Faith

T^VERY candid reader of the Bible is struck with the singular prominence which it gives to Faith. It is obvious at a glance that Faith is the pivot on which the whole system of divine truth turns. It is so alike in theory and in practice; theoretically, as the corner-stone of the system of doctrine; and practically, as the foundation of the new life of the Christian. It is said that we are justified by faith, and being so justified, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. By faith also we have access into a state of abiding grace, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Without faith, we are told, it is impossible to please God. Faith was the one great attribute of all the Old Testament saints even of men who differed from one another so widely as Enoch differed from Samson, or as Isaac differed from Jephthah. By faith the elders obtained a good report; it was alike the support of their hopes, the fountain of their courage, the source of their patience, and the instrument of their victories. From our Lord nothing drew so cordial commendations as the victories of faith; of the centurion he could say, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel; and to the Syrophenician mother, O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt, In the Acts of the Apostles the highest praise bestowed on martyrs and heroes rests upon the glory of their faith; Stephen was full of faith and power, so that his face shone as it had been the face of an angel; Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith; and Paul describes his new life in Christ as very eminently a life of faith: ‘The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me/

In any attempt then, to set forth the leading truths of Christianity a prominent place is due to faith. What does it really mean? Hovi comes it to fulfil a function so important as that is assigned to it in the word of God? How comes it to be the link that binds the sinner to the Saviour, the hand that lays hold upon Christ, the medium by which all saving blessings come? How is it that faith is made the great criterion for determining the state of salvation, and that the most awful issues of life and death are suspended on its presence or absence? For He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’ These are great questions, demanding the most earnest attention of all who would attain to the knowledge of saving truth.

I. We begin by explaining the term. In the most general sense of the word, faith denotes the act or state of mind which receives as true any statement made on the authority or by the lips of God. This is quite obvious in reference to the faith brought under our notice in the Old Testament. ThuSj it was communicated to Abraham on the authority of God that he was to have a son and that through that son his posterity would be like the stars of heaven; Abraham believed the communication, even though in the circumstances there was no human probability or even possibility of its fulfilment. It was further communicated to Abraham, on Gods authority, that through this son, or through the seed that should spring from him, all the families of the earth should be blessed; and so strong was Abraham’s belief in this, that even when he was called to offer up that child of promise in sacrifice, he rested in the conviction that rather than let the promise fail, God would raise him up, even from the dead. It will be seen, on a moment’s reflection, that the nature of the act of faith was somewhat different in reference to these two things. In the former, what

Abraham was called to believe was simply a historical fact — the fact, namely, that he was to be the progenitor of a great posterity; no do-ubt a gratifying fact for him, but not directly affecting his personal state before God, nor his welfare for the life to come. But in the second instance, more was demanded of him than the simple belief of a historical fact. The communication from God, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed, included himself as well as others, himself as a sinner, guilty before God, and needing a Saviour. This communication was something for him to rest on, and to derive hope and comfort from, whenever the sense of sin should weigh heavily on his conscience, or the sense of a needed righteousness, better than his own, should fill him with anxiety. Thus there was more of the spirit of trust in this exercise of faith than in the other. The promise of God here was something for Abraham to lean on, to calm his fears and inspire his hopes when evil seemed to be pressing in on him and on the world, when the sky was darkening and sounds of a gathering tempest falHng upon his ears.

Hence it appears that when faith in God’s word is real, it will affect the person believing it differently according to the nature of the thing believed, and according to the relation to it of the person believing. If it be a matter intimately affecting his dearest interests, his whole soul will be set in motion by it; if it be a matter with which he has only a distant connection, hardly an emotion will be stirred.

We see what is analogous to this in the intercourse of man with man. You tell a man that some bank, in which all his property is invested, has suddenly failed — a horror of great darkness comes over him. You tell the same thine; to some one who has no interest in the matter — hardly a line in his face is changed. You tell a poor man that a rich neighbour is dead — he is grieved and alarmed, for he has been supported by his bounty. You tell the same thing to another — he can hardly suppress his joy for he is heir to his fortune.

Soj also when any statement made on God’s authority is really believed. If it is felt to imply evil, it will excite fear; if it is felt to imply good, it will excite joy. It is quite possible that a statement implying evil may excite no fear, or a statement implying good may excite no joy. But in such cases there cannot be real faith. There was no real faith on the part of Eve when she ate the apple — the deviPs lie was what she believed in in preference and in opposition to the truth of God. But there was real faith on the part of Noah, when, moved with fear, he prepared an ark to the saving of his house. There was real faith on the part of the Ninevites when, hearing Jonah’s message, they humbled themselves before God. There was real faith on the part of David, when he heard from Nathan that the great Deliverer was to be born of his seed, and his whole heart went out in thanksgivings. There was real faith on the part of Mary, when the angel announced that she was to give birth to the Messiah — no higher joy was ever felt than hers, * My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour/

In those instances in which the statement believed referred to a Person by whom certain blessings were to come, the belief that resulted had in it the nature of trust. Thus it was when God called on the oppressed Israelites to receive Moses as their Deliverer. He announced His purpose of achieving their deliverance through him; He gave them to understand that His Spirit would be poured out on him as a spirit of wisdom of power, and of authority; in short, that nothing would be wanting to constitute him a triumphant champion. Evidently, where there was faith in these promises, there would be trust in Moses. The people would lean confidently on him as fully qualified to deliver, and in consequence they would have a thorough sense of safety, whatever difficulties or opposition might

arise. And the more they showed of this spirit of trust when the circumstances were adverse, so much the more highly would they honour God. If dangers multiplied around them, dangers that threw their unbelieving brethren into despair; by remaining calm and confident they would show that, whatever might be the appearances, there was no real cause for anxiety. God, they would say, is our refuge, and Moses is His servant, therefore we will not fear — all must be well.

2. These simple explanations bear on faith generally; we go on to remark that the faith with which eternal life is specially connected in the New Testament, bears upon the statements which God has made about our salvation through Jesus Christ.

These statements are of a two-fold character: the one respecting the evil that has been incurred; the other respecting the good that has been provided.

Regarding the evil that has been incurred, God’s statements are very terrible. All sin, in God’s eyes, is a frightful crime and deserves a frightful punishment. Men may have such want of moral sensibility as not to understand why this should be, they may be unable to detect in sin that character of vileness which makes it so detestable to God, and its doom so awful. Be this as it may, there is no doubt as to the view of sin which the Scriptures attribute to God — The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.^ The commonness of sin, which takes so much away from its odious character in our eyes, makes no difference to it in Gods. Though it be the universal characteristic of our race; though all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; though its corrupting stain has spread to every part of our nature; though it meets the eye of the Holy One alike in the crowded city and in the lonely cottage, on the throne of the Prince and under the rags of the beggar, it never ceases to present to Him the same horrid aspect — the abominable thing which He hates; and so long as filth is hateful to purity, so Jong as light can have no fellowship with darkness the doom of sin and of the sinner must remain unchangeable — The soul that sinneth, it shall die/

On the other hand God’s statements to us regarding the good that has been provided in Christy are equally striking. ‘The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’ ‘■ Christ hath also once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God,’ The remedy for sin is complete, altogether satisfactory to God, and the offer of the remedy is as wide as the globe and as free as the air. ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money.’ Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and beside me there is none else.’ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Redemption from sin, indeed, is the crowning product of divine skill and power; and wide and deep though the ruin be which sin has caused the remedy of the Gospel is amply sufficient to counteract its curse, and restore the forfeited blessing; for *” where sin abounded grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto deaths even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord/

Now, wherever faith is exercised in these two classes of statements, the reality of the faith will be seen by the fear which results from believing the one, and the joy which accompanies the reception of the other. On the day of Pentecost, first the one class of statements and then the other were successively brought to bear on the thousands that hung on the lips of Peter. When they believed the statement of evil incurred, they were pricked in their heart, and driven to the borders of despair; when they heard of the good provided, they gladly ’ received the word, their hearts were filled with joy and peace. When the Philippian jailor believed the first, he cried out.

what must I do to be saved? When he bcHeved the second, he was baptized, beHeving in the Lord with all his house. It is obvious that the process of faith is fundamentally incomplete, unless both classes of statements are received with equal earnestness. Sometimes there is a great disproportion, the first class of statements are received, almost devoured, and the other hardly permitted to be entertained. And sometimes, on the other hand, but little regard is had to the first, and no hesitation is felt as to the second. Many persons have religion enough to make them fear, but not enough to make them rejoice. They stop short on the narrow isthmus that leads from fear to joy, like one driven from a burning house on a winter night, who stands shivering in the street and cannot be prevailed on to enter the open door of his neighbour. Miserable halting-place! opposed alike to the nature of man, and to the purpose of God. Man was never made to rest in a state of fear. Equilibrium in fear is as much an impossibility for the heart of man as equilibrium for a ship in the midst of a gale. And God never meant His intelligent creatures to abide in fear. If ever He bids them fear it is that He may presently bid them fear not. It is ‘fear not that is the constant exhortation of the Bible. And why? Not because there is no occasion for fear but because there is transcendant occasion for joy. Not because sin has brought no curse, but because Jesus has brought a transcendant blessing. Not because Paradise has never been lost, but because God, according to His abundant mercy, hath provided a better inheritance — incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.’’

On the other hand, there are persons who pay little attention to what is said of the evil incurred, and have no difficulty in receiving the tidings of redemption. Their sense of sin is slight, and their faith, if it be at all genuine, has but shallow roots. They are dispo-sed to regard the moral difficulty caused by sin as no very serious one, and to rest in the thought that all has been easily and satisfactorily adjusted. We would not affirm that all such persons are destitute of true faith in Gods statements regarding salvation. But we fear that as a rule, the easy-going manner in which the whole subject is treated indicates a heart unmoved by the solemn message. We remember reading some years ago in a daily London newspaper, an apology for the prevalent gaiety of the population on Good Friday. With a jaunty nonchalance the writer remarked that the people might well be gay on the anniversary of a day that had removed all cause for gloom. A clever caricature of the Scripture doctrine! A kind of jumble of the two classes of statements, regarding man’s guilt and God’s grace, out of which an easy-going All’s right,’ seems to be the outcome 1 The experience of the day of Pentecost was something widely different. And very different is the experience of all who can say, * O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.’

3. More explicitly vve go on to remark that the statements of God regarding the salvation that has been provided relate mainly to the person and the work of Christy and therefore the faith that receives these statements must be of the nature of trust.

Whenever God announces life and salvation to sinners it is in connection with Christ. ‘This is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.’ We cannot receive life, or any element of salvation, except by receiving Christ. It has pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and the appointed method of supplying our wants is, that first of all we should receive Him, and then receive out of His fulness, even grace for grace. When we truly believe in God’s statements respecting the spiritual storehouse, we trust in Christ for all that we need. We feed on Him. A mental habit is formed in us, a law of association, such that whenever our attention is turned to any of our spiritual wants, so often is it fixed on the

qualification that enables Christ to supply it. As often as we think of our guilty so often we think of His atoning blood. As often as we think of our debt so often we think of Christ as our surety. As often as we think of our unworthinesSj so often we think of His merit. As often as we think of our pollution so often we think of that spirit of holiness that comes forth from Him. As often as we think of our darkness so often we think of H is power to open our eyes and guide us in the way. As often as we think of our unfitness for heaven, so often we think how Christ loved His church and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify it by the washing of water by the word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.-’

Thus it is that faith in Christ has so much of the nature of trust. But it is trust founded on God’s statements respecting Him and respecting the relation in which He stands to sinners. And hence, too, the remarkable way in which

JesLis was accustomed to offer His blessings. ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, ‘I am (not I give) the bread of life, ‘I am (not I cause) the resurrection and the life, All such passages invite to an exercise of trust, and imply that the spirit and habit of trust is essential to the enjoyment of the specific blessings. We get nothing apart from Christ; we get everything in Him and through Him. And hence He is said to be ’ made to us of God wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.-’

Few of the questions in the Shorter Catechism are answered with such admirable precision and clearness as that which asks, What is Faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel.^ The operations of faith are summed up in the two things — receiving and resting on Christ — the one the commencement the other the continuation of one and the same mental process. Like a drowning man, when a plank is thrown towards him, who first catches hold of the plank, and then rests upon it, so the believer first takes hold of Christ, or receives Him, then continues to rest upon Him alone for salvation. The same reasons that impel us to receive Him, impel us to continue to rest on Him. Our helplessness is the same, our personal unworthiness, our liability to fresh outbreaks of sin, our spiritual emptiness, our inability to rise to the heights of heavenly excellence, our vileness in the sight of the Holy God. If we are to be saved at last, we must be looking unto Jesus; if we are to live the life of Gods children, it must be by faith on the Son of God, who loved us, and who gave Himself for us.

4. It thus appears that the great function of Faith is to unite us to Christ. And this it does in two ways; — it makes us sharers in Christs merit, and it makes us sharers in His life.

It makes us sharers in His merit. It gets for us the benefit of His whole work of atonement. We are justified by faith, because we thereby lay hold on the atoning righteousness of Christ, and rest on it before God, as the ground of our pardon and acceptance. Faith is thus the hand that receives the righteousness of Christ. We are not justified by faith on the ground that faith is accepted in place of obedience. Neither are we justified by faith on the ground that faith is the germ or active principle of obedience, although it is true that it is so. We are justified by faith because by it we lay hold on Jesus as our Saviour, and close on our part with the great transaction whereby God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.^

It is not difficult to see good reasons why faith, and not obedience or good works, is the appointed instrument of our justification. By grace ye are saved through faith,... not of works, lest any man should boast.-’ This arrangement is admirably fitted to keep us humble, to keep us in mind of our emptiness seeing that we never can have a true sense of pardon and acceptance without looking away from ourselves to our Saviour. It is marvellous how some men contrive to confound what God has made so separate, and mystify what He has made so clear. We have heard of a minister of the last generation, accustomed to offer the prayer — May we, by our good works, merit an interest in Christ.^ Pretty much as if a company of lepers had prayed. May we, by cleansing ourselves, make ourselves worthy of being cleansed by Christ! Let us fancy what it would have been had union to Christ been made to depend not on faith but on works. If only the best people had got the benefit of Christ’s work, and that in virtue of their being better than their neighbours, what a world of Pharisees we should have had! In order to found a plea with God, men would have had to show how good they were. Humility, the very soul of all Christian graces, would have been choked to death. There would have been no casting of crowns before the throne — no company there who had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, no salvation for the chief of sinners, no recovered Prodigals, no Mary Magdalenes, no Sauls of Tarsus, in the company of the Redeemed. But for all this, there is a glorious provision when faith is the bond of union to Christ, and the instrument of receiving His merits. We are taught to seek all our justifying righteousness from above, and in the view of the glorious completeness and brightness of that which is offered to us, all righteousnesses of our own dwindle and shrivel into filthy rags.

Besides making us sharers of Christs merits, faith makes us sharers also of His life. The emblem of the vine and the branches is verified. The grace of Christ is transfused into our hearts, and the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh. It is of the very nature of faith to feast itself on the qualities which it sees in Christ. It has a suction-power, if we may so speak it draws to itself whatever of value it discovers in Him. For true faith is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and wherever He is at work He not only takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us but He enables us to feed on them and find in them the richest spiritual nourishment. And this is the safeguard against the abuse of faith as the bond of union to Christ. If pardon were something by itself, received by faith pure and simple, without regard being had to works there would be room for great abuse. Men might have an excuse, or at least a temptation, to continue in sin that grace might abound. But faith being the means of union with a living Person, not the mere instrument of receiving a separate blessing, such an abuse is guarded against where the faith and the fellowship are real. True faith regards Jesus Christ with ever-growing admiration. He is its model, its standard, its joy, and its crown. The closer it comes to Him the more clearly it sees Him ‘fairer than the children of men.’ The more it tests His grace, the more glorious does it find Him, and the stronger is the desire to be changed into His image. The eternal decree that at one time seemed so terrible, becomes blessed and glorious when its final issue is contemplated — whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He mig-ht be the firstborn amonsi; many brethren/

It often happens that persons who are conscious of the feebleness of their faith omit one of the chief means by which it may be strengthened. They often subject their hearts to very rigorous dealings in their eagerness to stir up faith. They cry very earnestly for the Holy Spirit, beseeching Him to breathe into them the spirit of genuine trust. All most commendable and excellent. But sometimes the very means is neglected which the Spirit may be most confidently expected to own, — namely, the deliberate examination of the statements which on God’s authority they are called to believe, and the devout study of the qualities that make Christ worthy of their trust. For it is far more likely that faith shall be increased by looking out from ourselves to the great Fountain of Life and to the record which God has given regarding Him, than by mere efforts to stir the stagnant energies of our hearts, whose prevailing state is but too truly indicated in the confession of the Psalmist — ‘My soul cleaveth unto the dust/