There are three stages in faith in God. There is, first, a conviction of the truth of that to which it is directed. There is, next, a quickening of love by which the conviction is made personal confidence. And then there is a readiness for action corresponding to the conviction.
1. First, there is a conviction, of the truth.—A voice resounds within the soul and the conviction of things unseen, the assurance of God and His grace, shine out in clear certainty. As Paul says, it is not simply the truth of the word that evokes this faith. The message of God and of His being and power may be borne in upon the mind with conclusive proof. The truth of the gospel may be so clearly perceived and so strongly held that it can be taught with cogent power. It is too easy to describe the form of godliness and to deny its power, A voice must be heard by a finer organ than the outer ear. It must be acknowledged by a higher power than the conscience. It must be a voice within the soul. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.”
When the spirit of the convicted and contrite man hears the voice of Christ speaking within, then, and not till then, has faith been born. There is a mood, a season, a moral and spiritual condition, in which we believe. Then the voice of Christ calls an appeal, and as we hear He comes in as the guest of the soul.
The electrician sets up on some high bluff by the seashore his wireless installation. He prepares his delicate apparatus so keenly sensitive that it can send its message a thousand miles away, and can catch and interpret every vibration which is set in motion by the touch or even the breath of man. Far beyond the reach of sight a ship is fitted with an attuned instrument. But the apparatus may be out of order, or the operator may be absent from his post, or he may be drowsed in sleep, or he may be engaged in idle talking. The message vibrates and strikes his wires in vain. It is not heard. Another, a mile distant, hears and interprets the word. As he does so, personalities and truths and messages become sure and certain knowledge. They are all beyond the range of sight. But their word has been heard, and faith in them is inevitable. [Note: W. M. Clow, The Evangel of the Strait Gate, 117.]
2. Next, there is personal confidence.—”Confidence” is very often used in Scripture with regard to God. But the climax of all the repetitions of it is in 1Jn_5:14 : “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us; and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” That is a sublimely complete exhibition of confidence—that anything that we ask of Him, whatsoever it be, if it is according to His will, we not only shall have it, but have it already—such confidence in God’s promise that we take it to be fulfilled already. It reminds one of what Coleridge says in that terse little couplet of his :
Faith is an affirmation and an act
That bids eternal truth be fact.
“Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast it out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief!”, There is no uncertainty in the diagnosis. The cause is not complicated. It is single and simple. “Unbelief!” There had been a want of confidence. There was doubt at the very heart of the disciple’s effort. There was a cold fear at the very core of his enterprise. He went out with a waving banner, but the flag in his heart was drooping! “Because of your unbelief!” Our Lord is not referring to unbelief in any particular doctrine, but rather to the general attitude and outlook of the soul. There was no strong, definite confidence in the disciple, and such unbelief always ensures paralysis and defeat.
A true faith has sometimes been defined to be not a faith in the unseen merely, or in God or Christ, but a personal assurance of salvation. Such a feeling may be only the veil of sensualism; it may be also the noble confidence of St. Paul. “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It may be an emotion, resting on no other ground than that we believe; or a conviction deeply rooted in our life and character.
Such a vision as St. Paul so securely alleged is the first great acme or topmost peak of faith. It is the excellence of an unwavering certainty, a knowledge that cannot be shaken, a trust that will stand fast though no man helps us to sustain it. How different very often is our modern apologetical effort Our modern apologetical effort is a running round society to see if we can get some one to keep us in countenance while we believe in Jesus Christ. The other day we were to be daunted by the traces of the origin of species. One day. I remember it was seriously suggested that we might be dismayed by a message from one of the stars, that He had not been seen there. [Note: P. N. Waggett, Our Profession, 28. ]
3. Lastly, there is the expression of the faith in action.—Things are sometimes said about the life of holy faith, the life of rest upon and in the Son of God, which leave, or seem to leave, no place for spiritual effort and resolve. Yet the Scriptures have very much to say about these latter things. They speak of “girding up the loins of the mind,” of “working out salvation,” of “being in earnest” (our English Bible renders it “labouring”) “to enter into the “heavenly ‘rest,’ of” giving diligence to make our calling and election sure,” of “watching and being sober,” of “keeping under the body and bringing it into subjection,” of “labouring fervently in prayer.” We may be very sure, then, that this fact of spiritual effort is no accident of the spiritual life, but a large and vital truth in it. It would be strange if it were otherwise. All conscious personal life has much to do with exercise and effort in the course of its healthful development. A life, conscious and personal, which should be a life of mere and pure quiescence, would hardly be a life worth living.
All spiritual interests that are not embodied in action, or do not terminate in fresh growths of character, are only so much waste of spiritual power; for the pulsings of aspiration, the tears of penitence, the bitter outpourings of shocked self-knowledge, are, unless they take some onward step into the infinite of Divine truth and goodness, but the experiences of a self-deceiving heart, and, so far from witnessing to or deepening faith, are smoothing the way to a final and impotent despair. Yes, faith is not a sentiment, but a power divinely practical. It takes religious convictions and carries their influence into every transaction of business, every scheme of pleasure, every phase of a man’s public and home life. Faith takes religious feelings and translates them into heroic deeds and unselfish devotions; faith takes aspiration and develops therefrom the nobler growths of character, the higher possibilities open to a child of God.
Maurice once said with something of a caustic tone about Carlyle that he believed in a God. who lived until the death of Oliver Cromwell. The gibe was not quite fair to Carlyle, but emphatically that kind of faith will not do. An expositor has very shrewdly remarked of the woman at the well of Samaria, that in two phrases, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain,” and “When Messias cometh,” she betrayed the fact that religion as a vital force was dead in her, and remained only as a dim memory or a distant hope. That will not suffice. We shall soon lose the energy of faith, unless we believe God to be present in the life of every day. It is tedious work calling to a God who has receded out of all intimate relations with our daily life. But if every day begins with the knowledge that the outstanding fact in it is to be the unknown quantity, the Divine interpositions, the incalculable influences, the voices from within, then the quest for a persistent faith will not be so hazardous and impossible a task. [Note: A. Connell, The Endless Quest, 8.]
The work of self-discipline, of brotherly kindness, of Christian testimony, the simple homely pieties of life—without these faith will die—it must perish from the earth. [Note: Ibid. 9.]
