FAITH by SENEX | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Oct 18, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 42.

FAITH.

By SENEX

WHAT is faith? The importance of this question is not likely to be overrated. The word "faith" is used, as are most other words, in several different, tho related, senses. We inquire after its elementary, fundamental, essential sense.

The word "faith" and its synonyms, "believe," "trust," etc., with their derivations, are used in the Scriptures nearly a thousand times.

If we examine the word "believe," we shall find it used of a personal being as its object, with the preposition "in" or "on," where it signifies trusting in or confiding in; and also without the preposition, where often it simply means accepting the testimony of one. This implies confidence in the one whose testimony is received. "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." "I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me." Sometimes when the preposition in or on is not expressed, it is implied. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3), is in the Hebrew "believed in the Lord" (Gen. 15:6).

Again it is used of the truth accepted, and generally without a preposition. "The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him." John 4:50. In this case the belief of the word rested on faith in Jesus; therefore there was true faith. We may notice the difference between believing about, believing, and believing on a person. (1) We believe about one what we are told or learn otherwise. The demons believed about Christ that He was the holy one of God. This is not faith.

2. To believe a person is to accept his statement as true. This we may do without any faith in him; we may know him to be a consummate liar, wholly unworthy of our confidence, yet may believe that what he says is true, because we have other evidence of its truth. In this case we do not believe in him; we know him to be utterly unworthy of our faith.

3. But when we recognize the good moral character of a personal being, God or man, and confide in him, this is faith. "Faith," as President Mark Hopkins well said, "is confidence in a personal being, or rather it is confiding in a personal being."

And so we repeat, believing about God is not faith in Him. Believing what He has said is not always and necessarily faith in Him. The devils doubtless believe many things that He has said. But when, recognizing His perfect moral character, we confide in Him, this is "faith" in its fundamental, most exact, and essential meaning. Of course, as we said above, the word "faith" is used, like other words, in other derived senses. But this is the real and saving faith. Without this all other faith is vain, or, as James says, "dead."

It is true that we must believe about God in order that we may believe in Him. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." This believing about, is sometimes called faith. It logically and almost necessarily leads to faith in Him. He who refuses to confide in Him, must in time cease to believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The beginning of unbelief is the seed of infidelity.

It is proper to ask, What are some of the results of faith? What are its fruits? and how does it act?

It produces peace. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee." Soon shall we need that peace in the coming time of trouble. Faith will give this peace without fear. Psalms 46.

It gives courage. He who runs in God's strength fears not to lose the race. He who fights the world, the flesh, and the devil, in perfect confidence in God, knows no fear of them. He has courageous confidence of victory, for God is his strength.

It supplies motives. God's promises and threatenings are known and felt to be true. Those are the realities, and the believer flees from the wrath to come and lays hold on eternal life. By patient continuance in well-doing he seeks for glory and honor and immortality, knowing that his labor is not in vain.

And repenting, giving ourselves to Him, accepting Him as our Saviour and our Lord, and trusting without a doubt, hope becomes a helmet for our head and an anchor to the soul. The man without hope is weak; hope gives joy and strength.

Faith works by love. Faith recognizes moral character in the one trusted, and all that separates us from God and Christ having been removed by repentance, we love Him who first loved us. If you have Paul's faith, you will have Paul's love; if you have John's faith, you will have John's love; if you have perfect faith, you will have perfect love. He who has no love has no faith.

Faith working by love produces obedience. "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous." It does not grieve us to serve those whom we love, and the true service and worship of God are a full and loving obedience.

Faith is the root from which all Christian graces grow. Without it we can have no fruit, for it unites us to Christ, the True Vine.

It is only by believing in Christ that we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Eph. 1:13.

And what more shall we say? Time would fail to tell of all God's people have done through faith.

But faith not only works in us, it enlists God on our behalf. Fremont said of some men who had fled from oppression and were supposed to be within his camp, "If they are here it is because they believed that I would protect them, and while my name is John C. Fremont it never shall be said that any man trusted in me and found that trust dishonored." And the man who claimed them as his slaves was not permitted even to search for them. God will never deliver unto Satan's hands those who trust in Him.

Fear not to fly to Him and trust beneath the shelter of His wings. Assured by His promise and invitation, tho your hand were thicker than itself with a brother's blood, you may turn and trust, and receive pardon full and free. And as to Christian life, while you trust in Him and watch and pray, giving yourself wholly up to His guidance and into His keeping, all temptations of the world, the propensities, appetites, and passions of your own nature, old habits stronger than log-chains, and all the wicked men of earth and devils of hell, are vanquished foes.

"The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose I will not, I will not desert to his foes; That soul, tho all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."

What more can we want? What need we fear?

But you say: "I have no faith. Faith is the gift of God." So it is, not only that He permits us to trust in Him, but He enables us so to do, "working in us to will and to do of His good-pleasure." Yet it is our act, and that a voluntary act. We must will to confide in Him. God does not believe for us, but He commands us to believe. Not to thus confide in Him is disobedience. It is sin, for it is transgression of His command. And it is perhaps the greatest insult we can throw in His face. "He that believeth not has made Him a liar." He has treated God as he should treat the devil. What greater wrong can we do to a good man than to treat him as if unworthy of our confidence? What greater insult to God than to treat Him as a liar?

Do you say you can not believe? Is that not because you do not fully repent and give yourself to Him? Repent, and you can believe. Believe, and you can do all things.