Why does God require faith?

Question

Accepted Answer

## Faith Puts Us Into the Presence of the Living God The deepest reason Scripture gives is startlingly simple: without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). But *why* is that so? What is it about faith that makes it the one indispensable thing? F. B. Hole draws a crucial distinction — one that goes to the heart of the matter: 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. `authors/hole/Art/He_pleased_God.html` Reason can deduce that a God probably exists. But deduction is not relationship. Faith alone bridges the gap between knowing *about* God and knowing *God* — the living, acting, self-revealing Person. That is why God requires it: it is the only faculty that reaches Him where He actually is. ## Faith Receives What God Has Done — Not What We Can Do A second reason runs through all of Scripture's treatment of faith: faith is the opposite of self-sufficiency. It takes God at His word rather than presenting Him with our achievements. Samuel Ridout unpacks this through the contrast of Cain and Abel: What is dwelt upon in Abel's faith is not his personal character, not the fruit of his life, but the "more excellent *sacrifice* than Cain." That is what distinguishes the two men. ... Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice to God. He obtains witness by what? Not by his works, not by his faithfulness or his character, but by the *offering* he brought. By *that* he "obtained witness that he was righteous." ... God declares a man to be just even when he is an ungodly person. That is the great truth of justification. It is on the ground of Christ's sacrifice. ... His faith is reckoned for righteousness. It has put him in the place where righteousness can be put to his account. `authors/S_Ridout/SR_Hebrews12.html` The article in *The Christian's Friend* (1875) puts the sinner's dilemma with piercing clarity: Here I am, a sinner with the consciousness of sin; how can *I* trust in God? I know Him to be a holy God, a hater of sin; how can *I* trust in Him? I dare not be in His presence *with sin upon me* — what can meet that? It is not denying the holiness of God; it is not my putting away my sin; but God tells me my sin is put away. *I believe Him.* ... Believing God's testimony, it would be at peace. `magazines/cf/1875/Faith-and-Its-Footsteps.html` Faith is required because it is the only honest posture for a sinner — it stops trying to produce what only God can provide, and receives what He has already accomplished in Christ. ## Faith Makes the Unseen Real God's blessings in Christ are heavenly, future, and invisible. How can they govern a life lived in a world of tangible, pressing realities? Only by faith. F. B. Hole explains this as the essential function of Hebrews 11:1: And what was it that made the heavenly portion that was theirs so real to them? The answer to this is of course found in the first verse of Hebrews 11, which in Darby's New Translation reads, "Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." The better and enduring substance was substantiated to the early Hebrew Christian by faith. ... What about that unseen, yet better and enduring substance which is ours in heaven? Is faith active with us, so that the unseen, heavenly substance is really filling our thoughts and dominating our lives? `authors/hole/Art/Faith.html` And from *Faith and Its Footsteps*: To faith, that which is unseen becomes as present, as real, as though present to sight. Yea, much more so; because there is deception in seen things; but there is no deception in things communicated by the Spirit to the heart. `magazines/cf/1875/Faith-and-Its-Footsteps.html` Faith is not a lesser kind of knowing — it is a *truer* kind. Visible things deceive; what God reveals through His Word does not. Faith apprehends the genuine reality behind appearances. ## Faith Glorifies God by Resting on His Character There is a further reason, bound up with God's own glory: faith honours God in a way that nothing else can, because it stakes everything on His faithfulness rather than on favourable circumstances. J. T. Mawson puts this vividly: Faith is different; it says, "Though the fig tree should not blossom," which means, not that there will be a poor harvest, or a late harvest, but no harvest at all. "Though my hands are empty, and every earthly resource has failed, and every human prop has been removed, and the whole world is a wilderness, yet will I confidently rest in the Lord." Faith can pass quietly through the storm; it does not look to any circumstance for help, but it takes hold upon God and finds Him to be greater than every circumstance. ... Look now at the lowly Man of Nazareth, hear Him when hungry in the wilderness, disclaiming all resources but God ... He never moved on His own behalf. His only concern was the glory of God. ... He committed His way to God, and God heard His prayer, and exalted Him when the time came. `authors/mawson/magazines/Faith_What_is_it.html` When faith trusts God in impossible circumstances, it puts *God's* faithfulness on display — not ours. That is why it pleases Him: it glorifies Him precisely where gratitude for blessings cannot, because it rests not on what He has *given* but on who He *is*. ## Faith Is the Only Alternative to the World's Wisdom Samuel Ridout shows that faith is God's answer to the total failure of human wisdom to find Him: Through *faith* we understand. ... The world by wisdom knew not God. ... Not only is the world ignorant of God, but it is a guilty ignorance. They might have known. ... How blessed it is to think, when we know God by faith, when we have received the revelation which He gives to us in redemption, that we can go back to the work of creation, over which the world stumbles and the wise men grope, and find the fullest witness of God's wisdom, His goodness, His power. `authors/S_Ridout/SR_Hebrews12.html` The world's "agnosticism" — its confession that it cannot find God — is the direct result of refusing faith. Reason, left to itself, cannot arrive at the living God. It may postulate a "first cause," but it cannot worship or walk with Him. Faith is required because God is personal, and a personal God can only be known by trusting His self-revelation. ## Faith Determines the Whole Walk Finally, faith is not just the door of entry — it governs the entire Christian life. Andrew Miller states the scope plainly: The importance of the principle of faith is great, for it includes not merely justification, but the walk of the Christian in every way, both sacred and secular. So great, so minute, so practical is this principle, that it is plainly said, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." `authors/miller/Psalm84.html` Hamilton Smith identifies faith as the starting point from which every other spiritual quality flows: Faith naturally comes first, for it is by "the door of faith" (Acts 14:27), that we enter into blessing; and in our practical lives as believers, "without faith it is impossible to please" God (Heb. 11:6). `authors/smith/Life_and_Godliness.html` And F. W. Grant warns against treating faith as merely the means of being justified while leaving it powerless for the rest of life: It is no exaltation of faith to maintain it as justifying and saving, and yet possibly without power to produce fruit in the world, or to glorify God in a holy life. The apostle's faith was the power of a life devoted as his was — "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." `authors/FW_Grant/FWG_Leaves_Book07.html` In short, God requires faith because of what faith *is* and what it *does*. Faith is the only way to reach a living, personal God — reason may deduce a "first cause," but only faith enters His presence. Faith is the only honest posture for a sinner — it receives what God has provided in Christ instead of presenting Him with our own offerings, which are always stained by the fall. Faith makes invisible realities substantial — since the Christian's inheritance is heavenly and future, only faith can make it real and governing in present life. Faith glorifies God by resting on His character alone — not on circumstances, not on feelings, not on our own resources — putting God on display in the very places where nothing else can. And faith is the necessary alternative to the world's bankrupt wisdom, which has proven itself incapable of knowing God. God requires faith because He is who He is — unseen, holy, gracious, and faithful — and faith is the one response of the human heart that corresponds to that reality.