How does a marriage license illustrate faith? Are we saved by faith only without obedience? Is baptism necessary to forgiveness? What about repentance and confession?
A news item from years ago read as follows:
“Court Clerk Everett Rains of Corbin, Kentucky, issued a marriage license to a young couple… Several days later he met the mother of the bride on the street. ‘Well, how did the marriage ceremony come out?’ Rains asked. ‘You should know,’ the woman said. ‘After all, you married them.’ Rains, taken aback, explained diplomatically he didn’t marry the couple when he issued the license. The honeymooning couple was brought back from Cincinnati, Ohio, and a preacher did what Rains hadn’t!” *
What’s the lesson?
Faith Is Like a Marriage License
John 1:12 – But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
Many people have been taught that believing in Jesus gives them eternal life: they receive forgiveness by faith alone and nothing more is needed. They confidently believe it, like the young couple believed they were married just because they had a license.
But the Scripture says that believing only gives people the “right to become” children of God, just like the license gave the couple the right to become married.
James 2:24 – You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
Acts 10:35 – …in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.
Matthew 7:21 – Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Faith by itself no more saves from sin than obtaining a marriage license makes a couple married. Faith gives the right to become a child of God, but does not make one a child of God.
What Else Is Needed?
Romans 10:9,10 – If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Mark 16:15,16 – Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Acts 2:38 – Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…
Faith is essential to becoming saved just as surely as a license is essential to becoming married. But faith alone does not save any more than a license alone makes a couple married.
Those who have been taught they were saved by faith only are like the couple who thought they were married just because they had a license. Like the mistaken couple, they need to come back and do what they should have done to begin with. They should repent of their sins, confess Christ, and be baptized for the purpose of receiving forgiveness by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Have you been saved from your sins, or do you just have the license to be saved?
* Quoted from Truth and News, Huffman Church of Christ, March 11, 1968.
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(c) Copyright David E. Pratte, 2025; gospelway.com