Is faith intellectual assent?

It is not a question of feeling, as so many would make it. It is entirely a question of faith in an accomplished fact, faith wrought in the soul of a sinner, by the power of the Holy Ghost. This faith is something quite different from a mere feeling of the heart, or an assent of the intellect. Feeling is not faith. Intellectual assent is not faith. Some would make faith to be the mere assent of the intellect to a certain proposition. This is fearfully false. It makes the question of faith human, whereas it is really divine. It reduces it to the level of man, whereas it really comes from God Faith is not a thing of today or tomorrow. It is an imperishable principle, emanating from an eternal source, even God Himself; it lays hold of God's truth, and sets the soul in God's presence.

126 It is said (Serm. 1: p. 12, 3rd ed.), "It is not belief of the truth of the scripture narrative, or an assent of the understanding to certain propositions; but it is trust in Christ." Now, I admit fully, belief in the truth of scripture may not be saving faith; and it is never the assent of the understanding to propositions. It is not a human thing as Rome makes it; nor mere assent as Sandemanianism would make it. But it is not therefore trust. It is not the fact of the assent to the testimony of scripture, or the contrary, which is real faith, or the contrary; but the nature of the assent which makes the difference of real faith and mere educational or intellectual. The latter is called believing in scripture (John 2:23-25), and believing on (εἰς) His name; yet, being only an intellectual conviction, Jesus did not trust Himself to them. He knew what was in man. It was an honest conviction — an assent; but it was only from what was in man, and was worthless. True 1 faith is the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul, revealing the object of faith in divine power; so that the heart receives it on divine testimony as divine truth, and a divine fact. "When it pleased God," says the apostle, "to reveal his Son in me." "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." "He that heareth my words, and believeth (on) him that sent me, hath everlasting life." It is really identical with the communication of a new life by the power of the Holy Ghost through the word. Hence we are said to be the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; to be born of the Spirit, and to be begotten by the word of truth.

128 Whatever Hooker may do, it is because Paul had received this ministry that he used great plainness of speech. Faith is then the real vivid perception of what cannot be known by sight — God, I Christ, anything revealed of God, being the object. If there is merely a mental conclusion, as in the end of John 2, or assent to a proposition, it is worthless. If it is the revelation of the object of faith to the soul by the Holy Ghost, it is real and living; and this only is true faith.

God alone can give the knowledge that the Holy Scriptures are His own very revelation to man. If He does not give it, no one can; if He does, no one need. If I want human evidence to accredit the Word of God, it is not the Word of God to me. The authority on which I receive it is higher than the Word itself. Supposing I could by reason or human learning work my way to the rational conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God, then my faith would merely stand in the wisdom of man, and not in the power of God. Such a faith is worthless; it does not link me with God, and therefore leaves me unsaved, unblessed, uncertain. It leaves me without God, without Christ, without hope. Saving faith is believing what God says because He says it, and this faith is wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit. Intellectual faith is a cold, lifeless, worthless faith, which only deceives and puffs up; it never can save, sanctify, or satisfy.

Some have made a difficulty for themselves by the mistaken assumption that we have here a definition of faith. This is clearly not the object, but rather a description of its power, range, and effect. Faith scripturally in itself is simply believing God, accepting His word because He says it, not on visible evidence or on reasoning but on God's authority. Now, under the gospel because of its all-importance, it is receiving the testimony of God which He has testified about His Son (1 John 5:9), believing (not exactly "on," but) Him that sent the Son (John 5:24); or, as in John 3:33 it is expressed, he that receives His testimony sets to his seal that God is true; while he that does not believe God has the awful guilt of making Him a liar (1 John 5:10).

But when it is next said that "they confound atonement with pardon on the conditions of repentance and faith, and make faith a mere assent of the mind to a fact," etc. (page 208), they assert what is directly opposed to truth. This, I should judge, was gathered out of a Methodist preacher's attack, or in article in a Wesleyan organ founded on it. Let me tell them that, without boasting of our knowledge, I do not believe they will produce one man, woman, or child among us guilty of that confusion which they so inconsiderately impute to us as a class; and that no man holding the Sandemanian or Walkerite doctrine, which reduces faith to a mere mental assent, would be knowingly received amongst us. We hold universally that faith is the soul's reception of a divine testimony by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost.

It is granted that there is no true faith without repentance, and that what is commonly called Sandemanianism or Walkerism is in this utterly wrong. All efforts to obliterate repentance, in order to ease or simplify believing in Christ, are false, evil, and dangerous. They slight the work of God in the conscience and reduce faith to intellectualism. This however is not the point now, but the great truth that he who believes has, according to scripture, everlasting life.

Facts are of high interest and real importance; and as the Israelite could point to them as the basis of his religion, to the call of Abram by God, and the deliverance of the chosen people from Egypt and through the desert and into Canaan, so can the Christian to the incomparably deeper and more enduring ones of the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Son of God, with the consequent presence of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. But faith to have moral value, to deal with the conscience, to purify and draw out the heart, is not the pure and simple acceptance of facts on reasonable grounds, but the heart's welcoming God's testimony in His word. This tests the soul beyond all else, as spiritual intelligence consists in the growing up to Christ in an increasing perception and enjoyment of all that God's word has revealed, which separates the saint practically to Himself and His will in judgment of self and the world. One has put off the old man and put on the new, being renewed into full knowledge according to the image of Him that created him.

As we lay hold of the divine truth that faith rests in a person, many difficulties are cleared away, the affections are set in action, and the working of the mind is relegated to its right place. The mind may assent to accomplished facts without the heart being touched by them, but when the person who did the work is believed, the work is accepted not only for its own sake, but because of him who did it.

Faith is not mere credence. There is often a danger, when dealing with souls individually of going before the Lord. For example, one quotes a verse of Scripture, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved"; the question is asked, "Do you believe that?" and the reply is "yes, I do." What so often follows is, "Then you are saved." In such cases our anxiety to get people converted may do harm. Man has both mind and heart; the mind takes in the Word, but, if the heart is to be reached, it must pass through the conscience; there must be the "ploughing up." It is "with the heart man believes to righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made to salvation." Here is something to which you entirely commit yourself; this makes all the difference.