# 14. Faith in Christ
The things done for us will truly be as if they were not, unless they are believed. Therefore, to the untaught and unbelieving barbarian or infidel, the universe is without a sin offering, a Sun of Righteousness, a Lord, Redeemer, and a Holy Spirit. Faith is necessary only as a means of attainment; as a means of enjoyment. It is not, then, an arbitrary requirement or demand, but a gracious means of salvation.
Faith in Christ is the result of belief. Belief is the cause; and trust, confidence, or faith in Christ, the effect. "The faith," sometimes means the truth to be believed. Sometimes it means "the belief of the truth;" but here we speak of it metonymically, putting the effect for the cause — or calling the effect by the name of the cause. To believe what a person says, and to trust in him are not always the same. True, indeed, they often are; for if a person speaks to us about himself, and tells us matters of great interest to ourselves, requiring confidence in him, to believe what he says, and to believe or trust in him, are in effect, one and the same thing. Suppose a physician presents himself to someone who is sick, stating his ability and willingness to heal him; to believe is to trust in him, and to put ourselves under his guidance; provided, only, we love health rather than sickness, and life rather than death.
While, then, faith is the simple belief of testimony, or of the truth, and can never be more or less than that; as a principle of action it relates to a person or thing important to us: and is confidence or trust in that person or thing. Now the belief of what Christ says about himself ends in trust or confidence in him: and as the Christian religion is a personal matter, both as it concerns subject and object, that faith in Christ which is essential to salvation is not the belief of any doctrine, testimony, or truth, abstractly, but belief in Christ; trust or confidence in him as a person, not a thing.1 We accept Paul's definition of the term and the reality, as perfectly simple, clear, and sufficient. For the term faith, he substitutes the belief of the truth. "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through the sanctification of the Spirit; through the belief of the truth."2 And of the reality, he says, "Faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."3 And John says, it is "receiving testimony," for "If we receive the testimony of men," as a principle of action, or put trust in it, "the testimony of God is greater," and of course will produce greater confidence.4 Any belief, then, that does not end in our personal confidence in Jesus as the Christ, and lead to trustful submission to him, is not genuine faith; but a dead faith, and cannot save the soul.
1 See the Essay on the Foundation of Christian Union, on the terms fact, testimony, faith, etc., where this subject is treated at length.
2 2 Th 2:13. 3 Heb. 11:1. 4 1 Jn 5:9.