FAITH IN CHRIST
There are errors on the subject of faith in Christ which it is nowhere more
important to observe and avoid than when we consider it as a test of
Christian character. There are those who affirm that the faith of the Gospel
is nothing more than a general assent to the doctrines of revelation,
unaccompanied by love for them or a dependence on Christ for salvation. It
is not necessary to remark critically upon this description of faith, for
every man who reads the Bible must perceive that faith in Christ is there
described as a holy act. But if it is nothing more than the assent of the
understanding to the doctrines of the Gospel, then it is possessed by some
of the vilest men on earth as well as by the fallen spirits in hell (James
2:19).
There are also those who teach that the faith of the Gospel consists in a
strong persuasion of our personal piety. If a man believes that he is one of
God’s elect people, that Christ loved him from eternity, that He died for
him in particular, and that he is a regenerated, pardoned sinner, this
persuasion is by many supposed to constitute him a believer in the
Scriptural acceptance of the term. Hence, the stronger a man’s persuasion of
his own interest in Christ and the blessings of his salvation, the stronger
his faith! And hence the sentiment has obtained that unbelief consists in
not believing or doubting that we are Christians, and all those fears which
disturb the peace of good men, and all those apprehensions lest they be
deceived in their hopes and fail of everlasting life are stigmatized as
unbelief. Now, that these cannot be either the faith or unbelief of the
Gospel is abundantly evident from a number of considerations on which we
cannot enlarge and will merely suggest. Nothing can be the object of saving
faith except what is revealed in the Scriptures. Now it is nowhere revealed
in the Scriptures that any one of us in particular is pardoned and justified
and individually a partaker of Christ’s redemption. And if anyone imagines
that this revelation has been made to him in particular, he deceives himself
and the truth is not in him. Besides, the Scriptures always represent faith
as terminating on something without us, namely, on Christ and the truths
concerning Him.
But if it consist in a persuasion of our being in a state of salvation, it
must terminate principally on something within us, namely, the work of grace
in our hearts; and how inferior is such an object of faith to the
all-sufficiency and glory of the great Redeemer! It is not easy to give a
definition of faith that comprehends all its properties. In its most general
character, it is reliance upon the testimony of God’s Word. It is receiving
the truth in the love of it. The Apostle Paul uses the phrase “received not
the love of the truth” as synonymous with the phrase “believed not the
truth.” Faith, however, when viewed as an evangelical grace, possesses
altogether a peculiar character. It is not simply reliance upon the divine
testimony, but particularly upon the truth of God revealed in the Scriptures
concerning Jesus Christ. So the Scriptures themselves represent it. “These
things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that believing, you might have life in his Name” (John 20:31).
“If you shall confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your
heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved” (Rom.
10:9).
I cannot better describe this grace than by adverting to the state of mind
which precedes and exercises it. When, by the operations of the Holy Spirit,
a man is made sensible that he has sinned against the Holy God, he deeply
feels that he is fallen, guilty, condemned, and undone. He sees that he lies
at the mere mercy of that God whom he has offended, who is under no
obligation to pity him, and may most righteously destroy him forever. Under
the righteous sentence of a holy law, he does not see how God can be just
and yet extend pardoning mercy to a wretch like him until he become
acquainted with that soul receiving truth that he so loved the world as to
give His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish,
but have everlasting life (John 3:16). In this wonderful expedient, he
discovers a remedy which vindicates the authority of the divine law in the
dispensations of pardoning mercy, and relieves his soul from the oppressive
apprehension that there is no forgiveness with God. Through this Redeemer he
ascertains that he is invited and commanded to return to God with the 38
hope and assurance of mercy; and is confirmed in the belief that whoever
comes to Jesus Christ, he will in no wise cast out (John 6:37).
And he is emboldened to go. The good deeds, the religious performances,
which once used to encourage him, afford him no encouragement now; but
renouncing them all, he returns to God with an implicit, active, and
exclusive reliance on Jesus Christ and His Redemption as God’s appointed way
of saving sinners. He approves of this method of salvation, he delights in
it, he chooses it as his only refuge. He no longer rejects the mystery of
the cross nor stumbles at the cornerstone which is laid in Zion, but glories
in the cross of Christ and is happy to commit his all for immortality on
this sure foundation, and thus does he “receive” and rest on Christ alone
for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel. And this is faith in Christ.
This heavenly grace is one of the fruits of the Spirit and evidences of
regeneration. “He that believes shall be saved” (John 3:36). “No man can say
that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (I Cor. 12:3). “Whoever believes
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (I John 5:1).
Do you possess this heaven-inspired grace? What do you know of Jesus Christ
as the Savior of sinners? What glory have you ever discovered in that great
moral wonder, “God manifest in the flesh” as the Prophet, the Priest, the
King in Zion? Have you from the heart received the record that God has given
of His Son? Have you discovered anything in Christ that qualifies Him to be
your Savior and that can encourage guilty, miserable men to trust to His
grace? Is He precious to you as to those who believe? Is it your happiness
to commit your cause to better hands than to your own, to relinquish all
your self-righteous confidences, and cast yourself into the arms of Jesus?
What things were gain to you, do you count loss for Christ? Is everything
you are and have done and can perform, in your own view, nothing that you
may win Christ and be found in Him, not having your own righteousness which
is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith? (Phil. 3:8-9).
In a word, with a just view of the character and a supreme attachment to the
Person of Christ, can you yield yourself into His hands as a full and
complete Savior? Can you look to Him to be sanctified by His Spirit, to be
governed by His laws, to be protected by His power, to be saved by His
death, to be disposed of at His pleasure, and to he the means of promoting
His glory? If you can, all is well. In the comprehensive promise of that
covenant to which faith makes you a party, lie concealed the life and
immortality of the Gospel. Life and death, earth and heaven, things present
and things to come, joys high, immeasurable, immortal ‘what shall I say? All
are yours and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (I Cor. 3:22-23).