80 i have heretofore tried to show that sanctification is brought about in the soul by the Spirit of Christ, through faith, not without but with our cooperation. i now wish to call attention to the nature or psychology of faith as a mental act or state. my theological teacher held that FAITH WAS AN INTELLECTUAL ACT OR STATE, a conviction or firm persuasion that the doctrines of the Bible are true. so far as i can recall, this was the view of faith that i heard everywhere advanced.
an OBJECTION TO THIS VIEW was made. the objection was this: intellectual convictions and states are INVOLUNTARY and so CANNOT BE PRODUCED BY ANY EFFORT OF THE WILL. consequently, if FAITH were an intellectual act, it WOULD ALSO BE INVOLUNTARY, and WE COULD NOT BE EXPECTED TO EXERCISE FAITH. if this were the case, faith could not be a virtue.
THE REPLY TO THIS OBJECTION was this: we control the attention of the mind by an effort of the will OUR RESPONSIBILITY therefore is to SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE THAT WILL CONVINCE THE INTELLECT. it was also replied that unbelief is a sin because it is the result of failing to search for and accept the evidence of the truth and that faith is a virtue because it involves the consent and effort of the will to search out the truth.
i have met with this erroneous notion of the nature of christian faith often since i was first licensed to preach. especially in my early ministry, i found that GREAT STRESS WAS LAID ON BELIEVING 'THE ARTICLES OF FAITH', and it was held that faith consisted in believing with an unwavering conviction the doctrines about Christ. hence, an acceptance of the doctrines, the doctrines, the doctrines of the Gospel was very much insisted on as constituting faith. but these doctrines i
81 had been brought to accept intellectually and firmly before i was converted. and, when told to believe, i replied that i did believe the Gospel and up to the very moment of my conversion, i was not and could not be convinced of my error.
at the moment of my conversion or when i first exercised faith, i saw my ruinous error. i found that FAITH CONSISTED not in an intellectual conviction that the things affirmed in the Bible about Christ are true, but IN HEART'S TRUST IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST. i learned that God's testimony concerning Christ was designed to lead me to trust Christ, to confide in His person as my savior and that to stop short in merely believing about Christ was a fatal mistake that inevitably left me in my sins.
it was as if i were sick almost unto death and someone recommended to me a physician who was surely able and willing to save my life. it was if i had listened to the testimony concerning him until fully convinced that He was both able and willing to save my life and then was told to believe in Him and my life would be secure. now, if i understood this to mean nothing more than to accept the testimony with the firmest conviction, i would reply, 'I do believe in Him with an undoubting faith. i believe every word You have told me regarding Him'. but if i stopped there, I would, of course, lose my life. in addition to this firm intellectual conviction of his willingness and ability, it would be ESSENTIAL TO REQUEST HIS HELP, TO COME TO HIM, TO TRUST HIS PERSON, TO ACCEPT HIS TREATMENT. when I had intellectually accepted the testimony concerning Him with an unwavering belief, the next and the indispensable thing would be a voluntary act of trust or confidence in His person, a committal of my life to Him and His sovereign treatment in the cure of my disease.
now this illustrates the true nature or psychology of faith as it actually exists in consciousness. it does not consist in any degree of intellectual knowledge or acceptance of the doctrines of the Bible. the firmest possible persuasion that every word said in the bible regarding God and Christ is true is not faith. these truths and doctrines reveal God in Christ only so far as they point to God in Christ and teach the soul how to find Him by an act of trust in His person.
82 WHEN WE FIRMLY TRUST IN HIS PERSON AND COMMIT OUR SOULS TO HIM BY AN UNWAVERING ACT OF CONFIDENCE IN HIM FOR ALL THAT HE IS AFFIRMED TO BE TO US IN THE BIBLE, this is faith. we trust Him upon the testimony of God. we trust Him for what the doctrines and facts of the bible declare Him to be to us. this act of trust unites our spirits to Him in a union so close that we directly receive from Him a current of eternal life. faith, in consciousness, seems to complete the divine circle and the life of God is instantly imparted to our souls. God's life and light and love and peace and joy seem to flow to us as naturally and spontaneously as the galvanic current from a battery. for the first time, we then understand what Christ meant by our being united to Him by faith, as the branch is united to the vine. Christ is then and thus revealed to us as God. we are conscious of direct communion with Him and we know Him as we know ourselves by His direct activity within us. we then know directly, in consciousness, that He is our life and that we receive from Him moment by moment, as it were, an impartation of eternal life.
...when faith is weak, the current of the divine life will flow so mildly that we are scarcely conscious of it. but when faith is strong and all-embracing, it lets a current of the divine life of love into our souls so strong that it seems to permeate both soul and body. we then know in consciousness what it is to have Christ's Spirit within us as a power to save us from sin and keep our feet in the path of loving obedience.
from personal conversation with hundreds - and I may say thousands -of Christian people, i have been struck with the application of Christ's words, as recorded in the fifth chapter of John, to their experience. Christ said to the jews, 'you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of Me. but you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life'. John 5.39-40
83 they stopped short in the Scriptures. they satisfied themselves with ascertaining what the Scriptures said about Christ but did not use the light thus received to come to Him by an act of loving trust in His person.
..many people, understanding the Confession of Faith as summarizing the doctrines of the Bible, very much neglect the bible and rest in a belief of the articles of faith. others, more cautious and more in earnest, search the Scriptures to see what they say about Christ, but stop short and rest in the formation of correct theological opinions. but others and they are the only saved ones, love the Scriptures intensely because they testify of Jesus. they search and devour the Scriptures because they tell the who Jesus is and what they may trust Him for. they do not stop short and est in this testimony, but by an act of loving trust go directly to Him - to His person - thus joining their souls to Him. this joining forms a union that receives from Him, bu a direct divine communication, the things for which they are led to trust Him. this is certainly Christian experience. this is receiving from Christ the eternal life that God has given us in Him. This is saving faith.
84 the contemplation of the attitude and experience of numbers of professed christians in regard to Christ brings surprise and disappointment, considering that the Bible is in their hands. many of them appear to have stopped short in theological opinions more or less firmly held . this they understand to be faith. others are more in earnest and they do not stop short of a more or less certain conviction of the truths of the Bible concerning Christ. others have strong impressions of the obligations of the law, which move them to begin an earnest life of works and which leads them into bondage. the pray from a sense of duty; they are dutiful, but not loving, not confiding. they have no peace and no rest, except in cases where they persuade themselves that they have done their duty...
they read and perhaps search the scriptures to learn their duty and to learn about Christ. they intellectually believe all that they understand the Scriptures to say about Him. but when Christ is thus commended to their confidence, they do not by an act of personal commitment to Him so join their souls to Him as to receive the influx of His life and light and love. they do not, by a simple act of personal loving trust in His person, receive the current of His divine life and power into their own souls. they do not thus take hold of His strength and interlock their beings with His. in other wards, they do not truly believe. hence, they are not saved.
Oh, what a mistake this is! i fear it is very common. no, it seems to be certain that it is appallingly common, or else how can the state of the church be accounted for? is that which we see in the great
85 majority of church members all that Christ does for and in His people when they truly believe? no, no! there is great error here. the psychology of faith is mistaken and an intellectual conviction of the truth of the Gospel is supposed to be faith. and some whose opinions seem to be right in regard to the nature of faith rest in their philosophy and fall short of exercising faith.
let no one suppose that i underestimate the value of the facts and doctrines of the Bible. i regard a knowledge and belief of them as of fundamental importance. i have no sympathy with those who undervalue them and treat doctrinal discussion and preaching as of minor importance, nor can i assent to the teaching of those who want us to preach Christ and not the doctrines concerning Him...
the error to which i call attention does not consist in laying too much stress on teaching and believing the facts and doctrines of the Word. no, it consists in stopping short of trusting the personal Christ for what those facts and doctrines teach us to trust Him for.
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This is not new to me, but good that I read it...thought-provoking, or should I say soul-provoking or spirit-provoking? Sometimes I feel that I was more honest with myself and others in my teens and early twenties, when I considered myself an agnostic. That is to say, there was no pretense then of "knowing" or believing things that I only half-"knew" or "believed". In the years since then, having returned or maybe initially come to faith in Jesus, I can often launch into "Christianese" and even speak of my "relationship with Christ". But unfortunately, it too often seems more like what Finney speaks of here in his life prior to true saving faith. That is, there seems to be more of the "intellectual assent" to points of faith, than of a heart-felt trust of and commitment to a person with whom I have a very real and deep relationship. Not to say the latter is NEVER present...just that it is more the exception than the rule, and even when present it seems much less than what Finney is implying here.
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