The Coming of Faith by S. B. Whitney

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 1, 1875

The Coming of Faith.

By S. B. Whitney

“But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” Gal. 3:25.

What are we to understand by the coming of faith? Certainly not the first introduction of faith into the church; “for by it the elders obtained a good report,” and without it, it was as impossible for them to please God as it is for us. Heb. 11:2, 6. Neither can it be said that theirs was not a gospel faith; for it was the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and the faith by which the just shall now live. Verse 1; chap. 10:38.

And the “more excellent sacrifice” of Abel, and the choice of Moses attest a faith that grasped the provisions and promises of the gospel. Verses 4, 24–26.

The coming of faith, therefore, in our view, must relate to the time and events connected with the development of the plan of redemption, when its initiatory steps became matters of fact, and the faith of the church, instead of being purely prospective in its character, rested partially upon that which is tangible, and by which its claims could be more confidently asserted.

But how does this affect our relation to the moral law of God? It does not alter, but intensifies it; as the necessity of the sacrifice of the Son of God, to meet the demands of that law, and save man from the penalty of its transgression, is no longer imperfectly foreshadowed by the slaughtered victims of former dispensations, but is demonstrated by his actual sufferings and death. Thus faith does not make void the law, but establishes it. Rom. 3:31.

We therefore conclude that the schoolmaster is the law which regulated the typical service, which was observed until the coming of faith made it no longer necessary, or even admissible.

S. B. WHITNEY.