The chair analogy for faith

It has been said that the faith by which we are saved is like believing a chair will support you, and that faith is not complete until you sit in the chair.  It’s not enough to believe the chair will support you, but you have to sit in the chair, or your faith or belief is incomplete. 

    

I find this analogy problematic when it is used for the faith by which we are saved, because it adds another step to faith, before it is considered faith.

If a person believes a chair will hold them, then what if they do not sit in it? Do they believe it will hold them or not? The sitting in the chair is an extra step beyond simply believing it will hold you. What would correspond to the sitting in the chair when it comes to the faith by which we are saved? Would it be some good work like feeding and clothing the poor or getting baptized?

If salvation (justification, regeneration) happens at a point in time--and I believe it does--and that point in time is when a person believes certain divine truth, then whenever that divine truth is believed, salvation has taken place. 

Whatever a person may know and believe up to that point of believing the truth that results in salvation can be preliminary.  This could be true with reference to the chair analogy, because before a person believes a chair will support him, he will have reasons to come to that belief, such as the history of the chair being used by others and maybe the appearance of the chair.  If the chair has not supported others, or it appears broken, then he does not have reason to believe it will support him, but if others have sat in it, and it appears to be in fine shape, then he has reason to believe it will support him.   Either he believes it will support him or it will not. Or he may be uncertain, but uncertainty is a lack of persuasion. There's also the fact that the chair is not God, and things like chairs do not carry the kind of certainty that the character and word of God does.

If the chair analogy did not include the extra step of sitting, it could be a fine analogy.  That is to believe the chair supports you is an analogy of the faith in that divine truth by which you are saved.

But it seems that those who use the analogy want to add another step.   Why is that? 

The issue here is not the preliminary knowledge and faith.  

Does salvation happen at a point in time when certain Divine truth is believed or does it not? 

Is salvation put on hold until one acts in some manner consistent with that faith, such as feeding and clothing the poor or getting baptized? 

 

What act must one do, if he has believed the revelation by which salvation comes?

The analogy is seeking to say that the belief that a chair will support you is incomplete until you actually sit in the chair.  This analogy concerns me, because  it adds another step.   The real issue is whether you believe.

Salvation takes place at a point in time when a person believes that divine revelation which results in salvation.  No further step is needed.  Either you believe that revelation or you don’t. (What that revelation is is another issue.) Therefore, I don't use the chair analogy for faith or believing, unless we are only comparing the faith that a chair will hold you with the faith by which we are saved, not including another step to complete it.