Faith takes God at His word. The believer treats what God says as truth. Yet it is not as if someone listened to a lecture on, say, the planet Saturn, found it very interesting, and then went away feeling perfectly free to forget all that was said. What God has revealed in the Scriptures demands a response from us; it ought to influence our behaviour. This is because God has supreme authority over us; He created us, and it is our duty to obey Him. The fact that so many in this generation refuse to believe that the universe – and mankind in particular – is the result of God’s creative activity makes it easy for them to reject God’s right to direct them as to how they should live. Those who promote evolution have much to answer for.
In particular, we must take God at His word when He speaks to us about salvation, and about Jesus Christ as a Saviour. We must not treat what God has said about salvation as merely what is interesting. It demands a response, the response of faith – saving faith, not what is described as historical faith. Historical faith accepts the facts that, for instance, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, went about preaching to multitudes and performing many miracles, was crucified at Calvary and rose again on the third day. People who only have historical faith are still rejecting Christ as Saviour; they only assent to the accuracy of the facts about Him. Saving faith includes this assent but also something more significant. In the words of John Colquhoun of Leith, “saving faith is a real persuasion, or belief, of the revealed truths of God concerning Christ, and a cordial trust in Christ, and in God through Him, for all His salvation”.1
Those who have saving faith in Christ not only accept the facts of biblical history and doctrine but also trust in Him for salvation. They not only receive as true Jesus’ words: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”; they actually believe in Him. So when Paul and Silas had to answer the Philippian jailer’s desperate question, “What must I do to be saved?” they not only declared to him “the word of the Lord” so that he would have the necessary information, but they directed him to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”. Believing on the Saviour means to trust on Him, and the same is true of believing in Him. That is required of everyone who hears the gospel, the good news concerning Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures and made known in preaching. And believers receive God’s testimony that Christ has proper authority for His work of salvation, that “the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 Jn 4:14).
1John Colquhoun, Saving Faith, Free Presbyterian Publications reprint, 2010, p 20. Colquhoun (1748-1827) was one of the most noted Scottish ministers at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Faith in Christ receives as true the testimony of the Bible concerning Christ in His Person and work. The Bible testifies that Christ is both divine and human: that the eternal Son of God took our nature in the fullness of time so that He might bear the guilt of those who are to be saved and keep the law on their behalf. But the Saviour must also be divine, so that He might be able to endure the punishment of sin and that His work might have merit before God His Father. In carrying out this work of satisfying divine justice, Christ was acting on behalf of His people – as their substitute.
The individual who believes on Christ also receives as true the testimony of the Bible concerning human sin, that he or she has offended against God by transgressing His holy law and by coming short of the perfect obedience which is due to that law. Further, not only are they guilty – justly liable to punishment for their sin – but they are also sinful, for sin “is an evil thing and bitter” (Jer 2:19); it is not only bitter in its terrible consequences but also evil in itself.
Lying behind the teaching of the Bible about sin is the fact that God is holy, that He has authority over us as our Creator – that He has a right to demand our obedience – and that He has revealed His law, which, like Himself, is perfectly holy. Further, because God is just, He must punish sin. So, at last, He must send away the unbelieving to endure the punishment of their sin in a lost eternity.
Now faith receives such truths with application to oneself; the individual acknowledges that he is a sinner against the holy God, who has authority over him, who is the just God that must punish his sin. Faith receives God’s testimony about human inability; the individual acknowledges that he cannot believe, that he needs the Holy Spirit to work in his heart to make him able and willing to believe in Christ.
We are obliged, before God, to receive the whole testimony of His Word. God is speaking, and we should trust everything that He says. We are warned: “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar” (1 Jn 5:10). We are to believe God’s testimony about eternity, that there is a heaven and a hell, and to believe what He tells us about the characters of those who go to these places. So, treating these aspects of His testimony seriously, we are to examine ourselves as to whether or not we have saving faith – as to whether or not we are trusting in Christ, and in Christ alone, for salvation. Let us always remember that we are to receive the testimony of God’s Word with application to ourselves.
We are to receive God’s testimony about the blessings of salvation. God’s children, in particular, are to receive His testimony about justification, adoption and sanctification. They are to take to heart that God declares that His justice is perfectly satisfied with believers, because of what Christ did in their place; they are justified. He will not deal with them according to their sin; it is forgiven. In fact they are treated as if they had always kept the law of God perfectly, because of what their Substitute has done in their place. Again, they are adopted; God has taken them into His family; He treats them as His children, with all the privileges that this suggests. And they are being sanctified; this is an ongoing work that will only be completed when the soul passes into glory. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, whereby God’s children “are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness”.2
Believers are not merely to treat these doctrines as information, but to apply them to their situation in a practical way. They are to remember their privileges as those who have been justified and adopted and, by faith, they are to feel encouraged accordingly. In spite of their continuing sinfulness, they are to recognise that the Spirit will not leave His work incomplete but will continue to sanctify them to the end (see Ph 1:6). Yet they are to be conscious of their responsibility to live holily and to pray the Lord to keep them from evil throughout their lives.
We have referred only to a small selection of the Bible’s teachings. There are many other doctrines we have not considered, including God’s eternal purposes; Christ’s offices as Prophet, Priest and King; the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But faith is to receive all God’s teachings and, by grace, make a practical use of them. Not least, we are to worship Him – wholeheartedly – in the light of the doctrines He has revealed.
It is true, especially at the beginning of spiritual life, that believers may understand very little of such teachings. And the question of how little people need to know if they are to be saved is one that does not need an answer. God knows; that is what matters. Our duty is to learn as much as possible, not merely by way of receiving information; we are to seek a God-given faith to take Him at His word whatever He says – making a practical use of all these truths – so that we might walk on safely towards heaven.
2The Shorter Catechism, answer 35.