02.14. Faith - 03 - The Importance of Faith.

Faith – 03 – The Importance of Faith.

Faith is all-important. The first work of the Christian preacher should be to bring men to a heart-felt belief in God and in Christ, for without this other instruction cannot profit. This is easily seen from some Bible statements. 1. Faith in God is declared to be so essential that men cannot please God without it (Hebrews 11:6). That is fairly sweeping. There is sin in unbelief, just as fatal in its effects as sin is in action. Faith not issuing in holy life profits nothing. A moral life without faith in God is not enough. That God should furnish motives to faith, and that his creatures should yet not believe on him, not trust him, how could that he aught but deadly sin? 2. Faith in Jesus Christ, belief in the gospel, has been made an indispensable condition of salvation. Of him to whom the message fairly comes it is said: "He that disbelieveth shall be condemned" (Mark 16:16). "He that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18). These verses are called harsh by some. These should remember that faith is just as essential in our ordinary life--family, social, business, political. Why should it not be vital in the spiritual sphere as well? "The law of nature is as imperious and universal as the law of the gospel." Each of us passes through a stage in which the law of our natural existence says, "If he believed not his mother or his nurse, he must die." Again, it has to be borne in mind that there is a moral cause of unbelief; it is not all intellectual. After John 3:18 we must read John 3:19-21. Also, we may see the bright side even of "he that disbelieveth shall be condemned." If a loving Savior who died for men said that, then all may believe if they will. Accountability presupposes ability. 3. The effects of faith proclaim its importance. The gospel is God’s power unto salvation. Grace is free to all. Provision for this life and life eternal is abundant. But faith is the channel through which these blessings flow. We are saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8), justified by faith (Romans 3:28; Romans 5:1), live by faith (Romans 1:17; Galatians 2:20), are sanctified by faith (Acts 26:18). Faith overcomes the world (1 John 5:4), and purifies our hearts (Acts 15:9). Christ saves us, but obedient faith brings us into Christ. We are "sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26). We are said to believe "into" or "unto" Christ. We believe Jesus, believe in Jesus, believe on Jesus, but perhaps the best thing the New Testament tells us about faith is that we believe into or unto him, or his name (see Matthew 18:6; John 17:20; Acts 10:43; Php 1:29; 1 John 5:13). In the lesson on Baptism we shall find that we are "baptized into Christ" (Galatians 3:27); here we l earn that we believe into him. There is no discrepancy. It is obedient faith which counts. There is an "obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5; Romans 16:26), and wherever the blessing of God is attributed to faith, that faith is meant which issues in obedience, and not faith which stands alone or refrains from obedience. Thus Abraham was justified by faith (Romans 4:2-3; Romans 4:9); but it is equally true that he was justified by works, and not by faith alone (James 2:20-23), i.e., by works not as meritorious but the fruits of faith.