Foundations of the Christian Life. Chapter 12. Faith – What is it?

Foundations of the Christian Life.
Chapter 12. Faith – What is it?

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH.

(1) Hebrews 6:1-3 - a basic principle, necessary for us to understand and be experiencing if we are to grow spiritually. It is one of the two foundations of the Christian life.

(2) Habukuk 2:4 - "the righteous shall live by faith" - i.e. faith is the power by which we live as Christians.

(3) Hebrews 11:5,6 - "without faith it is impossible to please God". Faith is the way we can approach God and receive his favour.

THE DIVINE CYCLE OF FAITH.

In the second to last chapter we discovered faith, in actual fact, is not something we “do” in the sense that it is not something we initiate. Rather it is something Christ has perfectly done for us and that we receive as a gift. It is a blessing of the New Covenant.

When we come to study faith we find a clear parallel between faith and repentance.

1. Both are provided for us by Christ as our mediator.

Christ, acting as our representative, offered to God a perfect repentance and faith for us. God, who sees the faith of Christ as perfect, accepts it as the basis of the covenant between himself and mankind. The covenant is thus sealed, completed from both the divine and the human ends. The human requirement of perfect faithfulness has been provided by Christ. Thus from the human side also the covenant is completed.

Christ is the Faithful One: Hebrews 12:1,2.
“the author and finisher of our faith.”

Our faith does not arise out of some base in ourselves, rather Christ is the author, the originator, of it – and he also brings it to a perfect completion. The sort of faith we are talking about begins in God and is given to us – it is not a natural quality we have in ourselves.

THE ORIGIN OF FAITH - Faith Belongs to God.

It is never "ours" in the sense that we can create it or even own it. It belongs to God; he originates it and works it.
Faith is the relationship that the Father and the Son already enjoy in heaven.

Mark 11:22 (Greek) = "Have the faith of God".

It is a "God kind of faith" that we need and we can only get access to that through dependence on the faithfulness of Christ.

2. God then offers both repentance and faith to us as gifts of the covenant.

Ephesians 2:8.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Faith here is the gift. We don’t have the faith we need to be saved – rather we believe simply the promise of the gospel and receive the covenant as a gift. And in the gift of the covenant the first two things we find are a gift of repentance to meet our need for repentance and a gift of faith to meet our need for faith.

3. To this gift of God we add our own “content”.

In the case of faith we put in our belief and trust in Christ – and then we offer this back to God through Christ. We are not to offer our own faith, but we are to receive the gift of faith from God, mediated to us through Christ, and it is this gift of faith that we offer back to God filled with our content – our belief, our trust, our dependence - back to God.

4. This imperfect faith is taken up by Christ, wrapped in his perfect faithfulness and offered to the Father.

Our faith is mediated to the Father through Christ and is made perfect in him. Thus our faith is not accepted because of ourselves, but because of Christ. We don’t come to the Father in our own faith but “through Christ”, through his perfect faith.

This gift of faith is provided for us because our faith is always imperfect and incomplete. Our faith is always mixed with falsity including:
* Ignorance – we simply don’t know all the truth. Sometimes we don’t know that we really agree with God.
* Fear – we do not come to faith very often out of a motive of love, rather out of some fear that “it will not be so”. It seems that, on our side, some element of doubt is almost unavoidable.
* Deep in our hearts we really don’t believe that our faith will be enough to be accepted by God.

Our faith is therefore always imperfect, and if our faith were what was required for us to be saved then none of us would ever make it. Thus God has provided, in Christ, a perfect faith for us.

This mediation of faith by Christ frees us from a clear bondage - the fear, "Maybe I haven't proper faith." “Maybe I don’t have enough faith,” “Maybe my faith is incomplete or impure.” All such questions are sidelined as it is not our faith that God considers when we appeal to him through Christ. Rather God sees the faith of the Mediator, and that is perfect on our behalf.

This is a releasing truth. No longer do I have to fear that I do not have enough faith, or that my faith is in some way imperfect before God. My representation before God is not made on the basis of my faith, which is always imperfect. Rather I cry with Thomas, "I believe, help thou my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). When I do this my Mediator, my Advocate before the Father, takes my faith and it is wrapped up in his faith. Christ has already offered to God a life of perfect faith and obedience to God on my behalf, which he has accepted. I do not, nor can I, approach God on the basis of any work or attitude of my own. My own faith will never be good enough for God, BUT CHRIST'S IS. When I come to the Father, in the name of Jesus, God does not look at my faith, rather he looks at the perfect faith of the Son of God, and my petition is heard on that basis.

Just as with repentance, then, we offer our faith to God – though in reality it is the gift he has given us beforehand. This faith is imperfect, incomplete, full of wrong motivations. But we do not trust in this. Our imperfect faith is wrapped up in the perfect faith of our mediator, and “in Christ” we are accepted.
His faith is sufficient for us.

However one could object:
“If Christ has offered for us a perfect faith, does our faith have any significance?”
"Why, then, are we commanded to repent and have faith if Christ has already done it for us?"

We are faced with a seeming contradiction – faith is nearly always found in the Bible in the imperative – i.e. it is a command, something we must do. How then do we reconcile the fact that Christ has already perfectly done it for us with the clear command that we should also do it?

Answer: in the Divine economy faith is vitally important to us. We cannot come to the Father unless he draws us, but once he draws we need to respond. However the response he is looking for is not something we have in ourselves, but is rather a returning to him of the gifts he has given us. In the first instance he is looking for us to return to him the gift of faith.

It is thus his faith, Christ’s faith, that saves us and perfects us – not our own faith.

Galatians 2:20.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

(Greek) = "and what I now live in (the) flesh, by faith I live - of / in the Son of God".

This has two possible interpretations (both of which are true):

(i) "The life I live now in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God".
This emphasises my part in faith. I beleive in and have put my trust in Christ but this alone is not sufficient.

(ii) "The life I live now in the body, I live BY the faith of the Son of God".
This emphasises the fact that the very faith that I have that saves me is actually GOD'S faith - mediated to me through Christ.

Christ has offered a perfect faith to God and so the covenant is sealed for all mankind. But on a personal level it is the interaction, the union, of our imperfect faith with the perfect faith of Christ that brings the blessings of God to us. Our faith thus has vital significance at a personal level, even though it is always imperfect.

WHAT IS FAITH?

(1) Uses of the Word "Faith".

There are five kinds of Faith we can talk about. It is important to recognise the difference between them.

(i) Natural Faith. This is the sort of faith all men have in that they "put their trust" in things.
E.g., I may fly in an Aeroplane. In doing so I have faith that the plane will not crash, that the pilot knows how to fly it, that the navigator knows how to get us to where we are going and so on.

This is not the sort of faith we are interested in when talking about spiritual matters.

The word “faith” in secular English does have some implications for us. The word simply means "Trust, confidence, assurance in another or another's word." Hence we can only have faith in that which we perceive to be reliable, faithful and trustworthy. It is as we see God as being reliable, trustworthy, that we have faith in him.

Our faith in God and his Word, Jesus, are based on our knowledge of their character. If we deem God and Christ to be trustworthy we will be able to have faith in them. If we do not, we will not.

It could also be argued in reverse: If we do not put our trust in God and his word then we do not deem him trustworthy. The implication of this is terrible as we smear the revealed character of God.

(ii) Saving Faith. This is the basic gift of faith that God gives to every person who believes in Christ and thus receives the covenant.

(iii) The Fruit of Faith. This sees faith as a fruit of the Christian life. It is really "faithfulness" in that it refers primarily to our continuation in faith.

Galatians 5:22.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,…”

(iv) The Gift of Faith. This is a spiritual gift of faith power that God gives only to some Christians to do works of power in Jesus' Name.

1 Corinthians 12:9.
“… to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,”

(v) The Faith. Meaning the Christian way, or belief, or doctrine.

Titus 1:4,13.
“This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith”

Ephesians 4:13.
“until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Because the word “faith” is used in different ways in the scriptures it is important that we carefully consider the context each usage is found in to determine in exactly what sense the word is being used.

(2) Bible Words for Faith:

Greek - pisteuo (verb) - to believe.
- pistis (noun ) - faith, belief.

In secular Greek pistis is nearly always translated as "faithfulness", in the sense of "loyalty/fidelity".

When the OT was translated from Hebrew in to Greek pistis and pisteuo were used to translate the Hebrew word for “trust”. For the Jew, trust meant a total committal of life in terms of lifestyle and actions. A “leaning on” in the sense that the person leans on God. So the Greek word came to mean “to trust”.

So there are four primary meanings to the word which gives us four elements to faith:
1. Belief.
2. Trust.
3. Faith.
4. Faithfulness.

1. Faith is An Intellectual Belief.

To have faith in God and Christ we must believe certain things about them.

Hebrews 11:6
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

* Faith here is clearly aligned with believing certain things.
* We are told there are two things we need to believe if we are to be pleasing to God:
(i) That he exists.
(ii) That he rewards those who seek him.

WHAT WE BELIEVE IS IMPORTANT.

Being a Christian implies that we believe Christian beliefs, we cannot therefore claim to be a Christian if we adhere to, e.g., Buddhist beliefs. As Christians we adhere to THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

This is important to understand because of two errors that are prevalent today:
1. The big myth today: all religions are the same, just different roads to the same thing. However, even a cursory examination of the different religions will show that they are not talking the same sort of stuff.
2. The “pop-culture Christianity”: It is very “in” to have “religion”. Hence many (often famous) people like to “brand” themselves as “Christian” – but then they go on to fill the word “Christian” with their own ideas, often including a mishmash of ideas taken from other religions.

These are not acceptable approaches as they are simply dishonest. Christianity is a religion based in historical facts and events and these cannot be changed to suit ourselves. The content of Christianity is a “given”. It is no more acceptable to change the content of Christianity to suit our own preferences than it is to change the content of the history of the development of science, or any other subject.

Repentance and faith are closely linked. Repentance is to have a change of mind.
This must include the content of our beliefs. To take on the “Mind of Christ” means that we begin to think like him; we take on his attitudes, beliefs, and opinions in preference to our own.

In this Christianity is no different to any other philosophy or religion. Adherence to any system of thought or belief means one has to adopt that system of thought. In this sense all religions and philosophies are mutually exclusive and intolerant of differing viewpoints. Christianity is thus no more “narrow-minded” than any other system of thought – it is only “different”. (If you doubt this just try talking to a scientist and deny the existence of gravity, or claim that water has the chemical composition H3O. See how far you get tolerated!)

Growing in faith" is thus the process of:
(i) Changing our beliefs, and
(ii) Living in the light of the newfound knowledge.

It follows that having true faith in God begins with some form of belief, some intellectual understanding about God. However as we progress in the Christian walk we should never allow beliefs about God, i.e. doctrines, to divide us as faith primarily is a relationship. For this reason we find that “unity in the faith”, i.e. doctrinal agreement, is not something that comes immediately, but is a sign of maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

The Bible says we should always be ready to have an answer if anyone asks a question concerning Christ. Faith has an intellectual content – we believe the Christian faith.


2. Faith is Trust.

The use of the Greek word in the Greek translation of the OT gave it this idea of trust.

Trust is the absolute reliance on another person.

The word faith in the secular sense has some implications for us also. The word simply means "Trust, confidence, assurance in another or another's word."
Hence we can only have faith in that which we perceive to be reliable, faithful and trustworthy.
On such words we act – we determine future actions and states.

In the Biblical sense trust is an Emotional AND Will committal to God and Christ, which is made on the basis of what we believe. Hence there is no "blind faith". Faith is not a leap in the dark, but is a commitment based on knowledge.

Trust is a yielding of every area of our lives to Christ for his direction and control, and a reliance on him to provide for our every need, as he defines them.


3. Faith is Faith.

When we believe God’s word and trust our lives to it God gives us another ingredient – faith.
Faith is the gift of God that he gives us in response to our belief and trust in his faithfulness. Therefore we cannot earn it, work it up, or manipulate it. It comes by a sovereign act of God, it is either there or it isn't. When we receive Christ we receive faith. It is there whether or not we “feel anything”.

4. Faith is Faithfulness.

Faithfulness means primarily loyalty, or fidelity. It is the being true to someone because of a love/friendship commitment.

Hence this aspect of faith stresses the fact that faith is primarily a word defining a sort of RELATIONSHIP, and only secondarily a word defining a set of beliefs.

The sort of Faith we are talking about is defined by the relationship between The Father and the Son in Eternity. Mankind does not, and cannot, have this sort of Faith because of sin. However Christ has entered into our lost human condition and has brought to bear the Divine Faith on our human existence.

Faith is actually a definition of the kind of relationship that God and Christ have in the Spirit. The relationship of Faith already exists in heaven between the Father and the Son. It is this relationship which we are invited to share in by becoming members of Christ's body. When we are “in Christ” we share in this relationship – we become partakers of the Spirit of God.

Biblical faith is built on the faithfulness of God. He is faithful, his word never passes away, his character is without and tarnish or change. Because of this we can trust him.

How do We Know God and Christ are Faithful?

The Faithfulness of God, and of Christ, has been shown to us through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
* Christ showed his faithfulness by his perfect life of obedience to the Father, even to the point of dying on a Cross.
* God showed his faithfulness by raising Christ from the dead.

So Faith is four things:
1. A system of intellectual beliefs – the Christian worldview.
2. An attitude of absolute trust on God and his word.
3. A gift from God of his own faith through Christ.
4. Faithfulness – the very relationship between God the Father and the Son into which we are invited to share by the Holy Spirit.

A BIBLICAL DEFINITION.

Hebrews 11:1.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

"Faith is the Title Deed, the sure conviction and reality of things hoped for." (Amplified)

Four things about faith here:

1. Faith is based on Hope.

Hope is based on knowing and understanding the promises of God. Faith is the step between hope and experience.

Definition: - HOPE: Is the sure knowledge that we will receive the things promised by God in the Bible. It is not HOPEFULNESS, but is a certainty based on REVEALED TRUTH. This truth that is revealed is itself based in historical events – the death, and resurrection of Christ.

Colossians 1:5
“the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel…”

Paul here refers to the faith and love of the Colossian Christians, and then he tells us that this faith and love is "because of the hope laid up for you in Heaven". The term "because of" has the idea of hope being the basis for the faith and love. The NIV renders it " ...the faith...and love... which springs from the hope..."

The first step in correct faith is a correct hope, which comes from God's word showing us who we are in Christ, how to see it manifest in our lives and what he has planned for us.

A Biblical Hope is the foundation of a Biblical faith. Hope is the ground in which faith takes root and grows.

This hope is "laid up for us in heaven", but it is not to be understood as a material or spiritual blessing. Rather Hope is Jesus Himself.

Colossians 1:27.
“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”


Hope is found in a vital relationship with Jesus where we know his as our Lord and Provider. He is all we need. He will justify in the last Judgement.
This Hope of future vindication gives us the ability to endure with patience the injustices of this age.

2. Faith has nothing to do with what we can see in this material world.

Faith is the “assurance of things unseen" - a knowing that we already have what we asked God for, even if we don't see it yet, nor are experiencing it yet. Without this "knowing" and trusting God in this "knowing" we will never experience what we want from God.

2 Corinthians 5:7.
“We walk by faith and not by sight”.

What Paul means here is that faith has nothing to do with external evidence, circumstances or rational proof. Faith comes from God as a gift; it doesn’t come by proving things – by sight or by reason or any other way. Faith is given when we simply accept God’s word as being true without proof.

Our problem is that we want proof before we believe.
“I’ll believe it when I see it”
“Prove it to me and I’ll believe it.”
We want someone to prove things from the Bible before we believe simple statements of the word. It doesn’t work like that. The Western World wants proof before belief; God wants us to believe before he proves.

Faith is not proof – in the intellectual or scientific sense. Faith is a knowing, an assurance, but it comes from a witness of the Holy Spirit in us to the truth, not by having intellectual reasons for belief.

At some stage, if we are going to move in faith, we are going to have to sacrifice our critical, intellectual desire for proof and like a child simply step into the Biblical worldview of ideas and accept the statements of the Bible without proof.


3. Faith is a Knowing, an assurance.

It is not a knowing in the head as much as it is a knowing in the heart.

“I just know…”

4. Once we have faith for something we actually have the thing we have faith for – even if we don’t see it yet.

Hebrews 11:1(Amplified)
“Faith is the title deed of things hoped for…”

We have the “title deed” to what has been promised. Having the actuality is irrelevant, in a sense – it is only a matter of time. But to have the “title deed” is to have ownership, to have possession.

1 John 5:14,15
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us- whatever we ask- we know that we have what we asked of him.”

Faith is a confidence given to us – a gift of faith from God.

Hope is based on knowing and understanding the promises of God. Faith is the step between hope and experience. Faith is the assurance of things "unseen" - a knowing that we have what we asked God for, even if we don't see it yet, nor are experiencing it yet. Without this "knowing" and trusting God in this "knowing" we will never experience what we want from God.

HOMEWORK:

1. Do go over the chapter 2 or 3 times in the week. Look up the verses quoted in the Bible and read them in context.

2. Remember to do the Transformer verses and prayer every day. They are key verses that will help you greatly in years to come.

3. Think about some situation where maybe you “gave up” reaching out to God for something. Ask yourself, “What was the cause of the disappointment?” Was it because:

* You didn’t have a real hope based on a Bible promise? Rather it was just a good idea that you had yourself.
* You stopped believing it was possible because circumstances and events made it look impossible?
* You never really prayed about it so that you knew in your heart the assurance that God had answered? Rather you presumed on God.
* You never came to belief because you wanted proof before you would believe?

Ask God for forgiveness for your failure to continue in faith. Re-quicken the promise in your heart by searching out a promise of God in the Bible and confessing it.


TRANSFORMER VERSES:

Hebrews 11:1.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Hebrews 11:6
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

PRAYER:

Father God, I thank you for the gift of faith. I thank you that Jesus has provided for me a perfect faith before your throne and that my incomplete faith is made perfect in him. Like the Apostle Thomas I cry, “I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

I pray today that you will increase faith in me, that faith will grow in my heart. I believe in you and I believe that you reward those who seek you. I seek you, Lord.

Quicken to me your word, your promises of hope in which I can put my trust. I believe your word. I account you to be trustworthy and reliable. Your word is true.

As I claim your promises grant to me the assurance of faith, that I might know in my heart that your promise is true and is on its way to me.

Enable me, by your power, to believe the promises in spite of the evidence that assails my senses. Empower my faith, Lord Jesus, with your own perfect faith.

I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.