Is Faith in Jesus Essential or Sufficient?

Every once in awhile I check out lds.org just to see what the LDS church is up to. It’s usually pretty telling to see where the focus is at a given time. It is currently running a lot of promotion for a new website they’ve developed dedicated to Jesus. I won’t venture to speak on why they waited until now to launch such a site, but will let that fact speak for itself. What I do want to comment on is one of the featured articles on the site talking about faith in Jesus Christ being essential to our salvation. To the untrained ear, this likely sounds very mainstream Christian. And Latter-day Saints certainly do believe that faith in Jesus Christ is essential to salvation, as do mainstream Christians. But that’s only half the story.

There is a dramatic difference in something being essential for salvation, and something being sufficient for salvation.

Let’s take, for example, a fishing analogy. Is a fishing pole essential to catching a fish? Yes, absolutely. You can’t very well catch a fish without one. But is it sufficient for catching a fish? Not by a long shot. Think of everything else you have to have in order to catch a fish, in addition to the essential pole. You’ve got to have fishing line, a hook, and some bait… and that’s only concerning the actual fishing rig. Unless you have a body of water and actual fish in the water, you have no hope of catching a fish. In this way, a fishing pole is essential to catching a fish, but not sufficient.

This is the same way that LDS doctrine teaches having an essential faith in Jesus Christ. It is essential, but not sufficient. Not only do you need faith in Christ for salvation, but you also need many, many other things. Just to name a few… baptism by immersion by the proper authorities, membership in the LDS church, temple ceremonies, and full repentance of all sin. Even marriage to a person who has also completed the essential requirements is a requirement for Celestial glory. In LDS doctrine, a faith in Jesus Christ is essential, but it is far from sufficient.

In order for something to be sufficient, it must provide all that is needed, all that is required, within itself. It must not depend on any other essential item.

This is a dramatic difference between Mormonism and traditional Christianity. Traditional Christianity proclaims faith in Jesus as sufficient for salvation. At least in part, this is why there is such a resistance from Christians to consider Mormonism a Christian religion. It takes the focus off of Jesus, at least partially, and places it on the individual’s essential merits.

John 20:31; But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Belief in Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation. But there is something more to that word “belief” that is also too often misunderstood. It is the greek word pisteuo, which implies a reliance on, rather than a simple belief in. I can believe that a rickety old rope bridge would support me as I cross over a death-defying gorge. But a pisteuo belief implies actually believing to the point that you put your life on the line for your belief in that bridge… meaning you actually cross it. A pisteuo belief is relying on that bridge alone, with no other means of safety – no safety lines, no riggings, no parachute, no catch net below you. It is a belief – a faith – of reliance on nothing else.

That is really the difference. Traditional Christianity says that a pisteuo belief in Jesus as your savior is sufficient. LDS doctrine teaches that a belief in Jesus is just one of many essential things, but is not sufficient and, by definition, such a belief cannot be a pisteuo belief.