Faith and the Faith

Front matter

Arenas ance Sees

Wie Vielen eter

A MANUAL OF SHORT DAILY PRAYERS FOR FAMILIES

Contents

LECTURE I FAITH

Plan and Purpose New Testament uses of the word Progress in its apprehension . in the Gospels, fidelity and trust in St. Paul, a Yapiopa ‘ in Hebrews, a source of knowledge : in St. John, the verb, victory and life Faith, the principle of religion

Note on the words zio7zS, fides, faith, belief, trust Value of variety in words

II

I may be pardoned for inserting here, almost by way of parenthesis, a note as to the imperfection of our language and the consequent crippling of our thought in regard to faith. In English we have the noun which not only translates but represents the Greek word for ‘faith’; it comes to us through the Latin, which has ultimately the same stem as the word used by the New Testament writers. And the meaning of that stem (ziS-, fid-) is exactly that which lies at the basis of the interpretation and extension of interpretation which we have been thus far considering. Its ancient meaning was to ‘bind’; in fact ‘bind’ is another word from the same stem, and thus fides, whence came the French foy or foi and the English fey now lengthened into faith, is connected in signification with the generally accepted derivation of religio, that which binds together or perhaps ‘obliges’ us to duty. But we have no English verb corresponding to faith, as the Greeks have ziorevevy and the Latins fidere. For lack thereof we are forced to borrow from another stem the verb ‘ believe,’ which indeed serves our purpose fairly well, but which hinders the unity and continuity of our thought. We cannot without an effort make the nouns ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ mean exactly the same; nor should we be willing to substitute the latter for the former in reading and studying the Bible. The stem of ‘belief’ after the prefix be- (or ge-) is that which still appears in our colloquial word for choice; that is ‘lief’ which we desire or like, or that which we deem valuable, and then that in which we are willing to place our confidence; and, whether we think of the derivation or not, it is not easy to make the verb which we are forced to use correspond to the noun which it seems to us we naturally use. We believe many assertions which are in no wise matters of faith; we believe many persons of whom we should not be willing to say that we have faith in them or even (and here we have made in following the ancients an important difference) that we believe in them. There we is still a third word which is both verb and noun, and which in its form as in its use betokens truth and in its derivation means belief, the word ‘trust’; it is a good and strong word, but it does not carry with it now a sacred connotation. There is value of a certain kind in this variety of words and of sounds, a value which good translators into English—notably those who have given us our vernacular Bible and Prayer Book—have discerned and have commended to us. But, on the other hand, one has to regret that, in writing on faith and studying its divine meaning, we are forced to use a verb which gives neither the sound nor the equivalent signification of the noun which is constantly employed. Let this, however, serve for apology; we return to the consideration of New Testament teaching.

Our study of the use of the noun ‘ faith’ and the verb ‘believe,’ or rather of the Greek words which they represent, in the New Testament, brings us to the consideration of the meaning of the word ‘faith’ when in Greek it has, and when in English it ought to have, the article. Is the meaning of The Faith distinctly different from that of Faith? Does ‘the faith’ ever mean in the New Testament the Creed or the substance of the Creed, the statement of truths or doctrines believed, as when in the Catechism the child is bidden to rehearse the Articles of his Belief? The answer to the question must be based, in part at least, on technical considerations, but it is certainly important and not without interest to the student.

It does no injustice to the learning of the recent revisers of the current English version of the New Testament to say that in many cases they have held so closely to the form of the Greek text that they have failed to present with exactness its meaning in English. In fact, it seems certain that they were so familiar with the original, and had it so constantly in their minds, that it required an effort for them to consider just how it should be presented in a translation into our language; they thought the New

Testament more easily in Greek than in their mother tongue. Thus they seem to have labored to represent the Greek perfect tense by the English form which bears the same name, and the aorist tense by the simple past of our language. Of course, they could not do this always; unavoidable considerations of sense sometimes forbade; but they did it in many places where a man or woman in the habit of reading and speaking good English, yet unacquainted with the classics, would instinctively make a correction, and where such a one when he hears it read in the revised version knows that a correction ought to be made. ‘Tenses do not run parallel in languages of diverse moulds, and they cannot be made so to run. It is largely thus with the article, though here the error is oftener inherited from the old version than in the case of the tenses. The Greek uses it in cases where it is not in the least emphatic, but is rather “ continuous,” denoting a former, often anarthrous, use of the word to which it is prefixed, and has the form of a mild demonstrative; and from this it gets a sort of unemphatic possessive force, so that it is best rendered by such a possessive. Besides this, there are cases in which nouns without the article, especially those which have by some sort of personification gained the qualities of “ proper ” nouns, have thus become emphatic. An example of the fact that both the use and the omission of the article may give a distinctive meaning is seen in the two passages in the book of the Acts in which we learn of the gift of the Holy Spirit by means of the laying-on of the Apostles’ hands. We read in the eighth chapter that Peter and John prayed for the baptized converts at Samaria that they might receive Holy Spirit (xvedya ayiov), and that when they had laid their hands upon them they did receive Holy Spirit; that Simon Magus saw that by their imposition of hands the Spirit (ro zvedua) was given, and thereupon asked that he might buy the power of conferring Holy Spirit (xvedpa &yov).* But later, in the nineteenth chapter, we read that St. Paul questioned some disciples at Ephesus, asking them if when they became * Acts viii. 15, 18, 19.

disciples they received Holy Spirit (zvetpa aywv), and that they confessed that they did not then hear of Holy Spirit; whereupon he laid hands on them and the Holy Spirit (70 zvedpa ro ayiov) came upon them.* It certainly is not true here, however it may look in other cases, that, as applied to the Spirit of God, the word zvedpua with the article means His Person and without the article designates His operation upon the souls of men.f Again, one who reads the earlier chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, accepting as invariable the canon that vojos means law in general and 6 voyos means the law given to the Jews, the Mosaic law, will find that the canon, helpful as it is in the study of some important passages, fails in others which are more difficult even if perhaps less important. Novos does sometimes mean the law given to the Israelites by Moses; 6 vojos may mean God’s_ general dispensation through law.t In the Epistle to the Galatians we find an example of what I have * Acts xix. 2, 6. f See, however, Milligan, Ascension, etc., pp. 204, 199. + Galatians iii. 17 ff., where both the English and the American revisers translate véuoc by ‘ the law.’

called the distinctive article applied to vopos followed presently by a like use with the word ziozs, which will serve to bring our thoughts back to what we were saying about this word. “The law, being later than the covenant,” says St. Paul, “cannot annul the covenant. The inheritance did not spring out of law; the law was brought in for transgressions’ sake,” and so on.* He speaks with a perfectly natural common-sense use or omission of the article, according as he needs it or does not need it for the carrying on of his argument, which is no less forceful because it is colloquial. From this, as so often, he passes to speak of faith. “ All are reckoned sinners in Scripture, in order that the promise through faith (d:@ ziorews) of Jesus Christ might be given to those who have faith (rots xzorevovorv). But before the faith (ryv xtor1v) came we were kept in ward under law (vo voporv),” f and so on. Has the word ‘faith,’ then, by being spoken or read

*In Romans ii, 12-15, the English revisers distinguish between véuoc and 6 véuo¢; the American revisers go back to the old version and say always ‘ the law.’

+ Galatians iii. 22, 23.

with the article, passed into a new meaning? No one, I suppose, would claim that it is so in every case; yet it is almost impossible for any one of us when he hears of ‘the faith’ to think otherwise than that the Creed—or what is substantially the Creed—is meant. Take the Lord’s words at end of His short parable of the Importunate Widow: “ When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” Whatever the context, we understand by this rendering of the words that the Speaker suggests that at His return faith—belief in God and trust in Him, the quality of fidelity and the grace which justifies—will have been sadly weakened even if it has not disappeared. But read it, as the revisers in the margin read it, because the Greek word for ‘faith’ has the article, “When the Son of Man cometh, will He find the faith on the earth?” and it would require a mental effort to persuade ourselves that it is not implied that at the last there shall be danger of a loss of acceptance of the formulas of Christian belief and of neglect to confess the fundamental truths of the Christian religion. As we have been in

FAITH Q1 the habit of reading the words, they urge us to hold fast to faith; as it is suggested that we may read them, they warn us against the loss of the Creed. Either would be a great and grievous calamity, and either would to a serious extent involve the other; but there can be no doubt that if we would keep the exact meaning of the Lord’s warning we must read, not ‘ the faith,’ but ‘ faith.’ The revisers merely meant to tell us that there is an article in the text—a fact which does not concern the ordinary reader.

I have made these excuses by way of introducing a really important question as to the meaning of certain passages in the New Testament which are generally thought to apply the words ‘the faith’ to the Creed or what was practically its equivalent in the early days. When we read, early in the Acts of the Apostles, that “a great multitude of the [Jewish] priests were giving their obedience to the faith,’ * it seems almost to tell us that they were making profession of Christianity in some set form of words. Further, when we find St. Paul de-

* Acts vi. 7.

claring, as he awaits the martyr’s death and the martyr’s crown, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith,” * he seems to be bearing witness not only to his fulfilment of duty as a disciple in the conflict and race of life but also to his maintenance of Christian doctrine as a preacher and apostle. Still more, when we find an apostolic man of the second generation—for such we may think the writer of St. Jude’s Epistle to have been—urging upon his disciples the duty of “contending for the faith which was in one act delivered to the saints,” f most of us feel quite sure that we have a proof of the early existence of a formula known as “ the faith,” so early indeed that it must have come from literally apostolic days. Now, we can hardly doubt that from the very first there must have been some confession of belief on the part of those who came to be baptized, as in the ancient form of words “TI_ believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”; and it is practically certain that we can trace back to the close of the first century the * TI. Timothy iv. 7. tJude 3.

essentials of the more full formula which we call the Apostles’ Creed. But it seems quite certain that “the faith” in the Scriptures is not used in a sense which passes beyond what we have noted in the Gospels and the Epistles as its simple and normal but progressive meaning.

Look at the texts which have just been quoted. When the official leaders of the Jewish people began to profess allegiance to the new principle of faith in the name of Christ which the Apostles were preaching and which was manifested with great power in the working of the Spirit of God, when they believed the testimony given to Him as the living Christ in Whose death they had but lately borne a part, the pleased narrator tells us not only that the Word of God was increasing and the number of disciples multiplying exceedingly, but also that even of the priests a great multitude were giving submission to that power of faith which was beginning to prevail. When St. Paul had boldness to say at the end of his career that he had finished his fight in the good conflict into which he had been sent and had run the goal in the course which had been marked out for him, he dropped the metaphor—as was his wont—and added that he could be sure that he had held fast and still was holding fast his faithful allegiance. We do not hesitate to render “I have finished my course”; why can we not read before this phrase, “I have fought my good fight,” and after it, “I have kept my faithfulness to my Lord and my trust in Him”? What more can we hope to mean, we whose lips constantly repeat the venerable words of the Creed, when at our life’s close we respond to them, “All this I stedfastly believe”? And St. Jude’s solemn and almost stern exhortation that we should fight for faith, for faith which was by one great revelation and act of grace handed over to those who were called to holiness *—does not this read a solemn and deep-searching lesson of duty when we refer it to the principle of our belief, even if thence we pass to its expression? To contend for our belief, for our right and duty to believe, for that principle whence springs our life, for that gift which belongs

* Graé—‘ all at once.’

to holiness and is the basis of holiness—to contend in this sense for faith, the faith which gives and strengthens our union with Christ, that faith in Him which is His in us—this is no easy thing to require, no little thing to do. But to lose it, so St. Jude’s argument passes on, is to lose godliness and to deny the Master. And thus the beginning of this Epistle is congruous with the end, as the central word of each is the same: “Ye, beloved, building yourselves up on that most holy faith which ye have, praying in [the] Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto life eternal.”* It is an echo of the Gospel: “ Whoso hath faith in the Son hath life eternal.”

IV;

The New Testament, then, dwells on faith as a grace of character and principle of life, of action, and of knowledge, not passing quite over into the meaning which is suggested when we speak of our confession of belief as the Faith which we hold and maintain. This fact may help us to understand, in regard to certain aspects of Christian belief and their expression in words which we propose to consider, the immense importance of faith and of its right use. That the soul of man should be faithful because of its personal relation with God—a relation which is perhaps best expressed by the old word ‘affiance’—that it should have that trust in God revealed in His Son which brings it into His very life, that man should learn truth far beyond any evidence of the senses because faith makes hope real and proves the invisible, all this is of the very essence of the soul’s life and growth. It cannot be fully described, because it cannot be brought within limitations; its operation and effect cannot be told in words, because they are spiritually discerned. From this it follows, that any form of statement in regard to matters of faith—whether we mean the faculty or grace or the truth divinely made known—must be inadequate and liable to correction. Our soundest knowledge, to adapt the great Hooker’s words, is that we know not truth as indeed it is, and our

FAITH Q7 safest eloquence concerning it is our silence. Yet speak we must, for truth must be confessed; and think we must, or the greatest gift of God within our souls will perish.

And thus the Apostle taught in the Epistle in which he was exalting the power of faith: “In heart ”’—or in our phrase, in soul—“ is men’s faith, by mouth is their confession; the former brings justification (or righteousness), the later brings salvation (or perfection).” * Selfishness of belief is selfishness of truth; as he who learns but does not teach has no fruitful knowledge, so he who believes but makes no confession of his belief has not a living faith. It is not enough for man to find how he may be just before God; he must reach far beyond this to that perfection which can be attained only in holiness. Supreme faith is supreme truth; and supreme truth must be both known and declared. Therefore it is not amiss, passing beyond the classical and the New Testament use of words, to call that which we believe our ‘belief’ and the object of our faith our ‘faith’; we thus assume a new

* Romans x. 10.

responsibility for definition and for carefulness of thought. We do indeed feel that there is a sacredness about belief in a person or faith in a truth, which will not allow us to apply the phrase lightly to others than God; but we allow ourselves, and we can scarce help it, as was just said, to call our confession by the name of belief and our apprehension of truth by the name of ‘the faith. We may not forget the source whence we derive our knowledge; but we must certify to our knowledge and certify moreover that we have tested this knowledge by our heaven-bestowed power of reason. ‘Thus it comes to pass that in the historic Church of Christ we have not only fides qua creditur but also fides cui creditur, not only faith by which we believe but also the faith which we believe. The former is of the very essence of religion, the latter is necessary for its expression and extension; the former belongs to its revelation, the latter is called forth by its history. Of the former I have spoken somewhat to-day; some considerations as to the latter are to be presented later.

FAITH ay)

Vv

Let me, however, add one consideration here, as connected with what has been thus far suggested and introductory to what is to follow. The objects of faith do not change; they are all, in the last analysis, visions of the unchanging and eternal God. The knowledge which comes from faith does grow, but its growth is in scope and in exactness; the form of thought, of expression, of assent must change, not as a rule easily nor rapidly, but with the lapse of ages and the modifications of philosophical thought, of language, of the boundaries of our ignorance. ‘The phraseology of the fourth century has been long retained, though sometimes not without adaptation or an effort at explanation; but those who decided on it did not consider it absolutely final, and it is possible that it may not endure for as many more centuries as those in which it has been so well used. ‘There was a controversy in our Church not so very long ago over certain words spoken as by authority: “ Fixedness of interpretation is of the essence of the Creeds.”

Few of us would insist on that form of words now. But, God helping us, we shall ever affirm that fixity of truth is of the essence of faith, and that the Christian faith is truly held and taught by those who receive the revelation of essential verities and declare it under the guidance of the Spirit as He ever leads the faithful in the way of truth.*

* John xvi. 13; the reading with év and the dative seems to give the better meaning.

LECTURE II

St. Mark xi. 22.

"Eyerte rior Oeov,

“Have faith in God.”

In the former lecture we undertook to study the meaning and power of faith as they are taught in the New Testament and accepted by Christians. We found that faith, which is primarily fidelity and then trust or affiance, involves a personal relation to one whom we believe and in whom we believe, and that it is thus a test of character. We found that faith is also a source of knowledge, and that it tells us of things hoped for, unseen and eternal, as our senses and the evidence of others tell us of things present, seen and temporal. We noted that, though faith baffles full definition, it can yet find expression in words; and that, though the use of the term is almost certainly later than New Testament times, ‘the Faith’ has come to mean a recognized expression of the great facts which faith has brought to our souls and our hearts. We glanced at the relation between the eternal truths with which faith has chiefly to do and their necessarily imperfect expression; and to-day we are to look a little more definitely at faith in God which we hold and the faith in God which finds utterance in our confession and our worship.

I

Faith, above all things else, is distinctly a personal relation. And its highest act, which is also its most essential and necessary act, is trust in God and fidelity to God. If its source is personal and its object is personal, then it must ultimately rest upon Him in Whom personality is recognized in its fulness, it must finally reach out to Him in Whom personality is completely expressed. We can truly say, even at the present stage of the argument, that if we believe at all we really believe God and believe in God, we take His word and put our trust in Him.

Here, at any rate, we can make the distinction, not always observed, indeed, in language but always confessed when it is brought to the mind, between believing a person and believing in a person (credere alicut and credere in aliquem), both being distinguished from believing a statement as to a person or thing (credere aliquem, aliquid, esse). A large part of our knowledge comes to us from our belief of other men’s knowledge and honesty; and practically we have no more doubt of the truth of that to which they testify than we have of the truth of that to which our own senses have borne witness. We believe many men whom we know and many whom we do not know, without incurring the charge of credulity or thoughtless assent; yet there are few men whom we have so thoroughly tried or whom we hold in such high esteem that we can say that we believe in them. God is indeed the only person in whom we can really believe, the only one on whom faith can implicitly rest (¢77), towards whom faith can with full confidence reach out (eis), in whom faith can surely dwell (ev). We believe, we say, the stability of nature’s laws, the permanence of character, the ultimate victory of righteousness; * but this is only when we find in those laws the unchanging will of God, in that character the reflection of His life, in that victory the unconquerable strength of His truth. And indeed we cannot help saying to ourselves that these things, because they are contingent, may conceivably change, but that there can be no possible change in the will, the life, the truth of God. If we seek to know somewhat of faith, we must ask as to our faith in Him, as He is a person and as we are brought into personal relations with Him.

And we shall do well to remember, as we are taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that God has never been known except by faith, and that worship and service have never been rendered to Him except on the basis of faith. ‘‘ In it the men of older time had witness borne to them,’ ft as did those of later days, and as do we. Enoch and Noah and Abraham, “in the dawn of history’s morning,’ had no more immediate or

* Westcott, The Historic Faith, I. + Hebrews xi. 2.

more easy access to truth and to the source of truth than is given to our lot “upon whom the ends of the world are come”; nay rather, they were filled with joy at the prospect of seeing this day, the Lord’s day and ours, the day of nearer approach and of clearer vision.* We walk in the steps of the father of the faithful, the friend of God, with humble confidence; but our faith is as direct as his, while his was a type or shadow of that whereof we have the very image. By faith the fathers knew God, and by faith we know Him; yet they received not the promise, because without us they could not attain perfection.

II

We cannot tell how man first came to believe that God is, still less how he came to have faith in Him. None of us, I venture to say, can remember how the knowledge of God first came to his soul or how he was persuaded that in God he might or should put his trust. Doubtless, most of us would say, a father or mother whose every word we

* Jobn viii. 56.

accepted as true told us of Him, and we believed what was said. Doubtless some experience, long passed from memory, turned this confidence in a parent into the beginning of faith in God. Doubtless our prayers and the answers to them quickened our faith, and we came to know God, as we came to know other persons, by meeting Him and speaking with Him and feeling His influence upon us. Most certainly we know God now by a real knowledge and are more sure of Him than we are of any other person, even of ourselves.

‘We may ask ourselves, as we come to years of questioning and study, how if we did not know God we should be led to the conviction that He is; or if we are forced to search for a reason for the faith which we have once had, we may inquire as to its foundation and the manner of rebuilding upon it; or we may consider how we should deal with a man who might tell us intelligently and honestly that he was in doubt whether there is a God or no. And the argument, as we should use it with ourselves or with others, is a strong one. The physical world in which we live, and with the phenomena of which we are perforce acquainted, is a world of order and of power, of usefulness and of beauty; the moral world in which we find ourselves, and in which we are brought into contact with other moral beings, is one which educates character and trains affection and will, conscience and reason; on the whole, our world is administered in the interests of happiness and of virtue; and most of us find that it bears evidence of being a world in which moral beings like ourselves are or may be prepared for a life more extended than here falls to our lot. All this might practically lead us to believe that there is an intelligent Creator with a purposeful and benevolent will, Who is also a moral governor, and Who stands in vital relations to all that He has made and especially to the rational agents to whom He gives so much happiness and power and responsibility. And, as I was saying, we press this argument from design or from moral government upon ourselves when doubts arise in our minds, or upon others when for their own sake or for ours they ask us a reason for the hope that is in us.