Faith (Hastings' Dictionary)

I. The Philolooical Expression of Faith. —The verb 'to believe' in AV of OT aniforraly represents the Heb. y~x^, Hiph. of ItX, except, of course, in Dn 6^ where it repre- sents the corresponJing Aramaic form. The root, which is widely spread among the Semitic tongues, and which in the word ' Amen ' has been adopted into every language spoken by Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, seems everyNvhere to convey the fundamental ideas of ' fixedness, stability, stead- fa.stnes.1, reliability.'

What the ultimate conception is which underlies these ideas remains somewhat doubtful, but it would appear to be rather that of 'holding' than that of 'supporting' (althoui'h this last is the sense adopted in Uxf. Hcb. Lex.) In the simple species the verb receives both transitive and intransitive vocalization.

With intransitive Tocalization it means ' to be finn,' ' to be secure,' ' to be faithful,' and occurs in biblical Hebrew only in the past participle, designating those who are ' faithful ' (2 S 20", Ps 12' Sl^S). With transitive vocalization it occurs in biblical Hebrew only in a very specialized application, conveying the idea, whether as participle or verbal noun, of ' caretak- ing ' or ' nursing ' (2 K 10'- », Est 2', Ru 4", 2 S 4<, Nu 11", Is 49'=', La 4»; cf.

2 K 18" ' pillars ' and [the Niphal] Is 60), the implication in which seems to be that of ' holding,' ' bearing,' ' carrying.' The Niph. occurs once as the passive of transitive Qal (Is 60) : elsewhere it is formed from intransitive Qal, and is used very much in the same sense.

What- ever holds, is steady, or can be depended upon, whether a wall which securely holds a nail (Is 22"- ), or a brook which does not fail ( Jer 15"), or a kingdom which is firmly established (2 S 7"), or an assertion which has been verified (Gn 42^), or a covenant which endures for ever (Ps 89^), or a heart found faithful (Neh 9*), or a man who can be trusted (Neh IS^), or God Himself who keeps covenant (Dt 7"), is \c^i.

The HiphU occurs in one passage in the primary physical sense of the root (Job 39"). Elsewhere it Dears constantly the sense of ' to trust,' weakening down to the simple ' to believe ' (Ex 4»', Ps 1 16'», Is 7» 28", Hab 1»). Obvi- onsljrit is a subjective causative, and expresses the acquisition or exhibition of the firmness, security, reliability, faithfulness which lies in the root- meaning of the verb, in or with respect to its object.

The pcijo is therefore one whose state of mind is free from faintheartedness (Is 7") and anxious haste (Is 28"), and who stays himself upon the object of his contemplation with confidence and trust. The implication seems to be, not so much that of a pa.ssive dependence as of a vigorous active commit- ment. Hfc who, in the Hebrew sense, exercises faith, is secure, assured, confident (Dt 28"*, Job 24", Ps 27"), and lays hold of the object of his confi- dence with firm trust.

The most common construction of pcNn is with the preposition 3, and in this construction its fundamental meaning seems to be most fully ex- pressed. It is probably never safe to represent this phrase by the simple 'believe' ; the preposition rather introduces the person or thing in which one believes, or on which one belicvingly rests as on firm ground.

This is true even when the object of the afiection is a thing, whether divine words, commandments, or works (Ps 106" lig™ 78^-'), or some earthly force or good (Job 39" 15" 24'", Dt 28"). It is no less true when the object is a person, human (1 S 27", Pr 26», Jer 12«, Mic 7») or super- human (Job 4" 15"), or the representative of God, in whom therefore men should phiie their confidence (Ex 19», 2 Ch 20*').

It is above all true, however, when the object of the afiection is God Himself, and that indill'erently whether or not the special exercise of faith adverted to is rooted in a siiecilic occasion (Gn 15», Ex 14^", Nu 14" 20", Dt l*", 2 K 17", 2 Ch 20», Ps 78-, Jon 3').

The weaker con- ception of ' believing ' seems, on the other hand, to lie in the construction with the preposition S, which appears to introduce the person or thing, not on which one confidingly rests, but to the testimony of which one assentiiigly turns.

Tiis credence may be given by the siiiii>le to every untested word (Pr 14") ; it may be withheld until seeing takes the place of believing (1 K 10', 2 Ch 9") ; it is due to words of the Lord and of His messengers, as well as to the signs wrought by them (Ps 106''', Is 53', Ex 4- '). It may also be withheld from any human speaker (Gn 45=«, Ex 4'- «, Jer 40", 2 Ch 32"), but is the right of God when He bears witness to His majesty or makes promises to His people (Is 43'", Dt 9-^).

In this weakened sense of the word the proposition believed is sometimes at- tached to it by the conjunction '? (Ex 4°, Job 9', La 4"). In its construction with the infinitive, however, its deeper meaning comes out more strongly (Jg 11>, Job 15^, Ps 27"), and the same is true when the verb is used absolutely (Ex 4", Is 7»28'«, Ps 116'", Job 29^, Hab 1»). In these con- structions faith is evidently the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

No hiphilate noun from this root occurs in OT. This circumstance need not in itself possess signi- ficance ; the notions of 'faith' and 'faithfulness' lie close to one another, and are not uncommonly expressed by a single term (so ttiVtis, Jidcs, faith). As a matter of fact, however, ' faith,' in its active sense, can barely be accounted an OT term. It occurs in AV of OT only twice : Dt 32" where it represents the Heb. pox, and Hab 2 where it stamls for the Heb. njic.

;; ; and it would seem to be really demanded in no passage but Hab 2*. The very jjoint of this passage, however, is the sharp con- trast which is drawn between arrogant self-suHi- ciency and faithful dependence on God. The purpose of the verso is to give a reply to the prophet's inquiry as to God's righteous dealings witri the Chaldicans.

Since it is by faith that the righteous man lives, the arrogant Chalda^an, whose soul is puU'ed up and not straight within him, cannot but be destined to destruction.

The whole drift of the broader context bears out this meaning; for throughout tliis prophecy the Chal- dean is ever exhibited as the type of insolent self- assertion (F- "•'*), in contrast with which the righteous appear, certainly not as men of in- tegrity and steadfast faithfulness, but as men who look in faith to God and trustingly depend upon His arm.

The obvious reminiscence of Gn 15* throws its weight into the same scale, to which may be added the consent of the Jewish exi>()sitor8 of the passage. Here we have, therefore, thrown into a clear light the contrasting characteristics of the wicked, typified by the Chakhean, and of the righteous : of the one the fundamental trait is self-sufficiency ; of the other, faith.

This faith, which forms tlie distinctive feature of the righteous man, and by which he obtains life, is obviously no mere assent. It is a profound and abiding disposi- tion, an ingrained attitude of mind and heart towards God which all'ects and gives character to all the activities. Hero only the term occurs in i)'V : but on this its sole occurrence it rises to the full height of its most pregnant meaning.

Tlie extreme rarity of the noun 'faith' in OT may prepare us to note that even the verb ' to believe' is far from common in it. In a religious ajiplication it occurs in only some thirteen OT books, and le.ss than a score and a half times. The thing believed is sometimes a specific word or work of God (La 4", Hab 1'), the fact of a divine revelation (Ex 4', Jolt 9'"), or the words or com- mandments of God in general (with 3 Ps 10(1'' 119»«).

In Ex 19" and 2 Ch 20» God's prophets 828 FAITH FAITH are the object of His people's confidence. God Himself is the ohject to which they believingly tarn, or on whom they rest in assured trust, in some eleven cases. In two of these it is to Him as a faithful witness that faith believingly turns (Dt 9^, Is 43'»). In the remainder of them it 18 upon His very person that faith rests in assured confidence (Gn 15', Ex U»i, Nu 14" 20", Dt P>, 2 K 17", 2 Ch 2020, Ps 782^, Jon 3»).

It is in these instances, in which the construction is with 3, together with those in which the word is used absolutely (Ex i", Is 7» 28", Ps 1I6'»), to which may be added Ps 27" where it is construed with the infinitive, that the conception of religious be- lieving comes to its rights.

The typical instance is, of course, the great word of Gn 15^, ' And Abram believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness ' ; in which aU subsequent believers, Jewish and Christian alike, have found the primary example of faith.

The object of Abram's faith, as here set forth, was not the promise which appears as the occasion of its exercise ; what it rested on was God Himself, and that not merely as the giver of the promise here recorded, but as His servant's shield and exceeding ^eat reward (16').

It is therefore not the assensive but the fiducial element of faith which is here emphasized ; in a word, the faith which Abram gave J" when he ' put his trust in God ' (iTTlrreMev rif Beu, LXX), was the same faith which later He sought in vain at the hapds of His people (Nu 14", cf. Dt l»^ 2K 17"), and the notion of which the Psalmist explains in the parallel, ' They believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation' (Ps 78^).

To believe in God, in the OT sense, is thus not merely to assent to His word, but with firm and unwavering confidence to rest in security and trustfulness upon Him. In the Greek of the LXX Tnarevdv takes its place as the re^lar rendering of I'C^sn. and is very rarely set aside m favour of another word expressing trust (Pr 26 ireWeadai.) In a few cases, however, it is strengthened by composition with a preposition (Dt V", Jg 11=», 2Ch 20™, cf. Sir l" 2'» ete., 1 Mac 1> 7" etc.

, i/JLTiffTfiiew ; Mic 7°, KaTainrTeveiv) ; and in a few others it is construed with prepositions {(•> nvi, Jer 12«, Ps 78^, Dn 6^, 1 S 27'^ 2 Ch 20», Mic 7», Sir 35*' ; ^H nva. Is 28" (?), 3 Mac 2' ; iirl Tiw, AVis 12^ ; efs riva. Sir 38" ; (coTd riva, Job 4" 15" 24-). It was by being thus made the vehicle for ex- pressing the high religious faith of OT that the word was prepared for its NT use. For it had the slightest possible connexion with religious faith in classical speech.

Resting ultimately on a root with the fundamental sense of 'binding,' and standing in classical Greek as the common term for ' trusting,' ' putting faith in,' ' relying upon,' shading down into ' believing,' it was rather too strong a term for ordinary use of that ungenial rela- tion to the gods which was characteristic of Greek thought, and which was substantively expressed by Triirris — the proper acknowledgment in thought and act of their existence and rights.

For uiis foid^tiv was the usual term, and the relative strength of the two terms may be observed in their use in the opening sections of Xenophon's Memorahilia (I. i. 1 and 5), where Socrates is charged with not believing in the gods whom the city owned (voidt;tiv tous $eovs), but is affirmed to have stood in a much more intimate relation to them, to have trusted in them (7ricrTfi5en'Tor5 deo'ci).

Some- thing of the same depth of meaning may lurk in the exhortation of the Epinomis (980 C), IIio-Ttucras Toit SeoU eOxov. But ordinarily irurreueiv roit deoU appears as the synonym of voixL^civ rois Seoris, and imports merely the denial of atheism (Pint. <ie Superst. ii. ; Arist. Rhet. ii. 17). It was only by its adoption by the writers of the LXX to express the faith of OT that it was fitted to take its plac« in NT as the standing designation of the attitude of the man of faith towards God.

This service the LXX could not perform for ttIoth also, owing to the almost complete absence of the noun ' faith ' in the active sense from OT ; but it was due to a Hellenistic development on the basis of OT religion, and certainly not without influence from Gn 15' and Hab 2* that this term, too, was prepared for NT use. In classical Greek irloris is aitplied to belief in the gods chiefly as implying that such belief rests rather on trust than on sight (Plut. Mor. 756 B).

Though there is no suggestion in this of weakness of conviction (for Trfcrns expresses a strong conviction, and is therefore used in con- trast with 'impressions'), yet the word, wlien referring to the gods, very rarely rises abo%'e intellectual conviction into its naturally more con- genial region of moral trust (Soph. Ocd. Bex, 146, 147).

That this, its fuller and more characteristic meaning, should come to its rights in the religious sphere, it was necessary that it should be trans- ferred into a new religious atmosphere. The usage of Philo bears witness that it thus came to its rights on the lips of the Greek-speaking Jews. It is going too far, to be sure, to say tliat Philo's usage of 'faith' is scarcely distinguishable from that of NT writers.

The gulf that separates the two is very wide, and has not been inaptly described by saying that with Philo, faith, as the queen of the virtues, is the righteousness of the righteous man, while with St. Paul, as the abnegation of all claim to virtue, it is the righteousness of the un- righteous. But it is of the utmost signilic.

nnce that, in the pages of Philo, tlie conception is filled with a content which far transcends any usage ot the word in heathen Greek, and which is a refraction of the religious conceptions of OT.

Fundamental to his idea of it as the crowning virtue of the godly man, to be attained only with the supremest difficultj^, especially by creatures akin to mortal things, is his conception of it as essentially a changeless, unwavering ' standing by God ' (Dt 5"), — binding us to God, to the exclusion of every other object of desire, and making us one with Him.

It has lost that soteriological content which is the very heart of faith in OT ; though tliere does not absolutely fail an occasional reference to God as Saviour, it is, with Philo, rather the Divinity, t4 if, upon which faith rests, than the God of grace and salvation ; and it therefore stands with liira, not at the beginning but at the end of the religious life.

But we can perceive in the usage of Philo a development on Jewish ground of a use of the word ttIcttis to describe that complete detach- ment from earthly things, and that firm convic- tion of the reality and supreme significance of the things not seen, which underlies its whole NT use. The disparity in the use of the terms 'faith' and ' believe ' in the two Testaments is certainly in a formal aspect very great.

In contrast with their extreme rarity in OT, they are both, though some- what unevenly distributetl and varying in relative frequency, distinctly characteristic of the whole NT language, and oddly enough occur about equally often (about 240 times each). The verb is lacking only in Col, Philem, 2 P, 2 and 3 Jn. and the Apocalypse; the noun only in the Gospel of John and 2 and 3 Jn : botli fail only in 2 and 3 Jn. The noun predominates not only in the epistles of St.

Paul, where the proportion is about three to one, and in St. James (about five to one), but very markedly in the Epistle to the Hebrews (about sixteen to one). In St. John, on the other hand, the verb is very frequent, while the noun occurs only once in 1 Jn and four times in the Apocalypse. In the other books the proportion between the two is less noteworthy, and may i FAITH FAITH 829 fairly be accounted accidental.

In OT, again, ' faith ' occurs in the active sense in but a single passage ; in NT it is the pa-ssive sense which is rare. In OT in only about half the instiinces of its occurrence is the verb ' to believe ' used in a religious sense ; in NT it has become so clearly a technical religious t«rm, that it occurs very rarely in any other sense.

The transitive usage, in ■nliicli it expresses entrusting something to someone, occurs a few times l)oth in the active (Lk 10", Jn 2-) and the passive (Rev 3^ 1 Co 9", (ial 2', 1 Th 2, 1 Ti 1", Tit 1') ; but besides this special case there are very few instances in which the word does not e.xpress religious believing, possibly only the fol- lowing : Jn 9'«, Ac 9=«, 1 Co 11", Mt 24=»- ^, Mk 13", 2 Th 2", cf. Ac 13" 15", Jn f , 1 Jn 4'.

The classical construction with the simple dative which prevails in the LXX retires in NT in favour of constructions with prepositions and the absolute use of the verb ; the construction with the dative occurs about forty-five times, while that with prepositions occurs some sixty-three times, and the vert) is used absolutely some ninety-three times. When construed with the dative, TiorfiKiv in NT prevailingly expresses believing assent, though ordinarily in a somewhat pregnant sense.

When its object is a thing, it is usually the spoken (Lk 1» Jn 4«« 5" 12'«, Ro 10", cf. 2 Th 2") or written (Jn 2" 5", Ac 24" 26") word of God ; once it is divine works which should convince the onlooker of the divine mission of the worker (Jn 10"). When its object is a person it is rarely another than God or Jesus (Mt 21=»', Mk IP', Lk 20, Jn 5*, Ac S'^, 1 Jn 4'), and more rarely God (Jn 5=, Ac 16" 27=», Ro42i"i, Gal 3», Tit 3\ Ja 2=. 1 Jn 5'") than Jesus (Jn 4" 5^- '<^ 6»« 8»'- «• « ion.

n i4ii_ Ac 17«, 2 Ti 1'^). Among these pas- sajres there are not lacking some, both when the object is a person and w hen it is a thing, in which the higher sense of devoted, believing trust is con- veyed. In 1 Jn 3", for example, we are obviously to translate, not ' believe the name,' but ' believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,' for in this is summed up the whole Godward side of Christian duty.

So there is no reason to question that the words of Gn 15' are adduced in Ro 4', Gal 3", Ja Z^ in the deep sense which they bear in OT text ; and this deeper religiou.s faith can scarcely be excluded from the belief in God adverted to in Ac 16^, Tit 3» (cf. Jn 5=^), or from the belief in Jesus adverted to in 2 Ti 1" (cf. Jn 5* B"), and is obviously the prominent conception in the faith of Crispus declared in Ac 18*.

The passive form of this construction occurs only twice — once of believ- ing assent (2 Th 1'°), and once with the higliest implications of confiding trust (1 Ti 3"). The few pa.s.sage8 in which the construction is with the accusative (Jn 11», Ac 13", 1 Co U" 13', 1 Jn 4'") take their natural place along with the commoner usage with the dative, and need not express more than crediting, although over one or two of them there floats a shadow of a deeper implication.

The same may be said of the cases of attraction in Ro 4" and 10". And with these weaker constructions must be ranged also the pa.ssages, twenty in all (fourteen of which occur in the wiitings of St. John), in which what is believed is joined to the verb by the conjunction Srt.

In a couple of these the matter believed scarcely rises into the religious sphere (Jn 9'", Ac 9") j in a couple more there is specific reference to prayer (Mk 11^-"); in yet a couple more it is general faith in God which is in mind (He 11", Ja 2'»). In the rest, what is believed is of immediately sotcriological import — now the possession by .lesiis of a special power (Mt '.

t'-^), now the central fact of His saving work (Ro 10", 1 Th 4"), now the very hingo of tlie Christian hope (Ro 6'), but prevaii- ingl3' the divine mission and ])f'rson:ditv of Jesng lliiii.-elf (Jn0»»8-'' n-'', ''' 13'" 14'" 10-''-*'l7»- =' 20»\ 1 Jn 5'-'). By their side we may recall also the rare construction with the infinitive (Ac 15", Ro 14=).

When we advance to the constructions with prepositions, we enter a region in which the deeper sense of the word — that of firm, trustful reliance — conies to its full rights. The construction with 4y, which is the most frequent of the constructions with prepositions in the LXX, retires almost out of use in NT ; it occurs with certainty only in Mk 1'°, where the object of faith is 'the gospel,' though Jn 3", Eph l" may also be instances of it, where the object would be Christ.

The implica- tion of this construction would seem to be firm fixedness of confidence in its object. Scarcely more common is the parallel construction of irl with the dative, expressive of steady, resting repose, reliance upon the object.

Besides the quotation from Is 28'*, which appears alike in Ro 9^ 10", 1 P 2", this construction occurs only twice : Lk 24=°, where Jesus rebukes His followers for not ' believing on,' relying implicitly upon, all that the prophets have spoKen ; and 1 Ti 1'", where we are declared to ' believe on ' Jesus Christ unto salvation, i.e. to obtain salvation by relying upon Him for it.

The constructions with prepositions governing the accusative, which involve an impli- cation of ' moral motion, mental direction towards,' are more frequently used. That with ^wi, indeed, occurs only seven times (four of which are in Ac).

In two instances in Ro 4, where the reminis- cence of the faith of Abraham gives colour to the language, the object on which faith is thus said relyingly to lay liold is God, described, however, as savingly working through Christ — as He that justifies the ungodly. He that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. Elsewhere its object is Christ Himself.

In Mt 27" the Jewish leaders declare the terms on which they will become ' believers on ' Jesus; in Ac 10"' this is the form that is givsn to the proclamation of salvation by faith in Christ — 'turn with confident trust to Jesus Christ', and appropriately, therefore, it is in this form of expression that those are designated who have savingly believed on Christ (Ac 9" 11" 22'»).

The special NT construction, however, is that with eh, which occurs some forty-nine times, about four- fifths of which are Johannine and the remainder more or less Pauline.

The object towards which faith is thus said to be reliantly directed is in one unique instance ' the witness which God hath witnessed concerning his Son' (1 Jn 5'"), where we may well believe that ' belief in the truth of the witness is carried on to personal belief in the object of the witness, that is, the Incarnate Son Himself.' Elsewhere the object believed on, in this construction, is always a person, and that very rarely God (Jn 14', cf.

1 Jn 5'°, and also 1 P 1=', where, however, the true reading is prob- ably jri<rToi>s fit 6c6p), and most commonly Christ (Mt 18", Jn2" 3>«-i8w 4'» C="- '"•■"' 75- 'i- >^- !»• « si" Ac 10" 14=» 19, Ro lo"- '^ Gal 2'«, Ph 1», 1 P !»', 1 Jn 5'», cf. Jn 12*" l'" 2» 3'», 1 Jn 5'»). A glance over these passages will bring clearly out the pregnancy of the meaning conveyed. It may be mure of a question wherein the pregnancy resides.

It is probably sufficient to find it in the souse conveyed by the verb itself, while the preposition adjoins only the person towards whom the strong feeling expressed by the verb is directed. In any event, what these passages express is ' an absolute transference of trust from our.selves to another," a cdiMpIcle self-surrender to Christ.

Some confirmation of this explanation of the I strong meaning of the phrase rurrtijeiy tls may be 830 FAITH FAITH derived from the very rich use of the verb abso- lutely, in a sense in no way inferior. Its absolute use is pretty evenly distributed through the NT, occurring 29 times in John, 23 times in Paul, 22 times in Acts, 15 times in the Synoptics, and once each in Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and Jude ; it is placed on the lips of Jesus some 18 times.

In surprisingly few of these instances is it used of a non-religious act of crediting, — apparently only in our Lord's warning to His followers not to believe when men say ' " Lo, here is the Christ," or ;■ here " ' (Mt 24a>- », Mk 13-'). In equally surpris- ingly few instances is it used of specific acts of faith in the religious sphere. Once it is used of assent given to a specific doctrine — that of the unity of God (Ja 2"). Once it is used of believing prayer (Mt 21^).

Four times in a single chapter of John it is used of belief in a specific fact — the great fact central to Christianity of the resurrec- tion of Christ ( Jn 208- •»• ■■^- ^). It is used occasion- ally of belief in God's announced word (Lk 1", Ac 2G-''), and occasionally also of the credit given to specific testimonies of Jesus, whetlier with refer- ence to earthly or heavenly things (Jn 3'^- '- l"", Lk 22"), passing thence to general faith in the word of salvation (Lk 8', ").

Twice it is used of general soteriological faith in God (Jude °, Ro 4'*), and a few times, with the same pregnancy of im- jilication, where the reference, whether to God or Christ, is more or less uncertain ( Jn 1', Ro 4", 2 Co 413.13) Ordinarily, however, it e.xpresses soterio- logical faith directed to the person of Christ.

In a few instances, to be sure, the immediate trust expressed is in the extraordinary power of Jesus for the performance of earthly effects (the so-called ' miracle faith '), as in Mt 8>», Mk 5^ 9^-^, Lk 8", Jn 4'' 11 ; but the essential relation in which this faith stands to ' saWng faith ' is clearly exhibited in Jn 4^ compared with v." and 9^, and Jn ll" compared with v."

and 12'' ; and, in any case, these passages are insignificant in number when compared with the great array in which the refer- ence is distinctly to saving faith in Christ (Mk 9" W [Jn 3'°], Jn 3'8 4«. «. m 544 gss. 47. »4. m 933 io=»-2» 11" 12»» 14-« 16" 19° 20", Ac 2«4-«' 5" 8" IP' 131s. 89. 48 141 155. 7 J712. 34 Jg8. Zl jga. 18 21»- M, Rq 116 322 W- '» 13" 15>^ 1 Co P' 3» I4« 152- ", Gal S, ^, Eph 118. w 1 XI, 17 210. u 2 Th l'». He 4», 1 P 2').

A survey of these passages wUl show very clearly that in the NT 'to believe' is a technical term to ex- press reliance on Christ for salvation. In a number of them, to be sure, the object of the believing spoken of is sufficiently defined by the context, but, without contextual indication of the object, enough remain to bear out tliis suggestion.

Accordingly, a tendency is betrayed to use the simple participle very much as a verbal noun, with the meaning of ' Christian ' : in Mk 9^, Ac 1 1'\ 1 Co l'", Ejili I's- '», 1 Th 1' 2'»- '» the participial construction is evident ; it may be doubted, how- ever, whether ol ri<rreii<Tairres is not used as a noun in such passages as Ac ?" 4'», 2 Th l'", He 4' ; and in Ac .5' TitrrevopTes is perhaps generally recognized as used substantively.

Before the disciples were called 'Christians' (Ac ll-», cf. 26-«, 1 P 4'«) it would seem, tlien, that they were called 'be- lievers,'— those who had turned to Christ in trust- ing reliance (ol in<TTeii<ravTei), or those who were resting on Christ in trusting reliance (ol wia-Tfi- ovTfs); and that the undefined 'to believe' had come to mean to become or to be a Cliristian, that is, to turn to or rest on Christ in reliant trust.

The occasional use of ol iriffrol in an equivalent sense (Ac 10", Eph 1', 1 Ti 4" 12, 1 P l^i, Rev 17'), for which the way was prepared by the compara- tively frequent use of this adjective in the classic- ally rare active sense (.In 1-'', Ac IG', 1 Co V'-", 2 Co 6", Gal 3», 1 Ti 4'" 5'» C^ Tit I'), adds weight to this conclusion ; as do also the use of in. arm of ' un- believers,' whetlier in the simple (1 Co 6 7'^-" ll'" 1422-24_ 1 xi 5") or deepened sense (2 Co 4' 6'«-, Tit 1", cf.

Jn 20-'', Mt 17", Mk 9'», Lk 9^'), and the related usage of the words diriaTta (Mk 9" (16"), Mt IS!, Mk 6", Ko i-" 1 1-»- •■«, 1 Ti 1", He 3'»- '»), djricrT^u. (Mk 16" I'"!, Lk 24"', Ac 28*', 1 P 2'), and 6\Ly6- TTKrTos (Mt 6»» 8=« 14" 16«, Lk 12^), d\iyoTi<rrla (Mt 17="). The impression which is thus derived from the usage of TuTTeieiv is only deepened by attending to that of iridTis. As already intimated, irio-ns occurs in NT very rarely in its pa.

ssive sense of ' faithfulness,' ' integrity '^ (Ro 3» of God ; Mt 23-^, Gal 5-3, Tit 2">, of men ; cf. 1 Ti 5" ' a pledge ' ; Ac 17" 'assurance'; others add 1 Ti 6", 2 Ti 2-2 3'°, PhUem"). And nowhere in the multitude of its occurrences in its active sense is it applied to man's faith in man, but alwaj's to the relijjcious trust that reposes on God, or Christ, or divine things. The specific object on which the trust rests is but seldom explicitly expressed.

In some six of these instances it is a tiling, but always something of the fullest soteriological signifi- cance— the gospel of Christ (Ph 1"), the saving truth of God (2 Th 2'»), the working of God who raised Jesus from the dead (Col 2'", cf. Ac 14' 3'*), the name of Jesus (Ac 3"), the blood of Jesus (Ro 3^), the righteousness of Jesus (2 P 1'). In as many more the object is God, and the conception is prevailingly that of general trust in God (Mk 11-'^, Ro 14=^ 1 Th 18, He 6', 1 P V\ cf.

Col 2'3). In most instances, however, the object is specified as Christ, and the faith is very pointedly soteriological (Ac 20=' 24« 26'8, Gal 2'"- '«^ -«, Ro 3'- ««, Gal 'i-'- ■', Eph l'» 3'^ 4'», Ph 3', Col 1 2», 1 Ti 1' 3"- '», 2 Ti l" 3', Philem », Ja 2', Rev 2" 14"'). Its object is most frequently joined to Tritrris as an objective genitive, a construction occurring some seventeen times, twelve of which fall in the writings of Paul.

In four of them the genitive is that of the thing, viz. in Ph 1" the gospel, in 2 Th 2" the saving truth, in Col 2'^ the almighty working of God, and in Ac 3" the name of Jesus. In one of them it is God (Mk 11~). The certainty that the genitive is that of object in these cases is decisive witli reference to its nature in the remaining cases, in wliich Jesus Christ is set forth as the object on which faith rests (Ko 3=2- », Gal 2" '«• » 3*", Eph 3" 4", Ph 3», Ja 2', Rev 2" 14'-).

Next most frequently its object is joined to faith by means of the preposition if (9 times), by which it is set forth as the basis on which faith rests, or the sphere of its operation. In two of these instances tlie object is a thing — the blood or righteousness of Jesus (Ro 3^, 2 P 1') ; in the rest it is Christ Himself who is presented as the ground of faith (Gal 3-», Eph 1", Col 1*, 1 Ti 1" 3'», 2 Xi 1" 3").

Somewhat less frequently (5 times) its object is joined to ttIo-tis by means of the pre- position els, designating, apparently, merely the object with reference to which faith is exercised (cf. especially Ac 20^') ; the object thus specified for faith is in one instance God (1 P P'), and in the others Christ (Ac 20^' 24" 26'», Col 2»). By the side of this construction should doubtless be placed the two insoaaces in wliich tlie preposition rpd!

is used, by wliich faith is said to look and adhere to God (I Til 1«) or to Christ (Philem"). And it is practically in the same sense that in a single in- stance God is joined to ttIo-tis by means of the pre- position iirl as the object to which it restingly turns. It would seem that the pregnant sense of Tritms as self-abandoning trust was so fixed in Christian sjieech that little was left to be expressed by tlie mode of its adjunction to its object.

Accordingly, the use of the word without speci- fied object is vastly preponderant. In a few of such instances we may see a specific reference FAITH FAITH 831 to the general conlMlince which informs helieWng prayer (Lk Is", .l.-i r .">"i.

In a somewhat greater number there is sjiecial reference to faitli in Jesus as a worker of wonders — the so-called ' miracle faith' (Mt8'»9«-a-» 15=» [17-] [21-'], Mk 2» 4" 5" 10>^ Lk5»7»8»-" 17'»18", Ac 3" 14')— although how little this faith can be regarded as non-soterio- logical the language of Mt £H, Mk 2', Lk 5-'° shows, as well as the Darallelism between Lk 7" (cf. 8" 17") and Mt 9^, Mk 5*.

The immense mass of the passages in which the undefined Tr/cmt occurs, however, are distinctly soteriological, and that in- ditt'erently whether its implied object be God or Christ. Its implied reference is indeed often ex- tremely diflficuft to fix ; thoufrh the passages in which it may, with some conlidence, be referred to Christ are in number about double those in which it may, with like confidence, be referred to God.

The degree of clearness with which an im- plied object is pointed to in the context varies, naturally, very greatly ; but in a number of cases there is no direct hint of object in the context, but this is left to be .supplied by the general knowledge of the reader.

And this is as much as to say tliat rlimt is so used as to imply that it had already become a Christian technical term, which needed no further definition that it might convey its full sense of saving faith in Jesus Christ to the mind of every reader. This tendency to use it as practically a synonym for 'Christianity' comes out sharply in such a phrase as ol ix Trlareas (Gal 3'-'), which is obviously a paraphrase for ' believers.'

A transi- tional form of the plnase meets us in Ro 3^, rbv (k irlffTfut 'iTjffou ; that the 'Itjo-oC could fall away and leave the simple ol ix Trlarcu! standing for the whole idea, is full of implications as to the sense which the simple undefined riant had acquired in the circles wliich looked to Jesus for salvation. The same implications underlie the so-called objec- tive use of ttiVtcs in the NT.

That in such pas- sages as Ac 6', Gal l^ 3-« G'», Ph l^", Jude»* it conveys the idea of ' the Christian religion ' appears plain on the face of the passages ; and by their side can be placed such others as the following, which seem transitional to them, viz. : Ac 16°, 1 Co 16'», Col 1^, 1 Ti l'» 4'-« .'58, Tit l", and, at a slightly further remove, such others as Ac 13', Ro 1» 16» Ph 1», 1 Ti 3» G'"- ", 2 Ti 3» 4', Tit 1^ 3'», 1 P5'.

It is not necessary to suppose that nlum is used in any of these passages as doctrina fdei ; it seems possible to carry through them all the con- ception of ' subjective faith conceived of objectivehj as a power,' — even through those in Jude and 1 Timothy, which are more commonly than any others interpreted as meaning doctrina fidei.

But this generally admitted objectivizing of subjective faith makes ir/aris, as truly as if it were understood as doctrina fidei, on the verge of which it in any case trembles, a synonym for ' the Christian religion.'

It is only a question whether ' the Christian re- ligion ' is designated in it from the side of doctrine or life ; though it be from tlie point of view of life, still ' the faith ' has become a synonym for ' Christi- anity,' ' believers ' for ' Christians,' ' to believe ' for ' to Decome a Christian,' and we may trace a de- velopment by means of which irfo-nt has come to mean the religion which is marked by and consists Mscntially in 'believing.' Tli.

at this development so rapidly took place is significant of much, and 8upi)lics a ready explanation of such pa.ssages as GalS^**, in which the phrases 'before the faith came' and ' now that faitli is come ' probably mean little more than before and after the advent of 'Christianity ' into the world. On the ground of such a usage, we may at least re-affirm with in- crea.

sed confidence that the idea of ' faith ' is con- ceived of in the NT as the characteristic idea of Christianity, and that it does not import mere ' belief In an intellectual sense, but all :hat enters into an entire self-comniitment of the soul tc Jesus as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. II. The Historical Presentation op Faith.

— It lies on the very surface of the NT that its writers were not conscious of a chasm between the fundamental principle of the religious life of the saints of the old covenant and the faith by which they themselves lived.

To them, too, Abraham is the typical example of a true believer (Ho 4, Gal 3, He 11, Ja2) ; and in their apprehension 'those who are of faith,' that is, ' Christians,' are by that very fact constituted Abraham's sons (Gal 3', Ro 4"), and receive their blessing only along with that 'believer' (Gal 3') in the steps of wliosc faith it is that they are walking (Ro 4''') when they believe on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead (Ko 4''^).

And not only Abraham, but the wliole series of OT heroes are conceived by them to be examples of the same faith which was re(iuired of them 'unto the gaining of the -soul' (He 11). Wrought in them by the same Spirit (2 Co 4"), it produced in them the same fruits, and consti- tuted them a ' cloud of witnesses ' by whose testimony we should be stimulated to run our own race with like patience in dependence on Jesus, 'the author and finisher of our faith' (He 12-).

Nowhere is the demand of faith treated as a novelty of the new covenant, or is there a distinc- tion drawn between the faith of the two covenants ; everywhere the sense of continuity is prominent (Jn 5"- « 12^- »»•■", 1 P 20), and the ' proclamation of faith ' (Gal 3- ", Ro 10'") is conceived as essen- tially one in both dispensations, under both of which the law reigns that ' the just shall live by his faith ' (Uab 2^ Ko 1", Gal 3", He 10*").

Nor do we need to penetrate beneath the surface of the OT to perceive the justice of this NT view. Despite the infrequency of the occurrence on its pages of the terms ' faith,' ' to believe,' the religion of the OT is obviously as fundamentally a religion of faith as is that of the NT. There is a sense, to be sure, in which all religion presupposes faith (He 11°), and in this broad sense the religion of Israel, too, necessarily rested on faitli.

But tht religion of Israel was a religion of faith in a fai more specific sense than this ; and that not merely because faith was more consciously its foun<lation, but because its very essence consisted in faitli, and this faith was the same radical .self-commitment to God, not merely as the highest good of the holy soul, but as the gracious Saviour of the sinner, which meets us as the characteristic feature of the religion of the NT.

Between the faith of the two Testaments there exists, indeed, no fur- ther dill'erence than that which the progress of the historical working out of redemption urought with it. The hinge of OT religion from the very beginning turns on the facts of man's sin (Gn 3) and conse- quent unworthiness (Gn .S, '"), and of God's grace (tin 3") and consequent saving activity (Gn .'{' 4" (ja. i3(.)

This saving activity pre-sents itself from the very beginning also under the form of promise or covenant, the radical idea of whicli Is n.-itunilly faithfulness on the jiart of the j>romi8ing Goii with the answering attitude of faith on the ]iart of the receptive people. I'ace to face with a holy God, the sinner has no hope except in the free mercy of God, and can bo authorized to trust in that mercy only by express assurance.

Accord- ingly, the only cause of salvation is from the first the pitying love of God (Gn 3"'8'"), which freely grants benefits to man : while on man's ]>art there IS never (luestion of merit or of a strength by wliich he may prevail (1 S 2"), but rather a constant sense of unworthiness (Gn 32"'), by virtue of which 832 FAITH FAITH humility appears from the first as the keynote of OT piety.

In the earlier portions of the OT, to be sure, there is little abstract statement of the ideas which ruled the liearts and lives of the servants of God. The essence of patriarchal religion is rather exhibited to us in action. But from the very beginning the distinctive feature of the life of the pious is that it is a life of faith, that its regulative principle is drawn, not from the earth but from above.

Thus the first recorded human acts after the Fall — the naming of Eve, and the birth and naming of Cain — are expressive of trust in God's promise that, though men should "^-ie for their sins, yet man should not perish froo. the earth, but should triumph over the tempter ; in a word, in the great promise of the Seed (Gn 3"). Simi- larly, the whole story of the Flood is so ordered as to throw into relief, on the one hand, the free grace of God in His dealings with Noah (Gn 6*- " gi.

21 g8j^ ^jj(j^ on t^ijg other, the determination of Noah's whole life by trust in God and His promises (Gn 6** 7' 9"). The open declaration of the faith-principle of Abraham's life (Gn 15") only puts into words, in the case of him who stands at the root of Israel's whole national and religious existence, what not only might also be said of all the patriarchs, but what actually is most distinctly said both of Abraham and of them through the medium of their recorded history.

The entire patriarchal narrative is set forth ^vith the design and effect of exhibiting the life of the servants of God as a life of faith, and it is just by the fact of their implicit self-commit- ment to God that throughout the narrative the servants of God are dilferentiated from others.

Tliis does not mean, of course, that with them faith took the place of obedience : an entire self- commitment to God which did not show itself in obedience to Him would be self-contradictory, and the testing of faith by obedience is therefore a marked feature of the patriarclial narra' Ive. But it does mean that faith was with them the pre- condition of all obedience.

The patriarchal re- ligion is essentially a religion, not of law but of promise, and therefore not primarily of obedience but of trust ; the holy walk is characteristic of God's servants (Gn 5,, " 6" 17' 24" 48"), but it is characteristically described as a walk ' with God ' ; its peculiarity consisted precisely in the ordering of life by entire trust in God, and it expressed itself in conduct growing out of this trust (Gn 3-° 41 6«'7»8'8 12» H'^ 21'=- '« 22).

The righteousness of the patriarchal age was thus but the manifesta- tion in life of an entire self-commitment to God, in unwavering trust in His promises. The piety of the OT thus began with faith. And though, when the stage of the law was reached, the emphasis might seem to be thrown rather on the obedience of faith, what has been called ' faith in action,' yet the giving of the law does not mark a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but only a new stage in its orderly development.

The law-giving was not a setting aside cf the religion of promise, but an incident in its history ; and the law given was not a code of jurisprudence for the world's government, but a body of household ordinances for the regulation of Goil's family. It is therefore itself grounded upon the promise, and it grounds the whole religious life of Israel in the frace of the covenant God (Ex 20-).

It is only ecause Israel are the children of God, and God has Banctified them unto Himself and chosen them to be a peculiar people unto Him (Dt 14'), that He proceeds to frame them by His law for His especial treasure (Ex I!)'; cf. Tit 2"). Faith, tlierefore, does not appear as one of the precepts of the law, nor as a virtue superior to its prece|)ts, nor yiit aa a substitute for keeping them ; it rather lies behind the law as its presupposition.

Accord- ingly, in the history of the giving of the law, faith is expressly emphasized as the presupposition of the whole relation existing between Israel and J".

The signs by wliich Sloses was accredited, and all J'"8 deeds of power, had as their design (Ex 3'^ 4'- •• >• » 19'- ») and their effect (Ex 4" 12*- « 1431 24»'', Ps 106'^) the working of faith in the people ; and their subsequent unbelief is treated as the deepest crime they could commit (Nu 14'', Dt P= 9', Ps 78=, s^ lOe, "), as is even momentary failure of faith on the part of their leaders (Nu20''-').

It is only as a consequent of the relation of the people to Him, instituted by grace on His part and by faith on theirs, that J" proceeds to carry out His gracious purposes for them, delivering them from bondage, giving them a law for the regulation of their lives, and framing them in the promised land into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

In other words, it is a precondition of the law that Israel's life is not of the earth, but is hid with God, and is therefore to be ordered by His precepts.

Its design was, therefore, not to provide a means by which man might come into relation with J", but to publish the mode of life incumbent on those who stand in the relation of children to J" ; and it is therefore that the book of the law was com- manded to be put by tlie side of tlie ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it mi"lit be a witness against the transgressions of Israel (Dt 31^). The effect of the law was consonant with its desi™.

Many, no doubt, looked upon it in a purely legalistic spirit, and sought, by scrupulous fulfilment of it as a body of external precepts, to lay the foundation of a claim on God in behalf of the nation or the individual, or to realize through it, as a present possession, that salvation which was ever represented as something future.

But, just in proportion as its spirituality and inward- ness Trere felt, it operated to deepen in Israel the sense of shortcoming and sin, and to sharpen the conviction that from the grace of God alone could salvation be expected. This humble frame of conscious dependence on God was met by a two- fold proclamation.

On the one hand, the eyes of God's people were directed more longingly towards the future, and, in contrast with the present failure of Israel to realize the ordinances of life which had been given it, a new dispensation of grace was promised in which the law of God's kingdom should be written upon the heart, and should become therefore the instinctive law of life of His people (Jer 24' 31''"-, Ezk 36^'- ; cf. Ezk IG* Jl 3, Hos 2" ).

It lay in the very nature of th« OT dispensation, in which the revelation of God was alwaj's incomplete, the still unsolved enigmas of life numerous, the worlc of redemption unfinished, and the consummation of the kingdom ever yet to come, that the eyes of the saints should be set upon the future ; and these deficiencies were felt very early.

But it also lay, in the nature of the case, that the sense of them should increase as time passed and the perfecting of Israel was delayed, and especially as the whole national and religious existence of Israel was more and more put in jeopardy by assaults from without and corruption from within.

Tlie essence of piety came thus to be ever more plainly proclaimed aa consisting in such a confident trust in tlie God of salvation as could not be confounded either liy the unrigliteousness which reigned in Israel or by J"8 judgments on Israel's sins, — such a confidence as, even in the face of the destruction of the theo- cracy itself, could preserve, in enduring hope, the assurance of the ultimate realization of God's pur- poses of good to Israel and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom.

Thus hopeful waiting ujion J" became more and more the centre of Israelitish KAlTii piety, and J' became before all ' tlie Hope of Israel ' (Jer 14" 17" 50', cf. Ps 71"). On the otlier hand, while thus waiting for the salvation of Israel, tlie Raint must needs stay himself on God (Is 2ff 50'"), fixing his heart on J" as the Rock of the heart (Ps 73-»), His people's stren^'th (Ps46') and trust (Pa 40* 65» 71», Jer 17').

Freed from all illusion of earthly help, and most of all from all self-confi- dence, he is meanwhile to live by faith (Hab 2'). Thus, along with an ever more richly expressed corporate hope, there is found also an ever more richly expressed individual trust, which finds natural utterance throu^'h an ample body of synonyms bringing out severally the various sides of that perfect commitment to God that consti- tates the essence of faith.

Thus we read much of trusting in, on, to God, or in His word. His name, Ilis mercy. His salvation (nai), of seeking and finding refuge in God or in the shadow of His win^a (n;ri), of ccnimitting ourselves to God ('"'?;), setting confidence (''js) in Hira, looking to Him (D'j.i), rel3'ing upon Him {ilVJ)i staying upon Him (17;J), setting or fixing the heart upon Him (3^ p?), binding our love on Hira {PVQ), cleaving to Him | (pjT). So, on the hopeful side of faith, we read much of hoping in God (.

Tp), waiting on God (Sn:), of longing for Him (njn), patiently waiting for Him ('?i?nnn), and the like. By the aid of such expressions, it becomes possible to form a someAvhat clear notion of the attitude towards Him which was required by J" of His believing people, and which is summed up in the terra faith.

It is a reverential (Ex 14", Nu 14" 20") and loving faith, which rests on the strong basis of firm and unshaken conviction of the might and grace of the covenant God and of the trustworthiness of all His words, and exhibits itself in confident trust in J" and unwavering expectation of the fullilracnt of, no doubt, all His promises, but more especially of His promise of salvation, and inconsequent faithful and exclusive adherence to Him.

In one word, it consists in an utter commitment of oneself to J", with confident trust in Him as guide and saviour, and assured expectation of His promised salvation. It there- fore stands in contrast, on the one hand, with trust in self or other human help, and on the other with doubt and unbelief, despondency and un- faithfulness.

From J" alone is salvation to be looked for, and it comes from His free grace alone (Dt V 8'« 9», Am 3», Hos 13», Kzk 20«, Jer IW, Mai I'), and to those only who look solely to Him for it (Is .31' 51" i'S'" 30'^, Jer 17° 30", I's 118» M6» 20', 1 S 17", Ps 28 11^, Job 22=» »• 31", Ps ,52-').

The reference of faith is accordingly in the ()T always distinctly soteriological ; its end the Messianic salvation ; and its essence a trusting, or rather an entrusting of oneself to the God of salva- tion, with full assurance of the fulfilment of His gracious purposes and the ultimate realization of His promise of salvation for the people and the individual.

Such an attitude towards the God of salvation is identical with the faith of the NT, and is not essentinlly changed by the fuller revelation of God the Kedecmer in the [lerson of the pro- mised Messiah.

That it is comparatively seldom designated in the OT by the names of ' faith,' 'believing,' seems to be due, as has been often pointed out, to the special place of the OT in the history of revelation, and the adaptation of its whole contents and language to the particular task in the establishment or the kingdom of God which fell to its writers.

This task turnetl on the special temptations and difficulties of the O T stnge of development, and required emphasis to be laid on the majesty and jealousy of J" and on the duties of reverence, sincerity, and patience. Meanwhile, the faith in Him which underlies these VOL. 1.-^1 FAITH 833 duties is continually implied in their enforcenient, and conies to open expression in frequent paraphrase anil .>^ynoii3'ni, and as often in its own proper t^rms OS is natural in the circumstances.

Especially in the great crises of the history of redemption (Gn 15, Ex 4° 19', Is 7) is the fundamental requirement of faith rendered explicit and prominent. On the coming of God to His people iu the per- son of His Son, the promised Messianic King bringing the salvation, the hope of which had for so many ages been their support and stay, it naturally became the primary task of the vehicles of revelation to attract and attach God's people to the person of their Kedeemer.

And this task was the more pressing in proportion as the form of the fulfilment did not obviously correspond with the promise, and especially with the expectations which had grown up on the faith of the promise. This fundamental function dominates the whole NT, and accounts at once for the great prominence in its pages of the demand for faith, by \\liich a gulf seems to be opened between it and thd OT.

The demand for faith in Jesus as the Redeeu'er so long hoped for, did indeed create so wide a cluft in the consciousness of the times that the term faith came rapidly to be appropriated to Christianity and 'to believe' to mean to become a Christian ; so that the old covenant and the new were dis- criminated from each other as the ages before and after the 'coming of faith ' (Gal 3'^- ^).

But all < his does not imply that faith now for the first tmie became the foundation of the religion of J", but only suggests how fully, in the new circumstances induced by the coming of the promised Redeemer, the demand for faith absorbed the whole procla- mation of the gospel.

In this primary concern for faith the NT books all necessarily share ; but, for the rest, they dilier among themselves in the pro- minence given to it and in the aspects in whicli it is presented, in accordance with the place of each in the historical development of the new life ; and that is as much as to say in accordance witli the historical occasion out of which each arose and the special oltject to subserve which each was written.

Indeed, the word ' to believe ' first appears on the pages of the NT in quite OT conditi<ms. We are conscious of no distinction even in atmosphere between the commendation of faith and rebuke of unbelief in Exodus or the Psalms and the same commendation and rebuke in the days just before the 'coniini' of faith' (Lk l"-"); these are but specific apidications of the thesis of prophetism, expressed positively in 2 Ch 20'* and negatively in Is 7'.

Already, however, the dawn of the new day has coloured the proclamation of the Baptist, the essence of which Paul sums up for us as a demand for faith in the Coming One (Ac 19*), and which John reports to us (Jn 'i"). In the synoptic report of the teaching of Jesus, the same purpose is the dominant note. All that Jesus did and taught was directed to drawing faith to Himself. Up to the end, indeed.

He repelled the unbelieving demand that He should 'declare plainly' the authority by which He acted and who He really was (Mt 21^, Lk 22") ; but this was only that He might, in His own way, the more decidedly con- found unbelief and assert His divine majesty.

Even when He spoke of general faith in (Jod (Mk U"), and that confident trust whicli liecimica men approaching the Almighty in prayer (Mt 21-^1 Mk 9^, Lk 18"), He did it in a way which inevit- ably directed attention to His own person as the representative of God on earth.

And this accounts for the prevalence, in the synoptic rc])(irt of His allusions to faith, of a reference to that exercise of faith which has sometimes been somewhat sharply divided from saving faith under the name of 'miracle faith' (Mt 8'"- '» II Lk 7"; Mt 9»; Mt 834 FAITH FAITH 9" II Mk 5", Lk 8» ; Mt 9^-» ; Mt 15=" ; Mt 17=" || Mk &^ ; Mt Spi- ", cf. Lk l-« ; Mk 4« ; Mk 5^ |i Lk 8" ; Mk 10'^ || Lk 18« ; Lk 7").

That in these instances we liave not a generically distinct onler of faith, directed to its o\\ti peculiar end, but only a specific movement of that entire trust in Himself which Jesus would arouse in all, seems clear from the manner in which He dealt with it, — now praising its exercise as a specially great ex- hibition of faith quite generally spoken of (Lk 7'''), now pointing to it as a manifestation of that believing to which ' all things are possible ' (Mk 'J-'), now connecting with it not merely the healing of the body but tlie forgiveness of sins (Mt 9'''), and everywliere using it as a means of attaching the confidence of men to His person as tlie soiirce of all good.

Having come to His own, in other words, Jesus took men upon the plane on which He found them, and sought to lead them through the needs which they felt, and the relief of which they sought in Him, up to a recognition of their greater needs and of His ability to give relief to them also.

That word of power, 'Thy faith hath saved thee,' spoken indifferently of bodily wants and of the deeper needs of the soul (Lk 7°°), not only resulted, but was intended to result, in focusing all eyes on Himself as the one physician of both body and soul (Mt 8").

Explicit references to these liigher results of faith are, to be sure, not very frequent in the synoptic discourses, but there are quite enough of them to exliibit Jesus' specific claim to be the proper object of faith for these effects also (Lk 8"- '» 2232, Mt IS" II Mk 9", Lk 7"), and to prepare the way for His rebuke, after His resurrec- Uon, of the lagging minds of His followers, tliat they did not understand all these things (Lk 24^- "), and for His great commission to Paul to go and open men's eyes that they might receive ' remis- sion of sins and an inheritance among the sanctified by faith in Him ' (Ac 26').

It is very natural that a much fuller account of Jesus' teaching as to faith should be given in the more intimate discourses which are preserved by John. But in these discourses, too. His primary task is to bind men to Him by faith. The chief dilTerence is that here, consonantly with the nature of the discourses recorded, much more prevailing stress is laid upon the higher aspects of faith, and we see Jesus striving specially to attract to Him- self a faith consciously set upon eternal good.

In a number of instances we find ourselves in much the same atmosphere as in the Synoptics (4-' •'"• ^ *«• 9^) ; and the method of Jesus is the same throughout. Everywhere He offers Himself as the object of faith, and claims faith in Himself for the highest concerns of the soul. But everywhere He begins at the level at which He finds His hearers, and leads them upward to these higher things.

It is so that He deals witli Nathanael (1") and Nicodemus (3'-); and it is so that He deals constantly with the Jews, every- where requiring faith in Himself for eternal life (5i..2».3e 035. 40. « 7iw §24 jQa. 36 12". «), declaring that faith in Him is the certain outcome of faith in their o^vn Scriptures (S'"- "), is demanded by the witness borne Him by God in His mighty works ()Q25.s«.37j_ is involved in and is indeed identical with faith in God (5^ *< gw. « gn i.

j«,_ ^nd is the one thing wliich God requires of them (6®), and the failure of wliich will bring them eternal ruin (3" 5»» 0" 8=*). When dealing with His followers. His primary care was to build up their faith in Him. Witness especially His solicitude for their faith in the last hours of His intercourse with them.

For tlie faith they had reposed in Him He returns thanks to God (17*), but He is still nursing their faith (16"), preparing for its increase through the events to come (13'" 16'^), and with almost passion- »t« eagemess claiming it at their hands ( 14'' '"• "• ").

Even after His resurrection we find Him restoring the faith of the waverer (20®) with words which pronounce a special blessing on those who should hereafter believe on less compelling evidence — words whose point is not fully caught until we realize that they contain an intimation of the work of the apostles as, like His own, summed up in bringing men to faith in Him (17^' ").

The record in Ac of the apostolic proclamation testifies to the faithfulness with which this otlice was prosecuted by Jesus' delegates (Ac 3^- ^). The task undertaken "by them was, by persuading men (Ac 17 28"), to bring them unto obedience to the faith that is in Jesus (.-Vc 6', Ro 1» 16-", cf. 2 Th 1«, 2 Co lU'). And by such 'testifying faith towards our Lord Jesus fchrist' (Ac 20-', cf.

10") there was quickly gathered together a community of 'believers' (Ac 2" i-^'), that is, of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ (Ac 5' 9" 11" li^), and that not only in Jems, but beyond (8'^ 9- 10" 11-' 13« 14'), and. not only of Jews (10" 15' 21»') but of Gentiles (IP' 13« 14' 15' IV'-* 18=^ 19" 21«).

The enucleation of this community of believers brought to the apostolic teachers the new task of preserving the idea of faith, which was the forma- tive principle of the new community, and to propa- gate which in the world, pure and living and sound, was its chief office.

It was inevitable that those who were called into the faith of Christ should bring into the infant Church with them many old ten- dencies of thinking, and that within the new community the fermentation of ideas should be very great. The task of instructing and dis- ciplining the new community soon became un- avoidably one of the heaviest of apostolic duties ; and its progress is naturally reflected in their letters.

Thus certain differences in their modes of dealing with faith emerge among NT writers, according as one lays stress on the deadness and profitlessness of a faith which produces no fruit in the life, and another on the valueless- ness of a faith which does not emancipate from the bondage of the law ; or as one lays stress on the perfection of the object of faith and the necessity of keeping the heart set upon it, and another on the necessity of preserving in its purity that subjective altitude towards the unseen and future which constitutes the very essence of faith ; or as one lays stress on the reaching out of faith to the future in confident hope, and another on the present enjoyment by faith of all the bless- ings of salvation.

It was to James that it fell to rebuke the Jewish tendency to conceive of the faith which was pleasing to J" as a mere intellectual acquies- cence in His being and claims, when imported into the Church and made to do duty as ' the faith of our Lord Jesua Christ, the Glory' (2'). He has sometimes been misread as if he were depreciating faith, or at least the place of fait!, in salvation.

But it is perfectly clear that with James, as truly as with any other NT writer, a sound faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the mani- fested God (2') lies at the very basis of the Christian life (P), and is the condition of all acceptable approach to God (1» 5").

It is not faith as he conceives it which he depreciates, but that professed faith (X^, 2') which cannot be shown to be real by appropriate works (2"), and so differs by a whole diameter alike from the faith of Abraham that was reckoned unto him for righteousness (2*), and from the faith of Chris- tians as James understood it (2' 1', cf. I'). The imi)ression which is easily taken from the l.

iot lialf of the second chapter of James, that his teach- ing and that of Paul stand in some polemic relation, is nevertheless a delusion, and arises from an insufficient realization of the place 00- FATTH cnpied by faith in the discussions of the Jewish schools, reflections of which have naturally found their way into the language of both Paul and James.

And so far are we from needing to sup- pose some reference, direct or indirect, to Pauline teaching to account for James' entrance upon the question which he discusses, that this was a matter upon which an earnest teacher could not fail to touch in the presence of a tendency common among the Jews at the advent of Christianity (cf.

Mt 3» 7'' 23', Ro 2"), and certain to pass over into Jewish-Christian circles : and James' treat- ment of it finds, indeed, its entire presupposition in the state of tilings underlying the exhortation of l**. When read from his o«ti historical stand- point, James' teachings are free from any dis- accord with those of Paul, who as strongly as James denies all value to a faith which does not work b_v love (Gal 5«, 1 Co 13», 1 Th 1»).

In short, James is not depreciating faith : with him, too, it is faith that is reckoned unto righteousness (2-^), though only such a faith as shows itself in works can be so reckoned, because a faith which does not come to fruitage in works is dead, non-exist- j ent. He is rather deepening the idea of faith, and insisting that it includes in its very concep- tion something more than an otiose intellectual assent. It was a far more serious task which was laid upon Paul.

As apostle to the Gentiles he was called upon to make good in all its depth of meaning the fundamental principle of the religion of grace, that the righteous shall live by faitli, as over-against what haa come to be the ingrained legalism of Jewish thought now intruded into the Christian Church. It was not, indeed, doubted that faith was requisite for obtaining salvation.

But he that had been bom a Jew and was conscious of the privileges of the children of the promise, found it hard to think that faith was all that was requisite. What, tlien, was the advantage of the Jew!

In defence of the riglits of the Gentiles, Paul waa forced in the most uncompromising way to validate the great proposition that, in the matter of salvation, there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, — that the Jew has no other righteousness than that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 2"*«-)> anJ that the Gentile fully possesses this righteousness from faith alone (Gal S'"^-) ; in a word, that the one God, who is God of the Gentiles also, ' shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith' (Ro 3™).

Thus was it made clear not only that 'no man is justilied by the law' (Gal 2" 3", Ro 3="), but also that a man is justilied by faith apart from law-works (Ro 3*). The splendid vigour and thorouglme.

ss of Paul's dialec- tic development of the absolute contrast between the ideas of faith and works, by virtue of whicli one peremptorily excludes the other, left no hiding- Slace for a work-righteousness of any kind or egree, but east all men solely upon the righteous- ness of God, which is apart from the law and comes through faith unto all that believe (Ro 3"-").

Thus, in vindicating the place of faith as the only instrument of salvation, Paul necessarily dwelt mucli upon the object of faith, not as if he were formally teaching what the object is on which faith savingly lays hold, but as a natural lewnlt of his effort to show from its object the ail-Buf!iciency of faith.

It is because faith lays hold of Jesus Christ, who was delivere<l up for our trespa-sses and was raised for our justification (Ro 4"), and makes us possessors of the righteous- ness provided by God through Him, that there is no room for any righteousness of our own in the ground of our salvation (Ro 10, Eph 2).

This is the rea-son of that full development of the object FAITH 83£ of faith in Paul's ^^Titings, and especially of the specific connexion between faith and the right- eousness of God proclaimed in Christ, by which the doctrine of Paul is sometimes said to be distinguished from the more general conception of faith which is characteristic of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

This more general conception of faith is not, however, the peculiar property of that epistle, but is the fundamental conception of the whole body of biblical writers in OT and in NT (cf. Mt 6" 162=1, Jn 20-- »', 1 P 1"), including Paul himself (2 Co 4i8 5', Ro 4'«-~ 8-^) ; while, on the other liand, the Epistle to the Hebrews, no less than Paul, teaches that there is no righteousness except through faith (10* 11', cf. U'').

That in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is the general idea of faith, or, to be more exact, the subjective nature of faith, that is dwelt upon, rather than its specific object, is not due to a peculiar conception of what faith lays hold npon, but to the particular task which fell to its writer in the work of planting Christianity in the world. With him, too, tlie person and work of Christ are the specific object of faith ( 13'- " 3" 10").

But the danger against which, in the providence of God, he was called upon to guard the infant flock, was not that it should fall away tnnu faith to works, but that it should fall away from faith into despair. His readers were threatened not with legalism but with 'shrinking back' (W), and he needed, therefore, to emphasize not so much the object of faith as the duty of faith.

Accordingly, it is not so much on the righteous- ness of faith as on its perfecting that lie insists ; it is not so much its contrast with works as its contrast with impatience that he impicsses on his readers' consciences ; it is not so niucli to faith specifically in Christ and in Him alone that he exliorts them as to an attitude of faith — an altitude which could rise above the seen to the unseen, the present to the futiire, the temporal to the eternal, and which in the midst of sufferings could retain patience, in the niid.

st of disajipoint- ments could preserve hope. This is the key to the whole treatment of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews — its definition as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11') ; its illustration and enforcement by the example of the heroes of faith in the past, a list chosen and treated with the utmost skill for the end in view (11); its constant attachment to tlie promises (41. a gii 1036.88 118 1389). ^g conuexiou with the faithfulness (U", cf.

lO'), almightiness (11"»), and tlie rewards of CJod (U"-''); and its association with such virtues as boldness (3 4" 10'"- "), con- fidence (3" 11'), patience (lU" 12'), hope (3" e"-" 10-^). With much that is similar to the situation implied in Hebrews, that which underlies the Epistles of Peter differs from it in the essential particular that their prevailingly Gentile readers were not in imminent danger of falling back into Judaism.

There is, accordingly, much in the asiiect in which faith is presented in these epistles which reminds us of what we find in Hebrews, as, for example, the close connexion into which it is brought with obedience (1 P 1»- " 2' 3' 4"), its pre- vailing reference to what is unseen and future (1 P 1». 7-10. 31)^ ^nd i^g consequent demand for steadfast- ness (5', cf. 1'), and especially for hope (P', cf. 1«. u 3s.

16) Yet there is a noteworthy difference in the whole tone of the commendation of faith, which was rooted, no doubt, in the character of Peter, as the tone of his speeches recorded in Acta shows, but which also grew out of the nature of the task set before him in these letters. There is no hint of despair lying in the near background, but the buoj'ancy of assured hope rings throughout 836 FAITH FAITH these epistles.

Having hearkened to the prophet like unto Moses (Dt 18">- ", Ac 3^- »), Christians are the children of obedience (1 P 1"), and through their precious faith (1 P 1', 2 P 1') possessors of the preciousness of the promises (1 P 2'). As they have obeyed the voice of God and kept His coven- ant, they have become His peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex 19', 1 P 2").

Naturally, the duty rests upon them of living, while here below, in accordance with their high liopes (1 P 1", 2 P 1"). But in any event they are but sojourners and pilgrims here (1 P 2" P- "), and have a sure inheritance reserved for them in heaven (1), unto which they are guarded tlirough faith by the power of God (1°). The reference of faith in Peter is therefore characteristically to the completion rather than to the inception of salvation (I'' 2*, cf. Ac 15").

Of course this does not imply that he does not share the common biblical conception of faith : he is con- scious of no diflerence of view from that of OT (IP 2*); and, no less than with James, with him faith is the fountain of all good works (1 p 1?. ai 59_ 2 P 1') ; and, no less than with Paul, with him faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ (2 P 1').

It only means that in the cir- cumstances of his writing he is led to lay special emphasis on the reference of faith to the consum- mated salvation, in order to quicken in his readers that hope which would sustain them in their persecutions, and to keep their eyes set, not on their present trials, but, in accordance with faith's very nature, on the unseen and eternal glory. In the entirely difFerent circumstances in which he wrote, John wished to lay stress on the very opposite aspect of faith.

For what is characteristic of John's treatment of faith is insistence not so much on the certainty and glory of the future in- heritance which it secures, as on the fulness of the present enjoyment of salvation which it brings. There was pressing into the Church a false emphasis on knowledge, which affected to despise simple faith.

This John met, on the one hand, by deepening the idea of knowledge to the knowledge of experience, and, on the other, by insisting upon the immediate entrance of every believer into the possession of saWation.

It is not to be supposed, of course, that he was ready to neglect or deny that out-reaching of faith to the future on which Peter lays such stress : he is zealous that Christians shall know that they are children of God from the moment of believing, and from that instant possessors of the new life of the Spirit ; but he does not forget the greater glory of the future, and he knows how to use this Christian hope also as an incitement to holy living (1 Jn 3-).

Nor are we to suppose that, in his anti-Gnostic insistence on the element of conviction in faith, he would lose sight of that central element of surrendering trust which is the heart of faith in other portions of the Scriptures : he would indeed have believers know what thej believe, and who He is in whom they put their trust, and wliat He has done for them, and is doing, and will do, in and through them ; but this is not that they may know these things simply as intellectual propositions, but that they maj rest on tliem in faith and know them in personal experience.

Least of all the NT writers could John confine faith to a merely intellectual act : his whole doctrine of faitli is rather a protest against the intellectualisra of Gnos- ticism. His fundamental conception of faith dilTers in nothing from that of the other NT writers ; with him, too, it is a trustful ai)propria- tion of Christ and surrender of self to His salva- tion.

Eternal life has been manifested by Christ (Jn 1*, 1 Jn 1'- ' 5"), and he, and he only, wlio has the Son has the life (1 Jn 5'-'). But in tue conflict in which he was engaged he required to throw the strongest emphasis possible upon the immediate entrance of believers into this life. This insistence had manifold applications to the circumstances of his readers. It had, for example, a negative application to the antinomian tendency of Gnostic teaching, which John does not fail to press (1 Jn j5 .

>!. 15 36) . < whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God' (1 Jn 5'), and ' whosoever ia begotten of God doeth no sin ' (1 Jn 3').

It had also a positive application to their own encouragement : the simple believer was placed on a plane of life to which no know- ledge could attain ; the new life received by faith gave the victory over the world ; and John boldly challenges experience to point to any who have overcome the world but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God (1 Jn 5*'). Accordingly, it is characteristic of John to announce that ' he that believeth hath eternal life ' (Jn 3^ 5^ 6"- ", 1 Jn 314. 18 511. u.

IS) jjg even declares the purpose of his writing to be, in the Gospel, that his readers ' may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, they may have life in his name' (20^'); and in the First Epistle, that they that believe in the name of the Son of God ' may know that they have eternal life' (1 Jn 5''). III. The Biblical Conception of Faith.

— By means of the providentially mediated diversity of emphasis of the NT writers on the severd aspects of faith, the outlines of the biblical con- ception of faith are thrown into very high relief. Of its subjective nature we have what is almost a formal definition in the description of it as an ' assurance of tilings hoped for, a conviction of things not seen' (He II'). It obviously contains in it, therefore, an element of knowledge (He 11*), and it as obviously issues in conduct (He 11", cf.

5°, 1 P F-). But it consists neither in assent nor in obedience, but in a reliant trust in the invisible Author of aU good (He 11-''), in which the mind is set upon the things that are above and not on the things that are upon the earth (Col 3", cf. 2 Co 4'«-", Mt 6^ 16*").

The examples cited in He 11 are themselves enough to show that the faith there commended is not a mere belief in God's existence and justice and goodness, or credit- ing of His word and promises, but a practical counting of Him faithful (11"), with a trust so profound that no trial can shake it (11"), and so absolute that it survives the loss of even its own pledge (U").

So little is faith in its biblical con- ception merely a conviction of the understand- ing, that, when that is called faith, the true idea of faith needs to be built up above this word (Ja 2""). It is a movement of the whole inner man (Ho 10'- '"), and is set in contrast with an unbelief that is akin, not to ignorance but to disobedience (He 3'«- '», Jn 3», Ro II'-' 15", 1 Th 1*, He 4»- >, 1 P !'

• ' 3'- *> 4'e, Ac 14«- ' 19»), and that grows out of, not lack of information, but that aversion of the heart from God (He 3'^) which takes pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Th 2'"), and is so unsparingly exposed by our Lord (Jn 3" 5" 8" 10^). In the breadth of its idea, it is thus the going out of the heart from itself and its resting on God in confident trust for all good.

But the scriptural revelation has to do with, and is directed to the needs of, not man in the abstract, but sinful man ; and for sinful man this hearty reliance on God necessarily becomes humble trust in Him for the fundamental need of the sinner — forgiveness of sins and reception into favour. In response to the revelations of His grace and the provisions of His mercy, it commits itself without reserve and with abnegation of aU self-dependence, to Him as its .

sole and sufficient Saviour, and thus, in one act, empties itself of all FAITH FAITH 837 claim on God and casts itself upon His grace alone for salvation. It is, accordingly, solely from its object that faith derives its value.

This object is uniformly the God of grace, whether conceived of broadly as the source of all life, light, and blessing, on wliom man in his creaturely weakness is entirely dependent, or, whenever sin and the eternal welfare of the soul are in view, as the Author of salvation in whom alone the hope of unworthy man can be placed.

This one object of saving faith never varies from the beginnin" to the end of tlie scriptural revela- tion ; thdugii, naturally, there is an immense difference between its earlier and later stages in fulne.^ of knowledge as to tlie nature of the redemptive work hy whieli the salvation intrusted to God shall be accomplished ; and as naturally there occurs a very great variety of forms of state- ment in which trust in the God of ealvation re- ceives expression.

Already, however, at tlie gate of Eden, the God in whom the trust of our tirst parents is reposed is the God of the gracious promise of the retrieval of the injury inflicted by the serpent ; and from that beginning of know- ledge the progress is steady, until, what is implied in the primal promise having become express in the accomplished work of redemption, the trust of sinners is explicit!}' placed in the God who was in Christ reconciling tlie world unto Himself (2 Co 5").

Such a faith, again, could not fail to em- brace with humble contidence all the gracious promises of the God of salvation, from which indeed it draws its life and strength ; nor could it faU to lay hold with strong conviction on all those revealed truths concerning Him wliicli constitute, indeed, in the varied circumstances in which it has been called upon to persist throughout the ages, the very grounds in view of which it has been able to rest upon Him with steadfast trust.

These truths, in which the ' Gospel' or glad-tidings to God's people has been from time to time embodied, run all the way from such simple facts as that it was the very God of their fathers that had appeared unto Moses for their deliverance (Ex 4'), to such stujjendous facts, lying at the root of the very work of salvation itself, as that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God sent of God to save the worid (Jn e" 8" 11"-' 13"' lO-''- »» 17- " 2^fi\ 1 Jn 5"), that God has raised Him from the dead (Ro 10», 1 Th 4"), and that as His children we shall live with Him (Ko 6").

But in believing this variously presented Gospel, faith has ever terminated with trustful reliance, not on the promise but on the Promiser, — not on the propositions which declare God's grace and willingness to save, or Christ's divine nature and power, or the reality and perfec- tion of His saving work, but on the Saviour upon whom, because of these great facts, it could securely rest as on One able to save to the uttermost.

Jesus Christ, God the Redeemer, is accordingly the one object of saving faith, presented to its embrace at first implicitly and in promise, and ever more and more openly until at last it is entirely explicit and we read that 'a man is not justified save through faith in Jesus Christ ' (Gnl 2'"). If, with even greater explicitness still, faitli is sometimes said to rest upon some element in the saving work of Christ, as, for example, upon His blood or His right- eousness (Ro S'", 2 I' 1').

obviously such a singling otit of the very thing in His work on which faith takes hold, in no way derogates from its rejio-se upon Him, and Him only, as the sole and sullicient Saviour. The saving power of faith resides thus not in itself, but in the Almighty Saviour on whom it rests.

It is never on account of its formal nature as a psychic act that faith is conceived in Scrijiture to be saving, — as if this frame of mind or attitude of heart were itself a virtue with claims on God for reward, or at least especially pleasing to Him (either in its nature or as an act of obedience) and thus predisposing Him to favour, or as if it brought the soul into an attitude of receptivity or of sym- pathy with God, or opened a channel of communi- cation from Him.

It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ : faith in any other saviour, or in this or that philosophy or human conceit (Col 2"- '*, 1 Ti 4'), or in any other gospel than that of Jesus Christ and Him as crucilied (Gal !'• • , brings not salvation but a curse. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith.

The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faitli or the attitude of faith or the nature of faith, but in the object of faith ; and in this the whole biblical representation centres, so that we could not more radically misconceive it than by trans- ferring to faith even the smallest fraction of that saving energy which is attributed in the Scrip- tures solely to Christ Himself.

This purely mediatory function of faith is very clearly indi- cated in the regimens in which it stands, which ordinarily express simple instrumentality. It is most frequently joined to its verb as the dative of means or instrument (Ac 15" 26', Ro S'^ i^ 5= II 2 Co I^ He 11^- *• '■ '' '■ '■ "' "' ^' "■ ^' ^ 11 "- '^^ ^- ^• ") ; and the relationship intended is further ex- plained by the use to expre.ss it of the prepositions ^K (Ro l''^ '" 3''"- » 4'«- "« 5' 9«'- »» 10» 14-^- J Gal 2'« 37. 8.

«. 11. la. 27. 28 5»_ 1 xi l», He 10*, Ja 2") and 5i4 (with thegcnitive, never with the accusative, Ro 3-- ■^- »>, 2 Co ry\ Gal 2'" 3"- ^a 3', 2Ti 3", He 6^' 11^- ", 1 1' 1°), — the fundamental idea of the former con- struction being that of source or origin, and of the latter that of mediation or instrumentality, though they are used together in the same context, appar- ently with no distinction of meaning (Ro 3^- "• ', Gal 2'").

It is not necessary to discover an essen- tially different implication in the exceptional usage of tlie prepositions ^iri (Ac 3'", Pli 3") and /card (He IF- ", cf. Mt 9^) in this connexion : ^irl is appar- ently to be taken in a quasi-temporal sense, ' on faith,' giving the occasion of the divine act, and Kara, very similarly in the sense of conformability, 'in contormity with faith.'

Not infrequently we meet also with a construction with the preposition if which properly designates the sphere, but which in passages like Gal 2-'", Col 2', 2 'rh 2" appears to pass over into the conception of instrumentality. So little indeed is faith conceived as containing in itself the energy or ground of salvation, tliat it is consistently represented as, in its origin, itself a gratuity from God in the prosecution of His saving work.

It comes, not of one's own strength or virtue, but only to those who are chosen of God for its reception (2 Th 2"), and hence is His gift (Eph 6', cf. 2", Ph 1=»), through Christ (Ac 3'«, Ph 1», 1 P 1-', cf. He 12^), by the Spirit (2 Co 4", Gal 5"), by means of the preached word (Ro 10", Gal 3, •) ; and as it is thus obtained from God (2 P 1', Jude ', I P 1"), thanks are to be returned to God for it (Col 1, 2 Th 1»).

Thus, even here all boasting is excluded, and salvation is conceived in all its elements as the jiure product of unalloyed grace, issuing not from, but in, good works (Kidi 2"'"). The place of faith in the process of salva- tion, as biblically conceived, could scarcely, there- fore, be better described than by the use of the scholastic term 'instrumental cause.'

Not in one portion of the Scrijilures alone, but throughout their whole extent, it is conceived as a boon from above which comes to men, no doubt through the channels of their own activities, but not as if it were an ellect of their energies, but rather, as it has been lincly phrased, as n gift which (Jod lays in the lap of the soul.

'With the heart,' indeed, 'man bclieveth unto righteousness'; but this be- lieving does not arise of itself out of any heart Indifferently (Mt 13'), nor is it grounded in the heart's own potencies ; it is grounded rather in the freely-giving goodness of God, and comes to man as a oenofaction out of heaven.

The effects of faith, not being the immediate pro- duct of faith itself but of that energy of God which was exhibited in raising Jesus from the dead and on which dependence is now placed for raising us with Him into ne^vness of life (Col 2''^), would seem to depend directly only on the fact of faith, leaving questions of its strength, quality, and the like more or less to one side. We find a proportion, indeed, suggested between faith and its effects (Mt 9'' 8'», cf. S" \S^ 17, Lk 7' 17°).

Certainly there is a fatal doubt, which vitiates with its double-mindedness every approach to God (Ja l"', cf. 4, Mt 21-', Mk 11^, Ro 4 14=, Jude ^). But Jesus deals with notable tenderness with those of 'little faith,' and His apostles imitated Him in this (Mt 6"- » 14" 16» 17, Lk 1228, Mk 9«, Lk 17', cf. Ro 14'- », 1 Co 8', and see Doubt). The effects of faith may possibly vary also with the end for which the trust is exer- cised (cf.

Mk 10" Iva dLvap\4i/a with Gal 2"' (wuTrev- ffaficf tva SiKaiioBuifui'). But he who humbly but confidently casts himself on the God of salvation has the assurance that he shall not be put to shame (Ro 11" 9^), but shall receive the end of his faith, even the salvation of his soul (1 P P). This salvation is no doubt, in its idea, received all at once ( Jn 3^, 1 Jn 5") ; but it is in its very nature a process, and its stages come, each In its order.

First of all, the believer, renouncing by the very act of faith his own righteousness whicifi is out of the law, receives that 'righteousness which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God on faith' (Ph S', cf. Ro 3-^ 4" 9S0 103. io_ 2 Co 5=', Gal 5», He 11', 2 P 1').

On the ground of this righteousness, which in its origin is the ' righteous act ' of Christ, constituted by His ' obedience ' (Ro 5"- "), and comes to the believer as a 'gift' (Ro 5"), being reckoned to htm apart from works (Ro 4°), he that believes in Christ is justified in God's sight, received into His favour, and made the recipient of the Holy Spirit (Jn 7", cf. Ac 5^-), by wliose indwelling men are constituted the sons of God (Ro 8").

And if children, then are they heirs (Ro 8"), assured of an incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance, reserved in heaven for them ; and meanwhile they are guarded by tlie X)ower of God through faith unto this gloriously complete salvation (1 P l*-»).

Thus, though the immediate effect of faith is only to make the lieliever possessor before the judgment-seat of God of the alien righteousness wrought out by Clirist, tlirough tliis one effect it draws in its train the whole series of saving acts of God, and of saving ell'ects on the soul. Being justified by faith, the enmity which has existed between the sinner and God has been abolished, and he has been introduced into tlie very family of God, and made sharer in all the blessings of His hou.

se (Eph 2"'). Being justified by faith, he lias peace with God, and rejoices in the hone of the glory of God, and is enabled to meet the trials of life, not merely with patience but with ioy (Ro 5").

Being justified by faith, he has already working within him the life which the Son has brought into the world, and by which, through the operations of the Spirit which those who believe in Him receive (Jn 7"»), he is enabled to overcome the world lying in the evil one, and, kept by God from the evil one, to sin not (1 Jn 5'»). In a word, because we are justified by faith, we are, through faith, endowed with all the privileges and supplied witli all the graces of the children of God.

(See further the articles on the several stages of the saving process. ) LiTERATtTRB.— Schlatter, DerGlaube im NT {\i\c\-aAna a section on ' Iter Glaube vor Jesus ') is the most comprehensive work oa the biblical idea of faith. The general subject is also treated by Lutz, BihlUcht Dot/matik, 312 ; H. Schultz, ' Gcrechtigkeit aui dem Glauhen im A. u. NT' (in JDTA, 18G2, p. 610); Hofmann, SchriftbetreU, i. 381: Biehm, Lehrbr. d. Hebnierbr. 700; Creraer, Bib. Theol. tfx. «.

rimt, wtrrti^ ; Hatch, E»gaya in Biblical Greek, 8.1. For OT, cf. the relevant sections in the treatises on OT Theologn, especially those of Oehler, H. Schultx, Riehra, Dillmann ; and the commentaries on the passages, especially Delitzsch on Genesis and Habakkuk, For NT, cf. Huther, •?«ii und nmuur im NT' (in JBDTh, 1S72, p. IS2), and the relevant sections in the general treatises on HT Theology, especially those of Neander {Pfianzuiw, etc.)

, Schmid, Reuss, Weiss, Beysclilag, Holtzmann, and in the treatises on the theolojj^y of the several NT writers, such M Wendt, The Teaching oj' Jesui ; Usteri, Paulinischer Lehrbegr.; Pfleiderer, Pariiijiunn ; Stevens, The Pauline Theology ; Lipeius, Paulinitche Jtfchl/erligungslehre ; Schnedermann, De fide% ratione ethica Paulina ; Uausleiter, ' Was versteht Paulus unt«r christUchem Glauben ?' (in Gre\fgwutder Studies, p. 159); Kiehm, Lehrbegr. d. Hebraerbr. j Reuss, ' Die Johan.

Theologie ' (in Bei- triige iur d. Theol. Wuaenschaji, L 66) ; Kostlin, Lehrbegr. Johann. ; Weiss, Der Johann, Lehrbegr. ; Stevens, The Johannine Theology ; Weiss, Der Petrin. Lehrbegr. : also such commentaries as kiickert on Romaiis ; Sanday, Headlam on Romans ; Li^litfoot on Galatians ; Haupt on 1 John ; Mayor on Jamee ; Spitta on James. The whole body of doctrinaft discussion may be reviewed in De Moor, Comment ariug in J. Marckii Compendium, iv. 287 f. ; cf.

also John Ball, A Treatise 0/ Faith (3rd ed. London, 1637). Julius Kostlin, Dtr Glaube, 8ein Wesen, Grand und Gegenstand (1SS9), and Der Glaube urid seine Bedeutung /iir ErkerUniss, Lebenurid Kirche(lS9\). For some interesting historical notes, see Hamack, ' Die Lehre von der Seligkeit allein durch den Glauben in der alten Kirche ' (in Zeitschrift. f. Theol. u. Eirche, 1895, p. 88); E. Konig, Der Glaubensaet des Christen (1891); and for a general sun'ey, Cunningham, Historical Theology, U. pp.

66 3. B. B. Warfield. FAITHLESS occurs only Mt 17", Mk 9'9, Lk 9*>, Jn 20", and always in the sense of ' unbelieving ' (airnTTos). So Shaks. describes Shylock (71/er. q/ Ven. II. iv. 37) as 'a faithless Jew,' i.e. not ' untrustworthy,' but ' infidel,' an unbeliever in Christianity. J. Hastings. FALCON RV tr. of TrK'ayyAh, Lv 11", Dt 14" ( AV ' kite '), Job 28' (AV ' viUture '). See Gleds, Hawk, Kite, Vulture. G. E. Post.