Gold Tried in the Fire

One wonders if anything has ever been talked about so much and yet understood so little as what faith is. Yet it is an essential ingredient of the three-word formula, "righteousness by faith," which has been discussed so much, that some think they are weary of hearing about it.

But since New Testament faith itself is a world largely undiscovered, New Testament righteousness by faith is also a realm of truth largely awaiting exploration. While it is destined to enlighten the earth with glory, Christ assures us that at the present time we are actually "poor, blind, and naked" in understanding it, while we have imagined ourselves "rich and increased with goods." Discovering the fabulous secrets of the gospel is a more fascinating search than diving for Spanish gold in sunken treasure.

One reason so many find the topic righteousness by faith, as presented in the gospel story, dull is that the dynamic New Testament idea of faith is rarely seen. It once "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6), according to the enemies of the gospel; and if the true idea ever gets unwrapped again, the results will be the same.

But the common "evangelical" idea of faith can never turn the world upside down. This is because it is basically self-seeking; yet millions of Christians naively suppose that this egocentric preoccupation is perfectly proper. Instead of self-seeking with worldly, materialistic objectives in mind, you merely transfer your concern to real estate in heaven, and presto, your self-seeking becomes a holy quest. Faith is then conceived of as your trust that you will get the great reward you seek. Is this not the same root of self-seeking, only on a higher, disguised spiritual plane?

New Testament faith is always something far greater than egocentric trust. The best known verse in the Bible discloses Jesus' own definition of faith: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

God does the loving; God does the giving; we do the believing. (Remember: believing and having faith is the same word in the original language.) Our faith (believing) is dependent on His loving and giving. Such faith could not even exist if there were no revelation of God's love first; everything depends on that loving and giving on the part of God. Christ's definition of faith here is seen to be our heart appreciation of God's loving us and His giving of His Son for us. Such faith cannot be egocentric in nature.

Paul's powerful idea of faith is built on the foundation of Jesus' definition: "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Romans 10:10. The revelation of God's love must come first, for no man can believe without it. Then "faith ... worketh by love." Galatians 5:6. Because faith is not a superficial, sentimental emotion, it grips human hearts at its deepest level of affection and profound feeling. A human being without this response is a human being without faith, the ultimate state of every unbelieving soul. Believing "with the heart" leads to the awakening of love by a revelation of love; yet Paul dares not say faith is the same thing as love. The experience of genuine faith leads to genuine love. Love is a gift from outside man's selfish nature.

But, wonder of wonders, that cold sinful heart can be awakened to appreciate God's love when it is revealed at a place called Calvary. And that is Paul's idea of faith. God so loved that He gave the gift of Christ, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." Romans 3:25. We may have become blasé by the familiar phraseology, but it evoked a magnificent response in human hearts when Paul wrote it.

How the Cross Exposed the Dimensions of God's Love

Consider what had happened when Jesus came to earth. The Son of God had become one "with us," closer and dearer than a brother. All our human, long-dormant capacities for affection, devotion, and aspiration were aroused as never before, because God created man in His image. It was not that we loved Jesus as a human being (in His weakness we could love Him as a human being), but we could also worship Him; we could adore Him without the guilt of idolatry. He was a man, but He was also "God with us." Matthew 1:23. Never had earth known such a Person. Our love for Him in His weakness was mingled with awe and reverence for His divinity.

And then as did His disciples, we saw Him murdered, broken, bleeding. We saw His blood flow freely, yet we had an indefinable conviction that we were somehow involved in His murder, because we realized that our sinful mind is "enmity against God." From this point of view, even we, in the person of His disciples had been angry with Him because He loved us so much that He would not save Himself or seek political power and material riches. Then we had proved false to Him and forsook Him. One of us had even denied Him, and another had betrayed Him—all of us: We were hiding, or silent, at His trial.

Never had the sight of blood so moved human hearts as when we saw Him die like that. It was indescribable. Hope of reward in heaven, fear of punishment in hell, all egocentric concern were alike cast out by this magnificent new passion of' 'faith in his blood.''

This was the faith in Paul's justification by faith. When he spoke of "being now justified by his blood" (Romans 5:9), it was in this context: "Peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die [such as Alcestis being willing to die for her husband, the good, handsome Admetus in the well-known Greek legend], but God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners [enemies, verse 10] Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. Astounding! This was the message of love that turned the ancient world upside down.

Two Greek words in the New Testament are essential to understanding the gospel. The first is love (agape), self-sacrificing love, and the second is our word which is dependent on it—-faith.

The Key Word of the Bible: Agape

As a noun or verb, agape (love) occurs some 300 times in the New Testament. Its most thrilling use is John's sublime equation, the high point of the New Testament: "God is love [agape]." 1 John 4:8. There is a "breadth, and length, and depth, and height" (Ephesians 3:18) of agape seen only in the cross, a love as much greater than our best human love as a mountain towers over a grain of sand.

We could never invent such love as led Jesus to His cross, for it is unworldly, something that could come only from above. It does not depend on the beauty or goodness of its object, as does our natural human love. It creates value in its otherwise worthless object, whereas our love weakly depends on the value of its object.

Agape does not seek to climb up higher, but is willing to step down lower, "even [to] the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8), the equivalent of the second death, a death that includes hell within it. Such love is the wonder of earth and heaven because the death of the cross was universally regarded as the curse of God, the utter and final hiding of His face. And yet the Father's love was equal to the Son's, for He "so loved that he gave." The Son gave Himself to endure the horror of that hell for us.

The Human Response That God's Agape Made Possible

The second key word pistis, "faith," occurs in the New Testament as a noun or verb some 500 times. It is by no means the equivalent of trust, although of course a trust is included in it. But when Paul spoke of trust, he always used a different word. (We will give more attention to this later.) When we superficially define New Testament faith as trust, we imply a basic foundation of insecurity which creates egocentric, fearful concern. We trust our bank because we are afraid to hide our money under the mattress. We trust the police because we are afraid to walk the streets without knowing they are around. We trust the government because we fear the alternative—anarchy. To say that we trust Christ for our salvation can be far short of the magnificent faith of the apostles, because such trust can still be tied to our egocentric radius of selfish concern.

Such trust may be ever so good and justifiable in the light of sinful man's natural self-centeredness. But it is not New Testament faith. This phenomenon which was repeatedly spoken of as "the faith" must be understood, or we can never grasp what happened in the time of the apostles. The content of their faith depended on a clear appreciation of the content of agape. Destroy or weaken the idea of agape, and you automatically destroy or weaken the inner content of faith. And since justification by faith is the only way we can be "put right with God," it is no surprise that Satan has cleverly worked to corrupt the meaning of agape so that he could corrupt the meaning of faith, and thus do away with the true gospel.

This clever maneuver on his part can be traced in the history of the early church, and is the reason why there are so many conflicting concepts of righteousness by faith.

In our next chapter we must uncover the exciting story of how Satan stole away from sincere Christian people the (truth of God's love and the truth of New Testament faith.