Why must our faith be tested?

It says clearly that the faith that saves us is a gift of God: "For you have been saved by grace through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

But if saving faith is the gift of God, then why does it have to be tested?

I can think of two reasons.

One is simply that false understandings of faith may be refined away. If I live by a faith other than saving faith, then I can say such and such a faith delivered me. Faith in my good works. Faith in my good upbringing. Faith in my education.

God says through Isaiah: Behold, I have refined you ... I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake ... I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

So the first reason why this faith that keeps us must be refined is so that we know it, and we value it, and God (not something else, like good education) is glorified.

The second reason has to do with beauty. Here is a principle: anything that is material is shape-able. That is at once the glory and the risk of God’s creation. To reveal himself and his purpose, God did not only use concepts; he created a material world. And that world, because it is material, has to be ruled, which includes being shaped. Again, anything material is shape-able. And through being shaped, the beautiful emerges.

We all have worked on things we take pleasure in: a table setting, a flower arrangement, a poem, a drawing, putting siding on a house. Stuff needs to be shaped in order to get the beautiful result. And shaping is a kind of testing. It is a principle of this creation.

And so in both of these senses of testing – testing to rid us of dependence on false faiths, and testing so that we can be beautifully formed – our faith is proved to be genuine. And that results in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Logos2Go

Ephesians 2.8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God ...

1 Peter 1.6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ

Isaiah 48.10-11 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do [it]; For how should [My name] be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.