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Date Posted: 17:59:59 02/27/02 Wed
Author: Cecil Argetsinger
Subject: ”What is Faith"

”What is Faith
” By Cecil Argetsinger

Justified by faith! Believe and be saved! These two words, faith and believe, are, in the King James Bible, somewhat synonymous terms, both coming from one Greek word. Generally, the translators have interpreted the noun as faith, and the verb as believe. Each, with its various forms (believeth, believed, act.) occurs about 250 times in the New Testament. But what is meant by faith? What does it mean to believe? Since the word is so prominent in the Scriptures and, since salvation and justification, two items of utmost importance, are given solely on the one condition of faith, an understanding of the word is surely in order. As always, Scripture provides the answers.

Two Opposing Views

“Now to him that works, his wages are not counted as being of grace but as what is due. But to him that does not work, but believes on Him that justifies (counts righteous) the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:4-5-free translation). Represented in these verses are two opposing views of how to be right (righteous) in God’s sight. One is described as working, the other as believing.

Under the first system, working, an individual endeavors by his own “good works” to be right before God. He strives, by following rules and doing good deeds, to be righteous. Such attempts, even if those rules and deeds are expressed in Scripture, are said to be works and, according to the Bible, never succeed in their purpose. “But that no man is justified (counted righteous) by the law (any rules laid down for right living) in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just (those who are right in God’s sight) shall live by faith” (Gal. 3:11). It is “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us…(Titus 3:5).

According to the second method, no self-effort is involved. Under it, every attempt to earn a right standing before God is abandoned. The individual takes God at His word and believes that He has provided, as a gift, through the death of Christ, a perfectly acceptable righteousness before God. This is the faith method and consists of depending on God rather than on self.

In the passage of Scripture first quoted (Rom. 4:4-5), believing is expressed as being the opposite of working. “But to him that worketh not, but believeth…”is the statement, However, resting is also the opposite of working and thus resting and believing are seen to be equal terms. Those who “work not, but believe” are resting in what God has done for them. They are no longer attempting to earn a right standing before God. Instead of depending on their own good deeds they are relying on God to make them right. They have “ceased from their own works” (Heb. 4:10) and are trusting in God’s accomplishments in their behalf. This truth may be hard for men to accept, nevertheless, it is the teaching of the Bible. Acceptance by God is not something to be earned but something to be received as a gift.

Faith Defined

Faith, then, is not doing something for God, it is allowing God to do something for you. It is resting or trusting in what He has done and not in anything good that you might do. Faith is depending on another to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Faith can also be defined as simply believing the promise of God. God speaks (in the Bible) and faith takes God at His word and believes what is said. When an angel appeared to Zacharias, informing him that he was to father a son and that son was to be the one to announce Messiah’s (Christ’s) arrival, Zacharias was dumbfounded and unbelieving (Luke 1:5-20). “…Whereby shall I know this?” he asked the angel, “for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years” (v. 18). He was asking for outward proof, some sign that would lend credence to the angel’s announcement. “And, as a punishment for his unbelief, he was sentence to be dumb for a period of time. Said the angel, “And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season” (v. 20).

How different the Scripture language concerning a somewhat similar revelation to Abraham, given in Genesis 15:1-6. The Holy Spirit makes this comment on Abraham’s reception to God’s message. “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:19-21). God promises and Abraham believes. He depends on God to keep His word.

Real faith, then, does not demand proofs. It is its own evidence and grounds for belief and requires no other. It places its reliance on the promise of God, not upon outward signs and manifestations. Faith is the assurance and confidence that God will keep His word, the firm conviction that He will do just what He says. Scriptures defines it as “…the substance (assurance) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”(Heb. 11:1).

The Scriptures also picture faith as receiving or accepting that which God has done. “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (John 1:12). Receiving and believing are here shown to be precise counterparts. Receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as He offered in His redemptive work on the cross is exactly the same as believing. It is the opposite of rejecting or disbelieving.

Salvation Is All of God

Faith, rightly understood, can never stand in opposition to the truth that salvation is entirely a work of God. It can never imply that we do part and then God does the rest, for the simple reason that faith is not doing something, it is receiving something. To say that we are justified by faith is another way of saying that we are made right, not in the slightest degree by ourselves, but wholly by the One on whom our faith is set. The Scriptural summons to be right with God does not consist of a plea for self-improvement, but in an appeal to accept the righteousness that God has provided. “For He (God) hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him “ (11Cor. 5:21).

Faith is not praying (though the believer prays), faith is not seeking God, faith is not coming forward, it is not confession, nor is it trying to lead a Christian life. It is not, and this bears repeating, doing something for God, it is receiving as a gift that which God has freely offered through Christ.

This is not to say, however, that faith is passive or inactive, It is not, it is very much active. One does not come into salvation simply because Christ died on the cross; the message much be believed. “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (11Thess. 2:13). Faith intelligently elects to stand before God on the grounds of His gracious provision for righteousness. Faith consciously rejects self-effort as a means of gaining acceptance with God. Instead it chooses to believe that salvation is a gift.

What is faith? Faith is simply believing all that God has said in His Word. Faith does not work to earn a right standing before God, instead it rests in what Christ, in His death on the cross, has done. Faith is not doing something for God, but receiving something from God. Faith is depending on Him to do for you cannot do for yourself.

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