Why are we saved through faith? It's funny how many of us including myself are stumped at this question. Why faith? Why not have it that we are saved by going to Jerusalem and hitting a button that gives us salvation? Why not saved by good works and by doing good deeds? Why not automatically be saved from birth? For that matter, why even have the ability for us to be able to not be saved? Wouldn't it of been better if the Tree of Knowledge had never existed? First lets look at why we were created in the first place.

  Why did God create us? Why did God create anything? If you can answer that than you know the meaning of life. It's explained in the first chapter of Genesis in three words, "it was good". (Gen 1:4-31)

  God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Gen. 1:31)

  The word good here in the original Hebrew is Towb, meaning, good, pleasant, agreeable. God created us and it was pleasant to Him. We were created for His pleasure.

  However, unlike the rest of creation we were created in His image, in His likeness. As God is free, we were free, thus giving us the ability to love Him truly. For love that is manufactured is not love at all. In order to have the ability to love God, that is to choose Him, we have to have the ability to not choose Him. In comes the tree of knowledge. It was the one thing humans could do that would be opposing to God. We had the entire garden to roam and to eat freely from, and to walk with God, with the exception of one tree (Gen 2:16,17).

  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." (Gen. 2:17)

  Now we have free will, for without options we cannot choose, without choice we are not free. Without freedom we cannot love God. They could either be united with God sharing perfect fellowship with Him, or they could choose to oppose God in going against His only (at that time) commandment.

  This rules out the possibility of having automatic salvation, for to force salvation is to remove free will. If you remove free will than you remove God's intended purpose for us in the first place, to bring Him pleasure.

  This brings us to why are we saved by faith? That's simple, it's because we have no way to save ourselves. Why isn't their something we can do to save ourselves? Because it won't work. We have no means within our grasps to save ourselves.

  because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight...(Rom. 3:20).

  Pretty helpless feeling if you let that sink in. We have no way to save ourselves. We have nothing we can do to contribute to our salvation (Gal. 3:3). We need a miracle, a savior of Godly magnitudes, we need Jesus.

  So why are we saved by faith? Because it's the act of receiving salvation by the only means available, by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. (John 19:30)