Sriptural Proof of the Protestand Doctrine

And this is the testimony:

that God has given us eternal life, 

and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life;

he who does not have 

the Son of God

does not have life.

These things I have written to you

who believe in the name of the Son of God,

that you may know that you

have eternal life,

and that you may continue

to believe

in the name of the Son of God.

1 John 5:11-13

     Saving knowledge does include assent, and truth, and is not just assent, it is sustained by abundant proofs.  That fact is what separates many people who claim to be Christian yet their point of contact is not Jesus Christ as they expound, too often it in practices that seem holy, or at least make them feel and seem holy, those things are the object of their faith and their assent in their practices.  So what exactly am I saying? 

     Saving faith is proved from the nature of the object, that is the object of saving faith.  This faith is not to be found in the general knowledge or truth of Scripture or upon the fact that God reveals His plan of saving sinners: it is only upon Christ Himself, His person and work, and upon the offer of salvation to us personally and individually.  Now when the Holy Spirit reveals His glory and His love we cannot believe on the inward testimony of Christ without having feelings of reverence, love and trust, comingled  with our acts and constituting our character.  When our soul that has been or is oppressed with sin has been delivered from our sins; should we not feel gratitude and confidence?  This act of faith is appropriated with confidence in its nature and our act.

     In the Bible often the word trust is used in place of faith. Yet, we that the act produced is expressed in one as in the other.  It is the same promises that are made to trust as to faith.  The same effects are attributed to the one, that are attributed to the other

     Other words are used in Scripture in forms of expression as explanatory of the act of faith and includes within them the essential element of its nature; trust.  We are commanded to look to Christ.  this looking involves trusting and looking is declared as believing.  An example would be when the Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent for healing or the manslayer that fled to a city of refuge.  We are told to flee to Christ to look upon Him and rest upon Him, to lay hold of Him.  All this we are told to do when we are told to believe, and this shows trust is an essential element of saving faith.

     Scriptural proof:  the Greek word πιστεύώ, which means believe and is usually followed by one of these words; είς; έπί; έν; that mean, into, upon, or in; so together έν  πιστεύώ, or one of the other two words, should be translated to believe in, or upon, or into, other words to confide in, to trust.  Our faith in a promise made to ourselves, from the nature of the case, is an act of confidence in Him who makes the promise.

     Unbelief is, therefore, expressed by doubt, fear, distrust, and despair. A believer knows from his own experience that when he believes he receives Christ, rests upon or in Christ for salvation and the offer by Christ of the free gift of faith offered to us in the Gospel.  We, Protestants, in opposition to the Roman Catholic theology of salvation, holds that every man, women, and child, in order to be saved, must receive God's revelation as recorded in the Bible, a record that God has given His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, therefore, it must be admitted that faith involves trust in Christ who is the source of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,  Our faith is not appertained by the Sacrament that are supposed to be effective for salvation, if one does then all he has done is is attempt to find salvation by means of works.  

     The object of faith is more than assent to the truth in the revelation of Scripture or in the Church as the Romanist believe and teach.  If one believes in this manner then a sinner comes to Christ merely through the administrations of the sacraments and that through the church. This theology is entirely different from what the Bible actually teaches, different from of the Protestant theory of the Gospel.

     The object of Protestant and Biblical faith is simply: Jesus Christ, upon His authority as God incarnate in the flesh, the propitiation for our sins and that is what is revealed in the Scriptures. This begs us to be in the Scripture, read, pray, meditate, assimilate and act upon His Word and the leading of the Holy Sprit.

Take heed to yourself'

     and to the doctrine. 

Continue in them, 

     for in doing this you will

save both yourself and

     those who hear you.

                      1 Timothy 4:16

Religious Faith Is More Than Simple Assent

"...Believe in the Lord

your God,

And you shall be established;

believe His prophets

and you shall prosper."

2 Chronicles 20:20b

     Is faith purely an intellectual exercise? Is faith an exercise of the affections?  The answer is much the same as the answer given to the last questions in the last blog.Earlier the Roman Catholic dogma was presented and will be reflected in this blog in regards to whether or not assent is essential to faith. At the Council of Trent Third Session (1561-1562) it was established that there are five great theme, sola scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soa garatia, and soli Deo Glori.  these five theme encapsulate the Gospel as salvation is revealed in the Scriptures alone, and purchased by Christ alone, received by faith alone, offered by grace alone, and is to the glory of God alone. this understanding was rejected by the Roman Catholic and replaced the Gospel with a Gospel that it was the Church alone, mediated by the sacraments alone.  This Romish position was based on the authority of the Bible that included the Apocrypha, and that only the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible was the authoritative Word of God leaving out the Greek and Hebrew texts. Included in their dogma was Scripture plus tradition. This form of Doctrine makes faith to be an intellectual act or the speculative act of faith.  According to their Doctrine a man may have faith but not be saved, in other words they deny that faith is necessary to salvation, it is an intellectual exercise.


     The Protestant view is that faith is not a mere intellectual exercise.  The Heidelberg Catechism (1562-3) states: "It is not merely a certain knowledge, whereby I receive as true all that God has revealed to us in his Word, but also a cordial trust, which the Holy Ghost works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, the forgiveness of sin, and everlasting righteousness and life are given by God, out of pure grace, and only for the sake of Christ's merit."  

     Saving faith a speculative assent of the understanding.  You might remark that the Scriptures do not make a distinct difference between the understanding, the feeling, and the will, something that is prevalent in today's society.  For instance, a large part of our inward exercises and states are complex that it is to be the acts of the whole soul, not just of exclusively of any one of its faculties. In repentance there is a necessity  for an intellectual apprehension as to our state as being sinners, and of the holiness of God, His law which we have failed to keep and be conformed to and of His mercy in Christ. Intellectually we come to know that we are morally bankrupt, our character is flawed, and by that intellectual assent we come to have sorrow, shame, and remorse, purposing us to forsake sin and lead a holy life.  In the mind of a believer there is complexity which is expressed by the word faith as exists. Also, there is a distinction between faith in general and saving faith. 

     If we take the element of faith that is believing, and to believe all that we understand by our apprehension of its worth and have confidence no matter where it is nature, science, etc.  In that case faith is intellectual, there is intellectual assent.


     But what of about the state of the mind that is required in the Gospel? It is very different.  This which we are commanded to believe.  It is to believe in Christ as God manifest in the flesh.  This is not intellectual conviction to say that no one could be truly divine and be and do as Christ did.  Even the demons believed that Christ was who He said He was; Satan called Him the Son of God when tempting Jesus in the desert. But as Christians we receive Him as God.  This requires that we receive Him, apprehend Him and be convicted of His Glory; give to Him adoring reverence, love, confidence, and submission, those things which belong to God alone. We are commanded to believe that Christ is the Savior of men and we not to required to assent to that proposition that He saves sinners, but, to receive and rest upon Him alone for our own salvation. 


     The Scriptures mean this by faith, in this connection, that faith which is required for salvation is an act of the whole soul, the understanding, the heart, and the will. 


Be still, and know that I am 
     God;
I will be exalted among the 
     nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.
                            Psalm 46:10


May God Bless You


Richard L. Crumb


    

Faith And Feeling

A good man out of the good treasure

of his heart brings forth

good things, 

and an evil man 

out of the evil treasure

brings forth evil things.

But I say to you

that for every idle word

men may speak,

they will give account of it

in the day of Judgment.

Matthew 1235-36

 

     We live, more than ever, in a world of the senses.  Advertising plays on the emotions and feelings of their intended audience knowing that people today want their senses aroused, their feelings uplifted  to the point that acceptance of what ever is promulgated, put forth as making a person feel good, it must be had by that person.  It is feelings that give people a sense of connection to their world.  Feelings are natural and not all bad when they are not manipulated, when they are not the evidence of faith in an unbiblical manner.  What do I mean?  first, faith, the act of believing, cannot be defined as an assent to the understanding that has been determined by the will.  Why?  Because there are many cases in which a man will believe against his will. 

     Some have argued that faith does not assent to feeling.  Is that true?  If it is true then how does faith affect the person?  Does that mean that feelings have no place in the assent of faith?  It is to be admitted that feelings have great influence on a man's faith.  It is easy to believe what is agreeable, on the other hand it is difficult to believe that which is disagreeable.  Now, it must be admitted that saving faith, as the gift of God, rests on the illumination of the testimony of the Spirit.  This we blogged earlier that this inward illumination is by the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  You see, we have discernment of the truth and its divine excellencies and with that we have the appropriate feelings. 

     Let me concede that our consciousness receives truth by the evidence of the truth, that evidence being the power over a man's heart and conscience.  We can find that this is true be other facts in a persons experiences.  A man repents and believes, but hi is only conscious of his act and not of the supernatural influences of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, it is the exercise of the Holy Spirit that the act by man to believe originate and it is the nature of the Holy Spirit to influence lives.  Our faith is founded on the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit but the act of faith does not reach that testimony on which our faith is founded.  To say then, that faith is founded on feeling is incorrect as for certain acts of faith, even saving faith which is not attended by feeling.  The object historical faith is a case in point, feelings are necessitated by  historicity.  This is an important point: The Scriptures clearly with plainness teach that the ground of faith is the testimony of God, or the demonstration of the Holy Spirit.  It is by the Holy Spirit that we attend the revelation of certain truths, which by the amount of evidence produced to a man by the Holy Spirit; conviction is produced and we receive those truths upon the authority of God.

     Therefore, faith is not necessarily connected to feelings.  Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.  Upon what then does faith depend?  First, the nature of the object of faith.  Now if a man receives good news his is joyful, but when receiving bad news he is sorrowful.  A belief in moral excellence then feeling involves approbation, in other words praise, but if the act is criminal then the feeling is one of disapprobation.  Secondly, as to the proximate ground of faith we can use as an example of a judge of art and upon his testimony a man would not have aesthetic feeling that is connected to his faith.  Now, if the man personally perceives the beauty of an art piece he is delighted and convicted that it is beautiful.  If a man believes that Jesus Christ is the Savior and manifest in the flesh only on the testimony of the Bible, there is no due impression from that truth.  But if his faith is founded on the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit through whom the glory of God is revealed to that man, that is the glory of Jesus Christ, then that man is filled with felling one of adoration and love.

     True faith is grounded not on some outward expression of euphoric forms of faith giving credence that we are religious and are faithful Christians.  While there are outward expressions of joy, those expression come from deep within a person as the Holy Spirit reveals what God has done for a person by Christ' incarnation, oblation, passion, and ascension into heaven sitting at the right hand of God making intercession for all who enabled and called and believe on His propitiation for sins.  This is joy that cannot be understood or estimated, it is founded upon the authority of God. 

LORD, You will establish

    peace for us,

For You have also done 

    all our works in us.

                                  Isaiah 26:12

To God Who Is Our Strength

Richard L. Crumb