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UNBELIEF—FAITH

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 2.

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UNBELIEF—FAITH

By M. E. K.

One can not read the accounts in the book of Acts of the way the truths of the Gospel were proclaimed by the apostles without being particularly impressed with the great difference with which those truths were treated. On the day of Pentecost, when the Gospel work, energized by the power of the Holy Spirit, opened so auspiciously, the effect produced upon those who listened to the preaching of the apostles was so different that it seems astonishing. While some “were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” “others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.” A drunken man can not speak his native language intelligently, and yet men speaking many languages intelligently, were jeered as drunken!
When men reject such evidences of the powers of the Holy Spirit, is it any wonder that we find them a little later stoning Stephen, persecuting Peter, and clamoring for the blood of Paul? While the believers grew in grace, these rejecters of the mercy and love of God increased in wickedness until they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and their destruction followed.
Follow the apostles through their journeys in Gentile lands, and you will notice similar experiences, both among Jews and Gentiles. Some believed the Word spoken, others rejected, “contradicting and blaspheming.”
The unbelieving, whether Jews or Gentiles, were not satisfied with the evidences presented by the apostles that Jesus was the Christ—the Saviour of the world. Paul describes the way that different persons treated the Gospel in the following words: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” 1 Cor. 1:22-24.
The Jews looked for signs. As a people, their whole history was marked with miracles which God had wrought in their behalf. They therefore looked for these things. They might have seen them in the signs that followed the believers, but unbelief has the power to hide anything, and they saw them not. The Greeks, unacquainted with revelation, sought by various systems of philosophy to account for all things. And when Jesus of Nazareth, of lowly birth, humble life, and ignominious death, was presented to them, they saw no form or comeliness in Him that they might desire Him.
By Christ the Jews might have mounted heavenward, but instead of stepping upon Him they stumbled over Him. The very means that God designed for their exaltation, became the occasion of their fall. “For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone; as it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offense; and whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.” Rom. 9:32, 33. Had they believed, the stumbling-stone and rock of offense would have been to them another thing, even “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The Greeks could have had the same experience. Had they received the truth of the Gospel, that there was one God and Father of all, that they had separated themselves from Him through sin, and that the Gospel of Christ was designed of God to lead them back to God and righteousness, Christ would have quickly taken the place of their philosophy, by which they knew not God. But so simple a way seemed to them to be but foolishness. It could not be reasoned out, and so they rejected it.
The fact that the Gospel was both received and rejected by different persons of the Jews and Gentiles evinces that it was not a national or constitutional bias that led them to do so. Had all the Jews believed and all the Gentiles disbelieved, or vice versa, then such a plea could be made. But it was far otherwise. Jews stumbled, Greeks cried foolishness and “babbler,” but those who received the Word, whether Jew or Greek, had a similar experience. They found Christ to be the “power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Power to save from sin; wisdom to direct in the ways of righteousness. They were settled and grounded: resting, trusting, and happy. The past was all cleared up, present duty was plain, and the future radiant with hope.
What did all this for Jew and Gentile?—Simple faith in the Gospel. To those who believe, Christ becomes “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” These distinctive features of the Gospel ever go with it. While some still seek after signs or strive for wisdom, rejecting the light, wisdom, and power that God so freely gives in the Gospel, others believe and, believing, receive all that the Gospel offers. No theoretical acceptance, no mere assent of the mind that these things are so, will answer. The power of God and the wisdom of God do not wait upon such half-hearted acknowledgments. “If thou believest with all thine heart” (Acts 8:37) is still the only way that brings the blessing of God to the needy, thirsty, hungering soul. Unbelief still holds thousands in cruel bondage; but faith gives liberty and life to-day the same as in former days. Dear reader, have you received the Gospel? M. E. K.