LIVING BY FAITH | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 32.

“LIVING BY FAITH.”

By faith we learn that we are sinners. God reveals it to us by His Holy Spirit through His law. “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Rom. 3:20. “Nay, I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Rom. 7:7. “When He [the Holy Spirit, the Comforter] is come, ‘He will convince the world of sin.’” John 16:8, margin. The Spirit of God makes the living Word a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Heb. 4:12.

It is by faith that the repentant sinner yields his old sins, and is made righteous in “the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference.” Rom. 3:22. The sin-black record of the past has departed, and the sinner is counted as tho he had not sinned. Ps. 32:1, 2.

By faith the heart is purged from its impurity, its fountains of pollution are cleansed; for Christ puts “no difference between us and them [Jews and Gentiles], purifying their hearts by faith.” Acts 15:9.

By faith the sinner dies with Jesus Christ to sin, and rises to walk in “newness of life;” not in a new purpose in life merely, but in the actual life of the Son of God, by which and in which Christ dwells in the heart by faith. Rom. 5:10; 6:4–11; Gal. 3:17. Faith is like the trolley which reaches up and connects with the unseen power above, not less mighty because invisible to mortal eyes.

By faith, when the tempter is met, Jesus Christ is placed between ourselves and the evil one. Christ has met all of Satan’s attacks. Christ has turned aside his thrusts. Christ has quenched in his own life-blood all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Christ proved all Satan’s craft and policy to be naught. Christ has conquered death and the grave. And faith puts Christ between us and the wily, powerful foe.

Faith is not the life. Faith is not the power. Faith simply forms the channel of the life and power of God to us. It opens the doors of the heart; it opens the portals to the mind; it bids Christ to come in and take full, glorious, victorious, everlasting possession. Faith accepts God’s Word in whatever form or way it comes. There are thousands who believe in its promises. They hope to have forgiveness of sins, deliverance from trouble, and an everlasting reward; but they wish to do it apart from God’s precepts. But that is not faith which accepts a promise and despises a precept. The measure of the faith to obey the precept is the measure of the faith to accept the promise. He who disregards God’s precept, can not claim God’s promise. O let us remember this important truth. But the faith which truly accepts God’s promise, willingly obeys His precept.

Nay, more than this: in obeying one finds the precept a promise. The power to do is in the command to do, when faith yields to obey. That which before seemed impossible is now delightful. That which to the unbelieving heart was a “yoke of bondage,” becomes to the faithful heart a blessed “law of liberty.” No longer is the carnal heart at enmity to the law; renewed in Jesus Christ, it exclaims, “O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day.”

“Have faith in God.”