The Grounds on which the Requirement of Faith is made

6

No one can read the New Testament with any care and attention without being struck by the prominence given therein to faith or belief. Our Lord's ministry began with the call to 'repent and believe the Gospel.'1 Faith was the demand which He habitually made from those who sought His help; and as the reward of faith His mighty works were wrought. According to your faith be it unto you.' 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.' 'O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' 'If thou canst believe: all things are possible to him that believeth.' 'If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things,

1 S. Mark i. 15.

whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.'1 Such passages as these all show the importance attached to faith by our Lord, and in one instance there is a definite demand for what we might almost describe as a creed made by Him. When the blind man whom He had healed in Jerusalem was cast out of the synagogue, Jesus finding him 'said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and He it is that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him.'2 Again and again our Lord Himself attaches promises of spiritual privileges to belief in Him or in His name, as in the great discourses in S. John's Gospel. He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst'; or this: He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water'; and, if we may trust the conclusion appended to S. Mark's Gospel, to His last charge to 'preach the Gospel to every creature' there was added the promise, 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' 4

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Accordingly when we turn to the Acts of the Apostles we find that belief or faith appears from the first as the special characteristic which marked the

1 S. Matt. ix. 22, 29; xv. 28; S. Mark ix. 23; S. Matt. xxi. 21, 22. 2 S. John ix. 35-38. 3 S. John vi. 35; vii. 38, 4 [S. Mark] xvi. 16,

followers of Jesus. The Christian community is spoken of as 'all that believed,' or 'the multitude of them that believed.'1 When fresh accessions are made to the Church, the fact is stated in terms such as these: Believers were the more added to the Lord.' 'As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.' 'A great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.'2 And when the question is asked of Paul and Silas by the trembling gaoler: Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' the answer is at once returned: Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house." 3

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Even more prominent, if possible, is the position given to faith or belief in the Epistles; and St. Paul, with inspired insight, traces the requirement of it back to the Old Testament, finding in the words of the prophet Habakkuk, 'the just shall live by his faith,' the great principle which he worked out so fully in his teaching, and seeing in the case of Abraham, who believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness,' the first example of justification by faith.5

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It is obvious that the words 'faith' and 'believe' are not used in all these passages with precisely the same shade of meaning. In some they imply that conviction of the truth of a doctrine or system which leads

1 Acts ii. 44; iv. 32.

3 Acts xvi. 30, 31.

4 Hab. ii. 4.

* Gen. xv. 6.

2 Acts v. 14; xiii. 48; xiv. 1.

Cf. Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. II.

Cf. Rom. iv. 3; Gal. iii. 6.