08.03.04. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Faith—Its function, or office—As appropriating Christ and His saving work A DESIRE to facilitate the sinner’s coming to Christ, and closing with Christ—to help him over the great gulf (which on this side of the grave, is to none impassable) that divides a state of reconciliation from a state of enmity—weighs with many who dislike the restriction or limitation of the work of Christ, and of the whole of his saving offices and relations, to the people actually, in the end, reconciled. Now, it might tend to remove, in part, such a feeling of repugnance, were it borne in mind that it is not at all this feature of the salvation of the gospel which is presented to the sinner, in the first instance, as the ground or warrant of his believing, and the motive or inducement for him to believe; but another feature of it altogether, which is not in the least affected by the former; the feature, namely, which that salvation exhibits, as in its nature suited, adapted, and applicable to the case of each individual sinner, and in its terms freely and unreservedly offered, and, by an absolutely gratuitous grant or deed of gift, conveyed and made over to the acceptance of every individual sinner who will have it. True, it may be said, all this liberality in the ostensible proclamation and front scene, as it were, is well; but there is the fatal contraction and drawing in behind. Nay, we reply, there need be no reserve in the matter. The exclusive reference of the work of Christ to those actually saved by it may be, and must be, announced. But this does not hinder the work being, in its very nature, such that each individual sinner may see and feel it to be what meets, and what alone can meet, his case—or the terms on which an interest in it is bestowed being such, that each individual sinner may also see and feel it to be freely and fully within his reach, if he will but take it.

We go further, however, on this point, and venture to add, that it is this very exclusiveness, so often complained of, which imparts to the work of Christ that character of special and pointed adaptation to his own case, which is so readily apprehended by every sinner truly sensible of his sin, and which makes the free offer of an interest in it so very precious and welcome; in so much, that if my soul be really groaning under the burden of sin—whatever difficulty I may feel in getting over the decree of election, or the necessity of the Spirit’s agency in producing faith—I ought not to feel—and sinners so situated do not, we believe, usually feel—the pressure of any difficulty on the side of the work of Christ; but, on the contrary, I would not wish to have it more extended, lest it should cease to be what, on a first glance, and on the first awakening of a desire towards it, it approved itself to be—namely, a complete remedy for all my soul’s disease, through the substitution of Him who bears it all in my stead. The real truth would seem to be, that the universality so much in demand, and admitted to be so indispensable, is not the universality of an actual interest of any kind, in anything whatever that is Christ’s, but the universality of a contingent or possible interest, of the most complete kind, in all that is his: and what I need to have said to me for my encouragement is, not that I actually already have something in Christ, but that having now nothing in him at all, I am freely invited, exhorted, and commanded, at once, to have Christ himself, and then in him to have, now and for ever, all things. In a word, the gospel assurance is, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that be- lieveth;” and what comes home to me as the crowning excellence of the gospel, is this very assurance which it conveys to me—not that there is something in Christ for all, but that there are all things in Christ for some—for believers, namely, and for me, if I can but say, in the very agony of my helplessness—“Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” But the transition from this warrant to have, to the actual having—the translation of the contingent into the categorical—the transmutation of the objective gospel offer, Christ is thine (as the saying is), for the taking, into the subjective gospel assurance, Christ is mine, IN the taking—that, now, is the difficulty; a difficulty which, more than any other, has vexed the ingenuity of practical and experimental divines, especially since the era of the Reformation. It is a difficulty which was not much felt, either on the first proclamation of the doctrines of grace in apostolic times, or on the first recovery of these doctrines out of the rubbish of Popery. The fresh and authentic simplicity of a newly awakened or revived soul, bursts through all entanglements, and asks no questions; hut, with a deep conviction of sin, and a bright discovery of the Saviour, frankly and unhesitatingly makes the obvious application, and rejoices in it. At each of the times referred to, for at least a brief moment, all was fresh and authentic; nor, even in the most doubtful and suspicious age—the most to be doubted, or the most apt to doubt—have there ever failed to be multitudes, converted and become as little children, who have been content to know that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom, each has been ready instinctively to add, I am chief; and they have found that knowledge enough. This is our comfort, in attempting to thread the mazes of an intricate inquiry; that to babes in Christ the Spirit opens up all mysteries, and unties or cuts every knot. At the same time, for minds of a more restless turn, and with a view to errors to be shunned, a more minute investigation cannot be declined. The inquiry, so far as it is still to be presented, may be regarded as having respect to the office, the nature the warrant, and the origin of saving faith.

I. Let the office of faith be considered, or, in other words, the place which it holds, and the purpose which it is designed to serve, in the economy of grace. Let the question be asked, Why is the possession of all saving blessings connected with faith, and with faith alone? It is easy, at once to dismiss all answers to this question which would imply anything like a plea of merit, or a qualification of worthiness, in faith. It is, doubtless, in itself an excellent grace, most honouring and acceptable to God and his beloved Son, as well as most becoming and ennobling to him who exercises it. It is, moreover, the source of all excellence, working by love, and assimilating its possessor to God himself; for, by “the exceeding great and precious promises” which faith receives, we “are made partakers of the divine nature.” But to represent it as saving or justifying, on account of its own excellency, or the virtue that goes out of it, is to build again the covenant of works—making the good quality of faith, or its good fruits, our real title to the divine favour and eternal life, instead of the perfect obedience which the law requires. In this view, the dispensation of grace, brought in through the mediation of Christ, consists simply in a relaxation of the terms of the old natural and original method of acceptance—not in the establishment of a method of acceptance entirely new. Again, it is easy to answer the question which has been put, by an appeal to the divine sovereignty, and the undeniable right which God has to dispense his liberality in any manner, and upon any footing, that may seem good to him. This, undoubtedly, is the ultima ratio, the final explanation or account to be given of the arrangement in question—that God is free to connect the enjoyment of the blessing with any act on our part that he may be pleased to appoint. But this summary argument or answer from authority, though it may silence, cannot satisfy; and, on the particular point at issue, it is in accordance both with reason and with Scripture, that we should be not merely silenced, but intelligently satisfied; for, if left on this footing, faith would be as much the mere blind fulfilment of an arbitrary or unexplained condition, as the doing of penance, or the undergoing of circumcision, or the compliance with any task or ritual, would be; and no sufficient reason—indeed, no reason at all—could be given, why life and salvation should be inseparably and infallibly annexed to the one more than to the other. Is faith, then, to be viewed, in this matter, as a condition, in any sense, or to any effect at all? Is that properly its office or function? Setting aside, on the one hand, the idea of a condition of moral worth or qualification, on the part of man; and, on the other hand, the notion of a condition of mere authoritative appointment, on the part of God, as if faith were one of several kinds of terms, any of which he might indifferently, at his own mere good pleasure, have selected and chosen—there remains one other aspect in which faith may be regarded—as a condition of necessary sequence or connection—a conditio sine qua non—as that without which going before, in the very nature of things, and by the necessity of the case, the desired result or consequence cannot be obtained. In this view, it may be said, without impiety, or even impropriety, that God requires faith in those who are to be saved, because he cannot save them otherwise; so that, as “without faith it is impossible to please God,” so without faith it may be said to be impossible for God to save men; for God saves men in a manner agreeable to their rational and moral nature, as intelligent, conscientious, and accountable beings. Hence, generally, the office or function of faith, as distinguished from its nature, may be said to be this, namely, to effect and secure man’s falling in with what God is doing. But more particularly, in determining the office or function of faith—the purpose it is designed to serve—what, in short, renders it indispensable—much will depend on what it is that God is doing, in saving sinners, and especially on the extent to which, and the manner in which, he makes use of the sinner’s own co-operation or instrumentality in saving him.

Take, for example, any saving work of God in which man’s own agency is employed. This is the simplest class of cases, in which, indeed, there is no difficulty at all. God is about to save Noah, when the flood comes; and this salvation is by faith. Why so? What, in this instance, is the office or function of faith? Evidently to set Noah to work in preparing the ark, “wherein few, that is, eight souls, are saved.” For this end God gave the promise, which Noah was to believe, and on which he was to act. So also, when he was about to make Abraham the father of the promised seed, he required faith, and for a similar reason; because, without Abraham’s belief, the promise could not have been accomplished. In these cases, it is not merely from any abstract delight which God may be supposed to have in receiving the homage of a believing assent to his Word, nor out of a regard to any barren honour thereby done to his name, as the God of veracity, and faithfulness, and truth, that he requires this act or exercise of faith; but for a more immediately practical end, and, if we may so speak, with a business view—that faith which he requires being the indispensable prerequisite, or sine qua non, to the setting in motion of the human agency or instrumentality, on which the attainment of the result that is sought, depends. The case is somewhat different, and the explanation perhaps is not quite so simple, when we pass to another mode of procedure on the part of God, and take, for our example, an act, or work, or transaction, in which all is done by God, without any co-operation or agency of man. Why is faith required now? What is its function? Not, evidently, as in the former instances, to insure the executing or performing of anything, but simply to acquiesce, or to APPROPRIATE. For there is the same necessity for appropriation here as there was in these former instances for performance, that the saving work of God may be effectual. That work, we here assume, is complete and finished, independently of any co-operation on the part of man; faith, therefore, on his part, is not needed for any work to be done by him. For what, then, is it demanded? Is it merely that the individual believing may have an intelligent apprehension of this work of God, thus finished without human concurrence, and may admire it, and be suitably affected with all the sentiments and emotions which it is fitted to call forth? Is this what God immediately and most directly seeks when he unfolds his plan of justifying mercy through the righteousness of Christ, and asks you to believe? Is it merely that your faith may lead you to have a right conception of that plan, and do justice to it, and approve of it? Is it simply that he may have your signature, as it were, and your setting to your seal, to justify his wisdom and love in the scheme of redeeming grace? Nay, it is not your approbation or admiration that he desires; but your appropriation of it—your acquiescence in it—your personal application of it to yourselves; and for this end he requires in you faith: otherwise the requirement of faith, in the matter of the sinner’s justification, has no meaning or propriety.

Thus, then, in the divine arrangements, where anything is left to be done by man himself, the office or function of faith is properly that of a motive prompting to action; but where, on the other hand, as in the justifying of the ungodly, all is done by God, and the act of justification proceeds upon no work of man, but on the finished work and perfect righteousness of Christ, instead of a motive to any act, faith rather takes the character of an act in itself final; it is the resulting movement, rather than the moving power; it partakes more of the nature of an effect than of the nature of a cause; and resembles not so much the force of hunger prompting to the search for food, as the play and motion of the muscles and organs of touch and digestion, laying hold of the food that is presented to them. This, at least, would seem to be the exact function of faith, in its ultimate and direct dealings with its proper object; it is like the closing of the hand upon what is brought into contact with it, or the action of the mouth on what is put into it, or the heart’s warm embrace of what is its nearest and dearest treasure;—all which processes or operations, considered in themselves, imply no working out of anything new or additional, but simply the appropriating of what is already perfect and complete. We speak, of course, not of the inducements and encouragements to believe, which go before, nor of the gracious impulses and active energetic affections, that come after, but of the mere act itself, or exercise of faith, in its immediate dealing with that which is set before it; and, in this view, we cannot fail to perceive the fitness of such expressions as receiving, embracing, closing with Christ—all describing the office or function which belongs to faith, as that which carries and makes sure the sinner’s consent to be saved freely by grace, through the redemption that is in Christ.