What does it mean to have faith in Jesus?

These few brief hints as to faith in general may be useful to some. We will now look at the particular question before us, namely, "What is believing in Christ?" Were we to give a direct answer to this question, we should say, To believe in Christ, is to look to Him, the Saviour-God, as the one object of the heart's confidence and affection. He may be comparatively little known to the believer, and the expression of faith in Him may be very feeble, and sometimes assailed with doubts and fears; nevertheless he who has been taught of God to know Christ, once dead and risen for him, as the one object of his faith, will cling confidingly and affectionately to Him, notwithstanding these things.

Faith is a thing which people exercise in a hundred ways every day of their lives. When that lady entered the tent just now, and sat down on that chair, it was an act of faith. She trusted the chair and committed herself to it. When I removed my hat and hung it upon yonder hook, that again was an act of faith. I trusted the hook, and depended upon it to hold my hat. The faith of which the Bible speaks is just as simple as that. Christ is its object, and to have faith in Him is to rely on Him, or count upon Him for that which our souls need. The same thing is expressed in other ways in Scripture: "Look," "Come," "Take," "Receive"—all these mean very much the same as "Trust" or "Believe."

It is not a question of the amount of your faith, but of the trustworthiness of the person you repose your confidence in. One man takes hold of Christ, as it were, with a drowning man's grip. Another but touches the hem of His garment but the sinner who does the former is not a bit safer than the one who does the latter. They have both made the same discovery; viz., that while all of self is totally untrustworthy they may safely confide in Christ, calmly rely on His word, and confidently rest in the eternal efficacy of His finished work. That is what is meant by believing on Him. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." (John 6:47.)

It is faith in a personal Saviour that is preached to the convicted man, — a committing himself to One mighty to save; a believing on, which is trusting, leaning on. It is not a doctrine simply that he is to accept, but a living Person who is to be trusted.

This faith is the gift of God. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. Some men believe not on Jesus; they believe not because they are not of Christ's sheep, as he himself said unto them; but his sheep hear his voice: he knows them and they follow him: he gives to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand.

What is this believing? Believing consists in two things; first there is an accrediting of the testimony of God concerning his Son. God tells you that his Son came into the world and was made flesh, that he lived upon earth for men's sake, that after having spent his life in holiness he was offered up a propitiation for sin, that upon the cross he there and then made expiation - so made expiation for the sins of the world that Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If you would be saved, you must accredit this testimony which God gives concerning his own Son.

Having received this testimony, the next thing is to confide in it - indeed here lies, I think, the essence of saving faith, to rest yourself for eternal salvation upon the atonement and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, to have done once for all with all reliance upon feelings or upon doings, and to trust in Jesus Christ and in what he did for your salvation.

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.

Faith is the divinely-given perception of things not seen, wrought through the word of God by the Spirit. Hence it is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. The examples in Hebrews 11 are not given to shew all that faith is, but how it works in man in active life or patient endurance, because God's word is believed. If the word reveals a divine person in grace, He becomes the object of trust; if a work, its efficacy becomes the ground of confidence. But the trust and the confidence is not the faith. Indeed, though there will always be attraction, and so far trust in Him as a person worthy of it, and drawing it, in the revelation of God in love, it does not at first always produce confidence, properly speaking, and, speaking of Christ, "a full reliance upon Him and upon His work;" because that revelation, if it attracts the confidence of the heart, awakens the conscience; and, till this is purged by a clear knowledge of redemption, we cannot trust. The element of it is there, but we cannot do so. When Peter preached to the Jews, the effect of the power of the word, convincing them that Jesus was the Messiah — making them believe — was to make them say, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" They had crucified Him. This was not trust; but faith was wrought in their hearts as to who Jesus was. Not that scripture was true — that they believed before; not assent to a proposition — but true faith that Jesus was the Christ. The answer to the need of soul this produced was Peter's shewing them the path of peace. They were to have remission of sins, and receive the Holy Ghost.

Therefore the word trust could not well be substituted for faith, though in the things of God they are very intimately connected. It is really because of faith in some testimony which He has given of Himself that I am led to trust Him. If I did not believe the testimony or word addressed to me, I would not trust Him; but His Word is the revelation of Himself—of His thoughts, His mind, His will—and by His Word I get to know Him in some measure, and this begets trust in Him, for He is worthy of the trust of all His intelligent creatures. I know men, therefore I do not trust them, for I know that they are evil and capable of deceiving me. I know myself, and therefore I do not trust myself, for I know that I am full of deception. I know the blessed God, for He has brought Himself to light in Christ, and Him I can trust with all my heart, for in such an one as Christ there is no deception. But if I did not take Christ, in the first instance, to be the perfect revelation of God, His WORD to men, it would show that I had no knowledge of God, for when He came to light in His Son I did not recognize Him, and without faith in the revelation which He gave of Himself I could have no trust in Him, for I could not trust a Being of whom I was so utterly ignorant.

(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.

And as to “the right kind of faith”—a difficulty felt by vast numbers of young believers—remember it is not the right faith that saves, but faith in the right Person. You might have the strongest possible faith in yourself, in the priest, in the church, in the sacraments, in visions or dreams, and be lost forever. But, on the other hand, the feeblest faith in Christ Jesus, God’s Lamb, saves for all eternity, and puts you forever in Paul’s company. In each account given of his conversion we see how God showed him the futility of self-righteousness and human religiousness as a means of salvation, and the absolute certainty of eternal salvation when the Lord Jesus is trusted in and confessed. When He becomes the soul’s object, conversion is an accomplished fact.

"Faith." As to its origin, it is the gift of God; as to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit; as to its object, it fastens on Christ; as to its exercise, it is the disciple's own act. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he believeth not on the only begotten Son of God."

"Faith" designates the act of the sinner when he accepts Christ from God on God's own terms. It is the man's own deed, and yet it is utterly destitute of merit. If lost, helpless sinners of mankind reject the salvation which is offered in the gospel, that rejection is a substantial addition to their guilt; but if they accept it, the act of accepting constitutes no righteousness. The Scriptures make 'much of faith — "precious faith"; "thy faith hath saved thee"; "without faith it is impossible to please God."

Faith is the first stone of the building, but it is not the foundation. It is the act of cleaving to Christ, but all its value depends on the worth of the Christ to whom you cleave. A man may have faith — real, ardent, energetic faith — in saints and images, and priests and relics; yet his faith does not save him. A drowning man puts forth his hand and seizes with more than natural energy a bit of froth that dances on the crest of a wave; his hand cleaves it like air, and he sinks helpless in the deep. He is lost, not for want of precision in his aim, or of energy in his grasp, but for want of truth and power in the phantom to which he fled. Our help is laid on One that is mighty. Christ saves to the uttermost. On the person, and righteousness, and sacrifice, and resurrection, of Immanuel, the soul must lean, when the burden of sin would weigh us down to the second death. "Christ is God's," and when "ye are Christ's" all is well. "Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."