Do we realize how heroic faith is? Believing men are of God’s kindred; faith belongs to the upper side of our being. A man may be sober, thrifty, punctual, kindly, and yet have a nature without a spark. There are qualities of character which Nietzsche describes as belonging to cows and Englishmen, and in obituary notices these are insisted on sometimes as if they were paramount. But salvation comes not from the earth, not with sobriety, and good-temper, and diligence, estimable as such virtues are. We are solidly planted here amongst the material things, with much to suggest that nothing else is looked for from us; and when truth or duty beckons from afar, we are tempted to say, “It is far off, it is not for us.” It is not easy to believe; so hard is it that, when Jesus one day met with it in perfection, we are told that He marvelled. And when He looked abroad on the hindrances which stand in its way, He said, “When the Son of man comes, shall he find any faith left in the earth?” Faith is a martial virtue, whose business it is to resist the powers of earth. It is the voice of our greatness, and through it there come the heavenly gifts. It is nothing in itself, but it lays hold on God who has all things; and thus forgiveness, and the power by which a better life is lived, and the courage by which men stand alone, and the hidden gifts of the heart of Christ are all granted to faith.
True religion, and Christianity as its fulfilment, always raises human life to the heroic. There is nothing commonplace in its history. If it find men apparently commonplace to begin with, the first effect of true religion is to reveal and call forth unsuspected possibilities of greatness within those who yield themselves to its influence. This holds good, not only of the past, but of the present. Religion is not a mere adornment, convenience, or means of enjoyment. If it is to be any or all of these, it must be infinitely more. It is a consecration, which summons all human powers to the complete unselfishness and unworldliness of Divine and human service. The criticisms passed upon the Christian Church from outside in the present day may often be ill-informed and unfair. In their substance and tendency, however, they are abundantly justified from .the New Testament itself. Those who profess to be partakers of the Divine nature and to enjoy the boundless resources of God in Christ are thereby enabled and expected to display a greatness of character and aims that is beyond the reach of other men.
To such readers as have reflected, what can be called reflecting, on man’s life, and happily discovered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, speculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous with Stomach; who understand, therefore, in our Friend’s words, “that, for man’s well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it, Worldlings puke-up their sick, existence by suicide, in the midst of luxury”: to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of everything. [Note: Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 111.]
1. Jesus is the supreme example, the fulfilment, we dare to say the Hero, of faith. His Divinity is manifested in perfect and typical humanity. We have been told of late that we must choose between believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme object of faith, and treating Him as the first subject of faith. In such teaching the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to be overlooked. Our author seems to know nothing of this contrast. He brings together both alternatives in a more glorious whole. If the first chapter of the Epistle sets forth the glory of the Eternal Son, who is “the effulgence of God’s glory and the very image of his substance,” (Heb_1:3) and the second shows us Jesus “made him a little lower than the angels” (Heb_2:7). In His humility the Captain of our Salvation is “made perfect through sufferings” (Heb_2:10). He “suffers, being tempted” (Heb_2:18). Nay, “though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb_5:8). Indeed the writer expressly puts in His mouth the confession, “I will put my trust in him.” (Heb_2:13) The Deity and Redeemership of Jesus is not incompatible with His incarnate life of faith. Indeed, such faith is the essential mark of His filial nature. Without it He would have been not more, but less, than man. Moreover, according to the writer, without it He would have lacked an essential qualification for His High-priestly office. The glory of the Eternal Son is seen not in His freedom from faith, but in His perfect embodiment of it. The mark of His Divinity is in His sinlessness, and His sinlessness is the triumph of an unbroken faith.
2. And the disciples of Jesus were heroic in proportion to their faith. Virgil said of the winning crew in his famous boat-race, “They can, because they believe they can!” His words are almost identical with words we find in the text — “Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it.” The trouble with many of us is that we do not fully believe that we can do what we are bidden do by the All-wise Master of our life. We are more or less ignorant of our own power—of the hidden spiritual forces of our own nature. We are afraid of great ventures because we under-estimate ourselves. We need more of that self-confidence which in its last analysis is confidence in. God—the God who worketh in us to will and to do. In the disciples of Christ we see what faith in God could do for average men, such men as we find in the streets, dull in mind, timid in spirit, weak in will. The whole-hearted committal of themselves to the work of God made them conscious of undreamt-of power, and made them capable of achieving what they never thought possible; changed them from ordinary and commonplace men into heroes and martyrs whom we remember for ever. Forgetting themselves, and determined to bring in the Kingdom of God, they went forward, and the enthusiasm of their faith operated in the very, way their Master said; it enabled them to surmount formidable difficulties, to break down mountainous obstacles, to subdue seeming impossibilities, to overcome a hostile world. And from those days to these all the greatest things that have been done for God and man have been done by men full of the energy of faith. The men. of faith have achieved what is impossible to other men. For with Goa, in union with Him, all things are possible in the way of obedience and service. It is to this power of faith, which connects our life with the spiritual resources of the universe, that God has entrusted the redemption and progress of the world — the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth.
Let us not be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty as we understand it. [Note: Abraham Lincoln.]
3. The heroism of faith is found in lowly as readily as in exalted stations. The heroic quality is the true concern, not the heroic stage. The great recital of the deeds of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews contains some well-known names, but it ends by summing up the victories and achievements of multitudes of men and women unknown to earthly fame. Even in the case of the better known, it was their faith that lifted them out of obscurity. For the most part, however, their greatness was not perceived by their fellows. Indeed, this is precisely the distinction of their faith, that it enabled them to live great lives, -to brave great dangers, and to make great sacrifices, not only without the incitements of worldly fame and applause, but under influences exactly contrary to these.
Now that we have seen something of the greatness of Faith, let us not forget that Christ is greater than faith in Him. It is a warning that is needed (and with it this Introduction to the Doctrine of Faith may very properly come to an end). “How strongly,” says Maurice, “have I been convinced lately that we spend half our time in thinking of faith, hope, and love, instead of in believing, hoping, and loving How utterly we forget that the very meaning of the words implies that we should forget ourselves and themselves (the acts, I mean) in the objects to which they refer. For are there not some persons who preach Faith instead of preaching Christ? ” [Note: The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 139.]
The exaltation of Faith out of its own place of a handmaid awakened Dr. Duncan’s jealousy. He said that “some men’s Trinity consisted of the Father, and the Son, and Faith”; and he frequently repeated the following anecdote, with the names and circumstances. “At a Highland communion in a meeting for ‘speaking to the question,’ on a Friday evening, the subject selected was Faith. One after another of the ‘men’ spoke in glowing terms of the power and the triumphs of Faith, and each speaker exalted it more than the one before him. At last their esteemed minister, jealous for the honour of the Lord Jesus Christ, stood up and said, ‘I ask, was Faith crucified for you; or were ye baptized in the name of Faith? ’ ” [Note: A. Moody Stuart, Recollections of the late John Duncan, LL.D., 124.]
