
The problem with following Jesus just as a good example is that we learn to be better behaved, but never truly receive salvation for our sins. It’s simply not enough to start living differently now, because what about the sins of our past? The promise of Christ is that by repenting of our sins and trusting in his finished work on the cross, he pays for our sins and makes us right with God.
On a related note, when we become united with Christ in faith, we receive the Holy Spirit, which transforms us from the inside out, helps us to desire the things of God, prays for us, and intercedes for us. We need the work of the Spirit to walk in holiness and put our sins to death. Paul says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
On a practical level, this isn’t theological hairsplitting. It’s impossible to ask someone to be like Jesus without the Spirit in their life, not to mention extremely frustrating. Trying to live the Christian life without the indwelling spirit is like trying to drive a car that has no gas.
All of this reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s prescient quote in Mere Christianity about following Jesus as a moral teacher; “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” Comer does believe Jesus is God; that’s not the issue here. What I wonder about is how he goes beyond seeing Jesus as more than a moral teacher.
Comer’s mantra, “Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did,” is a good summary of the Christian life, but it doesn’t tell a non-believer how to become a Christian.
Though I have not heard him speak about it recently, it used to be well-known that Comer was an annihilationist - the belief that there is no eternal torment in Hell, but that anyone who doesn’t go to Heaven simply goes out of existence. In a way, these positions are related. If there is no eternal punishment in Hell, it is because God does not need to punish sin, he simply needs to get rid of it. On the flip side, this contorts the Gospel into self-improvement rather than salvation. If sin is not an offense against a holy God, then there’s nothing to be saved from. God just wants us to start living better, more moral lives.
Here’s Schreiner’s conclusion;
“I wish that Comer would have used his engaging writing and sharp cultural analysis to persuade readers of the authority of the Scriptures and the necessity of the cross. The result could have been an excellent discipleship tool for following the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, I was left with a Jesus that would make for a great life coach, but not the Savior and Lord as revealed in God’s Word.”
I’m not so sure the result isn’t a good discipleship tool, but the problem is there’s too much left unsaid. In writing about these issues, I try not to assume the rest of someone’s theology just because they haven’t articulated it. However, there are some serious gaps emerging. Comer has been extremely helpful in reframing discipleship; I’d like some clarification on salvation and atonement.
“To Cling to Jesus: Why Churches Must Embrace the Creed” - Glenn Packiam, Church Leaders
2025 marks 1700 years since the Council of Nicea, the most significant early council in the church and the source of the Nicene Creed, which is still said every Sunday at churches across the world. Even for non-creedal churches, Nicea offers a sketch of historic Christian orthodoxy, or as Packiam puts it in a helpful metaphor, a rope that leads us home through the blizzard.
“Drawing on words and phrases of the New Testament, leaders wrote the creed at the same council where they confirmed the canon of Scripture. In fact, the Nicene Creed serves as bumper lanes for reading the Bible. It prevents you from reading in a way that contradicts this confession.”
As a follow-up to the discussion on Comer, this is an interesting article. Packiam is on board with Comer’s discipleship project. He even uses his language to describe the Christian life; “Because discipleship is not spiritual extra credit that’s optional; it’s the ordinary Christian life. It is apprenticeship to Jesus, fully and completely. The goals of discipleship are to know Jesus, become like Jesus, and join Jesus in his work in the world.” But then he goes one step further, discussing the creed as the baseline for the what it means to be a Christian.
There are two interesting points in his discussion. First, he’s more precise on salvation, citing the vertical and horizontal aspects of salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, “When humans are set right with God and then with one another, the Holy Spirit gives them power to join God’s mission of setting the world right.”
Second, he’s very good on saving faith,
“The last word in the creed’s repeated phrase ‘We believe in…’ is also significant. Believing in is different from believing that… ‘We believe that’ is a statement about something; it’s known as a propositional truth. Some distance exists between you and the thing you’re proposing. But discipleship doesn’t happen from a distance. Faith is more than cheering from the banks of the falls. It isn’t simply believing that there’s a God; faith involves drawing near to God. Yes, the Nicene Creed is our rope back home. But all along the tightrope of faith, we must keep clinging to Jesus.”
Finally, Packiam puts the creed and Christian practices in the right order: “Think of it this way: The Nicene Creed is the rope that leads us home. Spiritual practices are how to live in the home once we get there.” Strong doctrine plus strong practice is the key to the life both Packiam and Comer describe.
“Don’t Buy Into a Revisionist Gospel” - Harrison Perkins, The Gospel Coalition
We’ve been talking about saving faith, but what is it? Matthew Bates’s 2017 book Salvation by Allegiance Alone reframed faith as allegiance. We’re not simply believing a set of historical propositions, but trusting in Christ. To trust him means to throw your allegiance behind him, to commit yourself to him, and be a part of his kingdom. This was a helpful corrective to the over-intellectual versions of faith you sometimes encounter; “Believe in the historicity of Jesus’s death and resurrection and you’re in…”
In a new book, he goes a step further, attacking the traditional Protestant understanding of justification by faith. In his pushback on Bates, Perkins adds a couple of important thoughts to round out our discussion.
In the allegiance-only model, Bates, too, drifts away from sin being the central problem Jesus came to solve and toward moral action among Christ followers. Positioning himself against Augustine’s notion of original sin, Bates falls into another version of Jesus as a good example; “Notably, in Bates’s gospel, we receive justification by performing the same actions as Christ, stressing Christ as exemplar rather than Savior.”
We’re back to our question: how exactly is the grace of God applied to sinners? How can we have our sins atoned for?
You can’t do any better than Martin Luther’s great exchange;
“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it. And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them… in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”
Quick Reads:
“Mapmaking Our Meaning in a Modern World” - Rowan Williams, Seen & Unseen
“Reaching the West with Wonder” - James Wood, Mere Orthodoxy
“Reductive Humanity” - John McGinnis, Law & Liberty
“How Not to Handle a Pastoral Succession” - Caleb Morell, Crossway
Great article! Fair critique of Comer. You’ve definitely convinced me that he’s weak in the areas you described.
I’m huge fan of the podcast and everything you’re putting out there so forgive me if this comes across combative—if so it’s not intended, I just don’t know how else to write and this is an issue close to my heart.
I’m not sure annihilationism got a fair shake here. I think there is room in annihilationism for God’s punishment of sin.
Destruction is not just a way of sweeping sin under the rug, but a punishment in and of itself. Language of destruction and annihilation are used all through scripture to describe God’s judgment and punishment. Just by observing the world, you can observe that destruction usually involves a great deal of pain and suffering. An annihilationist need not erase all punishment, or even all pain and suffering, from God’s judgment on sin (though there are surely annihilationists who have that goal). For me, it’s the *eternal*, *maximal* piece that is being brought into question.
For me, annihilationism is not about whitewashing God to make him nice and pleasant and less scary (“don’t worry, he doesn’t spank them, they just don’t get as much candy”), so much as making sense of how a God who is good, compassionate, slow to anger, the defender of the helpless, Love himself, Goodness himself, perfectly just, etc., punishes.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and a God who destroys the wicked is terrifying and awe-some and just. We need not paint him cruel in order to be humbled before his justice. A God who creates billions of conscious beings that he just tortures maximally forever (and that includes, like, 95% of humanity, even if you draw the borders of the church broadly, no?; but even if it only included 5%, the point would stand) is terrifying too. He is also, by any simple definition of the word, cruel. And it doesn’t fit any comprehensible definition of his justice, mercy, goodness, compassion, fatherhood, etc. As far as I can tell, it is starkly incompatible with the just and fearsome and holy, but also compassionate and good and patient Creator who revealed himself in Jesus and in the pages of scripture.
I know that a list of verses can be marshaled in favor of this very specific eternal-maximal-torment view of God’s method for punishing sin (which shouldn’t be equated with the view *that* he punishes sin). But I think those verses must be interpreted in light of the clear overall picture of God’s justice, mercy, and goodness that scripture as a whole paints, and that plethora of verses about “destruction”, “annihilation”, “utterly destroyed”, etc. as a method of God’s just punishment should also be considered. When all of that is taken together with the more cosmological considerations I laid out before, I think annihilationism should be given more weight as a legitimate, biblical, orthodox view, even by those who don’t subscribe to it.
Again—long time listener, first time caller. And you’re a better theologian than I! No shade intentionally thrown. Just thought I’d throw it out there!