Faith in Jesus is the recognition of “His Messiahship, of His power, and of His love.
1. Faith is the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah.—The earliest Christian confession, the simplest and sufficient creed, was, Jesus is the Christ. What do we mean by that? We mean, first and plainly, that He is the realization of the dim figure which arose, majestic and enigmatical, through the mists of a partial revelation. We mean that He is, as the word signifies etymologically, “anointed” with the Divine Spirit, for the discharge of all the offices which, in old days, were filled by men who were fitted and designated for them by outward unction—prophet, priest, and king. We mean that He is the substance of which ancient ritual was the shadow. We mean that He is the goal to which all that former partial unveiling of the mind and will of God steadfastly pointed. This, and nothing less, is the meaning of the declaration that Jesus is the Christ; and that belief is the distinguishing mark of the faith which this Hebrew of the Hebrews, writing to Hebrews, declares to be the Christian faith.
I believe that Jesus is the Christ. That is to say, I believe that there is a living bond between me, the poor, helpless human creature, and the absolute perfect Being. I believe that His Love has come near to me in a human person, whom I may claim as the brother of me and my race. I believe that Person is the Son of God; that in Him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily. I believe, therefore, that I am related to that Love which created the world, and all that is in it. I may claim affiance in it. Again, I believe that Jesus is the Christ. I believe that He is anointed with the Spirit of God to the end that He may bestow that Spirit upon men. I believe that the Spirit in Him was a uniting Spirit, a self-sacrificing Spirit, a Spirit of active, suffering, sympathising Love. I believe that that Spirit is acting upon us, and can work in us the love which is most foreign to our selfishness. [Note: F. D. Maurice, The Epistles of St. John, 255.]
2. Faith in Jesus is the recognition of His power.—He elicited by degrees a growing confidence in His power. “Why are ye fearful?” He said to them in the storm on the Sea of Galilee; “have ye not yet faith?”—i.e. have you not yet learned confidence in Me? And to St. Peter He said, “O thou of little faith! wherefore didst thou doubt?”—i.e. doubt My power to protect you. The words of the leper are: “If thou wilt, thou canst.” And the centurion’s words are like these: “My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy: speak the word only, and he shall be healed.” This was true faith; the conviction, not that Christ certainly would, but that, if He would, at least He could. And that is true faith still. The comfortable assurance, “He has willed to heal me,” is one of God’s good gifts to those whom He has first healed; but the preliminary condition is only this, “I believe that, if He will, He can.”
Faith in Jesus’ power is usually faith in His power to work miracles. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him” (Joh_2:11). Hitherto the disciples of Jesus had followed Him chiefly because of the testimony of John the Baptist. Now, however, they saw that in their new Master which awakened a fresh feeling towards Him. They beheld the miracle, and in or through it they caught a glimpse of the glory of the Lord. They had believed, on the testimony of the Baptist, that He was the Messiah; now they see something of Him which creates faith in Him. “His disciples believed on him.”
But it is not said that those who before were unbelieving were overpowered by what they saw and forced into faith; it is said only that those who had already followed Christ case themselves, so to speak, upon Him with an absolute trust when they recognized the working of His Divine power. The outward event might be disregarded or explained away or cavilled at; the inner meaning was discernible only by the spiritual eye.
The truth is, that faith does not depend on signs; nor is it in the last resort a matter of argument or philosophic reflection, but a property of the soul itself. The sense of God belongs to us. And even when we have been expecting signs, and cannot see them, we pray to a God above the clouds, whose face is light and whose favour is life. Like the man in the Gospels we say, “believe; help thou mine unbelief.” We may doubt all the arguments for God’s existence, declare this unsatisfactory and that untenable, and when every argument fails we find we believe in God still. We feel and know that He is here. “Eternal Father, strong to save,” Thy child lives in Thee.
He who believes feels himself surrounded by wonders—faith is always faith in the marvellous—for he feels the nearness of the all-ruling Lord and thereby sees the inflexible things of this world become pliant means in the hand of his God. [Note: R. Seeberg, The Fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion, 83.]
3. Faith in Jesus is the recognition of His love.—The foundations of faith are not yet laid simply by the fact that the historical appearance of Jesus affects us. There must be added the fact that the same Man who becomes judge and conscience to the person who comes face to lace with Him interests Himself in him with a patient and unparalleled love. At the same time that He makes the sinner insecure by the simple power of His personal life He sets him on his feet by His kindness. Therefore those who have been led by Him to feel the bitterness of their plight, yet feel themselves for that very reason drawn to Him. It was thus that He once forgave sinners. He before whose eyes is unfolded the vast misery of mankind, their profound lovelessness and their weakness of will, has yet the calm trust that He can snatch them from the hell which in their own souls they have prepared for themselves, whether for the present or for the future.
The contrast between the faith of wonder and the faith of love is at the same time both touching and teaching. While Jesus was going about doing good, there came to Him a woman, wearied with sin, worn with sorrow. She had shut herself out from human sympathy. There was no whisper left to comfort her, no balm remaining to heal her. Mighty works were reported of this Jesus of Nazareth; and multitudes ran after the fame of Him. But she, poor soul, had no heart for wonder. She had worn out and palled each successive excitement. She had no eyes to gaze, for they were hot and dim with weeping. But she had stood with the crowd and had listened, and the dew of gentle words had gathered over the dearth of her heart. From out of the depths of that heart came the yearnings of mighty love.
The piercing taunts of the multitude without, the freezing gaze of the assembled Pharisees, were to her as nothing. Full of earnest purpose, she passed by them all; she pressed into the beloved Presence; she bathed the sacred Feet with her tears, she wiped them with her hair; she earned for herself the precious testimony—precious for her, precious for all time —“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.”
There is, in one of the letters of Emily Lawless, a passage which sums up her whole creed—her faith in Christ and in Love and in their power of inspiration:
It has grown upon me more and more to feel that though belief, in the doctrinal sense of the word, becomes yearly more impossible, more obviously human in all its innumerable manifestations, on the other hand Love—a clinging to something outside ourselves and not liable to accidents—becomes yearly more possible, and seems to me to be the one supreme truth that will some day emerge clearly above all the fog and the jar and tangle of disputing creeds. I do not know what I should do if I had the sole directing of a young ardent nature in such matters, but I feel that what I should do would be to try and get that capacity for love developed, and then let everything else take its chance.
At the lowest the Being that she had learnt to love would be the noblest and tenderest in all history, and as for miracles, the miracle of His turning the bitter waters sweet, and pulling wrecked lives straight, and that not by ones and twos, but by millions upon millions, is quite miracle enough for me. Of course the advocatus diaboli will whisper that one is adoring a myth, but one must just let him whisper, and once the root of love is well grounded I do not think such whispers matter. The heart is a far more tenacious organ than the head,, and not nearly so much at the mercy of those loud winds of Doubt. [Note: Edith Sichel, New and Old, 172.]
