faith for faith

The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:9-13).

In this section of John’s Gospel, we see that the apostle is already defining and clarifying some terms that he is going to be using throughout his Gospel. And the apostle is not shy about his usage of terms, and he uses them in such a way that, though they can be interpreted different ways when standing on their own, they can only have one interpretation in their context.

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The late, great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, said many times concerning the doctrines of free will which are commonly labeled Arminianism, that, “The doctrine of justification itself, as preached by an Arminian, is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works.” In other words, Spurgeon believed, and quite passionately, that the gospel preached by those who hold that men have a free will that can choose Christ is nothing more than a salvation that is based upon works not upon faith in Christ alone.

Such a charge is not a light charge, for when one takes that which is the Gospel and distorts it into a salvation that is based upon human merit and law-keeping, he does not merely tarnish the Gospel, but he destroys it in its entirety. The apostles, for this reason, speak very harshly concerning those who do thus to the Gospel and admonish the church over and over throughout their letters to watch out for those who distort the Gospel in this way and to cast them out of their fellowship. And to demonstrate this great passion of the apostles for the purity of the Gospel, the apostle Paul speaking to the Galatian church regarding the Judaizers (those who sought to add the work of circumcision to the Gospel), wrote:

You [Galatians] were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? [i.e. The Judaizers did.] This persuasion [of the Judaizers] is not from him [i.e. God] who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump [i.e. a little distortion ruins the whole Gospel]. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine [i.e. the Gospel that I have preached], and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who [Judaizers] who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! (Gal. 5:7-12).

Now, the apostle makes it very clear of how he feels about the Judaizers adding the work of circumcision to the Gospel. He says that their doing thus, first, leavens and destroys the whole Gospel, in that, second, it removes the offense of the cross of Christ thereby demonstrating that it is a false gospel, and, third, that, because of this false teaching, he wishes that they who did this to the Gospel would castrate themselves! In other words, he is saying in not so many words, “I wish that they who wish to cut off the foreskin of your flesh and by it destroy the Gospel would instead keep cutting on their own genitals and leave you and the Gospel alone.”

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Continued from previous post: “Therefore, Ezekiel declares, as the apostle Paul declares, that baptism results in the obedience of God’s people. How? Because God places in his people a new heart and a new spirit, and he puts his Spirit in us so that we will ‘walk in [his] statutes and be careful to obey [his] rules.’ Therefore, man’s inability to fulfill the obedience of faith is remedied by God’s ability, for it is God who works in his people to bring them to obedience through Jesus Christ. The question that remains then is, ‘How is this accomplished?’”

This obedience which God accomplishes in his people comes about first through the emancipation from sin that baptism affords. Paul addresses this truth thoroughly in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. However, before we look at that text, I would like to explain how the apostle structures his argument. Yes, baptism is the apostle’s topic in Romans 6-8:17, however he does not come at the topic directly as though he were writing an essay on baptism, but he does it in response to certain objectionable questions, each question raised by a prior claim of his. The reason he structures his discourse in this way, I believe, is because he is preparing the church for the false teachers who will inevitably spring up among them proclaiming destructive heresies. He expresses this concern at the end of his epistle, writing, “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them” (Rm. 16:17). Therefore, the apostle structures his discourse on baptism in such a way that the church will have a defense against those who bring in a false gospel.

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As for [the seed that] was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful (Mt. 13:22).

In the parable of the sower, Christ intimates that there are four responses to the hearing of the Word of the Kingdom, three negative and one positive. Three of the responses to the Word are responses that are rooted in the heart of man and therefore bear no fruit, and one response in rooted in the work of God and therefore bears much fruit. In each of the negative responses there is the proclamation of the Word (i.e. the sowing of the seed), and in each there is a different enemy that destroys the effectiveness of the Word.

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In his letter to the Hebrews, the apostle to the Hebrews gives what is perhaps the most quoted definition of faith by Christians, namely, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). The word that is translated “things” in the English Standard Version is pragmaton, from whose root we get the English word pragmatic. When we speak of things pragmatic, we speak of things that are practical, of things that are put into action and are demonstrative. Therefore, I believe that the King James Version translates the passage rightly, saying, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Indeed this is valid in the context as well, for, in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle shows, example after example, first the assurance and hope of faithful men of the past and then how that assurance and hope is manifested practically in the lives of those who had faith.

This translation is validated further by the testimony of the Scriptures, for true faith that rests in the blessed assurance of things to come always manifests in the lives of those who have faith. Thus, the brother of our Lord, James, writes in his letter:

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For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:8-10).

To a particular extent, it is easy for most of us to grasp that our salvation is not to be credited to us. We understand it was Christ Jesus who died and who lived righteously that we might be righteous before a Judge who is holy and just and therefore demands perfection. And whether we credit our faith to God or to our own free volition, most of us recognize that apart from Christ and faith in him there is no salvation, and therefore we have no cause boast, except, as the apostle Paul declared, in the cross of Christ (cf. Gal. 6:14).

But what of our religious and righteous deeds after our salvation? Do we have reason to credit our own personal volition or to glory in our own sanctification? No, not at all. For Scripture declares that it is the Holy Spirit who not only began in us the good work of salvation, but it is he who finishes it (cf. Ph. 1:6). Furthermore the apostle declares elsewhere that in the Church–in those who are called by God, among them there are appointments of different measures of faith so that no one should “think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (Rm. 12:3). And it is by the Spirit, not by our selves, that we are commanded to put to death the deeds of the body (cf. Rm. 8:13), and it is God who has prepared beforehand good works for us to walk in. Therefore our question and our answer must be just as the apostle’s: “What then becomes of our boasting? It is excluded” (Rm. 3:27).

The great theologians of centuries past were correct when they saw in the Scriptures two covenants–the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. Both have existed since before the fall of man in the Garden, and both continue to exist to this day. Moses, after writing of both covenants in the historical account of Adam’s Transgression of the Commandment and the Promise of a Crusher of the Serpent’s head, continues to write of both after he has received from Yahweh the Law. Concerning this, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 10, “For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them” (v. 10:5). This is, by Moses, the acknowledgement of the perpetuation of the Covenant of Works, viz. that he who obeys the Law will be declared “just” by the Law. However, since it is made quite clear by the apostle in the preceding chapters of his letter that no one has kept the Law, the apostle appeals to Moses’ appeal to the Righteousness that comes by faith. For Moses writes and the apostle adds:

But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (i.e. to bring Christ down) or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (i.e. to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (i.e. the word of faith that we proclaim) (vv. 10:6-8). 

The apostle’s appeal to the revelation given to Moses demonstrates that there are, even now, two methods to approach Jesus Christ (i.e. God) and his righteousness. The first way is the way of works. This method is a declaration by the heart that one will pull himself up by his own boot straps and rise to meet God halfway. It is rule keeping that manifests itself in self-righteousness based upon tithing, wearing nice suits on Sundays, and not being a drain on the government as other low-lifes are. These might acknowledge with their lips that Jesus Christ is God and that he came down to Earth and dwelt among men and died and rose up from the dead, but they do not base their righteousness upon him. They instead look to themselves and their own law-keeping and think that they are right with God simply because ten percent of their gross income goes to the local church.

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In the fifth grade, I loved to read fiction. I remember going to the bookshelf at school and checking out books and taking them home and finishing them in one sitting. In that time, there was one book that I pulled off the shelf and checked out over and over again—Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawlings. I loved that book. Yet, even after having had read it several times, I do not remember much about the story, but I do remember one statement quite vividly: “Well, it’s been my experience God helps those who help themselves … And if you want God’s help bad enough, you’ll meet him half way.”¹ Though this statement is made in the context of a boy getting some hunting dogs, it accurately paints the common religious mentality of all men, whether one’s a devout Jew in Palestine or a redneck in Oklahoma wanting a pair of hunting dogs.

The problem with humanity’s natural view of religion is that it always has a “meet God half way” mentality apart from the Truth. The natural ignorant man who is zealous for God will always try to find a stepladder to him. The Buddhist will use intense meditation, the Muslim ritual prayers and fasting, the Jew strict and hedged obedience of the Torah, the Baptist will not “smoke, drink, or chew, or go with girls that do,” and the “contemporary” Christian will sing nothing but praise choruses and read the Left Behind series until Jesus comes back. Regardless of the religious guise in which it manifests itself, the “meeting God half way” is the greatest and most successful lie that the devil has ever told.

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In yesterday’s study, we saw quite an extraordinary picture of how God has chosen to deal with the Jews and the Gentiles of Paul’s day until now. The picture that is given, though presented in racial terms, is not based totally on race (i.e. Jew or not Jew), but it is also based upon their relationship to God’s Law. Expectedly, the Jews who possessed the law of God had a much different reaction that the Gentiles who did not possess the law. Yet, instead of finding the fulfillment our natural expectations, i.e. that the Jews would find themselves in God’s favor and the Gentiles would find themselves destroyed, the opposite is true. We find that the Gentiles who were not looking for God and righteousness found both, and the Jews who were looking for God and righteousness found neither.

Why did the Gentiles find righteousness and the Jews did not? Simply because the Gentiles received it by faith and the Jews attempted to attain it by works. For Paul writes, “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame’” (Romans 9:32, 33).

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Paul’s interpretation of God’s declaration to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” is possibly one of the most direct statements on a controversial topic in all of Scripture. He writes, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy” (v. 9:16). Another version translates the text this way: “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (NASB).

Before we come to any conclusions concerning this statement by the apostle, it would be beneficial for us to understand the context in which it is spoken. We have just finished studying God’s sovereign will over the selection of the Israel’s forefathers according to the Promise, which we have concluded from its context and from the fulfillment of the Promise in Christ that the apostle is speaking of the Eternal & Spiritual Israel, i.e. the children of God, not the physical Israel and its physical, covenant promises (cf. v. 9:8). The mercy of God of which the Apostle speaks is therefore not a mercy that affords physical prosperity for a particular nation and ethnic group but it is mercy unto eternal blessing.

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