FAITH WORKBOOK
LESSON TWO
THE
DEFINITION OF FAITH (3b)
Theologically we are told that faith is used in the Scriptures in two senses: a general sense; and a particular sense. Although the following are descriptive of faith in relation to Salvation, they are still applicable to faith in general.
General meaning- According to Evans in Great Doctrines of the Bible, the general meanings of faith are three.
Knowledge:
Ps 9:10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee...
Ro 10:17 So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by ___ ____ __ ___.
That latter scripture tells us that faith is not believing something without evidence; but that it is based on the soundest evidence of all, God’s Holy Word. In the beginning of this chapter I asked the rhetorical question, " Is [faith] believing in things for which there is no ground of assurance or fact?" The answer is: "Quite to the contrary." Faith, in this case "spiritual faith," rests upon the eternal Word of God. It, the Word, is not ephemeral but concrete. Not merely physical, which is destined to perish; it is spiritual as well. It is so stable that it will last and has lasted for time and eternity. Its pillars are rooted in the bedrock of the Eternal God. Its bedrock is in Heaven and its soaring spires reach to the Earth.
NOTE: This will be a test question. 
And that manifestation of our intelligence is resting our faith upon the Word of God; and what it tells us is unfailingly true. To hear about God enables us to exercise our faith in Him.
Ro 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have ___ ____?
Some think that those who exercise that spiritual faith that rests upon the Word of God are somehow trying to escape reality because of an inability to cope with it. Or, in the words of Madame de Stäel, "Have you not observed that faith is generally the strongest in those whose character may be called the weakest?"(1a)
To turn the tables on Madame de Stäel, we might say, "Have you not noticed that true character is almost non-existent in those whose faith is the weakest."
And faith in God can come only by first having a knowledge of Him.
Find and write out the following
reference: Romans 10:17
Assent:
This is an agreement from the heart that what God says is true.
Mk 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, _________________:
Jn 1:12 But as many as received him, to
them gave he power to become
In Jn 1:12, they received Him, they had the knowledge, then gave assent to that knowledge and believed on His name and thus became the sons of God.
Appropriation:
This is a personal appropriation of the things known and assented to. Neither intelligent perception nor assent to knowledge are necessarily spiritual faith. They could easily remain in the realm of natural faith. It is the appropriation of Christ that brings Salvation. Likewise in the other areas of faith, it is the appropriation of God (Father, Son, or Holy Spirit) as an object of our faith that makes our faith a spiritual one. The appropriation of God as the object of our faith is the one deciding factor that makes the difference.
Particular meaning-
According to Evans faith in particular is faith in connection with various
things. Such as: The Name of God; the Person of Christ; Prayer; the Word and
Promise of God. He teaches us that in order to connect with God in any one of
these four, (and by interpolation we can say that the same holds for any others)
we must go through and include: "knowledge, assent, and
appropriation." For the purposes of our study we can apply this to
spiritual faith. When we exercise faith in God and the things of God, then we
must have, "knowledge, assent, and appropriation." To properly
exercise spiritual faith we must not only know that God is there and know what
He says; but we must give assent to those facts, i.e. we must not doubt Him or
His abilities and truthfulness. Then to receive we must believe. That is a
personal appropriation of God and His promises. That is exercising our spiritual
faith (faith in the Creator not the creation).
You might say that faith is the ability and belief is the activity.
Belief then, would set
strongly within the area of appropriation wouldn’t it. I said earlier that
faith and belief were inextricably intertwined, now you see why I said that.
NOTE: This will be a test question:
To exercise proper faith in God
involves three things:
Knowledge , assent ,
and appropriation .
THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH
"Faith is fundamental in Christian creed and conduct." (3a)
The Bible itself states that "faith" is one of the foundation blocks of our Christianity (the outworking of our Salvation).
Heb 6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the ___________ of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
What is the missing segment in the reference? Click on the correct answer below.
Evans stated it quite succinctly, "In faith all the other graces find their source. " Without faith we cannot believe that God is, we cannot please Him, we cannot believe that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him (that He confers blessings, including Salvation); in short, faith is the building blocks of our entire Christian existence.
Heb 11:6 But without faith [it is] impossible to ______ [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
What is the missing segment in the reference?
Click on
the correct answer below.
Two types of faith
Earlier, I said that there is only "one scriptural faith."
Eph 4:5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
The reason I used the word "scriptural," is because there is another type of faith. Faith itself is an ability; an ability to believe which carries with it the connotation of trust. The only difference between the two types of faith is one of object. Faith, we might say, is an inborn "ability" to trust. We all have that. What I would call "natural" faith is when we have faith in objects (our car, a chair, people, the government) the problem is that those objects, in which we have faith, can fail us. Our car can break down, a chair can give way, people can turn on us, and the government can betray us. (As if I needed to tell you that last one!) The problem is not our faith, the problem is that the objects of our faith are fallible and our faith in any of these is bound to be violated, sooner or later.
The other type of faith I would call "scriptural" faith. This type of faith is no different in essence than "natural" faith. In actuality, the faith is the same, the only difference is the object of that faith. Whereas "natural" faith is faith exercised toward something created (generally the material creation), "scriptural" faith is faith exercised toward God and the things of God. Our "scriptural" faith in God is such that any delay in His responding in such situations is seen as merely a delay for a reason He deems fit, not a failure of God’s ability to respond as is the case, many times, with the objects of our "natural" faith. Likewise, if He refuses to answer that is also, by spiritual faith, to be taken as the best for us.
Summary- Faith is an ability, existing in every person, that can be exercised toward fallible objects (part of God’s Creation) or toward infallible objects; i.e., toward God and the things and plans of God that He unstoppably and infallibly will bring about. Which to you is more logical and sensible: to have faith in a fallible, created object or entity, or to have faith in the eternal, omnipotent, and infallible God?
The
importance of faithWhen we consider the importance of faith we, again, have to divide it into "natural" and "spiritual," and examine it from both of those angles. (I do not mean to infer that "natural" faith is necessarily ungodly, although it can be at times, I simply mean that it is faith that is not exercised toward God and His things and plans; i.e., it is not toward the Creator but rather toward the creation.)
Natural faith- The importance of natural faith is easy to see if we simply examine a typical day in our own life. Since I am writing this and I know myself much better than I do yourselves, I will use one of my own typical days.
1. If I should happen to need to rise early, as I did this morning to give one of my sons a ride to work, I would usually set my alarm clock to wake me at the proper time. Normally I would have faith (natural faith) that the alarm would go off at the proper time.
A. The problem is that my alarm clock has something wrong with it and I have lost my faith in it.
B. Because of my lack of faith in it, I did not set it. Instead I told my son to come over and wake me up.
C. I remembered that last week he had failed to wake up to his own alarm clock.
D. Because that remembrance of his one time lapse crossed my mind right before I went to sleep, I woke spontaneously about four hours early and every hour from then on until he came over and woke me up, on time.
E. Because of my lack of faith in both the alarm clock and my son, I paid the cost of a restless night and a lack of a good night’s sleep.
2. Faith during my restless night’s sleep that the waterbed
on which I slept would not break during the night and drown my wife and myself while we slept.
To briefly synopsize the rest of the day:
I had faith in the food that I ate for breakfast.
Faith in the microwave that I warmed it in.
Faith that the plate I ate it off of would hold the food and not disintegrate during use.
Faith that I could eat it with a fork without accidentally stabbing myself (that last one was a real exercise of faith in myself since I have stabbed myself while eating on several occasions).
I had faith that the chair I sat in while eating would hold me up and not collapse.
Faith that my clothes would still fit me and properly cover me so as to spare me the embarrassment of having improper parts of my body exposed. I had faith that the seams, buttons, and zippers would hold together and function properly and that I was coordinated enough to dress without injuring myself with a zipper, a belt, or a snapped loose suspender. (All of which I have injured myself with more than once in the last 52 years.)
I had faith in my car to take me to where I needed to go.
I had faith that the other drivers on the road would not run into me and maybe kill me as I drove.
Those thing that I had exercised my faith in, were they "natural" or "spiritual?
Therefore, was I exercising natural faith, or spiritual faith?
The answer is
(click the correct answer): Spiritual faith - Natural faith.I’ll not go on with the manifold more times during just this one day that I had exercised faith, or manifested a lack of it to my own hurt, in some part of the creation.
Without exercising faith during just the normal mechanics of living our day to day lives, we would soon be a candidate for a long-sleeved jacket with arms that tied in the back and a rubber room in a sanitarium somewhere. (For those of you that are not familiar with those terms, it means that we would soon go crazy and have to be locked up in a mental hospital.)
We have to have faith to function in this world; this contaminated creation. We can hardly pass a second of our lives without exercising faith in something or someone. Since faith is an inescapable part of our lives and our makeup we are left with only one alternative; since we cannot deny it, we must learn to direct it. This is the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, the Christian has another reality in which to exercise his faith. (And I mean a true Christian, one who is saved and has direct access to God and the spiritual realm and reality.) He has two roads to travel, two objects to choose from in which to, and toward which to, exercise his faith. Toward "the creation," or the "Creator," (the spiritual, i.e., the scriptural reality.)
As we pursue this further, I want to clarify that I am in no way advocating some weird, devilish heresy that the physical is not real.
Nor am I advocating some form of Gnostic heresy in which the physical "reality," the creation, is evil and that God (in the spiritual reality) is totally isolated from it and only vaguely aware of it- if even aware of it at all.
What I am saying is simply this. There are, ultimately, only two possible objects of our faith, the creation or the Creator, the physical or the spiritual. The first, the creation (the physical), is real and tangible to the physical senses. The second, the Creator (the spiritual) is also real but is normally intangible to the physical senses. But! The second, the spiritual, is tangible to the spiritual senses through the channel of faith; and, through faith the spiritual reality can become as tangible to the physical senses as is the physical reality.
As human beings we are body, soul, and spirit. As this tripartite being we can exercise our faculties in more than one realm. However, as unregenerate man (when we were unsaved) our soul was alive, as was our body (at least temporarily), but our spirit, however, was dead. Since it is the only portion of our being with which we can perceive spiritual things, it is obvious that at that time it was totally useless to us in that or any other area.
NOTE: Homework-
Find the Bible reference from your textbook that tells that we are body, soul, and spirit, and click on the correct answer in the box below.
Find the references from your textbook
that tell us that we were dead in sins:
Click on the correct answers in the box below.
| First reference given is: | Eph 2:2 & 6 Eph 2:3 & 7 Eph 7:1 & 5 Eph 2:1 & 5 Eph 5:1 & 5 |
| Second reference given is: | Jn 6:2 Jn 3:6 Jn 6:63 Jn 5:32 Jn 12:63 Jn 2:23 Jn 3:33 |
Although our spirit was dead we still retained that strange ability called faith. Because of the deadness of our spirit we had a sense of emptiness deep within. A longing for wholeness. We sought for that wholeness in the physical world and our physical appetites. These did not satisfy, nor did they fill the void within us. We tried exercising our faith in the purely physical again and again, but our faith was not being rewarded. We became more and more hesitant to exercise complete faith in anything or anyone. Over a long period of time our faith began to deteriorate and shrivel like a muscle not being used. Atrophy of faith began to set in. We were being buried alive in unrewarded faith.
Spiritual
faith-Then, like the light of his rescuers to
a miner trapped in a cave-in, came Christ searching for us. He was searcher,
rescuer, light and a breath of fresh and reviving air all rolled up in
one. He
had dug through the rubble of our life and faith to reach the small chamber in
which we were trapped. Within this chamber were we trapped with a small spark of
faith still intact. True, the faith was stagnant, bruised, injured, and next to
dead, but it was still there, an inborn natural ability given to us through our
first earthly father, Adam, and as much a part of us as the soul, in which it
resides, which was passed to us from him. While we had physical existence, that
faith could never completely die, as did the spirit, but would be a part of us
until our physical death. The old saying is true, "Hope springs
eternal," and hope, at the end of the cave of tribulation, patience, and
experience, is an eventual and natural outcome of faith; and as long as we have
faith we can have hope. And Christ had burst through the fallen rubble and the
stifling darkness to rescue us and bring us up to the light and freshness of His
eternal day.
II Pet 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your _______:
What now is different? The same faith that we had in the natural is still functioning. The ability is the same, bruised and wounded to be sure, but it is still the same ability, the same faith. What has changed? There is but one answer: the object of our faith has changed! We no longer have the natural as an object or objects of our faith, but the spiritual. We have changed the direction of our faith from the natural to the spiritual, from the creation to the Creator, from the temporal and fallible to the eternal and omnipotent. There is now no possibility that our faith will go unrewarded and we are rescued from our darkness and brought into eternal light.
Process
and results - Now that we have shown that faith can have two objects, the creature and the Creator, and we have learned what spiritual faith is, we can go on to clarify the process and results of having spiritual faith rather than natural faith.The main result of not exercising spiritual faith we have already discussed. It causes us to reject the one true Saviour, Jesus Christ. We will now go on to the positive side, the exercise of spiritual faith.
The process- We will begin with the process of our exercise of saving faith. The term "saving faith" must not carry with it any idea that our faith saves, because it doesn’t. It is merely a channel by which salvation comes. This is proven by the Scriptures:
NOTE: Homework-
From the textbook, give me the scripture reference that
proves that faith does not save:
(Click the correct answer in the box below.)
It is obvious that we are saved by grace not faith.
Faith is the channel "through" which salvation comes.The process then is: by grace, through faith, to salvation.
The results (of spiritual faith)
We have seen the process, now we will go on to the results.
Salvation- This first result of spiritual faith we have already discussed, Salvation.
Christian living- We will now go on to one other. I say "one" in a categorical sense, since this area is composed of many parts all together working to bring about the one category, "Christian living."
A Christian should notice I do not say, "will," but "should," live in the spiritual. Our sights should be above the temporal and physically perceptible and centered on the eternal and spiritually perceptible. We have, by salvation through faith, perceptions that are not available to the unsaved. We are able to "receive," and "perceive," i.e., apprehend as real to our spiritual senses, things that are not apprehendable to those with mere physical "sight." These include but are not limited to: the promises of God that are sure to come to be, some in the physical and some in the spiritual realms; His plans for our future physical and spiritual states; and His plans for the Kingdom and its existence, laws, and eternal order.
NOTE: Homework-
Give me two references listed in the textbook that prove that the unsaved cannot apprehend
the things of God: (Click the correct answer in the box below.)| First reference given: | I Cor 14:2 I Jn 2:14 I Cor 2:14 Jn 2:14 Acts 3:3b |
| Second reference given: | Jn 3:16 I Jn 3:3b Acts 3:3b Jn 3:3b Ro 3:3b |
Because of our Salvation, by grace through faith, we can apprehend the things of God. We do not do so, however, through physical perception but through spiritual perception.
resisting sin- Faith also allows us to practice godly living. This is the ability, through spiritual faith, to resist sin, i.e., to live in the spirit and not in the flesh. We alone have this ability to resist sin; the unsaved do not.
NOTE: Homework-
Find the three references in the textbook that show that the unsaved do not have the ability to resist sin completely.
Pick one reference from the textbook that shows that faith is the channel of grace not only for salvation but also for Christian living.
| Click the reference: | I Cor 14:2 Ro 3:14 Ro 5:1-2 Ro 2:14 Ro 3:3 |
Grow in grace
All of the scriptures we have already studied in this portion are from an extended passage in the book of Romans. The context of that passage, composed of several chapters, is our freedom from sin, both in its consequences and our servitude and subservience to its dominion over us. This context is not confined just to pre-salvation but also to the ongoing sanctification of us after we are saved; i.e., we are admonished by God to grow in grace from salvation onward to the end of our lives. We are not to become high-minded about it but remember where the faith to stand, live right, and serve God, comes from.
God
has given faith to us. He is the one that deserves all the glory for whatever we may do and however we may live and serve Him after our Salvation.Choose to live by spiritual faith. If we choose to live by spiritual faith we shall be profitable servants of God. If we choose to live by natural then we are living in a foreign land. Doing so will make us impotent and feeble as we are trying to live in a land that operates by rules that, as children of God and possessing His righteousness and inclinations, we can no longer follow. It is a land that we left, as Abraham did, by faith, and we can never go back.
We must go forward.
Things are no longer the same for us and we must, I repeat, "we must," go forward to the land God has promised us and we must never look back, for any reason.NOTE Homework-
Look up the reference given in the textbook where Jesus says we must never look back.
WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
We have seen in earlier segments that faith is an ability inborn in us. The following scripture used to be quite a problem to me in that I mistakenly thought that it meant that the word "that" referred to "grace" rather than salvation.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:
If my perception of this scripture were right, that would make "faith" the gift given by God. I, as well as others, have used that mistaken thought as the basis for preaching that God gives us everything for our salvation, even the faith to believe. I still believe that He does, but I now glean that truth from a different scriptural basis. This particular verse does not state that "faith" is the gift but that salvation (being "saved") is the gift. I state this for the following reasons:
The word "that," in this passage is in the neuter gender in the Greek.
The word "faith" is feminine in gender in the Greek.
Obviously the gender of the two words does not agree. Therefore, "that" cannot refer back to "faith."
Neither, however, does it agree with the gender of "grace," which is feminine, nor with that of "saved," as it is in the masculine.
What then does "that" refer to?
Divisions of the text:
The context is: we were dead in trespasses and sins; but God gave us life (quickened us)
because of His mercy and great love toward us. This quickening was in Christ and was for the purpose of showing His great grace through the ages. In short, the context is our salvation in Christ by God’s actions. (Eph 2:1-8)The means: grace. (Eph 2:8)
The channel: faith. (same verse)
The result: Salvation. (same verse)
"That" gift that is being referred to is the Salvation process. It is how we receive eternal life; which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.
(cf Ro 6:23b "... the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.")
Faith is from God- I stated that I still believe that faith is from God, even though I no longer use Eph 2:8 as a proof verse. The reasoning I now use is this: the soul that I possess is from God through Adam. Within that soul resides an ability called faith. Through propagation from Adam, God has handed down to me this ability; ergo, faith is as much from God as my soul is from God. If God had not installed that ability within my essence, as he did to all people, then it would be impossible for me, or anyone else, to be saved.
A good example would be a Dam. If there is no channel then all of the dam building and reservoirs in the world would be to no avail. The water must have a channel to carry the water from the source to the people. Likewise, grace must have a channel, faith, to carry salvation from the source, God, to the people. God gives it all, including the channel, faith.
We can stop up the channel but it is still there. We can refuse to exercise faith in the Creator and be saved; but the channel is still there. It was given by God in His mercy to all mankind with the creation of Adam. Propagated down through the centuries, faith has been there in every person since Adam, waiting for its exercise by our free will. It can be exercised toward the creation, for failure and condemnation, or toward the spiritual, God, for Salvation and success.
Reconciliation of other scriptures and views-
God gives us faith through Adam and not directly as a special gift at our Salvation. To think that He does smacks of Calvinism.
A detailed discussion of my reasons for saying this is on pp. 20+ in your textbook.
READ IT!
WHAT IS FAITH TO US?
I call faith the building blocks of Christianity. The different manifestations of it are the basis for everything in our lives. From our salvation, to our ability to live truly Christian lives, to our hope for the future, all are built upon our faith.
Remembrance- We must start off with one of those "remembrances" that I mentioned in the introduction. We must first of all remember that nothing of our faith is from us, it is from God.
I can no more be puffed-up about my faith than I can be about being a person. I did not make me a person, God did. A person is delineated by the possession of emotion, intellect and will; all of these were given to me by God. These three reside in my soul, which is from God, and I have no cause to glory as though I had something that someone else does not have. God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. From Adam has been propagated all of mankind from then until now. Physically and immaterially we are descendants of Adam. We have inherited the image of God from him and we inherit our souls from him.(6b) We also, sorry to say, inherit our sin nature from him and that is why we need to be born again so that we can receive our new nature from Christ at our new creation.
Therefore, since faith resides in the soul, and that soul was given to us from God, then I can be no more puffed-up about the fact that I have faith than I can of having the soul in which it resides.
Faith is the channel for success. Much in the same way that emotion, or intellect, or will, are said to reside in the soul so does faith. All are abilities and characteristics of the soul. Each can be used or misused, fed or starved, exercised or restrained, but they cannot be denied. Like any other inherent ability, faith can be increased or decreased, strengthened or weakened, exercised or atrophied. What faith means to you and me depends almost exclusively on what we do with it. In the same way that a wife becomes more precious to us depending on whether we treat her like something precious or not, even so with faith. But remember, our success or failure in our Christian lives and the magnitude and effectiveness of our service to God depends on the measure of faith we exercise toward Him. Faith is the channel for His power in our lives.
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