What is faith according to the Bible?

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).

All this is greatly to be deplored. It claims the earnest attention of those who take an interest in souls and are called to watch the progress of the work of God therein. It is of the greatest importance to lead all exercised souls to the sure foundation of Holy Scripture and to teach them that faith is simply taking God at His word. It is believing what He says, not because we feel it, but because He says it. To believe because we feel, would not be faith in God's Word at all, but faith in our own feelings, which is a worthless faith that will not stand for a moment in the presence of the enemy. The Word of God is settled forever in heaven. “He has magnified His Word above all His name.” This is the solid foundation of Christian faith.

Faith has very simply been defined as "Believing what God says, because God says it," and this is well supported by Paul's words, "I believe God." In this case feelings, reason, experience, the probabilities of the situation, all would have contradicted the Divine statement, but faith accepted what God said, though all else denied it. Faith in our hearts will speak in just the same way. The Divine testimony to us deals with matters far greater than a salvation for time only, and it reaches us not from the mouth of an angel but through the holy and inspired Writings, which we now have in print in our own tongue; but our reception of it is to be equally definite. We simply believe God, and thus set to our seal that God is true.

Verses 34-36 show us that Paul's attitude and actions corroborated his brave words of faith. Thus we see him exemplifying what James so stresses in his epistle: faith, if it is alive, must express itself in works. If, having uttered words of faith, he had remained depressed and dejected like the rest, no one would have paid much attention to his words. But rather, having announced words of good cheer, he was himself most evidently of good cheer. He gave thanks to God, he partook of food, and exhorted the others to do the same. His works thus attesting the reality of his faith, all were impressed by it. They too were of good cheer and took food. As yet the circumstances were not altered, but they were altered as the confidence of faith found a place in their hearts, for it furnished them with "the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1. N. Trans.). The whole episode is an excellent illustration of what faith is and how faith works.

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.)

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."

This is the great principle which underlies the whole Christian system. "Abraham believed God," not something about God, but God Himself. This is faith. It is taking God's thoughts in place of our own. It is, in short allowing God to think for us.

If I talk of faith, I may mean belief of a testimony - a person tells me a thing, and I believe him. But there is another sense in which I may have faith in that man; that is, I may put my trust in him We often confound these things. There is the testimony of God which I have to believe, and a trusting in God which is the power of my walk.

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.

To "believe," in the New Testament sense of this term, is to have a faith that moves the whole of one's moral nature — the mind, the affections, the will — in the line of God's revealed purpose. Not intellectual attainment or systematic thinking upon Divine things merely; nor waves of mystical emotion or sentiment; nor, yet again, a mere hard unyielding persistency of purpose; but a personality tuned in harmony with the Will of God, Whose nature is love, Whose wisdom is unsearchable, and Whose power is limitless.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This is not a definition, but shows us something of what faith does. It is that which, to the individual, gives solid substance to things hoped for. It is no mere fanciful imagination, but an honest trust in the living God, by which the things of God are made a definite, clear reality to the heart, and are thus recognized to be more truly substantial than all material substance-for the latter will pass away. Also it has that peculiar power of evidencing to us "things not seen." Faith in the living God is not blind, but the actual opening of the eyes, accepting unquestionable evidence of the reality of unseen, spiritual things.