A misunderstanding of what the New Testament calls "faith" can cause you to have a mechanical view of salvation. Modern Messianic Jewish scholars see the problem of post-Enlightenment Western man not having a correct view of saving faith because he thinks like the Greeks of the first century. These scholars prefer to translate "faith" as "trust" to avoid the problem that the Apostle John saw. John avoided the problem by not using the word translated "faith", but rather the word translated "believe".

Up until the Enlightenment, Western man saw God as a Personal, all-powerful force, intimately involved with the everyday life of man. But since the Enlightenment, Western man has increasingly seen God an an impersonal force detached from everyday life.

Did you ever wonder why the Gospel of John Never uses the word "faith" in the better translations?

The answer has a direct bearing on the subject of Decisional Regeneration. John wrote his Gospel primarily for a non-Jewish audience. That is why he starts his Gospel with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The "Word" was a direct reference to a Greek philosophical idea of an impersonal power that controls everything, or alternatively, an impersonal power that made everything to work the way it does.

Jews did not see God in either of these ways, but Greeks either thought many demi-gods controlling the physical elements or there was an abstract, impersonal force of creation. That abstract impersonal force was called the Word, or Reason, or Wisdom, or Knowledge, or First Principle.

Matthew, Mark and Luke were not concerned their Jewish audience would misunderstand their use of the word "faith" as an impersonal force like gravity because Jews knew that God was in controlof everything that happened. For example, Jews knew if they dropped an object, it fell to the ground because God allowed it. But for the Greek, who thought things could be outside the control of a single, all-powerful, Personal God, gravity (and faith) could be seen as an impersonal force available to man to use as he wished.

John did not want the Greeks thinking that faith was a force that could move mountains apart from intimate relationship with God. For this reason, he used the word "believe" 52 times compared to Luke (4 times), Mark (11 times) and Matthew ( 7 times) in the King James Version.

The word translated "faith": in the New Testament is Strongs 4102
pistis, which means persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation. The King James translation words for pistis are assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

Pistis, or "faith" was understood by the Jew in the context of intimacy the personal God. But the non-Jew did not have this understanding of personal relationship with an all-powerful God. So John avoided any confusion by using the word translated "believe" in the New Testament. Strongs 4100
pisteuo : to have faith in, with respect to a person or thing, that is, credit; by implication, to entrust, especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ
The King James Tarnslation words for pisteuo are believe, commit, put in trust with.

Matthew, Mark and Luke did not worry about emphasizing the sovereignty of God when they spoke of faith because the Jews saw everything as controlled by a personal all-powerfull God. But John knew if he used the word faith with Greeks, it would be misunderstood, just as it is today ny post-Enlightenment Western man.