08.03.09. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Faith—Its source or origin—The work of the Spirit in the production of faith indentical with his work in the new creation

PASSING now from the offer, on the part of God, to the acceptance of it, by faith, on the part of the sinner, which it was proposed, in the second place, to investigate, under this hypothesis or supposition of a postponed atonement, we may dispense with any renewed and formal discussion of the three particulars already disposed of, namely, (I.) the office or function; (II.) the nature; and (III.) the warrant of that faith which is required for the appropriation of the gift of God; for these are not very directly affected by this test;—and we may proceed at once to the only remaining topic, and consider,

IV. The source and origin of this faith, by which sinners become interested in the work of Christ. And here, let us, first, bring our imaginary, but yet potent, criterion to bear on the precise point at issue. Let Christ be presented to us, not as having accomplished the work of redemption, but as appointed and ordained to accomplish it, whensoever the number of those willing to have it undertaken and accomplished by him, on their behalf, shall have been ascertained. It is to be assumed that we have all the knowledge that we at present possess of the person of Christ and the nature of his work, as a work implying the substitution of himself instead of, or the identification of himself with, a peculiar people, consenting to have him as their head. But an apparent contingency is allowed to rest, so far as man’s judgment goes, on the precise number and actual names of the parties who are to be thus dealt with; although, in the foreknowledge and decree of God, all is fixed. Still, the matter seems to be simplified by the work, while yet unaccomplished, being thus thrown loose on mankind at large and indiscriminately; it looks like leaving the door more open. And in that view, scarcely any difficulty can be conceived of as arising on any of the questions regarding faith, which we have already had before us.

Thus, let Christ be set forth as having the work of obedience and atonement yet to do. Then, as to the office or function of faith, it is plain that unless he is to save me against my will, he must have my consent or acquiescence; as to the nature of faith there must evidently also be not only a conviction of the understanding recognising his sufficiency, but a movement, moreover, of the will or the affections, or the choice of the heart, urging me to avail myself of his all-sufficient mediation; and as to the ground or warrant of faith, what more can be needed beyond his assurance, that if I choose to accept of him as my substitute, he will undertake to satisfy all claims, and meet all demands on my behalf? So far all is clear. But now, as to the source or origin of faith, let the question be raised, on the hypothesis or supposition of a deferred propitiation, as to the causal priority, or precedency in respect of logical order—of faith to the new spiritual life, or of the new spiritual life, at least in its beginning, to faith. Let it be observed that, in the view we are now taking, the object of faith is not a past, but a future work of salvation; a present Saviour indeed, but one whose actual and effectual redemption of his people is still in prospect, and is necessarily, therefore, set before us under a contingent, and in a sense, a conditional aspect. It is my faith, however wrought in me, that must turn the contingent and conditional into the categorical and certain. It cannot, therefore, in such a case, be the understanding that commands the will, at least in the final act of faith, but the will that furnishes a guide or index to the understanding. For, so far as the conviction of the understanding is concerned, the proposition which I am to believe, if it is to be reduced to exact form, and expressed with intellectual precision, is not that my sins are expiated, but that they will be expiated, through my being now embraced and included among those whom, in his yet future work of propitiation, Christ is to represent. But evidently the truth of this proposition depends on my consent to be thus represented by him; and my assurance of its truth must turn upon my consciousness of the consent which I give. Thus, on the theory we are now imagining, for the sake of illustration, to be realized, there is no room for any intellectual conviction, implying an appropriating interest in the work of Christ, except upon the footing of a previous act of the will, consenting to his suretyship, with all its consequences. But such consent, it will scarcely be denied, is the result of a divine operation, and is an exercise of the new spiritual life. For the real question, on this closing branch of the subject, respects the precise nature of that state of mind in which faith originates, and out of which it arises. Some, indeed, might think it enough to have it acknowledged, in general terms, that “faith is the gift of God”—that “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, hut by the Holy Ghost”—that salvation is “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (Ephesians 2:8; 1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 Thessalonians 2:13): and, doubtless, to plain minds such plain statements as these suffice; nor, but for the subtle refining which has been resorted to, on this as on other points, for the covering of an ambiguous position, would anything more in the way of explanation have been necessary. For it is thus, for the most part, that the defence of the truth becomes complicated, and a prejudice is created against it, as if it turned upon mere word-catching and hair-splitting. The reason is, that persons verging, perhaps unconsciously, towards dangerous error, shrink from realizing, even to themselves, the full extent and actual tendency of their aberrations and peculiarities; and cling, with a sort of desperate tenacity, to the familiar formulas and expressions of a sound scriptural creed; with the sort of infatuation with which one struggling in the river’s treacherous calm, above the rapids, might convulsively grasp some landmark as he is drifted past, fancying himself thereupon to be stationary and safe, while he is only carrying the sign-post he has embraced, along with him, into the perilous and eddying navigation of the torrent. Hence it becomes necessary to follow them in their windings, and to recover, out of their hands, those simple statements of Holy Writ, which they so ingeniously mystify and pervert. In the present instance, a mere admission of the necessity of the Spirit’s agency in order to the production and exercise of saving faith, may be very far from coming up to the full meaning of what, to persons inexperienced in the arts of controversy, the words would seem to imply.

Let us consider how very differently different men may understand that acknowledgment of dependence upon God, as the source alike of every good gift and of every good work, which they may all be ready, with a measure of honesty, to make.

Thus, that God is not far from every one of us, since in him we “live, and move, and have our being,” is what even a heathen poet could feel and own, when he said, “For we are all his offspring.” Every common function of the natural life may thus be said to be performed by the help of God. But a devout Theist, having an intelligent belief in a particular providence, will regard this as meaning far more than an Epicurean philosopher, with his notions of the retirement and repose of the great Creator, could admit. This last would ascribe to God the original contrivance of the curiously-wrought organ, or the subtle mental power, by which the function is to be performed, as well as the adjustment of those general laws, of matter and of mind, under which all such operations are carried on; and in that sense he might recognise God as enabling him to draw in every fresh breath of air that swells his chest, and to eat every morsel that is to revive his exhausted frame; and so far, he might be grateful. But the other goes much farther. Believing in the direct and immediate interposition of God, upholding all things and regulating all things, he believes literally that he can do nothing without God: and hence he is thankful to God, not merely for having made him, such as he is, and placed him under natural laws, such as they are, but for his concurrence, in the very act by which he puts forth his hand to touch, and opens his mouth to taste; without which concurrence, present and real, he could do neither.

Again, in the department of practical morality, there are many who hold that without God they can do nothing good; in a sense, too, more special than is implied in the acknowledgment that, without God they can do nothing at all. For here, some weakness or derangement of the natural faculty is admitted; and the feeling is, that in every instance in which it is to be exercised, there must be the presence and concurrence of God, not merely that it may be enabled to act at all, but that it may be helped to act rightly. A pious moralist may thus maintain that man, left to himself, cannot form, or reform, his own character aright; nay, that he cannot, without the help of God, think a good thought or speak a good word; and hence he will be ready to trace every good disposition and every good act to God, and to do so frankly and sincerely. But in all this there may be great vagueness and obscurity; it may be rather an indefinite impression with him, than an intelligent article of belief; and were he questioned particularly, he might be unable to explain what he meant. But, generally, his notion would seem to be this: that God is, as it were, to second or back the efforts of man, by some supplementary influence or aid from on high; that man, straining himself to the uttermost in the exercise of his moral faculties, of reason, conscience, and will, is helped on and helped out by some divine communication of additional light or power; as when I am blinding myself with intense looking into the depths of a vast cave, I am relieved by a friend putting a torch into my hand, or applying his glass to my eye; or when I am toiling up a steep ascent, breathless and ready to give way, I find a strong arm linked in mine, that carries me swiftly and pleasantly up the hill; or when I am suffering my resolution to be overborne by the flattery or the taunts of false friends, I am recalled to myself by the timely warning of a faithful brother.

Now, is it anything more than this that some mean, who seem to admit that faith is the gift of God, and that no man can believe but by the special grace and operation of the Holy Spirit, while yet they sensitively shrink from any explicit recognition of faith as being one of the fruits of the new birth, or the new creation, or the new spiritual life—of which, with strange perverseness, they would make it the instrumental cause? What more than this can they possibly mean? For there is, and can be, but one other sense in which the acknowledgment of divine help, or of a divine interposition, in the act or exercise of any faculty, can be understood; and that is, that the faculty itself is renewed—that it becomes, in fact, a new faculty. And can anything short of this exhaust the meaning of the scriptural testimonies on this subject? “Faith is the gift of God.” Does this mean nothing more than that God concurs with man, and is an auxiliary to him, in believing? How does the passage run? “By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves;”—how not of yourselves?—because God influences and helps you to believe?—not at all; but “it is the gift of God.” “What can this mean, if it be not that God directly bestows the faculty or capacity of believing, and that too, as a new faculty—a new capacity. He does not merely co-operate with man in this exercise or act of faith: but he gives it. And why should we take alarm at the idea of man receiving new faculties, that he may know God, and believe God? Why should we hesitate to say that it is a new understanding that apprehends, and a new heart that embraces, “the things of God”—“the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man—the things which God hath prepared for them that love him?” (1 Corinthians 2:14, and 1 Corinthians 2:9). You say that in this new creation, there are no new powers imparted to man, beyond what he naturally possesses, and no essential change is wrought in his constitution. If this mean that he continues to have the same number of powers that he had before, and these of the same kind as before—that he is still a man, and not an angel—that he has understanding, conscience, will, affections, such as are proper to a man, and such as he had before—that he knows, in the same manner as he did before, not for the most part intuitively, but through reason and discourse, and believes, in the same manner as he did before, upon evidence presented to him; and loves, in the same manner that he did before, from the sight of what is excellent and the sense of what is good—if this be what is meant when the protest is anxiously made against the new creation being supposed to imply any essential change of man’s constitution, or the imparting to him of any new faculties—it is true, but it is little to the purpose. He has an eye, he has a heart, as he had before; but it is a new eye and a new heart: an eye and a heart as strictly new, as if the natural organs had been taken out and replaced by others entirely different; or as if, being taken out and thoroughly renovated, they were again restored to the frame to which they belonged, but restored, so changed from what they were before, as to make a new world all round, and a new world within.

Now, it is out of this new creation that faith springs; it is by this work or process that it is wrought in the mind and heart of the sinner; it is the act of a renewed understanding, a renewed will, and a renewed heart. If it be not—if it be not the fruit of that new life which the soul receives in the new birth or new creation, but in any sense its cause or instrument—then it is idle to say that it is the gift of God, or that no man can believe but by the Holy Ghost; for, at the very utmost, this can really mean nothing more than that the Spirit must be concurring and aiding in the act of faith, as he might be held to concur and aid in any act, for which man has a certain measure of ability, that needs only to be supplemented and helped out. Is this the sense in which it is meant that the Spirit is the author of faith? If not—and they whom we have in our eye will probably feel that this is much too low a sense—then what intermediate sense is there between that, and the new creation or regeneration? Or in what other way can the Spirit be conceived of as originating faith, excepting in one or other of these two—either in the way of helping, or in the way of causing, man to believe; either in the way of mere auxiliary influence, or in the way of creating anew, and imparting new life? What is man’s natural state, apart from the Spirit’s work, in reference to his ability to believe? Is he partly, but not quite, able to believe? Has he some intellectual and moral power tending in that direction, not indeed sufficient to carry him on to the desired landing-place of faith, but such as, with some concurrent and assisting operation of the Spirit—falling short of a new creation, however, or the imparting of new life—may be stretched out so as to reach that end? Or is he wholly devoid of all that even tends in the line of faith? Is he altogether without strength? And must faith be in him, not merely an improvement on some natural act of his mind, but an act entirely and radically new? Is it with him an old thing amended, or a new thing, to believe God? Need we say what the scriptural reply must be? If the Spirit is the source and author of faith at all, it must be in his character of the quickening, the regenerating, the creating Spirit. Otherwise if it be in any other character that he produces faith, or by any other process than what that character involves, there is no reason why all other grace and goodness may not be implanted in the soul, and matured there, by the mere co-operation of God with man, in the use of his natural ability, without anything that can be properly called a new birth or new creation for the imparting of new life at all; for if a man can believe before he is regenerated and made alive, he may equally well acquire any other good quality, or perform any other good work. But we must close this argument, and, indeed, this whole series of arguments; and we may do so by noticing one or two difficulties that may be started on the other side.

1. Do we set aside Christ in this view which we take of the source and origin of faith? as if we maintained that the first germ, at least, of the new spiritual life was imparted by a process irrespective of Christ’s work and word—so that a man might be said to have life without having Christ? (1 John 5:12) There might be something in this, if the quickened soul had far to seek, or long to wait, for Christ—if, in my new birth, opening my new eyes to look, and my new and feeble arms to grasp, I had still to say—“Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is to bring Christ down from above); or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is to bring up Christ again from the dead.”) But it is not so. “The word is nigh me, even in my mouth and in my heart” (Romans 10:8); so nigh, that the very first cry of my new and faultering tongue is to confess Christ; for he is in my mouth, and I find him there (ibid. Romans 10:9; Psalms 8:2); and the very first pulse of my new and trembling bosom beats against my Saviour’s breast; for he is in my heart, and there, too, I find him. In the very agony of my birth- struggle, I have Christ—very near, in close contact, giving himself to me; and awakening from that long dream that has been my death, I awake, with Christ’s voice ringing in my ear, Christ’s blessed image filling my eye, and Christ’s word in my inmost soul. What separation is there here, between the possession of spiritual life and the possession of Christ? I live not before having Christ, but in having Christ. My new life is through him, and with him, and in him. Yet it is the Spirit that quickeneth; and being quickened, I have Christ near, and life in him.

2. Do we disparage faith, as if we called in question the great doctrine of salvation through faith? Surely, if it be held that salvation is through faith in such a sense as to imply that this faith is not itself a part of the salvation—of which redemption by the shedding of Christ’s blood, and regeneration by the operation of the Holy Ghost, are the sole causes—the one of its purchase, and the other of its application—any such imagination we set altogether aside. But while faith is ever to be magnified, as opposed to all works of man, in the salvation of the sinner, it never can be the antagonist of any work of God, whether of God the Son, or of God the Holy Ghost. “We thus degrade faith itself, bringing it down from its high position, as the link of union between God and man, into the class of those righteousnesses of ours, which are as filthy rags. Thus, in justification, make faith, instead of obedience, the ground of acceptance; and what worthiness has it? or what stability? None whatever, more than those other works which it supersedes. But put the work of Christ in that position; and let faith take her proper place as a handmaid, meekly waiting on Christ, and taking his work as her own; she becomes omnipotent—she can remove mountains. So also, in regeneration; if you insist on faith being the cause or instrument of the change, or being in any way antecedent to the new life which the new birth gives, you establish, as the measure of that great change, and that glorious life, something to which man’s ability is competent, or with divine help, can reach, before he is changed or made alive. For the effect must be proportioned to the instrumentality; and in this view, therefore, regeneration must be according to the measure of faith—not faith according to the measure of regeneration. But take it the other way. Then, in regeneration, on the imparting of the new life, you have an agency that creates anew, and an instrumentality that liveth and abideth for ever—the agency of the quickening Spirit, and the instrumentality of the unchanging Word; and the fruit, or result, is faith, according to the living energy of the Holy Ghost, and the enduring stedfastness of the divine testimony. What a principle of power and patience have we now in the faith that is thus produced, corresponding, as it must do, if real, to the might of its heavenly cause and the massive strength of its heavenly instrumentality! It is truly a divine principle. This faith is a divine act; implying the inward communication of a divine capacity, concurring with the instrumentality of a divine testimony. Thus, literally, with the Psalmist, may the believer say, “In thy light shall we see light.” (Psalms 36:9) For, through his divine power, working in me a divine faith, I see Christ with the eye with which the Father sees him; I hold him as the Father holds him; and love him as the Father loves him. He is mine, by a work of the Spirit in me, such as that by which, in his mediatorial character, he is the Father’s; for I am born of the Spirit, as Christ was.

3. Do we cast any slight or discouragement on human efforts, or give any sanction to the relaxation of diligence, or the diminution of anxiety, on the part of the sinner seeking the salvation of his soul? Here, let us face, at once, this imputation, by comparing, as to their tendency in this respect, the two different ways in which the divine interposition, in the actings of his creatures, may be represented. For the sake of distinction, we may characterize them, as the auxiliary, or the creative methods, respectively. According to the first, God is regarded as co-operating with man; according to the second, he is to he viewed as requiring man to co-operate with him.

This, as it seems to us, is an important distinction; on which, indeed, turns the practical question, whether man is to have the precedency or God, in the work of individual salvation. The types, so to speak, of the two opposite theories, may be found in the instance of the impotent man beside the pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-9) Contrast his own complaint: “I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool,” with the Saviour’s command to him: “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The Lord might have adopted the plan which the man himself suggested; he might have rewarded his long waiting and his many previous attempts, by helping him to the side of the pool; and supported and aided by so strong an arm, the tottering invalid might have succeeded, at last, in curing himself, by the use of the mysteriously troubled waters. But God’s ways are not as our ways. Jesus proceeds otherwise in his work of healing. He will not merely fall in, as an auxiliary, in the carrying out of man’s plans and efforts; he will take the lead, as assuming the whole matter into his own hands; he issues his order, and the man, believing, is healed. Now, on both of these plans, there is co-operation; but on the first, the Lord is expected to co-operate with the man; on the second, he requires the man to co-operate with him. Need we ask which of these two arrangements is the most becoming and the most blessed?—becoming, as regards God—blessed, as regards man.

Now, throughout, in the first step, and in the whole subsequent progress, of the life of God in the soul of man, the position or attitude which man has to take is that of acquiescence; he is to fall in with what God proposes; he is to be a fellow-worker with God. His own idea constantly is, that God is to concur with him, so as to help him out, where there is any deficiency in his attainments, and help him on, where there is any failure in his strength; and that, upon his doing his best, God is to make up what may be wanting, and have a tender consideration for what may be weak; and so, the righteousness of Christ being virtually supplemental to his own sincere yet imperfect obedience, and the assistance of the Spirit seconding his own honest though infirm resolution, he is to be somehow, on an adjustment of accounts, and with a due allowance for human frailty, justified and sanctified at last. Need we say that the whole of this motley and mongrel system must be overturned and reversed? It is the very opiate of a drowsy spirit, deadening all energy, and lulling asleep all care. How different from this is the plan of God! Take a believer in the middle of his course. What is he doing?—“working out his own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God that worketh in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Php 2:12-13);—not trying to make himself holy, by the help of God—as another man might vaguely express it—but realizing God himself within, making him holy; and under this impression, following out what God is doing. It is the Christian paradox; to feel myself passive, in the hands of God, and yet on that very account the more intensely active—moved unresistingly by God, like the most inert instrument or machine, yet for that very reason all the more instinct with life and motion; my whole moral frame and mechanism possessed and occupied by God, and worked by God, yet through that very working, made to apprehend more than ever its own liberty and power. This is the true freedom of the will of man, namely, that it becomes the engine for working out the will of God. And does not the same order hold in the beginning of the divine life? Here, too, is it not through our being passive, that we reach and realize the only true activity? Is it said that, by telling men that faith is the act of a living soul, and that they cannot believe but by the impulse of a new life—a life such as the creating and regenerating Spirit imparts—we encourage them to shut their eyes, and fold their hands, and sit down in listless and indolent expectancy, waiting for, they know not what? Miserably shallow theology! and, if possible, still more meagre metaphysics! Call a man to believe, and let him imagine that his believing is some step which, with a little supernatural help, he may reach, as a preliminary to his new life with God; then, he may take his ease, and, to a large extent, use his discretion, as to the time and manner of obeying the call. But let him know that this faith is the effect or fruit of an exercise of divine power, such as raises the dead and gives birth to a new man; that his believing, is seeing Christ with a new eye, which God must give, and grasping Christ with a new hand, which God must nerve, and cleaving to Christ with a new heart, which God must put within him; and let it be thundered in his ear, hat for all this work of God, now is the accepted time and now is the day of salvation;—then, fairly startled and made to know what faith is, as the act of a living soul, and what is its source, even the present power of the quickening Spirit, will he not be moved to earnestness and energy in seeking the Lord while he may be found, and calling upon him while he is near? And is it not this urgent impression, alike of the heavenly nature, and the heavenly origin of faith, which prompts both the profession and prayer—“Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief?” This great theme is yet very far indeed from being exhausted. In fact, we may say, with truth, it is little more than one single feature in the atonement that we have attempted to exhibit, in various points of view. That feature is its COMPLETENESS, as securing all blessings to those who embrace it. They are complete in Him. For this end we have endeavoured to bring out the full meaning of Christ’s work, as a real and literal substitution of himself in the room and stead of his people, and also the full meaning of the Spirit’s work, as that which gives them a supernatural sight of Christ, and a supernatural hold of Christ. Seeing Christ with the new eye which the Spirit purges, grasping him with the new hand which the Spirit strengthens, believing all the divine testimony, with that clear intelligence which belongs to the renewed mind, and that eager consent which the renewed heart hastens to give—I am Christ’s, and Christ is mine; I become a partaker of the divine nature; for as Christ is, so am I. The completeness of the atonement, as regards all who embrace it, we have sought also to harmonize with the universality of the gospel offer, as being the free offer of an interest in that atonement, to every individual of the human race. For thus the matter stands. A crowd of criminals, guilty and depraved, are kept in prison, waiting for the day of doom. What is my office, as a preacher of righteousness, among them? Is it to convey to them from my Master any universal proclamation of pardon, or any intimation whatever of anything purchased or procured by him for them all indiscriminately? Is it to carry a bundle of reprieves, endorsed with his sign-manual, which I am to scatter over the heads of the miscellaneous multitude, to be scrambled for at random, or picked up by whosoever care to stoop for them? That, certainly, is not my message; that is not my gospel. They are not thus to be dealt with collectively and en masse; nor are they to be fed with crumbs of comfort from the Lord’s table. The Lord himself is at hand, and my business is to introduce him to you, that individually, and one by one, you may deal with him, and suffer him to deal with you. It is now, as it was in the days before the flood. The ark is a preparing; for, though prepared, from all eternity, in the counsels of the Godhead, and now also prepared, in point of fact, in time, it is, to all intents and purposes, as if it were a preparing for us. Does it seem too straitened?—too small? Doubt not, sinner, that there will be room enough in it for all that choose to enter; have no fear but that there is room enough for thee. For, to sum up all, in the words of an old writer, take, O sinner, whosoever thou art, this assurance, “that there is mercy enough in God, and merit enough in Christ, and power enough in the Spirit, and scope enough in the promises, and room enough in heaven,” for thee, brother, and, blessed be God, also for me.