The Object of Faith

1 John v. 11. — “And this is the record, that God hath given

to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.’

So long as the great means of raising man to life is Truth, so long there will be importance in Faith. And inasmuch as salvation is by believing, there is not one of us who is not interested in the inquiry, What is it that I am invited to believe? From the very nature of the subject it allies itself to every other truth of the system. And the doctrine is so important that it requires to be held uj) in various lights and revolved in various phases, in order to a complete view. There is a species of religious teaching which affects to disregard all doctrinal statement and distinction; you know where to find it, but it belongs not to the children of the

Keformation. Our characteristic for centuries lias been the establishing of all emotion, passion, purpose, and activity on a settled basis of unmistakable truth, so essential as to sustain its friends, and so outspoken as to offend its enemies. In the ministry of this doctrine, our whole reliance under God is on its being clearly and honestly stated. If it is false, our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain. “Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden thinos of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” 2 Cor. iv. 2. The day was, dear brethren, when we ourselves disbelieved these blessed verities; hence are we more earnest in bringing them as near as possible unto you; and “the Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the Word of Faith which we preach.” Rom. X. 8. Concerning faith, many things have already been said, but the inquiry which now presses with most importance, and which I design to treat simply and by familiar illustration, regards the object of saving faith; in other words, What is it that I believe, when

I HAVE THE faith WHICH IS UNTO SALVATION?

The text contains a sufficient reply, being one of many comprehensive statements of divine grace and mercy: “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Now, the point which we cannot too particularly observe in the context is, that this declaration of God, this critical and cardinal truth, is the very truth held forth to be believed in order to salvation. That is, this is the truth, the believing of which is saving. In other words, this belief is saving faith. Or, more exactly for our purpose, this declaration contains what we are to believe in order to be saved, i. e.^ the precise object of faith. Let me request your more particular attention to the way in which the words are introduced. The apostle is discoursing of testimony, or witness-bearing, and for this plain reason, that faith is belief of a witness, and that divine faith is belief of God as a witness. Mark, then, how he brings the sinner up to the point — most critical and momentous point — in which he must credit God or discredit him, in which he must rest on God’s veracity or hold it unworthy, in which he must recognize the grand object or deny it. For observe what is said, verse 9, of testimony in general, and divine testimony in particular: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, and this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” Observe, further, what is said, verse 10, of crediting the Son, by crediting the Father, who speaks in testimony of him: “He that believeth on the Spirit of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar;” here the sinner is brought to the critical point of acknowledging or denying God’s veracity “because he believeth not the record that God gave by his Son.” In these words it is put beyond controversy, that the matter to be believed, the object of faith, is “the record that God gave of his Son.” But to remove the last remnant of doubt as to what this record is, these words are added: “And THIS is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Behold here the truth to be believed: behold here the object of faith.

Now here we might rest, and here, indeed, many a simple childlike soul has rested and been saved. For pure, clear, unsophisticated affiance, this word of God’s redeeming mercy is enough. But ah! how much does the Father of Lies, the primeval deceiver, the murderous suggest er of doubts, abhor this saving verity, and how constantly does he try, first to remove it out of the way, and in default of this, to perplex and tangle it with many complications! Nine-tenths of the work of the Bible-theologian consists in sweeping the cobwebs of ages from the windows of the soul. And though Providence raised up a Luther to tear away this obscuring curtain, the noxious foe as by ten thousand spiders is weaving, weaving, weaving it again. Even such decisive terms as those of the text become obscured, by being painted over and over by erroneous theology. Hence we have to substitute other terms, diversity of phraseology, manifold illustrations, thus imitating the Scriptures, which change the language again and again, lest the simplest should fail to catch the meaning; but above all, must we gather and make plain the varied statements of the Word itself. For instance, not to go beyond this short letter, we find the following passages, which convey the same meaning with the text, and so equally hold up the object of faith, ii. 2: “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.” ii. 25: “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even Eternal Life.” iv. 10: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins.” All which is summed up in the Gospel epitome of another apostle, 2 Cor. vi. 19, to wit, “that God [is] in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” We may, therefore, confidently say that the truth to be believed, in order to be saved, or, in other words, the object of saving faith, is this: God for Christ s sdke now loohs with reconciling love on me a sinner,

I. Keeping out of view entirely all that concerns the mental act which we call faith or believing, and which is sufficiently treated in another discourse, let us place before us, and in the converging rays and focal point of Biblical ligM, the great but simple truth wliicli is to save us; hoping and praying that by the guidance of the S]3ii’it we may not mistake, but be enabled to jDenetrate through all mists and coloured clouds to the vital reality. What is it that I believe loheii I savingly come to Christ? To the unawakened hearer, the answer seems of no interest. God has uttered it to his deaf ear a thousand times; but to a soul pierced by the arrow of law, it is an answer of life. “What do I believe? This: that God for Christ s sake noiD loohs in love on me a sinner. The disclosure of this is a great fact, the gift of his Son. “He gave his only-begotton Son “... and, as this demonstrates, “so loved the world “... that the sinner’s faith is commanded. He takes God at his word ... he reads the letters of blood ... he accepts the pledge of the Cross ... he sets to his seal that God is true; he says, though fainting, “I give up; Christ does love me, God is my God, and I am a pardoned soul!” But hold, we must go to work coolly, for it is a matter of investigation. We are looking closely, to desciy in God’s light the very object of saving faith. All God’s truth is the general object of faith; but we seek the particular object of tie faith which brings pardon. What is a dying child to believe, in order to be instantaneously justified?

0 hearer! O thou who hast heard the truth from these poor lips so often, to thy hardening and perhaps to thy eventual destruction, O that

1 could think thou wouldst listen to my reply as touching thy case. Hearken to the answer. The truth to be believed is one, yet comprehensive. It is this: God, for Christ’s sake, now makes over to me in the offer of the Gospel, a full pardon, without price or meritorious condition. Or thus: God here and now gives me Christ as my salvation from sin, a salvation to be received this instant. Or thus: Christ Jesus came to save the chief of sinners, and so to save me. Or thus: God is infinitely loving, and infinitely willing to save me, just as I am, and the moment I believe. Or thus: God is now become my reconciled Father through Jesus Christ.

Already you are whispering to yourself, “There is nothing very great in this; all this have I known from my youth up!” Yea, dear incredulous sinner, you have indeed known, but never believed. The grandest, strangest, loveliest truth in all the universe, wliicli makes, the theme of all redeemed choirs above, is to you a hackneyed proposition, and a discredited commonplace. It would be far otherwise if you felt your soul sinking. The life-boat carried along our streets is a thing of indifference, perhaps an obstruction of the drive; but in the howling breakers and boiling surf, it is, in regard to life, the way of salvation. The truth on which faith seizes is very simple. Let us, however, turn it upon its axis, that different aspects of the orb may face our vision.

II.” God, for Christ’s sake, is reconciled to me, a sinner.^ Here is a proposition sufficient to save the soul even in the jaws of damnation,

but IT I^WOLVES SEVERAL TRUTHS.

He who believes it, believes other things as well. All his antecedent beliefs are taken up as Ijy summation in this, as all the previous stages and developments of the seed, blade, stem, leaf, bud, and blossom are perfected in the simyle but matchless rose. In receiving Christ I receive a world of blessed truth, heavenly but childlike, because of children is the kingdom of heaven. I receive and admit who Christ is, what he is, the love that was incarnate in him, the works he wrought, the words he spake, the Cross he endured, the righteousness he furnishes, the offer he sends me, the holy salvation which he bestows. Hence so much is made of believing on Christ. Sitting with my fellow-sinners and fellovz-weepers, and fellow-lovers, where the Marys sit, at Calvary, and looking up into the pale and livid face that speaks divine sorrow and compassion, I am visited with many beliefs, but all harmonious. I believe, as never before, that there is no other salvation, that I cannot save myself, and that this saves me. I believe myself wretched, impure, justly condemned, and utterly helpless. I have a sincere faith in the doctrine that God loves sinners, even the world of them, and that this dying Son of God is sent to save them from perishing. I read in the crimson spectacle, the mighty cost at which God the Father redeems and rescues. Recalling what this Jesus has said and done, and forborne and endured, I behold law satisfied and justice enthroned and glorious. In the

THE OBJECT OF FAITH. IQloutstretclied arms of my neglected but now beloved Jesus, I discern a welcome to me and all the world to come and take wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. ISiow, now I know, that God makes a free and unreserved gift of Christ, and makes the gift to me. Yes, this Jesus, and with him pardon, acceptance, and life; this Jesus is mine on my acceptance. And I do accept. Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief All this is only an imperfect, free translation of the expression that God, for Christ’s sake, is now reconciled to me, a sinner.

III. It is important to guaed AOAiisrsT several EREOES RESPECTING THE OBJECT OF FaITH.

For though that which is to be believed may be stated in many ways, it is not every statement which may be made, that contains the truth which saves. Some who have never had a breath of genuine Gospel wafted to their legal wilderness, imagine that they have long knowai the heavenly message, and that it is this: Whosoever lives so as to please God shall be saved. In whatever sense this might be true in a perfect state, it is not the record which faith accepts, and it shows itself not to be sucL, by its wanting the essential idea of the GosjDel, viz., free gift. The belief of this proposition, however strong, would give no relief to a sin-bui- dened soul. Neither is this the thine to be believed, that salvation is possible. This is true, as many other sayings are true; but it does not reach the case. Some have taught that, by the mediation of Christ, we are placed in a salvable state. This would throw the selfcondemned wretch, already despairing of escaj)e by his own struggles, back into the sea where he was drowning. It is the deep conviction that his most vehement endeavours are worthless, which has driven him to look beyond himself for aid. The truth which the sinner takes hold of at his calling is not that God, by the plan of salvation, has come down from heaven to meet him half-way, and that by his own doing he is to make up the remainder of the distance. This is no Gospel, least of all a free Gosj)el, in the ears of one who is not merely crippled but dead in trespasses and sins. Many there are who go all their lives halting between two opinions, and balancing between law and Gospel, by reason of unscriptural teaching on this point. It may be laid down as universally true, that lie who suspends his peace of soul, or his warrant to rejoice, upon any amount of performance by himself, either outward or inward, can never be certified that he has performed enough, and therefore can never attain to unshaken confidence. The proposition that God has done part, and we must do part, in respect to redemption, is not so much inadequate or irrelevant, as utterly false. “Salvation is of the Lord.” A<>:ain, saving faith is not the believino; that, after I shall have gone through a certain mental and moral process or train of exercises, such as awakening, conviction, submission to law, purpose of entire holiness, or what is by many taken as repentance — though scrijDtural repentance is a difierent thing — then I may find God reconciled to me. Such is not the proposition to be believed, and if it were, no one could know, without inspiration, whether he had reached the necessary j)oint in the process, and therefore no one could know whether he mig-ht yet rely on the Redeemer of the lost. It is a more full, a more sure, a more present salvation, that is in God’s “gift” and in faith’s “record.”

To evince how nearly Christians of different schools agree on this point, let me quote some words from the sermon of a Moravian brother; they were published with approval by J. Wesley, and to the endorsement we add our humbler name:” But you will say, Must I not grieve and mourn for my sins? Must I not humble myself before God? Is not this just and right? And must I not first do this before I can expect God to be reconciled to me?’

“I answer, It is just and right. You must be humbled before God. You must have a broken and contrite heart. But then, observe, this is not your own work. Do you grieve that you are a sinner? This is the work of the Holy Ghost. Are you contrite? Are you humbled before God? Do you indeed mourn, and is your heart broken within you? All this worketh the selfsame Spiiit.

“Observe, again; this is not the foundation. It is not this by which you are justified. This is not the righteousness; this is no part of the righteousness by which you are reconciled unto God. You grieve for your sins. You are deeply humble. Your heart is broken. Well; but this is nothing to your justification. The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Your humiliation and contrition have no influence on that. Nay, observe, further, that it may hinder your justification, i. e.^ if you build any thing upon it; if you think I must be so or so contrite; I must grieve more, before I can be justified.’ Understand this well. To think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, is to lay your contrition, your grief, your humiliation, for the foundation of your being justified, at least for a part of the foundation. Therefore it hinders your justification; and a hinderance it is, which must be removed before you can lay the right foundation. The right foundation is, not your contrition, not your righteousness, nothing of your own; nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, viz., the righteousness and the blood of Christ.”

Coming still more nearly to the point, the object of faith is not any vague and general mercy. Saving faith is not the belief that God is reconciling himself to some, to many, to others. No; the overburdened soul sighs for something: more individual than this, and long-s for a voice which shall call it, and speak to it by name. And then it cries, “God hath given me eternal life!”

ly. But it is so much better to treat subjects of this nature a£6.rmatively than negatively, that we return with pleasure to the positive object of faith. That which the opening vision of the new creature looks forth upon, then, instead of inherent holiness, sincere preparation, or even faith itself as regarded by reflex acts, is something altogether without, above, and be-YOis^D ITSELF. Leaving out of question those — many such are among my hearers — who are altogether indifferent to the whole matter, the majority of those who fail to believe God do so because they cannot be drawn away from the fruitless employment of gazing into their own nothinoness. The time and strenyth which might be given to the Cross are spent in qneryQg, Have I holiness? Have I repentance? Have I conviction? Have I feelino;? As if title to come to Christ were made to depend on such or sncli desi’ees or kinds of feeline, wlietlier tender or joyous. Looking at self prevents the greater and more indispensable work of looking at a glory infinitely liigker than self, and vrliicli is the proper object of faith. When a conveiled soul has once been brought to the enraptured sight of “Jesus Chiist and him crucified,” rising above its horizon ^^dth the morning effulgence of love, “full of grace and truth,” it seems easy to look away fiom yreparations and conditions. But where is the believer who does not recall the time when nothing was harder than to turn the thoughts away fi’om home?

The single point at which the believing eye is directed is not only exterior to itself, but is altogether perfect, heavenly, and divine. It is something that God has fully done. It is a work wrought and consummate; a finished righteousness; a fact accomplished; an event which cannot be repeated; a deed which satisfies all heaven, and proclaims God a Saviour.

The tearful eye of faith fixes itself on an object wliicli is not made greater or less, better or worse, by the act of believing, but wliicli is always the same. The “one sacrifice of Himself,” the one atonement, propitiation, expiation, obedience, and satisfaction, lies there before the throne of God, as unalterably and eternally accepted. The quality, or preciousness, or jDower of this finished work is not to be increased by any thing that the sinner can do, or forbear to do. This immutable object of faith abides there in a sublime plenitude and incorruptible glory, typified by the golden covering of the holy ark. Being something not his own, the sinner sees it as pure gratuity. Moreover, in believing, he regards it especially as something given of God, made over in free ofifer, and tendered to the acceptance of every one who hears. How can we better represent this mysterious and lovely object, than by naming it Christ? It is the personal Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us, who is made over by deed of gift to sinners of mankind. What we call Glad Tidings, or Gospel, is the record of this gift, “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Believe this, and the gift is yours; the contract is joined; the connection is complete; the soul is married; God’s anger is turned away; Christ’s righteousness is your righteousness; you can never perish, neither can any pluck you out of God’s hand. This is present salvation; and it is accomplished in the case of the humblest soul, that, perhaps at this moment, joins itself to Christ. Such are the consequences of admitting the truth that God is reconciled to us for the sake of his Son.

V. Finally, lest some unremoved scruples or unanswered objections should prevent any from directly acting on the truth laid down, we ask a hearing for these iecessaey cautions and explanations.

1. This is not saying, as some have ventured to say, that saving faith is the belief that Christ died for me in particular. Faith does not busy itself with God’s decree as to who shall be saved. Faith accepts the glorious truth that Christ died, and otherwise made satisfaction, of such value as to suffice for all human sin, and adequate to accomplish all human salvation, and that God makes a frank offer of tkis atonement to every one who hears the Gospel.

2. This is not saying, as some have said, that assured certainty of being in a state of grace is of the essence of saving faith. Such assurance is of priceless value; but where it exists it is not faith, but a fruit of faith. Even the assurance of faith is distinguishable from certainty of being saved, which is the assurance of hope. Saving faith is man’s setting to his seal, “that God is true;” assurance of hope is wrought by God’s seal that the soul is his. One may precede the other. Eph. i. IB, 14: “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in whom, also, after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.” But “this infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it.” Confession of Faith, xviii. 3. To believe that he believes, is nowhere made necessary to justification. This matter will be made clearer by means of the particular Yliicli follows.

3. While the object of faith, or truth to be believed, remains constant or invariable, faith itself lia-s degrees. It may be weak or strong, and the weak as well as the strong may be saving. It is the object, not the receptive instrrmaent, which saves. If it had been anywhere said that he who believes enough shall be saved, we mio’ht be forever doubtful whether the standard had been reached. But the promise is, “He that believeth shall be saved.” A feeble hand may as effectually endorse a check for a hundred thousand j)ounds as the hand of a giant. The entire charge of an electro-magnetic system of batteries may be drawn out by the touch of an infant. But though the smallness of degree in faith does not impair its instrumental validity, it does greatly lessen its power to comfort. And high j)ersonal assurance is attainable only by means of great faith. In discussing that which is essential to faith, and therefore common to all instances, we must not exclude its ])eginnings, or earliest breathings. JSTay, we ought to treat these of preference, because our address is chiefly to such as have either small faith or none at all. So faint are the dawnings of grace, that it would be unj)rofitable for the young Christian to spend much time in contemplating them. The only safe direction is, that you abandon all thought of what goes on within you, and allow yourself to be swallowed up with a view of the wonderful gift of God. Take your flight from subjective to objective truth. Believe, and you shall know.

4. The blessedness of believing will he in proportion to the strength and fulness with ivMcJi the object of faith is apprehended. Having allotted another portion of these remarks to the work of the Holy Spirit, as the author of faith, we shall not open that subject here. It is, however, proper to say, that when the Blessed Comforter begins the work, as a Vivifier, New Creator, and Enlightener, he carries it on with loving care as a Strengthener, Sanctifier, and Comforter. Every part of this divine process is conducted by means of Truth, and every new accession of truth is taken up by the assimilating powers of the spiritual constitution tlirougli Faith. More especially, it is by believing that the hope, cheerfulness, and joy of the soul are exalted. Every fresh view of Christ in his manifold excellencies becomes a new inlet of happiness; and this by drawing the thoughts and affections more and more away from inward acts, intentions, habits, graces, and experience, and from all that is of the creature, to dwell upon infinite brightness, to admire eternal beauty, and to be bathed in the rays of celestial love. The rapture of a newly-converted sinner is great; his mouth is filled with laughter and his tono-ue with sinoino;; in his trance of deli o lit he is like them that dream. Yet how much is it that he yet sees of Christ as the gift of God? Only the dim grey twilight which precedes the day. He has faith, indeed, but its capacity is slender, and receives the object in small measure. Miserable is that professor who aspires to nothing better. The New Testament experience is a continual commentary on the prayer, “Lord, increase our faith!” If I were to paint the portrait of a mature saint, he should be one who speaks and thinks little of himself He does not descant on his own experience. He has no time for j)rotracted inventories of Lis states and feelings. He says, in the sj)irit of the personified Church in, the song: “I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon; look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.” i. 5, 6. He is taken up elsewhere, and is all eye, to take in the radiance of the Heavenly Bridegroom. If once he received the “record which God hath given of his Son,” now by augmented faith he receives a thousandfold more by the same words, even as the portrait of one beloved grows more dear by renewed knowledge of the original. Faith springs up at the slightest whisper, like the young wife at the husband’s greeting, “the voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skiyping upon the hills!” Faith develops the latent elements of the great salvation, which it received wrapped up and unscrutinized, just as spring develops animal and vegetable nature; and each new unfolding of Christ’s beauty adds warm showers and joyous zej)liyrs to the advancing fellowship. Hear how the Church recounts her experience of “trjsting times” with the King: “My beloved siDake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the [cold] rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle [dove] is heard in our land; the g tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Why, my brethren, should we always remain among the beginnings of Christianity, beating about the port of departure, and hugging the coast of wintry doubt? Wherefore shall we not rather give all our canvas to the blessed wind of heaven, and set forth boldly into the broad ocean, where so many happy souls have gone before us, to climates of

serene hope and sunny joy? AVe need, and we may have, a more meridian blaze of the Sun of Eio-hteousness. The indwelling of the Lord in your souls is the great necessity. It will produce the effects which Paul prays for:” For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus

Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by all might in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God!”