Contending for the Faith

“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” 

—Jude 1:3

Faith can have several aspects. Most often it means either the act of believing: “I have faith in Christ.” Or it means the object of what is being believed, the content of faith itself: “I believe in the Christian faith.” Today’s passage speaks of the latter—the content of the faith itself. The content of the Christian faith is centered upon Christ—the God-man, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for your sins and mine, and rose from the dead, stayed 40 days upon the earth and then ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father, waiting for the day of His glorious consummation when He comes again, evil is judged, and all of those who have placed their faith in Christ are rewarded.

While we wait for that glorious day, we march on, faithfully living for Christ, sharing His truth, defending the defenseless, seeking justice, and making His name known in the world through our righteous works. We know that there are enemies of the cross of Christ, who seek to impugn His name by accusing believers of sin, and causing all kinds of doubt in regards to the faith itself. Satan is an expert theologian who knows the truth better than any of us, so he knows better than anyone how much a little lie can pollute truth. Satan assaults the truth of Christ by trying to distort the faith, getting people to not believe or follow the Word, make Jesus only a man, or a man who became god, or that He wasn’t born of a virgin, and on and on. His arsenals of attack are myriad and he has been shooting his arrows of unbelief and doubt for millennia, yet the truth of Christ has and will always remain.

As Satan seeks to assault the name of Christ and cast doubt on His salvation, we have been given the task to “contend for the faith once delivered.” That is to say, we are to fight for the truth of Christ that was delivered to the apostles and has been passed down to us. We are not to rewrite it, reinterpret it, or attempt to change its meaning by adding to or taking away from the content of the faith. It is sufficient in and of itself—perfect and whole as God has given it to us. That is our task, duty, and privilege, to fight for the faith of Christ. Not that we are physically fighting, but we are continually espousing the truth, defending its content, and living in the light of its truth.

We are to be “contenders for the faith” ready to step into the ring to defend the faith against all worldly philosophies, faiths, belief systems, and worldviews that attempt to discredit or cast doubt against the name of Christ. We are not pretenders, individuals who only look like Christians when it is convenient, ready to jump ship at the first sign of trouble. No, we are ready to fight and to die for Christ, because He fought and died for us. He gave His life so that we might truly live. May we all be contenders for the faith, ready to give a reason for the hope that we have, and ready to lay down our lives, if necessary, as an act of love and obedience, knowing He gave His own life for us. Amen.