“We cannot trust someone further than we know them.” 1.
Faith is not blind, we have to know what we believe and why. To have faith is to have assurance and belief, a moral conviction of the truth about God and His love for us which is expressed through the atonement of His Son Jesus Christ. We cannot fully discern God by our human senses. In fact, in our fallen condition, we naturally consider what is spiritual to be foolishness (1 Cor. 2:14). The only way for us to have personal knowledge of God is by Christ revealing Him to us (Matt. 11:27). Faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8) and He desires that all would come to the knowledge of Him (1 Tim. 2:3-6).
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
If a person has come to realize that they are a sinner, with a sinful nature that holds them captive to death and separation from God, they would hope that He would have mercy and forgive them so that their relationship could be restored and live eternally in His kingdom. Well, the good news is, He has provided this salvation for us, and it is thoroughly explained in the greatest story ever told throughout the written Word of God, the Bible. If we have heard the gospel or have read it and learned of our fallen condition, and accept and believe in the amazing sacrificial love God has provided for us through the atonement of His Son, (“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17)), then we have faith in what we hoped for; in what God has done for us in the past, what He is doing now in the present, and what He said He will do in the future.
God is Spirit, so even though we can’t see Him physically, we can believe, have faith, that His Word is true through the conviction of the
Holy Spirit as He reveals it to us. So to have faith in God is our response to the revelation of His truth. Here is a verse that elaborates on the reality of this truth:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pet. 1:3-9).
When we have faith in God, we will trust in Him and His word. And by being obedient to our Heavenly Father as Christ was in all things, even through persecution and martyrdom, we are giving evidence that we have faith in what we cannot see. In the Biblical book of Hebrews chapter eleven there are many examples of people who had faith by acting in obedience to God instead of relying on their own wisdom and understanding. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). When they were obedient to God, and in many instances through persecution and even death for His name sake, they were showing evidence that God is true and exists even though they can’t see Him, because no one would or could go through such torture for something that is not real.
Jesus Christ is the object of our faith, “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). Our faith is not in our good works, but in the righteousness of Christ (Gal. 5:6).
“We who have been saved by faith often wonder why the unsaved rebel against the gospel of grace. Why do they feel they have to do something for God in order to be saved? God says they can do nothing but accept what He has done for them. He paid the penalty for sin by giving His Son to die. Christ died, was buried, paid the penalty in full, and was raised in newness of life. Now faith in Him will save us!” -J Vernon McGee2
What is the result of our faith? We become children of God. We are natural descendants from Adam who is the head of the physical race, when we are restored and become born-again, we start a new life all over as a new creation in Christ who is head of the spiritual race and the Kingdom of God. This reality was foretold and initiated by God through His covenant promise with Abraham (Gen. 15:1-6).
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). “The repeated negatives insist that birth into the family of God is quite different from physical birth. This divine birthright has nothing to do with racial or national or family ties. It is spiritually irrelevant to be descended from Abraham in the natural order if one is not a child of Abraham in the only sense that matters before God – by reproducing Abraham’s faith.”3
Faith is not a mere intellectual decision. It requires us to know the Lord personally, and to walk in His ways, bearing the fruit of the Spirit. There are people who exploit the name of Jesus, even performing miracles, signs and wonders, who are not interested in a relationship with Him, but only want to distract people away from having a personal relationship by ministering only what He can do instead of revealing who He is. He will cast these so-called Christians aside and condemn them for this and claim He never knew them (Matt. 7:23).
Faith requires an undivided heart, devotion to God, growing in a restored relationship with Him. If your heart is divided between the ways of the world and the ways of God, then why ask Him for salvation? Do you want to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness?
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” (Rom. 6:15-18).
The sacrificial, atoning blood of Jesus provides eternal salvation only to those who believe. “If His justification is not fulfilled in the individual, it is because of unbelief and not due to an insufficiency or inadequacy of the work of Christ.”4 It is interesting that we are not all automatically saved. Satan was defeated at the moment of Christ’s resurrection. But it is not effective in our lives until we willingly choose to believe. Adam and Eve had a choice to be submissive to God (Eve failed and was submissive to the serpent, Adam failed and was submissive to his wife Eve) and now we have a choice to be submissive to God. Adam and Eve went from light to darkness, life to death; we can go from darkness to light, death to life. In our fallen condition, God still gives us the dignity as His created human beings the freedom to choose to worship Him as the only one true living God. Christ has defeated the Accuser, but we still have to deal with the Deceiver until the final resurrection takes place in the end times.
We are blinded from all of this since the Original Sin took place in the Garden of Eden, and the Lord progressively revealed our situation to us through the recorded history of the Jews of the how and why of our salvation, which was eventually fulfilled by Jesus Christ. This is factual history, a story provided in the Bible; we would do well by seeking with all of our heart the truth to come to know the reality of Satan’s realm of sin and the holiness of God, and His plan of redemption through Christ.
“By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” (1 Jn. 3:10).
John MacArthur writes about saving faith: “Saving faith consists of three elements: (1) mental: the mind understands the gospel and the truth about Christ (Rom. 10:14-17); (2) emotional: one embraces the truthfulness of those facts with sorrow over sin and joy over God’s mercy and grace (Rom. 6:16; 15:13); and (3) volitional: the sinner submits his will to Christ and trusts in Him alone as the only hope of salvation.”5
“Faith saves because it looks entirely to what God has done for believers in Christ. It rests on Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sins and His resurrection for the sake of their justification.”6
Here is a link to a Biblical teaching on faith by Pastor Jeff Kliewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-_cmsvPtkw
Notes:
1. The Green Letters by Miles J. Stanford, pg. 12
2. Through His Spirit by J. Vernon McGee, Pg. 238
3. The Gospel and Epistles of John by F.F. Bruce, pgs. 38-39
4. The Complete Word Study Dictionary, New Testament, edited by Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D., Pg. 94
5. The MacArthur Bible Commentary, Pg. 1505
6. What Does Paul mean by “The Righteousness of God”? by Justin Taylor http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/righteousness-of-god/