Saving Faith

“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” is the solemn announcement of the Savior Himself (Mark 16:16). The place thus assigned to faith in the matter of salvation shows that the subject of this chapter possesses the deepest interest. If a Savior was necessary to the recovery of lost sinners, faith in that Savior is no less necessary to the actual enjoyment of salvation. The vast importance of having scriptural views of the nature of saving faith must, therefore, be obvious. The present section teaches us:

1. That the subjects of this faith are elect sinners. All whom God from eternity elected to everlasting life are in time brought to believe to the saving of their souls. An apostle affirms: “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48); and Christ Himself declares: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me” (John 6:37). “The faith of God's elect” differs from every other sort of faith.

Saving faith is supernatural, the act of a renewed soul, a living principle, which purifies the heart, works by love, and overcomes the world. It must, therefore, be widely different from a natural, a dead, or a common faith. It is denominated “precious faith,” “faith unfeigned,” “the faith of the operation of God”; and that faith to which Scripture applies so many discriminating epithets must surely possess some quality peculiar to itself. Accordingly, we read in Scripture of many who believed, and yet they did not possess saving faith. Simon the sorcerer believed; Agrippa believed; the hearers compared to the stony ground believed; and many believed in the name of Jesus when they saw the miracles which He did; “but He did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men.”

It is manifest, then, that “they do not speak accurately, cautiously, or safely, who represent all sorts of faith to be of the same specific nature, because they may all agree in some bare, simple act or persuasion of the mind. It must be a great and dangerous mistake to think that the belief of any ordinary fact upon human testimony, and every assent given by men, or even devils, to any doctrines or facts recorded in Scripture, is of the very same kind with that which is saving, although wanting so many things essential to the latter, of which so much is spoken, and which is so highly celebrated in the Book of God” (Professor Bruce's Evangelical Discourses).

2. That this faith is wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Holy Spirit. Some unequivocally affirm that every man has perfect power to believe the gospel, independently of the Spirit's influences; and others, who seem to recognize the necessity of divine influence, do yet deny that any direct special influence is either needed or bestowed; and therefore ultimately ascribe the existence of faith in one rather than another to the free will of man. That man in his fallen state has lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation, we have formerly endeavored to establish, and shall only now appeal to the explicit testimony of Scripture.

Faith is declared to be “the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8), to be of “the operation of God” (Colossians 2:12), and to require the exertion of mighty power, like that which wrought in Christ when God raised Him from the dead (Ephesians 1:19). The Holy Ghost is called “the Spirit of faith” (2 Corinthians 4:13); and faith is mentioned among “the fruits of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22), because the production of faith in the hearts of the elect peculiarly belongs to Him, as the applier of the redemption purchased by Christ.

3. That faith is ordinarily wrought in the hearts of the elect by the ministry of the Word. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Some allow of no other influence in this matter but the outward means. They explain away the plain import of those passages of Scripture which ascribe the production of faith to an immediate divine influence, as if no more were intended than that God furnishes men with the truth and its evidence. According to their interpretation, that emphatic declaration of Christ, “No man can come to Me, except the Father draw him,” simply means that the Father gives them the Scriptures. This is to substitute the means in the place of the efficient agent; and if the work is effected simply by the external means, there can be no propriety in speaking of the Holy Spirit as having anything to do in the production of faith.

But our Confession clearly distinguishes between the work of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Word. There is a distinct and immediate influence of the Spirit on the heart; but the Spirit usually works by means, and the Word read or preached is the divinely appointed means by which He usually communicates His influence. Lydia, in common with others, heard the Word preached by Paul; but “the Lord opened her heart.” The apostle clearly distinguishes between the gospel and the power which renders it successful: “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost” (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

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