But what about without faith and faithing, pistis and pisteuo, there's no salvation.
With that thought process, pisteuo the active form of faith is the most important word. Without a personal surrender to Him and a life inspired by such surrender, there is no salvation......
True, so the implied need for Vines and us is to combine the two words in one comprehensive definition.
I combine them as follows:
A crisis that threatened a Philippian jailer with death prompted him to ask Paul and Silas
the most important question in life: “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30) This question is most important, because—as sinful and mortal souls—we need saving from corruption, both moral and physical. We need saving from physical death if we value or enjoy life, and we need saving from immorality or evil-doing if it results in unhappy existence, especially after this lifetime.
Jesus expressed GRFS succinctly by saying “Repent” (Matt. 4:17) and “Ask… seek… knock…” (Matt. 7:7, Heb. 11:6, Isa. 45:19), implying that God gives every sinful soul the ability to repent and seek salvation (cf. 1Tim. 2:3-4, 2Tim. 2:25, Ezek. 33:11), which might be why Paul said sinners are saved “by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8-9, Tit. 2:11). Seeking God is the beginning of
saving faith, and not repenting or rejecting God’s salvation in Christ is the essence of evil atheism or faith in I-dolatry (Rom. 3:11, 1:18-23).
The reply of Paul and Silas to the jailer was, “
Believe in the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 16:31). This is GRFS in a nutshell:
“Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as also in 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6). The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:
- There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or Creator God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who loves sinful humanity (Rom. 5:6-8, John 3:16) and who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
- Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
- Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
- Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent of unbelief and accept God’s grace or justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), at which moment God’s loving Holy Spirit of Christ indwells/baptizes the believer into the church (Rev. 3:20, Rom. 5:5, 1Cor. 12:13).
- Loving Christ Jesus as Lord (Luke 2:11), God the Son (Matt. 16:16) or God in the human dimension (Col. 2:9) means reflecting divine love (DL) as empowered by the Holy Spirit, thereby obeying His command to love one another (Matt. 7:21, 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2), which will eventually achieve spiritual maturity on earth and heaven after Christ returns at God’s resurrection (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Phil. 3:12-16, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).