What does it mean to believe in God?

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).

Picture the darkness of that Eastern night, relieved by the brightness and clearness of light shed by those millions of silvery, twinkling worlds overhead. Abraham looks north, south, east, and west, and with amazement scans the glittering firmament as God says, "Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them." Of course he could not number them. Who could? Obeying his orders, he looks, and the next thing he hears is, "So shall thy seed be." That was a stupendous statement. And what do I read now? "And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (ver. 6). It says in the fourth of Romans, regarding this circumstance, that "Abraham believed God" (ver. 3). In the historical account we find Abraham "believed in the LORD." In the same chapter of the Romans we read that we shall be justified if we believe "on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead" (ver. 25). Is there a difference? Yes. You believe God, you believe in Him, and you believe on Him. All three are found in Scripture, and you say, What is the difference? When I believe God, I believe what He says, i.e., His word. If I believe in Him, I believe what He is in Himself; I trust Him; I can rely on Him. If I believe on Him, I believe what He does. That is very simple.

God is to be believed. I hear people say sometimes, I cannot believe. It is not a question what you believe, but whom you believe. The point is, Can you believe God? Alas! when God speaks to you about His blessed Son, and says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," you cannot believe Him. When God tells you "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," you say, I do not think He could mean me. Is it not strange? You can believe anybody but God. Are you convicted of the gravity of your unbelief? I hope so. Now, "Abraham believed God." May you do so too. If you have been convicted of unbelief in days gone by, may your heart from this hour be able to say, I will be like Abraham.

So this is where faith begins, whether for Enoch or for ourselves. It leads us to the knowledge that GOD IS, and this is something very different from the belief that there is a God. Even in these days of scepticism there are to be found multitudes who cannot satisfy their minds, in trying to account for the existence of all things, without postulating the existence of a God, of some sort and somewhere; but this is reason and not faith. Faith it is, and faith only, which puts us into the presence of the LIVING GOD, who knows, and sees, and acts, and makes Himself known, and even rewards those who diligently seek Him. In days when all thought of the living God was fading from the minds of men, Enoch by faith had the living God before him. He diligently sought Him, and consequently he found Him, and there began that remarkable walk with Him which continued for three hundred years.

(Vv. 19, 20). The Jew believed that God is one. This is right; the devils also believe this and their belief makes them tremble, but it does not put them in relationship with God. So a man may believe what is true as to God, and yet have no faith in God. Faith is the outcome of a new nature that trusts in God and proves its existence by its works. The man then that says he has faith and yet is “without works” is a vain man and his faith merely a dead profession. Such is the condition of the vast profession of Christendom in which truths are assented to and “works” are done, but without the faith that brings the soul into personal touch with Christ.

That 'faith in God' and 'belief of the truth' are things commonly united is true, but they are by no means identical, as some suppose. The latter may exist without the former, and does so in numberless examples. The devils believe the truth, but have no faith in God. They knew and confessed the Son of God, and could distinguish between a true and false confession of His name in others;7 but they have no faith in Him. So likewise King Agrippa believed the prophets, but his faith stopped short of God and His salvation. And it is a matter of everyday experience that credence may be given to the declarations of the Gospel, and that men often readily indoctrinate their minds with grace, while their hearts remain unaffected by the faith of God. When therefore an Apostle speaks of 'belief, or faith, of the truth,'8 he puts it immediately after sanctification of the Spirit, and refers both one and the other to the original election of God.

And this, to a divinely-opened eye, will be found to be the constant and unswerving testimony of Scripture. That a true believer's faith is the gift of God is repeated by the same witness in another place;9 while here his language, when thus accounting for the spiritual standing and relationship of these Philippians, and their experience as confessors of the name of Christ, may recall to our minds the words addressed by our Lord to the Father in His commendatory prayer.1 For it was 'on Christ's behalf,' and that He might be glorified, that the Father had led these Gentile sheep to the true Shepherd of their souls.2 The name of the Lord Jesus would be glorified in them by their steadfast continuance in the faith. And all this would redound to the excellent glory of the Father, whose sovereign will had found expression in the effectual grace of their calling. With their hearts they had believed unto righteousness, and had wrought the work of God, receiving the words of His messengers, and believing on Him whom God had sent. And heartily also were they set for the defence of that Gospel whose power and priceless value they had felt and understood. But as in Paul's own case he boasted, when recounting his most abundant labours in the Gospel, solely of the grace bestowed on him,3 so here, while he cheers and commends his younger comrades in the faith, he impressively reminds them of the source whence their honour comes.

That which follows shows that he is speaking of the profession of a doctrine, true perhaps in itself — of certain truths being confessed; for it is a real faith looked at — certainty of knowledge and conviction — which devils have of the unity of the Godhead. They do not doubt it; but there is no link at all between their heart and God by means of a new nature — far indeed from it.

But the apostle confirms this, by the case of men in whom the opposition to the divine nature is not so apparent. Faith, the recognition of the truth with respect to Christ, is dead without works; that is, such a faith as produces none is dead.

The next verses unfold more in detail the character of Abraham's faith, and also of ours, which is very instructive and practical; for many souls are exercised about their faith, wondering whether they have believed rightly, etc. In verse 17, we have not only that Abraham believed God, but that he believed the God of resurrection; "Before Him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." In verse 3, we find the simple expression of Abraham's faith, "Abraham believed God." It is not said that he believed in God, but that "he believed God;" i.e. believed what God told him. Beautiful and simple expression of what faith is. Many think of faith as a sort of inward feeling or experience, and so, because they do not have these experiences, often wonder whether they have the right faith. But faith is not feeling or experience, but dependence upon what another has said or done. In natural things it is simple enough. If some one that you can trust tells you something, you believe him; you do not question whether you have believed rightly, or whether your faith in what he has said is strong enough, you simply take him at his word. For instance, if you are going to London, you ask one of the railway officials which is the London carriage, and you take your seat, perfectly satisfied that you are right, because you believe the man that told you. You have no feeling that you are in the right train; but because you trust to what the official told you, you are perfectly happy and confident that you are right. That is faith in a man. Faith in God is the same, only in the one case it is believing what a man says, and in the other it is believing what God says and this is what true faith always does. There is such a thing as mere head belief; i.e. the natural intellect acknowledging the truth of God, as we find an instance in John 2:23: "Many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them." There was simple outward recognition of the truth, but no saving faith. Again, in the case of Simon, in Acts 8:12: "When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also." His was only an intellectual assent to the truth, without any saving faith at all; for "he had neither part nor lot in the matter." (v. 21.)

But some might ask, "How am I to know that mine is not mere intellectual assent, but real saving faith?" I think this verse (Rom. 4:3) gives us an example of what true faith is — "Abraham believed God." One may intellectually believe what man says, and a person may be taught about Christ, and believe about Him, just in the same way that he believes there was such a person as Henry VIII., or any other matter of history. When one is really in earnest as to his soul's salvation, and believes what God says about Christ, that is not head-belief, but faith in God. Intellectual faith believes what man says; saving faith believes what God says. In 1 Thess. 2:13, they received the word of God not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, and consequently they were saved. Abraham's case is a beautiful and simple illustration of what faith, is; he believed God. Let us turn to the account in Genesis 15. Abraham was about an hundred years old, and Sarah, his wife, ninety, and they had no child; and God said, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be." (v. 5.) Suppose Abraham had looked at himself, or had attempted to reason for a moment, where would he have been? But no; in Rom. 4:19 we read, "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb." He did not look at himself at all. How many have said, "But I don't feel saved; surely if I was saved I should feel differently to what I do." Suppose Abraham had said, when God said, "So shall thy seed be," "But I don't feel as though this was true:" how could he have felt it? He did not think of himself at all, he did not wait to feel it; but, contrary to nature and reason and human possibility, he simply took God at His word, he believed what God had said, and that is faith. "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." Unbelief always staggers at what God says, and so does human reason, because it cannot understand it. But "Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith," and the result was, he gave glory to God. For it does glorify God to take Him simply at His word, and trust Him implicitly without reasoning or doubting. Some say it is presumption to say we are saved. So it would be, if God did not say so; but if God says we are saved, it is not giving glory to God to doubt it, but the contrary. Surely it is greater presumption to doubt what God says, than to take Him simply at His word; and He says, "All that believe are justified from all things." Abraham was "strong in faith." What constitutes being strong in faith? Simply taking God at His word, as Abraham did, and thus he gave glory to God; and he was "fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also." That is, not only was Abraham reckoned righteous because he believed God, but we shall also be reckoned. righteous if we believe God in the same way; only, although we believe the same God that Abraham did, the character of our faith is a little different. Abraham believed in a promise, "that what He had promised, He was able also to perform;" we are reckoned righteous "if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." We do not believe, like Abraham, in what God is going to do, but in what He has done, in raising up Jesus, our Lord from the dead; but the object of our faith is the same as Abraham's; that is, God. These three last verses of this chapter are most important, for they give us the ground of our justification, and of peace with God; for the first verse of chapter 5 is linked on to them: the division of the chapters breaks the connection. And notice here, it is not said our faith will be counted for righteousness, if we believe in Christ, true as that is; but on the God that raised up Christ; and this is most important, for many have peace as long as they think of Jesus come to seek the lost, and of His love and peace, as seen, for instance, in the gospels, who, nevertheless, when they hear of God and His holiness and the judgment-throne, have misgivings as to whether it is all right; but if this truth is realised that we find in these verses, there must be peace.

In short, it is simply "A living faith in the living God." It is taking God at His word. It is believing what He says because He says it. It is committing your soul to the word of Him who cannot lie. It is doing what Abraham did when he believed God and was counted righteous. It is doing what Jehoshaphat did when he planted his foot firmly on those immortal words, "Thou gavest it to the seed of Abraham Thy friend, forever." It is doing what the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the saints in all ages have done, when they rested their souls for time and eternity upon that Word which "is settled forever in heaven," and thus lived in peace and died in hope of a glorious resurrection. It is resting calmly and sweetly on the immovable rock of holy Scripture, and thus proving the divine and sustaining virtue of that which has never failed any who trusted it, and never will, and never can.

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." If one does not honestly believe that "God is," then his apparent religious approach to God is thorough hypocrisy. Faith is simply a true recognition of God, and certainly nothing less than this can please God. This is the elementary essential, while the last part of the verse shows the active working of faith, that is, diligently seeking God, which is certainly to be rewarded, in accordance with the faithful nature of God.

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.