What is faith in God?

Elaborate definitions might be given, but they would probably be less satisfactory than the answer made by a little child to this very question. She simply replied, "Believing what God says, because God says it."

Faith is like a window. It receives the light. The sunlight is there. It shines upon the wall outside, but in at the window; nothing is added to it, but its rays illumine the otherwise darkened room. To "believe God" like Abraham lets Divine light come streaming into the soul.

But faith is more than this. It means not only to have light, but to wholly repose on the One whom the light reveals to us.

The late Dr. Paton of the New Hebrides used to tell that when translating the Scriptures into the tongue of the islanders he failed for some time to find an appropriate word for "trusting" or "believing."

One day, however, he called an intelligent Christian native, and seating himself on a chair he said, "What am I doing?"

"Master, you are resting," said the woman.

He lifted both feet off the ground, and placing them under him so that they rested on the rail between the front legs of the chair, he said, "Now what am I doing?"

"Oh, master!" said the woman, "you are resting wholly, you are trusting," using a word quite new to the doctor's ears. That was the word he wanted!

Faith is reposing wholly upon Christ — with both feet off the ground.

This may be called saving faith. It is confidence in God founded on His word; it is believing in a person, as Abraham believed God. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 3:36. There is no virtue or merit in the faith itself; but it links the soul with the infinite God. Faith is indeed the gift of God. Eph. 2:8.

A mental assent to what is stated, as a mere matter of history, is not faith. A natural man can believe such things: "the devils also believe and tremble," but true faith gives joy and peace.

Now faith is only the hand, as it were, that takes hold of the gift of God, just as the hand of a hungry man takes the proffered bread and conveys it to his mouth. If I have my eye off Christ, and begin to examine the amount of my faith, I must of necessity decline, for He is the only One on whom the sinner's eye can rest. Genuine faith never looks at itself, but only at Jesus.

Faith produces two principal effects in the believer: first, it gives to the soul a full certainty as to the object it lays hold of; secondly, it puts the soul in the enjoyment of the object.

The first verse defines, not what faith is in the abstract, but what it does in practice. It is "the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith then is the telescope that brings into our view the unseen verities of which God speaks; making them real to us, giving us assurance of them, and turning them into solid substance in our hearts.

In the case of Abraham faith acted like a telescope, bringing into his view things that otherwise he had never seen. We now discover that in the case of Moses it acted like an X-ray apparatus, bringing to light things that lay beneath the surface and enabling him to see through the tinsel glory of Egypt.

We are ever in danger, through the infirmity of our flesh, of having our faith propped up by circumstances, and when these are favourable, we think our faith is strong, and vice versa. But faith never looks at circumstances; it looks straight to God — it has to do exclusively with Him and His promises.

But faith is in a God of resurrection, who has raised His Son from the dead. Faith therefore rests upon a perfectly finished work of redemption, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken away. It is a work fully divine, done that men might fear before God, and believe.

On our side faith is necessary; for only believers are justified. In this sense we are, "justified by faith" (Rom. 5:1). Only as yielding "the obedience of faith" to our Lord Jesus do we come in under the benefits of His work. Faith is the link which connects us with Him and the justifying merits of His blood.