Faith: The Misunderstood Doctrine Chapter 7

IN THE DIVINE SCHEME OF SALVATION the doctrine of faith is central. God addresses His words to faith, and where no faith is, no true revelation is possible. "Without faith it is impossible to please him."

Every benefit flowing from the atonement of Christ comes to the individual through the gateway of faith. Forgiveness, cleansing, regeneration, the Holy Spirit, all answers to prayer, are given to faith and received by faith. There is no other way. This is common evangelical doctrine and is accepted wherever the cross of Christ is understood.

Because faith is so vital to all our hopes, so necessary to the fulfillment of every aspiration of our hearts, we dare take nothing for granted concerning it. Anything that carries with it so much of weal or woe, which indeed decides our heaven or our hell, is too important to neglect. We simply must not allow ourselves to be uninformed or misinformed. We must know.

For a number of years my heart has been troubled over the doctrine of faith as it is received and taught among evangelical Christians everywhere. Great emphasis is laid upon faith in orthodox circles, and that is good; but still I am troubled. Specifically, my fear is that the modern conception of faith is not the Biblical one; that when the teachers of our day use the word they do not mean what Bible writers meant when they used it.

2. The rarity of a radical change in the conduct and general outlook of persons professing their new faith in Christ as their personal Saviour.

3. The failure of our teachers to define or even describe the thing to which the word faith is supposed to refer.

4. The heartbreaking failure of multitudes of seekers, be they ever so earnest, to make anything out of the doctrine or to receive any satisfying experience through it.

5. The real danger that a doctrine that is parroted so widely and received so uncritically by so many is false as understood by them.

6. I have seen faith put forward as a substitute for obedience, an escape from reality, a refuge from the necessity of hard thinking, a hiding place for weak character. I have known people to miscall by the name of faith high animal spirits, natural optimism, emotional thrills and nervous tics.

7. Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life.

Perhaps it will help us to know what faith is if we first notice what it is not. It is not the 'believing' of a statement we know to be true. The human mind is so constructed that it must of necessity believe when the evidence presented to it is convincing. It cannot help itself. When the evidence fails to convince, no faith is possible. No threats, no punishment, can compel the mind to believe against clear evidence.

Faith based upon reason is faith of a kind, it is true; but it is not of the character of Bible faith, for it follows the evidence infallibly and has nothing of a moral or spiritual nature in it. Neither can the absence of faith based upon reason be held against anyone, for the evidence, not the individual, decides the verdict. To send a man to hell whose only crime was to follow evidence straight to its proper conclusion would be palpable injustice; to justify a sinner on the grounds that he had made up his mind according to the plain facts would be to make salvation the result of the workings of a common law of the mind as applicable to Judas as to Paul. It would take salvation out of the realm of the volitional and place it in the mental, where, according to the Scriptures, it surely does not belong.

True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie. It is enough that God said it, and if the statement should contradict every one of the five senses and all the conclusions of logic as well, still the believer continues to believe. "Let God be true, but every man a liar," is the language of true faith. Heaven approves such faith because it rises above mere proofs and rests in the bosom of God.

In recent years among certain evangelicals there has arisen a movement designed to prove the truths of Scriptures by appeal to science. Evidence is sought in the natural world to support supernatural revelation. Snowflakes, blood, stones, strange marine creatures, birds and many other natural objects are brought forward as proof that the Bible is true. This is touted as being a great support to faith, the idea being that if a Bible doctrine can be proved to be true, faith will spring up and flourish as a consequence.

What these brethren do not see is that the very fact that they feel a necessity to seek proof for the truths of the Scriptures proves something else altogether, namely, their own basic unbelief. When God speaks unbelief asks, "How shall I know that this is true?" I AM THAT I AM is the only grounds for faith. To dig among the rocks or search under the sea for evidence to support the Scriptures is to insult the One who wrote them. Certainly I do not believe that this is done intentionally; but I cannot see how we can escape the conclusion that it is done, nevertheless.

Faith as the Bible knows it is confidence in God and His Son Jesus Christ; it is the response of the soul to the divine character as revealed in the Scriptures; and even this response is impossible apart from the prior inworking of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of God to a penitent soul and has nothing whatsoever to do with the senses or the data they afford. Faith is a miracle; it is the ability God gives to trust His Son, and anything that does not result in action in accord with the will of God is not faith but something else short of it.

Faith and morals are two sides of the same coin. Indeed the very essence of faith is moral. Any professed faith in Christ as personal Saviour that does not bring the life under plenary obedience to Christ as Lord is inadequate and must betray its victim at the last.

The man that believes will obey; failure to obey is convincing proof that there is not true faith present. To attempt the impossible God must give faith or there will be none, and He gives faith to the obedient heart only. Where real repentance is, there is obedience; for repentance is not only sorrow for past failures and sins, it is a determination to begin now to do the will of God as He reveals it to us.

This is a very nice short treatise on faith and what the world incorrectly thinks faith is, however I disagree with a couple of the statements made by it.

To believe that God gives us faith would blame those who are faithless on God. To say that those finding proof of religious “fact” are faithless and looking for something to give them reason for believing is also not necessarily so.

We all start our faith with proof, perhaps not much proof but some. We usually start with the stories of Christ, His life, His Miracles and His resurrection.

Faith is not based on nothing. Faith starts out as a very small thing in us, as we exercise our faith in The Lord Jesus Christ and experiment with living the ways of His teachings we see that it works and our faith is strengthened. As our faith becomes stronger we see more and more the truth that our faith allows us to see, truth that from outside the vantage point of faith we would not see.

As our faith grows in some ways it decreases at the same time because it turns into knowledge. We no longer believe the stories of Jesus, the apostles and God Himself, we “know” them to be true because we have put them to the test and seen the results. When unbelievers shame us and make fun of us and present proof of the fallacy of Christian doctrines we are unaffected in part because of our faith but also in part because of our knowledge. For new Christians whose faith is frail these trials are very difficult and many will fall away. Likewise those who are new to the faith can be more easily tempted to do evil than those who have learned the truth of the gospel not by faith alone but by faith tried and found to be true.

Humans don't earn any reward from God, by Grace God's Son has bought us, we are His not because He made us have faith, not because He loved us and gave us faith but because we accepted Him and allowed faith to work in us. It is the relationship between our spirits and the Holy Spirit that allows us to accept The Savior and therefore gain faith and knowledge.

I have learned by practice that if I jump up into the air that gravity will pull me back down to the ground. Before I understood gravity I had faith everyday that I would not go flying into space. I don't have to have faith in gravity anymore, now I know about it, I have tested and know its limits to me.

I have tested my faith in The Lord Jesus Christ and know Him to be The Son of God and I have enough faith to do my best to follow Him and His ways. I don't require knowing which Tomb of many claimed to have been His, I don't have to search for blood stains on a rock that may have been used for His crucifixion, I don't need to know that some cloth may have stains from His face to Know He is, but, those things are in no way bad to know. The problem is that when your faith is based on tangible items if the items are later proven to be wrong what happens to your faith?

I don't know about the Shroud of Turin, I don't know about the Tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, or where Golgotha is but I know that Jesus is Christ.

Bernadine: …all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, when, and as she pleases. O Lady, since thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can ONLY come through thy hands, OUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON THEE.

Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.

Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.

Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.

Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.

Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.

Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.

Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.

Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.

Hello, it has been a while since I posted. I have been lurking on a number of the religious threads and I wonder if the behavior I see is the norm. I have seen quite a few rude comments, some I would consider mean or even cruel. Is this typical behavior for "Christians"?

I have read works by the Catholic Mother Teresa, the Evangelist Billy Graham, and his son Franklin. I have read things about William and Catherine Booth, the founders of the salvation army. I have read about Maximillian Kolbe and Bonhoeffer.

They all seem like really decent people, why is there such a difference between them and what I see here? Don't Christians believe in turning the other cheek anymore?

Many people name the name of Christ. Not everyone who says they are one is. That’s why God tells us that by their fruit (their lives and the things they do) you will know who His followers are.

Lip service doesn’t cut it with God.

And that becomes a problem but there’s nothing that a genuine Christian can do about that but be different.

Yes, Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek when personally insulted. Our society has definitely deteriorated and sadly it has infiltrated the church.

There are genuine Christians out there still, and among them, I would say, *No, it is not typical behavior*, but since anyone can claim any thing on the internet, there’s simply nothing that can be done about those who would basically be wolves in sheep’s clothing.

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