What is the difference between faith and trust?

There are these two things in faith: as it regards, first, peace of soul; second, power for walk. 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. That which gives me peace is, receiving the testimony of God: I do want confidence in God for power of walk, but I must not confound this confidence in God with His testimony.

Mr. Trench leans on Dr. O'Brien for his definition of faith. I can heartily desire that the book in its main objects may be abundantly blessed, and have no desire to weaken, in any way, its effect on the minds of those it may address itself to; but Dr O'Brien was defining, and I take up his definition. Had I heard a mere sermon on faith, urging to trust in Christ, I should have hailed it, and made no comment on the word. Simple minds take the good, and do not define. But all souls are not simple; and many an earnest one may anxiously enquire, "Do I really trust; for I fear it is not for me?" I am sure deliverance is with God; still we must not make difficulties for souls. I do not believe faith means trust, though I believe trust will infallibly be there if faith is. As surely as I am burnt, being a man, pain is there; but burning is not pain. I am sure that the right rev. prelate, as he now is, is humble enough to allow me to speak freely of his writings without thinking it any want of deference.

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.

65 It is all a mistake to confound trust with faith, though no doubt faith produces confidence. You can hardly separate the two things, but there is this in faith: "he that believeth his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." In Luke 7 it was a living word. But when I have the Spirit of adoption, I am a son. Christ revealed the Father: "I have manifested thy name"; "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it." The moment the Son was there, the Father's name could be revealed; but it was not until the gift of the Holy Ghost that they had the Spirit of adoption. But in Christ here below, God was coming into the midst of sinners in love, and winning back their confidence; and one sees in the poor woman that was a sinner a heart trusting Him, though His work was not yet completed.

In the main purport of his book I heartily concur. I rejoice in the testimony, which is its main object. But I do not think him, as Mr. Trench says, an accurate, though he is a careful, writer. To say that trust is an essential and leading constituent of faith, is different from saying faith is trust in Christ. I could almost assent to the first, for it cannot fail to flow from it: to the last I wholly object. But I have a further remark to make here.

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.

127 As regards the words πιστεύω, used simply with a dative, it is to believe a person. There are at the utmost two exceptions, in the Acts. I leave out the cases of both accusative and dative, as not to our purpose. To believe εις τό ὄνομα may be — yet no genuine faith or trust at all. (John 2:23.) It is recognizing the person to be what he comes as. The divine or human character of this faith is a subsequent question. Nor does ἐν convey trust: "Repent, and believe (ἐν) the gospel." (Mark 1:15.) I cannot doubt that, as a general rule, believing εἰς Χρίστον means a divinely given recognition of Christ. But it does not necessarily follow that it is divine. It was sincere recognition of Christ as such. But I am not aware of any case where πιστεύω εἰς, is used of dead faith. Πιστεύω εἰς points out more the object faith looks at; ἐπὶ rare, I believe only in the Acts, and with an accusative, that which man has come to as the basis of the faith; ἐπὶ with dative only in quotation from LXX, and once in 1 Timothy 1:16. These shades of meaning depend on the prepositions and cases. But I do not see any one passage which leads to the conclusion, that πιστεύω is employed for trust or confidence, save where it is trusting another with something, which is another thing. As to πιστις, it is almost always used absolutely — faith; a few cases with a genitive, faith τοῦ Θεοῦ recognizing Him — the faith of Jesus Christ. But I find nothing to build upon to make it trust. Faith, if real, is a divinely-wrought recognition of the object of faith, through the power of the word of God; and, in a few cases, the actual revelation of the object. In connection with this, it is life.

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.

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.

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."

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.)

There are three things spoken of in Scripture - 1st, "Full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22); 2ndly, "Full assurance of hope" (v. 11); 3dly, "Full assurance of understanding." (Col. 2: 2.) The "full assurance of faith" rests on the testimony of God. God tells me the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and I rest upon that testimony. There is more than this in the "full assurance of hope;" my soul counts upon a person who has made a promise. (See vv. 12-20.) Hence there is the leaning upon God (a different thing from merely believing a testimony), and, moreover, a looking "within the veil." It is founded upon what is perfectly immutable, not upon anything produced here, and which might be liable to change. Entering into that within the veil, God's throne must be shaken before my hope. Faith rests upon a testimony that has come out; but it carries me up, and hope reckons on Him who is there. The "full assurance of understanding" goes a step further. Not only have I an object on which my heart and conscience rest, but it takes up God's counsels; it "understands;" I can say, "It became God" to do this and to do that.