FAITH-RESULTS OF
A.H. Strong
uses the analogy of the coupling. The coupling joins a train of cars to a
locomotive. The coupling has no power in itself. It cannot move a single car an
inch. All the power is in the locomotive. But the coupling is the link by which
the power of the locomotive is transmitted to the cars. Faith has no power in
itself; it is not a ground of salvation; it is not a good work. It is merely that
by which all the goodness and grace and glory of Christ comes to the sinner.
John H. Gerstner
Theology for Everyman, Moody, 1965, Chapter 6.
But why is
faith the means of justification? Simply because it is the
action of union with Jesus Christ. Faith is our coming to Him, our
trusting Him, our resting in Him. The moment we are united to Him, we are
immediately endowed with all that He has secured for us. We are immediately
justified before we have done a single good deed, because we are His and He is
God's. Just as a very poor woman is a very poor woman until the very moment
that she marries a wealthy man. But at the moment that she becomes his wife,
she becomes a wealthy woman. It is by means of her acceptance that she becomes
a wealthy woman, but her acceptance does not make her a wealthy woman; it is
her husband's wealth that makes her so. So faith does not justify; Christ
justifies. But faith is the act of union with Christ.
John H. Gerstner
Theology for Everyman, Moody, 1965, Chapter 6.
As followers
of Christ, we often suffer not because we are out of God's will but because we
are in it, not because we lack faith but because we have faith. We suffer not
because we need to be filled with the Spirit but because we already are.
Stronger faith does not mean less suffering, but more suffering means stronger
faith. Far from calling our faith into question, our
afflictions result in our becoming more and more like Christ Himself.
Faith and
obedience are inescapably related. There is no saving faith in God apart from
obedience to God, and there can be no godly obedience without godly faith.
John MacArthur
Romans
1-8, Moody, 1991, p. 346.
A faith which
works not for purification will work for putrefaction. Unless our faith makes
us pine after holiness, it is no better than the faith of devils,
and perhaps it is not even so good as that.
A holy man is the workmanship of the Holy Spirit.
C.H. Spurgeon
Faith and
works are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God; and he
that trusts God obeys God. He that is without faith is without works; and he
that is without works is without faith.
C.H. Spurgeon
Apart from
faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.
Written on the epitaph of William
Borden's grave.
The Bible
recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any
obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are at opposite sides of the
same coin
A.W. Tozer
Leadership, v. 12, n. 4.
Saving faith is a working faith. That faith by means of
which we are justified is the kind or quality of faith that produces
obedience and the fruit of the Spirit. In the absence of obedience, in the
absence of fruit, in the absence of submission to the lordship of Jesus, there
is doubt whether the faith is saving.
Sam Storms
The Lordship Salvation Debate, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
The doctrine of Lordship Salvation views saving faith
neither as passive nor fruitless. The faith that is the product of
regeneration, the faith that embraces the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the
cross energizes a life of love and obedience and worship. The
controversy is not a dispute about whether salvation is by faith only or by
faith plus works. All agree that we are saved by grace through faith, apart
from works (Eph. 2:8-10). But the controversy is about the nature of the faith that saves. According to
Lordship Salvation, Sola fides iustificat (faith alone justifies), sed non fides quae est sola (but not the faith which is
alone).
Sam Storms
The Lordship Salvation Debate, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
We must distinguish between the content of faith
and the consequences of faith. To say that faith issues
in good works does not mean faith is good works. To say
that works are the expression of faith does not means works are
the essence of faith.
Sam Storms
The Lordship Salvation Debate, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Important
lessons are given by this alternation of the two ideas of faith and unbelief,
obedience and disobedience. Disobedience is the root of unbelief. Unbelief is
the mother of further disobedience. Faith is voluntary submission within a
person's own power. If faith is not exercised, the true cause lies deeper than
all intellectual reasons. It lies in the moral aversion of human will and in
the pride of independence, which says, “Who is Lord over us? Why should we have
to depend on Jesus Christ?” As faith is obedience and submission, so faith
breeds obedience, but unbelief leads on to higher-handed rebellion. With
dreadful reciprocity of influence, the less one trusts, the more he disobeys;
the more he disobeys, the less he trusts.
Alexander Maclaren
Faith is
seated in the understanding, as well as the will. It has an eye to see Christ,
as well as a wing to fly to Christ.
Thomas Watson
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 102.
Assurance is
the fruit that grows out of the root of faith.
Stephen Charnock
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 21.
Jesus' gospel
of forgiveness is not unrelated to the Bible's demand for holiness. Obedience
is not a "second step" added to our faith, so that "accepting
Jesus as Savior" must be supplemented by "accepting Jesus as
Lord." We are not saved by grace
and then sanctified (made holy) by our own works. Being a Christian is not a
matter of adding our will to God's, our efforts to his. Rather…"putting away sin," which is
faith in action, is the means to persevering, which we do by depending on Jesus
from beginning to end. In other words, repenting from the disobedience of
disbelief, and the life of persevering faith that this brings about, which
entails obeying God, are all one expression of
"looking to Jesus." One cannot exist without the other… There is only
one thing, not two, that we must do to be saved: trust
God with the needs of our lives. This one thing in God's provision (now
supremely manifested in Christ) will show itself, from beginning to end, in our
many acts of repentance and obedience.
Scott Hafemann
The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 191-192.
For I seek
not to understand in order that I may believe; but I believe in order that I
may understand, for I believe for this reason: that unless I believe, I cannot
understand.
Anselm of Canterbury
I believe in
Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but
because, by it, I see everything else.
C.S. Lewis
The beginning
of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of
anxiety.
George Muller
Signs of the Times, Christianity Today, v. 35, n. 1.
When sight ceases, it is the time for faith to work. The greater the
difficulties, the easier it is for faith. As long as human possibilities for
success remain, faith does not accomplish things as easily as when all natural
prospects fail.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p.
187. All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.
Faith
is not only necessary to salvation, it is also necessary to live a life
pleasing to God. Faith enables us to claim the promises of God – but it also
enables us to obey the commands of God. Faith enables us to obey when obedience
is costly or seems unreasonable to the natural mind.
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 139-140. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
Throughout
the world, in nation after nation, men and women have died for their Christian
faith. The very least we can do is live for our faith.
Author Unknown
The fear of
death is ingrafted in the common nature of all men,
but faith works it out of Christians.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 71.
Helplessness
united with faith produces prayer, for without faith there can be no prayer.
Ole Hallesby
Quoted in: Reformation and Revival
Journal, v. 13, n. 3, p. 53.
Faith does not require external confirmation but believes
God in spite of appearances.
Oswald Sanders
Understanding
is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe,
but believe that you may understand.
Augustine