Faith

VIEW:42 DATA:01-04-2020

FAITH.—Noun for believe, having in early Eng. ousted ‘belief’ (wh. see) from its ethical uses. By this severance of noun and vb. (so in Lat. fides—credere, French foi—croire) Eng. suffers in comparison with German (Glaube—glauben) and Greek (pistis—pisteuô). But ‘faith’ has a noble pedigree; coming from the Latin fides, through Norman-French, it connotes the sense of personal honour and of the mutual loyalty attaching to the pledged word.
1. In OT.—This word, the normal NT expression for the religious bond, is found but twice in the OT (EV [Note: English Version.] )—in Deu_32:20, signifying steadfastness, fidelity; and in Hab_2:4, where a slightly different noun from the same Heb. stem (contained in amen and denoting what is firm, reliable), may carry a meaning identical with the above—‘the just shall live by his faithfulness’ (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ). The original term has no other sense than ‘faithfulness’ or ‘truth’ elsewhere—so in Psa_37:3 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) Psa_96:13, Deu_32:4 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), Isa_11:5 etc.; the context in Hab., however, lends to it a pregnant emphasis, suggesting, besides the temper of steadfastness, its manifestation in steadfast adherence to Jehovah’s word; under the circumstances, passive fidelity becomes active faith—‘the righteous’ Israel ‘shall live’ not by way of reward for his loyalty, but by virtue of holding fast to Jehovah’s living word (cf. Isa_1:12). If so, St. Paul has done no violence to the text in Rom_1:17, Gal_3:11. The corresponding vb. (from the root amen: in active and passive, to rely on, and to have reliance or be reliable) occurs above 20 times with God, His character, word, or messengers, for object. More than half these examples (in Ex., Dt., Ps.) refer to faith or unbelief in the mission of Moses and Jehovah’s redemptive acts at the foundation of the national Covenant. The same vb. supplies two of Isaiah’s watchwords, in Isa_7:9; Isa_28:16. The former sentence is an untranslatable epigram—‘If you will not hold fast, you shall have no holdfast!’, ‘No fealty, no safety!’; the latter leads us into the heart of OT faith, the collective trust of Israel in Jehovah as her Rock of foundation and salvation, which, as Isaiah declared (in Isa_8:12-15), must serve also for ‘a stone of stumbling and rock of offence’ to the unfaithful. This combination of passages is twice made in the NT (Rom_9:33 and 1Pe_2:6-8), since the new house of God built of Christian believers rests on the foundation laid in Zion, viz. the character and promise of the Immutable, to whom now as then faith securely binds His people. In Hab_1:5 (cited Act_13:41) Israel’s unbelief in threatened judgment, in Isa_53:1 (Joh_12:38, Rom_10:16) her unbelief in the promised salvation, coming through Jehovah’s humiliated Servant, are charged upon her as a fatal blindness. Thus the cardinal import of faith is marked at salient points of Israelite history, which NT interpreters seized with a sure instinct. At the head of the OT sayings on this subject stands Gen_15:6, the text on which St. Paul founded his doctrine of justification by faith (see Rom_4:9; Rom_4:22, Gal_3:6; also Jam_2:23); ‘and Abraham believed Jehovah, and he counted it to him for righteousness’ (JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] )—a crucial passage in Jewish controversy. St. Paul recognized in Abraham the exemplar of personal religion, antedating the legal system—the faith of the man who stands in direct heart-relationship to God. Gen_15:6 supplies the key to his character and historical position: his heart’s trustful response to Jehovah’s promise made Abraham all that he has become to Israel and humanity; and ‘the men of faith’ are his children (Gal_3:6-8). Only here, however, and in Hab_2:4, along with two or three passages in the Psalms (Psa_27:13; Psa_116:10—quoted 2Co_4:13, and possibly Psa_119:66), does faith ipso nomine (or ‘believe’) assume the personal value which is of its essence in the NT. The difference in expression between the OT and NT in this respect discloses a deep-lying difference of religious experience. The national redemption of Israel (from Egypt) lay entirely on the plane of history, and was therefore to be ‘remembered’; whereas the death and rising of our Lord, while equally historical, belong to the spiritual and eternal, and are to be ‘believed.’ Under the Old Covenant the people formed the religious unit; the relations of the individual Israelite to Jehovah were mediated through the sacred institutions, and the Law demanded outward obedience rather than inner faith—hearing the voice of Jehovah, ‘keeping his statutes,’ ‘walking in his way’; so (in the language of Gal_3:23) the age of faith was not yet. Besides this, the Israelite revelation was consciously defective and preparatory, ‘the law made nothing perfect’; when St. Paul would express to his fellow-countrymen in a word what was most precious to himself and them, he speaks not of ‘the faith’ but ‘the hope of Israel’ (Act_28:20 etc.), and the writer of Heb_11:1-40 defines the faith of his OT heroes as ‘the assurance of things hoped for’; accordingly, Hebrew terms giving to faith the aspect of expectation—trusting, waiting, looking for Jehovah—are much commoner than those containing the word ‘believe.’ Again, the fact that oppression and suffering entered so largely into the life of OT believers has coloured their confessions in psalm and prophecy; instead of believing in Jehovah, they speak of cleaving to Him, taking refuge under His wings, making Him a shield, a tower, etc. In all this the liveliness of Eastern sentiment and imagination comes into play; and while faith seldom figures under the bare abstract term, it is to be recognized in manifold concrete action and in dress of varied hue. Under the Old Covenant, as under the New, faith ‘wrought by love’ (Deu_6:5, Psa_116:1 etc., Lev_19:18 etc.), while it inspired hope.
2. In NT.—The NT use of pistis, pisteuô, is based on that of common Greek, where persuasion is the radical idea of the word. From this sprang two principal notions, meeting in the NT conception: (a) the ethical notion of confidence, trust in a person, his word, promise, etc., and then mutual trust, or the expression thereof in troth or pledge—a usage with only a casual religious application in non-Biblical Greek; and (b) the intellectual notion of conviction, belief (in distinction from knowledge), covering all the shades of meaning from practical assurance down to conjecture, but always connoting sincerity, a belief held in good faith. The use of ‘faith’ in Mat_23:23 belongs to OT phraseology (see Deu_32:20, quoted above); also in Rom_3:3, Gal_5:22, pistis is understood to mean good faith, fidelity (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘faithfulness’), as often in classical Greek. In sense (b) pistis came into the language of theology, the gods being referred (e.g. by Plutarch as a religious philosopher) to the province of faith, since they are beyond the reach of sense-perception and logical demonstration.
(1) In this way faith came to signify the religious faculty in the broadest sense,—a generalization foreign to the OT. Philo Judæus, the philosopher of Judaism, thus employs the term; quoting Gen_15:6, he takes Abraham for the embodiment of faith so understood, viewing it as the crown of human character, ‘the queen of the virtues’; for faith is, with Philo, a steady intuition of Divine things, transcending sense and logic; it is, in fact, the highest knowledge, the consummation of reason. This large Hellenistic meaning is conspicuous in Heb_11:1 b, Heb_11:6; Heb_11:27 etc., and appears in St. Paul (2Co_4:18; 2Co_5:7 ‘by faith not by appearance’). There is nothing distinctively Christian about faith understood in the bare significance of ‘seeing the invisible’—‘the demons believe, and shudder’; the belief that contains no more is the ‘dead faith,’ which condemns instead of justifying (Jam_2:14-26). As St. James and St. Paul both saw from different standpoints, Abraham, beyond the ‘belief that God is,’ recognized what God is and yielded Him a loyal trust, which carried the whole man with it and determined character and action; his faith included sense (a) of pisteuô (which lies in the Heb. vb. ‘believe’) along with (b). In this combination lies the rich and powerful import of NT ‘believing’: it is a spiritual apprehension joined with personal affiance; the recognition of truth in, and the plighting of troth with, the Unseen; in this twofold sense, ‘with the heart (the entire inner self) man believeth unto righteousness’ (Rom_10:10). Those penetrated by the spirit of the OT could not use the word pistis in relation to God without attaching to it, besides the rational idea of supersensible apprehension, the warmer consciousness of moral trust and fealty native to it already in human relationships.
(2) Contact with Jesus Christ gave to the word a greatly increased use and heightened potence. ‘Believing’ meant to Christ’s disciples more than hitherto, since they had Him to believe in; and ‘believers,’ ‘they that had believed,’ became a standing name for the followers of Christ (Act_2:44, Rom_10:4, 1Co_14:22, Mar_16:17). A special endowment of this power given to some in the Church seems to be intended by the ‘faith’ of 1Co_12:9 (cf. Mat_17:19 f., Luk_17:5 f.). Faith was our Lord’s chief and incessant demand from men; He preaches, He works ‘powers,’ to elicit and direct it—the ‘miracle-faith’ attracted by ‘signs and wonders’ being a stepping-stone to faith in the Person and doctrine of God’s Messenger. The bodily cures and spiritual blessings Jesus distributes are conditioned upon this one thing—‘Only believel’ ‘All things are possible to him that believeth.’ There was a faith in Jesus, real so far as it went but not sufficient for true discipleship, since it attached itself to His power and failed to recognize His character and spiritual aims (see Joh_2:23 ff; Joh_4:48; Joh_6:14 ff; Joh_7:31; Joh_8:30 ff; Joh_11:45; Joh_12:11 ff; Joh_14:11), which Jesus rejected and affronted; akin to this, in a more active sense, is the faith that ‘calls’ Him ‘Lord’ and ‘removes mountains’ in His name, but does not in love do the Father’s will, which He must disown (Mat_7:21 ff., 1Co_13:2). Following the Baptist, Jesus sets out with the summons, ‘Repent, and believe the good news’ that ‘the kingdom of God is at hand’ (Mar_1:15); like Moses, He expects Israel to recognize His mission as from God, showing ‘signs’ to prove this (see Joh_2:11; Joh_2:23; Joh_3:2 etc.; cf. Act_2:22, Heb_4:2). As His teaching advanced, it appeared that He required an unparalleled faith in Himself along with His message, that the Kingdom of God He speaks of centres in His Person, that in fact He is ‘the word’ of God He brings, He is the light and life whose coming He announces, ‘the bread from heaven’ that He has to give to a famished world (Joh_6:33 ff; Joh_8:12; Joh_11:25; Joh_14:6 etc.). For those ‘who received him,’ who ‘believed on his name’ in this complete sense, faith acquired a scope undreamed of before; it signified the unique attachment which gathered round the Person of Jesus—a human trust, in its purity and intensity such as no other man had ever elicited, which grew up into and identified itself with its possessor’s belief in God, transforming the latter in doing so, and which drew the whole being of the believer into the will and life of his Master. When Thomas hails Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God!’ he ‘has believed’; this process is complete in the mind of the slowest disciple; the two faiths are now welded inseparably; the Son is known through the Father, and the Father through the Son, and Thomas gives full affiance to both in one. As Jesus was exalted, God in the same degree became nearer to these men, and their faith in God became richer in contents and firmer in grasp. So sure and direct was the communion with the Father opened by Jesus to His brethren, that the word ‘faith,’ as commonly used, failed to express it: ‘Henceforth ye know (the Father), and have seen him,’ said Jesus (Joh_14:7); and St. John, using the vb. ‘believe’ more than any one, employs the noun ‘faith’ but once in Gospel and Epp. (1Jn_5:4)—‘knowing God, the Father,’ etc., is, for him, the Christian distinction. Their Lord’s departure, and the shock and trial of His death, were needful to perfect His disciples’ faith (Joh_16:7), removing its earthly supports and breaking its links with all materialistic Messianism. As Jesus ‘goes to the Father,’ they realize that He and the Father ‘are one’; their faith rests no longer, in any degree, on ‘a Christ after the flesh’; they are ready to receive, and to work in, the power of the Spirit whom He sends to them ‘from the Father.’ Jesus is henceforth identified with the spiritual and eternal order; to the faith which thus acknowledges Him He gives the benediction, ‘Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed’ (Joh_20:29; cf. 1Pe_1:8). To define this specific faith a new grammatical construction appears in NT Greek: one does not simply believe Jesus, or believe on Him, one believes into or unto Him, or His name (which contains the import of His person and offices)—so in Mat_18:6, and continually in Jn. (Joh_2:11; Joh_2:23; Joh_3:18; Joh_3:36; Joh_4:39; Joh_6:29; Joh_6:35; Joh_7:38 f., Joh_9:35; Joh_11:25 f., Joh_12:36 f., Joh_14:1; Joh_14:12, Joh_17:20 etc.; also in Paul)—which signifies so believing in Him as to ‘come to Him’ realizing what He is. By a variety of prepositional constructions, the Greek tongue, imperfectly followed in such refinements by our own, strives to represent the variety of attitude and bearing in which faith stands towards its Object. That the mission of Jesus Christ was an appeal for faith, with His own Person as its chief ground and matter, is strikingly stated in Joh_20:31 : ‘These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life in his name.’ Christian faith is the decisive action of the whole inner man—understanding, feeling, will; it is the trustful and self-surrendering acknowledgment of God in Christ.
(3) Further, Jesus called on the world to ‘believe the good news’ of His coming for redemption. This task, marked out by OT prophecy, and laid on Him at His birth (Luk_1:68-79; Luk_2:38) and baptism (Joh_1:29), from an early period of His ministry Jesus connected with His death (see Joh_2:19-22; Joh_3:14 f.: and later, Mat_16:16-28; Mat_20:28, Luk_9:31; Luk_12:50, Joh_12:23-25). The words of Mat_26:28, which must be vindicated as original, make it clear that Jesus regarded His death as the culmination of His mission; at the Last Supper He is ready to offer His ‘blood’ to seal ‘the new covenant’ under which ‘forgiveness of sins’ will be universally guaranteed (cf. Jer_31:33 f.). Having concentrated on Himself the faith of men, giving to faith thereby a new heart and energy, He finally fastens that faith upon His death; He marks this event for the future as the object of the specifically saving faith. By this path, the risen Lord explained, He had ‘entered into his glory’ and ‘received from the Father the promise of the Spirit,’ in the strength of which His servants are commissioned to ‘preach to all the nations repentance and remission of sins’ (Luk_24:46-48; cf. Act_2:22-38). Taught by Him, the Apostles understood and proclaimed their Master’s death as the hinge of the relations between God and man that centre in Christ; believing in Him meant, above all, believing in that, and finding in the cross the means of deliverance from sin and the revelation of God’s saving purpose toward the race (Act_3:18 f., Act_20:28, 1Co_1:18-25, 2Co_5:14-21, 1Pe_3:18, Rev_1:4-6, etc.). Faith in the resurrection of Jesus was logically antecedent to faith in His sacrificial death; for His rising from the dead set His dying in its true light (Act_4:10-12), revealing the shameful crucifixion of Israel’s Messiah as a glorious expiation for the guilt of mankind (Heb_2:9, Rom_4:25, 1Pe_1:21). To ‘confess with one’s mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in one’s heart that God raised him from the dead,’ was therefore to fulfil the essential conditions of the Christian salvation (Rom_10:9), since the Lord’s resurrection, including His ascension which completes it, gives assurance of the peace with God won by His accepted sacrifice (Heb_7:25; Heb_9:11-14; Heb_10:19; Heb_10:22); it vindicates His Divine Sonship and verifies His claims on human homage (Rom_1:4, Act_2:36, 1Pe_1:21); it guarantees ‘the redemption of the body,’ and the attainment, both for the individual and for the Church, of the glory of the Messianic Kingdom, the consummated salvation that is in Christ Jesus (1Co_15:12-28, Rom_8:17-23, Eph_1:17-23, Act_17:31, Rev_1:5; Rev_1:17 f., etc.). In two words, the Christian faith is to ‘believe that Jesus died and rose again’ (1Th_4:14)—that in dying He atoned for human sin, and in rising He abolished death. St. Paul was the chief exponent and defender of this ‘word of the cross,’ which is at the same time ‘the word of faith’ (Rom_10:8); its various aspects and issues appear under the terms Justification, Atonement, Propitiation, Grace, Law (in NT), etc. But St. Peter in his 1st Ep., St. John in his 1st Ep. and Rev., and the writer of Hebrews, each in his own fashion, combine with St. Paul to focus the redeeming work of Jesus in the cross. According to the whole tenor of the NT, the forgiving grace of God there meets mankind in its sin; and faith is the hand reached out to accept God’s gifts of mercy proffered from the cross of Christ. The faculty of faith, which we understood in its fundamental meaning as the spiritual sense, the consciousness of God, is in no wise narrowed or diverted when it fixes itself on ‘Jesus Christ, and him crucified’; for, as St. Paul insists, ‘God commendeth his own love to us in that Christ died for us,’ ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.’ ‘The glory of God’ shines into men’s hearts, His true character becomes for the first time apparent, and calls forth a full and satisfied faith, when beheld ‘in the face of Christ’ (Rom_5:8, 2Co_4:6; 2Co_5:18-21).
G. G. Findlay.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Heb_11:1, "the substance of things hoped for (i.e., it substantiates God's promises, the fulfillment of which we hope, it makes them present realities), the evidence (elengchos, the 'convincing proof' or 'demonstration') of things not seen." Faith accepts the truths revealed on the testimony of God (not merely on their intrinsic reasonableness), that testimony being to us given in Holy Scripture. Where sight is, there faith ceases (Joh_20:29; 1Pe_1:8). We are justified (i.e. counted just before God) judicially by God (Rom_8:33), meritoriously by Christ (Isa_53:11; Rom_5:19), mediately or instrumentally by faith (Rom_5:1), evidentially by works. Loving trust. Jas_2:14-26, "though a man say he hath faith, and have not works, can (such a) faith save him?" the emphasis is on "say," it will be a mere saying, and can no more save the soul than saying to a "naked and destitute brother, be warmed and filled" would warm and fill him.
"Yea, a man (holding right views) may say, Thou hast faith and I have works, show (exhibit to) me (if thou canst, but it is impossible) thy (alleged) faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works." Abraham believed, and was justified before God on the ground of believing (Gen_15:6). Forty years afterward, when God did" tempt," i.e. put him to the test, his justification was demonstrated before the world by his offering Isaac (Genesis 22). "As the body apart from (chooris) the spirit is dead, so faith without the works (which ought to evidence it) is dead also." We might have expected faith to answer to the spirit, works to the body. As James reverses this, he must mean by "faith" here the FORM of faith, by "works" the working reality. Living faith does not derive its life from works, as the body does from its animating spirit.
But faith, apart from the spirit of faith, which is LOVE (whose evidence is works), is dead, as the body is dead without the spirit; thus James exactly agrees with Paul, 1Co_13:2, "though I have all faith ... and have not charity (love), I am nothing." In its barest primary form, faith is simply crediting or accepting God's testimony (1Jn_5:9-13). Not to credit it is to make God a "liar"! a consequence which unbelievers may well start back from. The necessary consequence of crediting God's testimony (pisteuoo Theoo) is believing in (pisteuoo eis ton huion, i.e. "trusting in") the Son of God; for He, and salvation in Him alone, form the grand subject of God's testimony. The Holy Spirit alone enables any man to accept God's testimony and accept Jesus Christ, as his divine Savior, and so to "have the witness in himself" (1Co_12:3). Faith is receptive of God's gratuitous gift of eternal life in Christ.
Faith is also an obedience to God's command to believe (1Jn_3:23); from whence it is called the "obedience of faith" (Rom_1:5; Rom_16:26; Act_6:7), the highest obedience, without which works seemingly good are disobediences to God (Heb_11:6). Faith justifies not by its own merit, but by the merit of Him in whom we believe (Rom_4:3; Gal_3:6). Faith makes the interchange, whereby our sin is imputed to Him and His righteousness is imputed to us (2Co_5:19; 2Co_5:21; Jer_23:6; 1Co_1:30). "Such are we in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself" (Hooker) (2Pe_1:1; Rom_3:22; Rom_4:6; Rom_10:4; Isa_42:21; Isa_45:21-24; Isa_45:25).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

in Scripture, is presented to us under two leading views: the first is that of assent or persuasion; the second, that of confidence or reliance. The former may be separate from the latter, but the latter cannot exist without the former. Faith, in the sense of an intellectual assent to truth, is, by St. James, allowed to devils. A dead, inoperative faith is also supposed, or declared, to be possessed by wicked men, professing Christianity; for our Lord represents persons coming to him at the last day, saying, “Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” &c, to whom he will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” And yet the charge in this place does not lie against the sincerity of their belief, but against their conduct as “workers of iniquity.” As this distinction is taught in Scripture, so it is also observed in experience: assent to the truths of revealed religion may result from examination and conviction, while yet the spirit and conduct may remain unrenewed and sinful.
2. The faith which is required of us as a condition of salvation always includes confidence or reliance, as well as assent or persuasion. That faith by which “the elders obtained a good report,” was of this character; it united assent to the truth of God's revelations with a noble confidence in his promise. “Our fathers trusted in thee, and were not confounded.” We have a farther illustration in our Lord's address to his disciples upon the withering away of the fig tree: “Have faith in God.” He did not question whether they believed the existence of God, but exhorted them to confidence in his promises, when called by him to contend with mountainous difficulties: “Have faith in God; for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe (trust) that these things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.” It was in reference to his simple confidence in Christ's power that our Lord so highly commended the centurion, and said, “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel,” Mat_8:10. And all the instances of faith in the persons miraculously healed by Christ, were also of this kind: their faith was belief in his claims, and also confidence in his goodness and power.
3. That faith in Christ which in the New Testament is connected with salvation, is clearly of this nature; that is, it combines assent with reliance, belief with trust. “Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name,” that is, in dependence upon my interest and merits, “he shall give it you.” Christ was preached both to Jews and Gentiles as the object of their trust, because he was preached as the only true sacrifice for sin; and they were required to renounce their dependence upon their own accustomed sacrifices, and to transfer that dependence to his death and mediation,—and “In his name shall the Gentiles trust.” He is said to be set forth as a propitiation, “through faith in his blood;” which faith can neither merely mean assent to the historical fact that his blood was shed by a violent death; nor mere assent to the general doctrine that his blood had an atoning quality; but as all expiatory offerings were trusted in as the means of propitiation both among Jews and Gentiles, faith or trust was now to be exclusively rendered to the blood of Christ, as the divinely appointed sacrifice for sin, and the only refuge of the true penitent.
4. To the most unlettered Christian this then will be very obvious, that true and saving faith in Christ consists both of assent and trust; but this is not a blind and superstitious trust in the sacrifice of Christ, like that of the Heathens in their sacrifices; nor the presumptuous trust of wicked and impenitent men, who depend on Christ to save them in their sins; but such a trust as is exercised according to the authority and direction of the word of God; so that to know the Gospel in its leading principles, and to have a cordial of belief in it, is necessary to that more specific act of faith which is called reliance, or in systematic language, fiducial assent. The Gospel, as a scheme of man's salvation, declares that he is under the law; that this law of God has been violated by all; and that every man is under sentence of death. Serious consideration of our ways, confession of the fact, and sorrowful conviction of the evil and danger of sin, will, under the influence of divine grace, follow the cordial belief of the testimony of God; and we shall then turn to God with contrite hearts, and earnest prayers, and supplications for his mercy. This is called “repentance toward God,” and repentance being the first subject of evangelical preaching, and then the injunction to believe the Gospel, it is plain, that Christ is only immediately held out, in this divine plan of our redemption, as the object, of trust in order to forgiveness to persons in this state of penitence, and under this sense of danger. The degree of sorrow for sin, and alarm upon this discovery of our danger as sinners, is no where fixed to a precise standard in Scripture; only it is supposed every where, that it is such as to lead men to inquire earnestly, “What shall I do to be saved?” and with earnest seriousness to use all the appointed means of grace, as those who feel that their salvation is at issue, that they are in a lost condition, and must be pardoned or perish. To all such persons, Christ, as the only atonement for sin, is exhibited as the object of their trust, with the promise of God, “that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Nothing is required of such but this actual trust in, and personal apprehension or taking hold of, the merits of Christ's death as a sacrifice for sin; and upon their thus believing they are justified, their “faith is counted for righteousness,” or, in other words, they are forgiven.
5. This appears to be the plain Scriptural representation of this doctrine; and we may infer from it,
(1.) That the faith by which we are justified is not a mere assent to the doctrines of the Gospel, which leaves the heart unmoved and unaffected by a sense of the evil and danger of sin and the desire of salvation, although it supposes this assent; nor,
(2.) Is it that more lively and cordial assent to, and belief in, the doctrine of the Gospel, touching our sinful and lost condition, which is wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God, and from which springeth repentance, although this must precede it; nor,
(3.) Is it only the assent of the mind to the method by which God justifies the ungodly by faith in the sacrifice of his Son, although this is an element of it; but it is a hearty concurrence of the will and affections with this plan of salvation, which implies a renunciation of every other refuge, and an actual trust in the Saviour, and personal apprehension of his merits: such a belief of the Gospel by the power of the Spirit of God as leads us to come to Christ, to receive Christ, to trust in Christ, and
to commit the keeping of our souls into his hands, in humble confidence of his ability and his willingness to save us.
6. This is that qualifying condition to which the promise of God annexes justification; that without which justification would not take place; and in this sense it is that we are justified by faith; not by the merit of faith, but by faith instrumentally as this condition: for its connection with the benefit arises from the merits of Christ and the promise of God. If Christ has not merited, God had not promised; if God had not promised, justification had never followed upon this faith; so that the indissoluble connection of faith and justification is from God's institution, whereby he hath bound himself to give the benefit upon performance of the condition. Yet there is an aptitude in this faith to be made a condition; for no other act can receive Christ as a Priest propitiating and pleading the propitiation, and the promise of God for his sake to give the benefit. As receiving Christ and the gracious promise in this manner, it acknowledgeth man's guilt, and so man renounceth all righteousness in himself, and honoureth God the Father, and Christ the Son, the only Redeemer. It glorifies God's mercy and free grace in the highest degree. It acknowledges on earth, as it will be perpetually acknowledged in heaven, that the whole salvation of sinful man, from the beginning to the last degree thereof, whereof there shall be no end, is from God's freest love, Christ's merit and intercession, his own gracious promise, and the power of his own Holy Spirit.
7. Faith, in Scripture, sometimes is taken for the truth and faithfulness of God, Rom_3:3; and it is also taken for the persuasion of the mind as to the lawfulness of things indifferent, Rom_14:22-23; and it is likewise put for the doctrine of the Gospel, which is the object of faith, Act_24:24; Php_1:27; Jud_1:3; for the belief and profession of the Gospel, Rom_1:8; and for fidelity in the performance of promises.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

In the original language of the New Testament, the noun ‘faith’ and the verb ‘believe’ are different parts of the same word. Although faith involves belief, by far the most important characteristic of faith (in the biblical sense) is reliance, or trust.
To have faith in a person or thing is to rely wholly on that person or thing, and not to rely on oneself. The Bible usually speaks of faith in relation to people’s trust in, or dependence on, God and his works. This dependence may concern aspects of physical life such as God’s provision of food, health, protection from harm and victory over enemies (Psa_22:4-5; Psa_37:3-4; Psa_46:1-3; Mat_6:30-33; Heb_11:33-35), but above all it concerns aspects of spiritual life such as God’s provision of salvation and eternal life (Psa_18:2; Psa_40:4; Psa_71:5; Psa_73:26; Pro_3:5; Jer_17:7; Joh_3:16; Rom_1:16; Rom_5:1).
Saved by faith
Whether in the era before Christ or after, people have been saved only through faith in the sovereign God who in his mercy and grace forgives sin; and the basis on which God forgives sin is the death of Jesus Christ (Rom_3:24-26; Rom_4:16; Rom_4:22-25; 2Co_4:13; Gal_3:11; see JUSTIFICATION; SACRIFICE). People can never be saved from sin, never be accepted by God, on the basis of their good works or their law-keeping. They can do nothing to deserve or win God’s favour (Rom_4:1-5; Rom_9:30-32; Rom_10:3-4). God saves people solely by his grace, and they receive this salvation by faith (Eph_2:8-9).
Faith in itself does not save. It is simply the means by which the sinner accepts the salvation that God offers. God’s salvation is not a reward for faith; it is a gift that no one deserves, but any person can receive it by faith (Rom_3:25; Rom_5:15). For example, if someone out of kindness decides to give a friend a gift, the friend must accept that gift in order to own it. But the gift is given freely; it is not a reward for the friend’s act of acceptance.
Again, faith is not something a person can boast about. There is no merit in faith. All the merit lies in the object of faith, God, who through Jesus Christ has become the Saviour of sinners (Joh_3:16; Joh_3:18; Joh_7:31; Joh_17:20; Act_20:21; 1Jn_5:12-13). Consider another example. If a sailor in a sinking ship jumps into a lifeboat, that lifeboat means everything to the sailor. His faith in jumping into it, far from being an act of merit, is an admission of helplessness. The lifeboat, the object of faith, is what takes the sailor to safety.
Faith in God is not effort, but the ceasing of effort. It is not doing, but relying on what Christ has done. It is an attitude whereby guilty sinners gives up their own efforts to win salvation, no matter how good they be, and completely trust in Christ, and in him alone, for their salvation (Act_16:30-31; Gal_2:16). Without such an attitude, no person can receive God’s salvation (Heb_11:6 a).
The faith by which people receive salvation is not merely an acknowledgment of certain facts (though this is necessary, since believers must know who and what they are trusting in; Joh_2:22; Joh_3:12; Joh_6:69; Joh_8:24-25; Rom_10:9-10; Heb_11:6 b; 1Jn_5:20). Rather it is a belief by which believers commit themselves wholly to Christ in complete dependence. It is not just accepting certain things as true (for even God’s enemies may have that sort of belief; Jam_2:19), but trusting in a person, Jesus Christ. Some may say they have a general faith in God, but if they refuse to have specific faith in Jesus Christ, their ‘faith’ is a form of self-deception (Joh_5:24; Joh_14:6; 1Jn_2:23).
So basic is faith to Christianity, that the New Testament uses the name ‘believers’ as another name for Christians (Act_5:14; Rom_3:26; 1Ti_4:12). Likewise it uses ‘the faith’ as another name for Christianity (1Ti_5:8; 1Ti_6:10; 1Ti_6:21).
Living by faith
Christians are not only saved by faith, they live by faith. They continue to rely on the promise and power of the unseen God rather than on what they see and experience in the visible world (1Co_2:5; 2Co_5:6-7; Col_1:23; Col_2:7; Heb_11:1). Their lives are lived in constant dependence on God. Christ has borne the penalty of sin on their behalf and now lives within them. Only as they trust in his power can they experience in practice the victory, peace and joy that their salvation has brought (Gal_2:20; Gal_5:6; Eph_1:19). The strength of the faith by which they live depends largely on the strength of their personal relationship with Jesus Christ (Rom_14:1; 2Th_1:3; 2Pe_1:5-8; 2Pe_3:18).
A professed faith that does not produce a change for the better in a person’s behaviour is not true faith; it is not a faith that leads to salvation. Those who have genuine faith will give clear proof of it by their good conduct (Gal_5:6; 1Ti_5:8; Jam_2:18-26).
Sometimes the Bible speaks of faith in the special sense of trust in God to do something unusual or supernatural (Mat_9:22; Mat_9:28; Mat_17:19-20; Mar_2:5; Mar_9:23; Luk_7:9; Luk_8:25; Jam_5:14-15; see DISEASE; MIRACLES; PRAYER). To some Christians God gives a gift of special faith that enables them to do what otherwise they could not do (Rom_12:3; Rom_12:6; 1Co_12:9; see GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

fāth:
1. Etymology
2. Meaning: A Divergency
3. Faith in the Sense of Creed
4. A Leading Passage Explained
5. Remarks
6. Conclusion
In the Old Testament (the King James Version) the word occurs only twice: Deu_32:20 (אמוּן, 'ēmūn); Hab_2:4 (אמוּנה, 'ĕmūnāh). In the latter the Revised Version (British and American) places in the margin the alternative rendering, ?faithfulness.? In the New Testament it is of very frequent occurrence, always representing πιστις, pistis, with one exception in the King James Version (not the Revised Version (British and American)), Heb_10:23, where it represents ἐλπίς, elpı́s, ?hope.?
1. Etymology
The history of the English word is rather interesting than important; use and contexts, alike for it and its Hebrew and Greek parallels, are the surest guides to meaning. But we may note that it occurs in the form ?feyth,? in Havelok the Dane (13th century); that it is akin to fides and this again to the Sanskrit root bhidh, ?to unite,? ?to bind.? It is worth while to recall this primeval suggestion of the spiritual work of faith, as that which, on man's side, unites him to God for salvation.
2. Meaning: A Divergency
Studying the word ?faith? in the light of use and contexts, we find a bifurcation of significance in the Bible. We may distinguish the two senses as the passive and the active; on the one side, ?fidelity,? ?trustworthiness?; and ?faith,? ?trust,? on the other. In Gal_5:22, e.g. context makes it clear that ?fidelity? is in view, as a quality congruous with the associated graces. (the Revised Version (British and American) accordingly renders pistis there by ?faithfulness.?) Again, Rom_3:3 the King James Version, ?the faith of God,? by the nature of the case, means His fidelity to promise. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, ?faith,? as rendering pistis, means ?reliance,? ?trust.? To illustrate would be to quote many scores of passages. It may be enough here to call attention to the recorded use of the word by our Lord. Of about twenty passages in the Gospels where pistis occurs as coming from His lips, only one (Mat_23:23) presents it in the apparent sense of ?fidelity.? All the others conspicuously demand the sense of ?reliance,? ?trust.? The same is true of the apostolic writings. In them, with rarest exceptions, the words ?reliance,? ?trust,? precisely fit the context as alternatives to ?faith.?
3. Faith in the Sense of Creed
Another line of meaning is traceable in a very few passages, where pistis, ?faith,? appears in the sense of ?creed,? the truth, or body of truth, which is trusted, or which justifies trust. The most important of such places is the paragraph Jam_2:14-26, where an apparent contradiction to some great Pauline dicta perplexes many readers. The riddle is solved by observing that the writer uses ?faith? in the sense of creed, orthodox ?belief.? This is clear from Jam_2:19, where the ?faith.? in question is illustrated: ?Thou believest that God is one.? This is the credal confession of the orthodox Jew (the shema‛; see Deu_6:4), taken as a passport to salvation. Briefly, James presses the futility of creed without life, Paul the necessity of reliance in order to receive ?life and peace.?
4. A Leading Passage Explained
It is important to notice that Heb_11:1 is no exception to the rule that ?faith? normally means ?reliance,? ?trust.? There ?Faith is the substance (or possibly, in the light of recent inquiries into the type of Greek used by New Testament writers, ?the guaranty?) of things hoped for, the evidence (or ?convincing proof?) of things not seen.? This is sometimes interpreted as if faith, in the writer's view, were, so to speak, a faculty of second sight, a mysterious intuition into the spiritual world. But the chapter amply shows that the faith illustrated, e.g. by Abraham, Moses, Rahab, was simply reliance upon a God known to be trustworthy. Such reliance enabled the believer to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen. In short, the phrase here, ?faith is the evidence,? etc., is parallel in form to our familiar saying, ?Knowledge is power.?
5. Remarks
A few detached remarks may be added: (a) The history of the use of the Greek pistis is instructive. In the Septuagint it normally, if not always, bears the ?passive? sense ?fidelity,? ?good faith,? while in classical Greek it not rarely bears the active sense, ?trust.? In the koinē, the type of Greek universally common at the Christian era, it seems to have adopted the active meaning as the ruling one only just in time, so to speak, to provide it for the utterance of Him whose supreme message was ?reliance,? and who passed that message on to His apostles. Through their lips and pens ?faith,? in that sense, became the supreme watchword of Christianity. See JUSTIFICATION; UNION WITH CHRIST.
6. Conclusion
In conclusion, without trespassing on the ground of other articles, we call the reader's attention, for his Scriptural studies, to the central place of faith in Christianity, and its significance. As being, in its true idea, a reliance as simple as possible upon the word, power, love, of Another, it is precisely that which, on man's side, adjusts him to the living and merciful presence and action of a trusted God. In its nature, not by any mere arbitrary arrangement, it is his one possible receptive attitude, that in which he brings nothing, so that he may receive all. Thus ?faith? is our side of union with Christ. And thus it is our means of possessing all His benefits, pardon, justification, purification, life, peace, glory.
As a comment on our exposition of the ruling meaning of ?faith? in Scripture, we may note that this precisely corresponds to its meaning in common life, where, for once that the word means anything else, it means ?reliance? a hundred times. Such correspondence between religious terms (in Scripture) and the meaning of the same words in common life, will be found to be invariable.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Faith
(Gr. πίστις, Lat. fides, Jiducia) is essentially trust. The various uses of the word (both objective and subjective) may be summed up as follows:
1. An objective body of truth: "the faith;" designated by the schoolmen as fides quae creditur, the faith which is believed. So the Augsburg Confession speaks of "our holy faith and Christiasn religion." (This sense does not occur in N.T.)
2. A rule of thought, the fides penes quam creditur: so the Romanm Catholics say such a thing is "of faith" (not found in N.T.).
3. A personal quality, act, or habit of the individual man; the fides qua creditur; the faith by which we believe. This latter is either (I) the exercise of our natural gifts (natural faith), or (II) the exercise of natural gifts under the influence of the divine Spirit with regard to divine things, and especially with regard to the person and work of Christ (the gift of God). This latter is Christian faith, and it includes two elements: (1) the spiritual apprehension of the invisible and eternal (Heb_11:1), and, specifically, (2) trust in Christ as a personal Savior; and, as such, in the Christian system, it is the necessary condition of salvation. It is the instrument or means by which the redemption of Christ is appropriated, and, so far as it is man's act, it is the act of the whole man, mind, affections, and will. It is "a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation, as he is freely offered to us in the Gospel."
I. Natural Faith. — All our knowledge presupposes faith. Insthis view Goethe said that he was a "believer in the five senses;" and Fichte, that "man apprehends all reality external to himself through faith alone, a faith that is born with him." In the article BELIEF SEE BELIEF (q.v.) it was shown that there is a foundation laid for the exercise of this principle in the primary laws of thought or self-consciousness in the reason, not of the individual man, but of humanity. Psychologically, "faith is the faculty of grasping evidence, with a propensity to admit it when duly presented to the mind. Just as by sensation and perception we discern certain objects through the medium of the senses, and as by reason we discover some truths, or discern them upon their simple presentation (Chalmers, Institutes of Theology, book 3, chapter 6), without any other warranty than the voice within, so also by faith we discern other truths through the means of testimony or by the voice of authority. Attempts to analyze this quality of the human mind have been often made and as often failed. But still the fact remains that, according to the original, constitution of our nature, we are able and disposed to yield to evidence in proportion to its nature and its strength (Hooker, Ecclesiastes Pol. book 2, chapter 7, § 5); to assent to testimony concerning facts not preasent and manifest; and to submit to authority in the announcement or proposition of truths independently of any internal and direct perception of them by ourselves (Van Mildert, Boyle Lect. serm. 16). In matters of common life, from childhood to old age, we continually act, and are compelled to act, upon this principle (Barrow, On the Creed, seim. in; Hare, Victory of Faith, serm. 4).
The child believes its parent or its nurse, and reposes in this belief; and under certain conditions, the man believes the records of past history, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the affirmations of trustworthy persons capable of understanding that which they affirm. And it is not too much to say that, apart from this principle and practice of belief, man, even in the full exercise of all his other intellectual powers, would be enveloped in such a cloud of ignorance on even the most ordinary subjects, that an arrest would be laid upon all the affairs of civilized life, and there must be an end of all social harmony and order. It is by this'means that we obtain a certainty, not of sight, not of demonstration, not of direct and immediate intuition, but yet a real and efficient certainty in many matters of high practical importance concerning which we must otherwise be hopelessly ignorant and in the dark. This principle lies at the foundation of human affections and family ties, of agricultural and commercial activity, and of a large portion of our most valuable knowledge in science, and our highest attainments in art. Above all, it is thus that we obtain our knowledge of many things divine, and especially of relations subsisting between God and ourselves; an acquaintance with which, as we shall hereafter see, is of the utmost importance to us, while yet, independently of the exercise of faith, it is utterly beyond the reach of every man living" (Rogers, Reason and Faith; Riddle, Bampton Lectures, 1852, lect. 1). Faith "is that operation of the soul in which we are convinced of the existence of what is not before us, of what is not under sense or any other directly cognitive power. It is certainly a native energy of the mind, quite as much as knowledge is, or conception is, or imagination is, or feeling is. Every human being entertains, and must entertain, faith of some kind. He who would insist on always having immediate knowledge must needs go out of the world, for he is unfit for this world, and yet he believes in no other. It is in consequence of possessing the general capacity that man is enabled to entertain specific forms of faith. By a native principle he is led to believe in that of which he can have no adequate conception in the infinity of space and time, and, on evidence of his existence being presented, in the infinity of God. This enables him to rise to a faith in all those great religious verities which God has been pleased to reveal" (McCosh, Intuitions of the Mind, part 3, book 2, chapter 5; see also part 2, book 2, chapter 4).
Guizot, Med. et Etudes Morales (transl. in Journal of Sacred Literature, 12:430 sq.), has a thoughtful essay in which he distinguishes natural beliefs from faith as follows: "No one can doubt that the word faith has an especial meaning, which is not properly represented by belief, conviction, or certitude. Custom and universal opinion confirm this view. There are many simple and customary phrases in which the word faith could not be replaced by any other. Almost all languages have a specially appropriated word to express that which in English is expressed by faith, and which is essentially different from all analogous words. This word, then, corresponds to a state of the human soul; it expresses a moral fact which has rendered such a word necessary. We commonly understand by faith a certain belief of facts and dogmas — religious facts and dogmas. In fact, the word has no other sense when employing it absolutely and by itself — we speak of the faith. That is not, however, its unique, nor even its fundamental sense; it has one more extensive, and from which the religious sense is derived. We say, I have full faith in your words; this man has faith in himself, in his power, etc. This employment of the word in civil matters, so to speak, has become more frequent in our days; it is not, however, of modern invention; nor have religious ideas ever been an exclusive sphere, out of which the notions and the word faith were without application. It is, then, proved by the testimony of language and common opinion, First, that the word faith designates a certain interior state of him who believes, and not merely a certain kind of belief. Secondly, that it is, however, to a certain species of belief — religious belief — that it has been at first and most generally applied. Now our natural beliefs germinate in the mind of man without the co-operation of his reflection and his will. Our scientific beliefs, on the other hand, are the fruit of voluntary study. But faith partakes of, and at the same time differs from, natural and scientific beliefs. It is, like the latter, individual and particular; like the former, it is firm, complete, active, and sovereign. Considered in itself, and independent of all comparison with this or that analogous condition, faith is the full security of the man in the possession of his belief: a possession freed as much from labor as from doubt; in the midst of which every thought of the path by which it has been reached disappears, and leaves no other sentiment but that of the natural and pre-established harmony between the human mind and truth."
II. Christian Faith. — So far as faith is a voluntary act, quality, or habit of man, it is psychologically the same in the theological sense as in common life; the difference lies in the objects of the faith. In order to venerate or love a fellow-man, we must believe in his worthiness; so, for the fear and love of God, which are fundamental elements of the Christian life, faith must pre-exist. But this direction of the soul towards God does not spring from the natural working of the human mind; it is the gift of God (Eph_2:8), and is wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit through the word of the Gospel and the free grace of Christ (Rom_10:17; 1Co_1:21). Fides donum dei est, per quod Christum redemptorem nostrum in verbo Evangelii recte agnoscimus (Form. Concord. 3:11). Not that the Holy Spirit endues the soul with any new faculty for the single purpose of receiving Gospel truth; but it quickens and directs an existing faculty, at the same time presenting to it an appropriate object. The true faith. thus excited, is an operation at once of the intellect, the heart, and the will. As said above, this faith, so far as it saves man in Christendom, is specifically trust in Christ as a personal Savior. In further treating it, we give,
(I.) The uses of the words πίστις, faith, and πιστεύω, I believe, in the Scriptures (condensed from Cremer, Worterbuch d. N. Test. Gracitat, Gotha, 1866, 8vo).
(II.) A history of the idea of faith in Christian theology up to the Reformation.
(III.) The Protestant and Romanist doctrines of faith in contrast and comparison with each other.
(IV.) Later Protestant statements of the doctrine.
(I.) Use of the words Faith and believe in Scripture.— Πίστις.
1. In profane Greek, πίστις means primarily trust or confidence, such as one man can have in another; more seldom fidelity or faithfulness which one pledges or keeps; and also the pledge of fidelity, e.g. Sophocles, O.C. 1632; δός μου χερὸς σῆς πίστιν Examples of the primary meaning (trust or confidence) are: Herodotus, 3:24; Sophocles, O. Colossians 950; Xen. Hier. 4:1. In the passive tense (credit) it is found e.g. Aristotle, Eth. 10:8. Parallel with the primary meaning (trust or confidence) stands that of conviction, e.g. πίστιν ἔχειν τινὸς (to have faith in a thing); but this conviction is based upon trust, and not upon knowledge: so that in this sense ὁ πιστεύων stands opposite to εἰδώς, and πίστις to ἐτιστήμη (comp. Plat. Repub. 10:601). In this sense πίστις is used (in the sphere of religion) of belief in the gods, and of acknowledgment of them, not based upon knowledge (comp. Plutarch, Mor. 756, B; Plato, Legg. 976, C, D; Eurip. Med. 413, 414). Rather characteristic is the fact that this faith is not designated as in the N.T. by the verb πιστεύειν, but by νομίζειν (Xen. Mem. I, 1:1).
This element of "acknowledgment," as distinct from knowing (εἰδέναι), is found also in the N.T. significations of the word as used by Paul and others; e.g. 2Co_5:7, "For we walk by faith (πίστεως), not by sight;" Heb_11:27, "By faith (πίστει) he forsook Egypt;" Heb_11:1, "Now faith (πίστις) is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ;" Rom_4:18, "Who against hope believed (ἑπίστευσεν) in hope;" Joh_20:29, "Blessed (are) they that have not seen and (yet) have believed" (πιστεύσαντες). But this opposition to "knowledge" or " sight" is not essential to the idea of faith, as is seen from Joh_4:42; Joh_11:45; 1Ti_4:3; Phm_1:6, et al. In fact, the N.T. faith differs from the profane πίστις generally in that it is not a conviction held without reference to any ground or authority (compare 1Pe_3:15; 1Pe_1:21).
In the O.T. the word "faith" is comparatively seldom used; the relation of mian to God and to his revelation is generally designated bysome other term befitting the economy of the law, e.g. "doing God's will," "keeping the commandments," "remembering the Lord" (Exo_3:15), et al. Nevertheless, we do find (as one species of phrases among many to express this relation) terms denoting "trusting," "hoping," "waiting on the Lord" בטח, חסה, קַוָּה, ἐλπίζειν, πεποιθέναι, υπομένειν etc.). But in some of the most important passages of the Old Test. history the word "faith" occurs; e.g. with regard to Abraham (Gen_15:6), "he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness;" of the people of Israel (Exo_4:31; compare 1, 5, 8; Exo_14:31); with regard to the possession of Canaan (Deu_9:23; comp. Deu_1:32; Psa_78:22; Psa_78:32; Psa_106:24); with regard to the covenant of the law (Exo_19:9). In view of these pregnant passages, we may say that the foundation laid for the N.T. in the Old is laid in "faith" (comp. 2Ch_20:20; Isa_53:1; Isa_7:9; Isa_28:16; Jon_3:5). But unbelief is far oftener spoken of in the O.T. than faith (comp. Psa_27:13; 2Ki_17:14; Psa_78:22; Psa_78:32; Psa_106:24; Num_20:12; Deu_9:23; Isa_7:9; Isa_53:1; Num_14:11; Psa_106:12; Psa_119:66). The verb used in all these passages הֶאֵַמיןHiph. of אמן, to fasten, build to make firm. From the last of these significations follows that of to support, to rely upon, to trust (Job_39:11-12; Job_4:18; Job_15:15); holding a thing for certain and reliable (1Ki_10:7; 2Ch_9:6; Lam_4:12; Jer_40:14; Deu_28:66; Job_24:22). Used with relation to God, it denotes a cleaving to him, resting upon his strength, sure confidence in God, which gives fixedness and stability (2Ch_20:20; Isa_7:9).
But there is apparently no corresponding noun to the verb האמין. For אמֵוּנָהcorresponds to the partic. in Kal and Niphal, נֶאֶמָן אָמוּן and denotes steadfastness, stability (as an objective quality; e.g. Isa_33:6). In other passages it denotes the personal quality of fidelity, faithfulness (but not of holding fast by faith), e.g. 1Ch_2:22; 2Ch_31:18 (sense wrong in English version); 2Ki_22:7; Jer_7:28. In these passages, where the word refers to man, the Sept. translates it πίστις; but where it refers to God it makes it ἀλήθεια, e.g. Psa_33:4. Here it may be remarked that the reference to this אמונה(faithfulness of God) eby Paul (Rom_3:2 sq.) helps us to fix his idea of faith as definitively trust. As a designation of the religious relation of man to God, אמונה, πίστις is only seldom used in the O.T. (see 1Sa_26:23; Jer_5:3). In these passages it denotes not simply candor, honesty, but rather faithfulness, i.e., faithfulness to the covenant (comp. Jer_5:3 with Jer_1:5, and Mat_23:23). But, after all, we have not yet found our idea of faith. But Hab_2:4 affords a passage in which is decidedly to be found the Pauline idea: יַחְיֶה וְעִרּיק בֶּאמֵוּנָתוֹ(Sept. ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως μου ζήσεται Apparently this passage was not understood by the Sept., which changed the suffix, of the third person to that of the first, and referred it to the faithfulness and the reliability of God. But אמוּנהstands here with regard to the relation in which the just man, compared with the haughty Chaldsean; holds himself to the divine promises; and it refers, therefore, not tio the relation itself, but to the quality of the relation, as the Talmudic הֵימָנוּתָא הֵימָנוּdenotes the confiding faith (compare Levy Chald. Wdrterbuch). Paul, in citing Hab_2:4, changes the order of the words from that in the Sept. to ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται (Rom_1:17; comp. Delitzsch, Habakkuk pages 50-53 Keil, Kleine Proph. in loc.). So, then, we find laid in the O.T. the ground for the N.T. doctrine of faith as complete confidence, trust; and this, too, combined with a conviction amounting to a recognition of the invisible (compare Heb_11:1).
Conviction combined with trust, as opposed to doubt, so far as the intellect is concerned, and as opposed to fear, so far as the heart is concerned — these appear, so far, to be the essential elements of faith (comp. Mat_21:21; Jam_1:6; Heb_10:39; Mar_4:40; Heb_6:12; Rev_13:10).
2. We find πίστις seemingly used, especially in the Synoptical Gospels, with regard to the relation of individuals to the Lord, to designate special acts of confidence (Mat_8:10; Mat_9:2; Mat_9:22; Luk_7:9; Luk_7:50; Luk_8:48; Luk_17:19; Luk_18:42; Mar_5:34; Mar_10:52; comp. Mat_15:28). But the Synoptists also use the word to denote (not simply special and single exertions of belief, but also) full trust in Christ, and in the divine revels tion in him (Luk_18:8; comp. Mat_8:10; Luk_8:25; Mar_4:40; Luk_22:32; Luk_17:5; Mat_17:20; Mat_21:21). Compared with this (and Paul points out the contrast emphatically), the O.T. revelation was an education for faith (Gal_3:23-26 : "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" comp. Rom_11:32; Act_17:31). But it is to be fully understood also that the epistle to the Hebrews makes faith the means of holding to the God of revelation, in the sphere of the entire econesay of redemption in the O.T. as well as the N.T. (Hebrews 11). In the Acts faith seems to be used as more particularly characteristic of the sphere of the N.T. revelation (Act_6:7; compare Rom_1:5; Rom_16:26; Act_13:8; Act_17:31; Gal_1:23). In Paul's epistles, while the O.T. faith is clearly recognized (e.g. with reference to Abraham, and the citation of Hab_2:4), nevertheless the prevailing O.T. unbelief is especially emphasized (e.g. Rom_11:32); and the contrast between law and gospel (Gal_3:12 sq.) brings out clearly the chief element of N.T. faith as unconditional trust.
The promise, as the correlate of the Gospel, is the N.T. element of the O.T. economy, and demands faith (Gal_3:22; compare Gal_4:21 sq.), but the absence of a σπέρμα ω῏/ ἐπήγγελται (seed to whom the promise was made, Gal_3:19) made necessary the interposition of the law; not a νόμος πίστιως (law of faith), but ἔργων (of works), which, by manifesting sin, was an educator into faith (Rom_3:19; Gal_3:22-23). This throws light upon the contrast of πίστις and ἔργα-χάρις and ὀφείλημα-or πίστις and νόμος (Gal_3:23; also Rom_3:27-28; comp. Rom_4:2; Rom_4:5; Rom_9:32; Gal_2:16; Gal_3:2; Gal_3:5; comp. Gal_3:12; Eph_2:8; and in contrast to νόμος, Rom_4:13-14; Rom_4:16; Rom_9:30; Gal_3:11-12; Gal_3:23-25). This contrast, it will be observed, is only introduced by Paul in passages in which he is expressly pointing out the difference between the O.T. economy of salvation and that of the N.T.
3. The following classification of the passages in which the waord πίστις occurs will be found useful:
(1.) It is used with reference to an object, Heb_6:1; 1Th_1:8; Mar_11:22; 2Th_2:13; Col_2:12; Php_1:27; Act_24:24; Act_26:18; Col_2:5; Act_20:21; comp. Phm_1:5; 2Ti_3:13; Gal_3:26; Eph_1:15; 2Ti_3:15; Rom_3:25; with the obj.- genit., Rom_3:22; Gal_2:16; Gal_3:22; Eph_3:12; Php_3:9; Gal_2:20; Act_3:16; Jam_2:1; Rev_2:13; Rev_14:12; with Tit_1:1, compare Rev_17:14.
(2.) Without nearer definition, simply as faith, which adheres with full, conviction and confidence to the N.T. revelation of salvation, and makes this its foundation (support). Here is especially of importance the expression (Act_3:16), the faith which is by him, an expression which is used to point out the salvation arising from the mediation of Christ, through the looking unto Jesus, the author of faith (Heb_12:2). Under this class, besides the passages of the Synoptical Gospels already referred to, we mention Act_14:22; Act_16:5; Col_1:23; 1Pe_5:9; Rom_14:1; Rom_4:19-20; 1Co_16:13; Rom_11:20; 2Co_1:24; 2Co_13:5; 1Ti_2:15; 2Ti_4:7; 2Co_8:7; 2Co_10:15; 2Th_1:3; Col_2:7; 1Ti_1:19; Jam_2:1; Jam_2:14; Jam_2:18; Tit_1:13; Tit_2:2; 2Co_5:7; Rom_1:17; Gal_3:11; Heb_10:38 (comp. Gal_2:20); Act_13:8; 2Ti_2:18; 1Ti_1:19; 1Ti_4:1; 1Ti_5:8; 1Ti_5:12; 1Ti_6:10; 1Ti_6:21; 2Ti_3:8. Then the Pauline expressions ἐκ πίστεως εῖναι, οἱ ἐκ π (they which are of faith; Gal_3:7; Gal_3:9; Gal_3:12; Gal_3:22; Rom_4:16; Rom_3:26; comp. Heb_10:39), ἐσμἐν πίστεως (we are of them that believe), are used of faith proper (compare Rom_14:22-23). The phrases ἐκ πίστεως δικαιοῦν, δικαιοῦσθαι, make faith the necessary condition of justification (Rom_3:30; comp. Gal_3:14; Rom_5:1; Gal_2:16; Gal_3:8; Rom_4:13; ἐκ πίοτεως, Rom_9:30; Rom_10:6; Php_3:9; comp. Rom_1:17; Rom_4:5; Rom_4:9). The word πιστις is found joined to ἀγάπη, Eph_6:23; 1Th_3:6; 1Th_5:8; 1Ti_1:14; 1Ti_4:12; 1Ti_6:11; 2Ti_1:5; 2Ti_1:13; 2Ti_2:22; Gal_5:6; 1Co_13:13; Rev_2:19; with ἐλπίς, ὑπομονή, 1Co_13:13; 2Th_1:4; Rev_13:10. The word is also found Act_6:5; Act_6:8; Act_11:24; Act_14:27; Act_15:9; Rom_1:8; Rom_1:12; Rom_3:31; Rom_4:12; Rom_5:2; Rom_10:8; Rom_10:17; Rom_12:6; 1Co_2:5; 1Co_15:14; 1Co_15:17; 2Co_1:24; 2Co_4:13; Gal_5:5; Gal_5:22; Gal_6:10; Eph_3:17; Eph_5:5; Eph_5:13; Eph_6:16; Php_1:25, 7:7; Col_1:4; 1Th_1:3; 1Th_3:2; 1Th_3:5; 1Th_3:7; 1Th_3:10; 2Th_2:2; 1Ti_1:2; 1Ti_1:4; 1Ti_2:7; 1Ti_3:9; 1Ti_4:6; 1Ti_6:12; 2Ti_1:5; 2Ti_3:10; Tit_1:1; Tit_1:4; Tit_3:15. Phm_1:6; Heb_10:22; Heb_13:7; Jam_1:3; Jam_1:6; Jam_2:5; Jam_2:14; Jam_2:17-18; Jam_2:20; Jam_2:22; Jam_2:24; Jam_2:26; Jam_5:15; 1Pe_1:5; 1Pe_1:7; 1Pe_1:9; 1Pe_1:21; 2Pe_1:1; 2Pe_1:5; Jud_1:3; Jud_1:20.
That even in James, confidence, trust (and not mere recognition), is the essential element of faith, is manifest from the passage (Jam_5:15), ἡ εὀχὴ τῆς πίστεως σώσει τὸν κάμνοντα (the prayer of faith shall save the sick). The works of faith are, according to James, such as show forth faith, and without which faith sinks into a mere recognition (Jam_2:19), as dead faith (νεκρά).
It must be noted that the word πίστις occurs in John's epistles only in one place, 1Jn_5:4, and in his Apocalypse in four places (Rev_2:13; Rev_2:19; Rev_13:10; Rev_14:12).
There remain a few passages in which πίστις apparently does not denote "trust" in salvation by Christ, as Rom_12:3 (comp. Alford, in loc., and also Act_17:31). 1Co_13:2 is easily explained by comparison with Mat_21:21; Luk_17:5-6, and here will be best joined 1Co_12:9. In the signification faithfulness, πίστις, like the O.T. אמֵוּנָה, is spoken of God, Rom_3:3; of men, Mat_23:23; Tit_2:10. With the former passage compare Isa_5:1 sq. Πιστεύω General meaning: a. to trust, to depend upon, τινὶ e.g. ταῖς σπονδαῖς θεῶν θεσφάτοις, Polyb. 5:62, 6; Sophocl. Philoct. 1360; Demosth. Philippians 2:67, 9. With the dative of the person and the acc. of the thing, π. τινί τι = to intrust (confide) something to a person, Luk_16:11; Joh_2:24; in the passive, πιστεύομαί τι, I am trusted with a thing; without obj.: I am trusted, Rom_3:2; 1Co_9:17; Gal_2:7; 1Th_2:4; 2Th_1:10; 1Ti_1:11; Tit_1:3. b. Very frequently πιστεύειν τινὶ denotes to trust a person, to give credence to, to accept statements (to be convinced of their truth); Soph. El. 886, τῷ λόγῳ. In a broader sense, πιστεύειν τινί τι, to believe a person; e.g. Eur. Hec. 710, λόγοις ἐμοῖσι πίστευσον τάδε ; Xen. Apol. 15. Then πιστεύειν τι, to believe a thing, to rec. ognise it (as true); e.g. Plat. Gorg. 524, A, ἄ ἐγὼ ἀκηκοὼς πιστεύω ἀληθῆ εϊvναι; Aristot. Analyt. Proverbs 2, 23; also πιστεύειν περὶ, ὐπέρ τινος , Plut. Lye. 19, where πιστεύειν stands alone, to be inclined to believe, recognize a thing; while e.g. in Joh_9:18, the specific aim is added: "But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind, and received his sight."
In the N.T. (in which πιστεύειν has regard to our conduct towards God and his revelation) all these constructions are found, as well as the combinations (unusual in the profane Greek) of πεἰς, ἐπί τινα, ἐπὶ τινι and also πιστεύειν standing alone. The question is whether the original signification is confidence, or accepting as true.
(1.) We find πιστεύειν in the signification to believe, to takefor true, and hence to be convinced, to recognize (accept);
(a) with the acc. following, Joh_11:26, πιστεύεις τοῦτο; comp. Joh_11:25-26; 1Jn_4:16; Act_13:41; 1Co_11:18; 1Ti_3:16 (comp. Mat_24:23; Mat_24:26; Luk_22:67); Joh_10:25;
(b) with the infinitive after it, Act_15:11 (πιστεύομεν σωθῆναι);
(c) with or after it, Mat_9:28; Mar_11:23-24; Act_9:26; Jam_2:19, σὺ πιστεύεις ὅτι εϊvς ὁ θεός ἐστιν; compare Act_27:25; Joh_4:21, πίστευέ μοι, ὅτι ἔρχεταιώρα This construction of πιστεύειν ὄτι is especially frequent in the writings of John, in St. Paul's meaning of it. It. is also used by Paul in Rom_6:8; 1Th_4:14; but in Rom_10:9, ἐὰν πιστεύσῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾷ σου ὅτι ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, σωθήση, the sense of trust predominates over that of takingfor true. Compare also Heb_11:6, with Heb_11:1; Heb_4:3.
In John this construction with ὄτι is found in chapters Joh_4:21; Joh_8:24; Joh_10:38; Joh_11:27 (compare Joh_6:69); Joh_11:42 (compare Joh_17:3); Joh_13:19; Joh_14:10-11; Joh_16:27; (and have believed that I came out from God), Joh_16:30; Joh_17:8; Joh_17:21; Joh_20:31; 1Jn_5:1; 1Jn_5:5 (comp. with 1Jn_5:10). In these passages the sense of πιστεύω is that of assent, belief, recognition, conviction of truth. This meaning is also predominant in the following passage: Joh_3:12 (If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things) (comp. Joh_3:11). Note also the connection with γινώσκειν (to know), Joh_6:69; Joh_10:37-38; Joh_17:8; and note also the relation of Christ's works and of sight to faith, Joh_4:48 (Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe); Joh_10:37-38; Joh_14:11; Joh_6:36; Joh_20:8; Joh_20:29 (compare Joh_20:25); Joh_1:51; Joh_4:39-42.
Let us look now at the constructions πιστεύειν τινί εἴς τινα. It is clear that πιστεύειν τινὶ of itself cannot signify to accept a person; but only to believe what he says, to trust his word; e.g. Joh_2:22 (they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said); Joh_5:47; Joh_12:38 (comp. Luk_1:20; Act_24:14; Act_26:27; 1Jn_4:1). In this sense also we understand Joh_5:46 (for had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me); Joh_8:31; Joh_8:45-46; Joh_10:37 (comp. with Joh_10:36); Joh_14:11. Nevertheless, as it is the witness of Jesus himself that is in question, the acceptance of his words implies the acceptance of his person (Joh_5:46; comp. with Joh_5:37-39). Connect with these the unique passage 1Jn_3:23 αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἐντολὴ αὐτ ἵναπιστεύσωμεν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ υἱοῦ αύτοῦ this is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ" (elsewhere εἰς τὸ ὄν, Joh_1:12; Joh_2:23; Joh_3:18; 1Jn_5:13); comp. also Joh_6:29; Joh_16:9; 1Jn_5:10 (He that believeth on [εἰς] the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God [τῷ Θεῷ] hath made him a liar, because he believeth not εἰς] the record that God gave of his Son). Here πιστεύειν τῷ θεῷ, to believe God, is to receive his testimony, π. εἰς την μαρτυρίαν, and consequently to receive Him for whom the testimony is borne. Farther comp. Joh_5:38 with 37, 24, 47, and 44. These passages show that John's idea of faith includes
(1) accepting the testimony of God,
(2) accepting the testimony of Christ concerning himself, and therefore
(3) accepting Christ himself.
The construction πιστεύειν εἰς is found in Joh_2:11; Joh_3:16; Joh_3:18; Joh_3:36; Joh_4:39; Joh_6:29; Joh_6:40 (47); Joh_7:5; Joh_7:31; Joh_7:38-39; Joh_7:48; Joh_8:30; Joh_9:35-36; Joh_10:42; Joh_11:25-26; Joh_11:45; Joh_11:48; Joh_12:11; Joh_12:37; Joh_12:42; Joh_12:44; Joh_12:46; Joh_14:1; Joh_14:12; Joh_16:9; Joh_17:20; 1Jn_5:13. The only passage in the writings of John in which another preposition occurs is Joh_3:15, where Lachmann reads ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν, Tischendorf ἐν αὐτῷ, instead of εἰς αὐτόν.
(2.) But the sense of admitting, accepting as true, thus far developed, is by no means the whole of John's idea of faith in Christ. It includes not only this, but also adherence to Christ; cleaving to hium. See, for instance, the whole passage, Joh_9:35-38, and comp. Joh_11:48; Joh_10:26-27; Joh_6:69; Joh_1:12. Both these are evidently contained also in the πιστεύειν τινὶ, Joh_6:30; comp. with Joh_6:29 : τί οῦν ποιεῖς σὺ σῃμεῖον, ἴνα ἴδωμεν καὶ πιστεύσωμέν σοι (What sign showest thou, that we may see and believe in thee?); 29: ἵνα πιστεύσητε εἰς ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θεός (that ye believe on him''whom He hath sent). Compare especially also Mat_27:42; Mar_15:32.
It is plain, now, that John's idea of faith includes the element of cleaving to Christ as well as of accepting him; and this cleaving to him includes the idea of full trust in Christ as Savior, as illustrated in the important passage, Joh_3:15 : ἴνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εν αὐτῷ (that whosoever believeth in him, not εἰς αὐτον). Tischendorf ἐν, Lachmsann ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν). "Here is involved the anguish, in the believer, of the bite of the fiery serpent, and the earnest looking on him in whom sin is crucified with the inner eye of faith" (Alford, in loc.). In this full sense of the word John uses πιστεύω by itself (to believe) in Joh_1:7; Joh_1:51; Joh_4:41-42; Joh_4:48; Joh_6:36; Joh_6:64; Joh_9:38; Joh_10:25-26; Joh_11:15; Joh_11:40; Joh_12:39; Joh_12:47; Joh_14:29; Joh_16:31; Joh_19:35; Joh_20:31 (comp. Joh_3:12; Joh_6:69; Joh_20:8; Joh_20:25; Joh_20:29). And this faith is the condition "ofthe gifts of life,light, and salvation; Joh_10:26-27; Joh_3:12; Joh_3:16; Joh_3:18; Joh_3:36; Joh_6:35; Joh_6:40; Joh_6:47; Joh_7:38; Joh_11:25-26; Joh_20:31 (comp. Joh_5:38); Joh_8:24; Joh_1:12; Joh_12:36; Joh_12:46 (comp. Joh_8:12 and Joh_11:40).
(3.) Paul's use of πιστεύειν also includes the idea of intellectual conviction, recognition; see the passages above cited under πίστις, and comp. also Rom_4:20 (strong in faith); 1:5; 16:26, and the relation of πιστεύειν to κηρύσσειν (Rom_10:14; Rom_10:16; 1Co_15:2; 1Co_15:11; Eph_1:13). But the sense of trust in Christ tas Savior is always predominant in Paul. The construction πιστεύειν τινι to trust, rely upon, is found 2Ti_1:12 (I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded); Tit_3:8; Rom_4:3; Gal_3:6; Rom_4:6; compare Rom_4:18. Instead of the dative we find πιστεύειν ἐπί τινα, Rom_4:5 : ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ (on him that justifieth the ungodly), Rom_4:24. The πιστεύειν εἰς also denotes always faith in Christ — (Rom_10:14; Gal_2:16; Php_1:29); likewise ἐπὶ with the dative, 1Ti_1:16; Rom_9:33. And πιστεύειν is used standing alone to designate the fullest trust of faith, Rom_1:16; Rom_3:22; Rom_4:11; Rom_4:18; Rom_10:4; Rom_10:10; Rom_13:11; Rom_15:13; 1Co_1:21; 1Co_3:5; 1Co_14:22; 2Co_4:13; Gal_3:22; Eph_1:13; Eph_1:19; 1Th_1:7; 1Th_2:10; 1Th_2:13; 2Th_1:10.
In Jam_2:19, to believe denotes intellectual assent, but in Jam_2:23 it denotes trust (see under πίστις). In Peter the two elements of assent and trusts are conjoined (comp. 1Pe_1:8, with 1Pe_2:6-7; 1Pe_1:21).
In the Acts and Synoptical Gospels, the import of the word (whether assent or trust, or both conjoined) must be decided by the context.
The result of our examination is, that "faith" in the N.T. includes three elements, each and all necessary to the full meaning of the word, while one or another of them may hbecome prominent according to the connection, viz.
(1) full intellectual acceptance of the revelation of salvation,
(2) adherence to the truth and to the person of Christ thus accepted;
(3) absolute and exclusive trust in the redeeming work of Christ for salvation. In no one of the writers of the New Testament is any one of these three elements wanting.
(II.) Early History of the Doctrine of Faith. —
1. In the early Church, the Pauline doctrine of faith as a condition of justification was universally maintained. But the Eastern thinkers did not give much attention to faith in a doctrinal way, and its true meaning was not prominently developed, nor was the distinction between faith and works (as conditions) sharply drawn. During the Apologetic period (from A.D. 100 to A.D. 250), while attention was "principally directed to theoretical knowledge,faith was for the most part considered as historico- dogmatic faith in its relation to γνῶσις. This gave rise to the opinion that knowledge in divine things justifies, while ignorance condemns. Minucius Felix (t 208), 35: Imperitiet Dei sfficit ad panam, notitia prodest ad veniam. Theophilus of Antioch (t181) also knows of a fides historica alone, upon which he makes salvation to depend, 1:14: Α᾿πόδειξιν οῦν λαβὼν τῶν γινομένων καὶ προαναπεφωνημένων, οῦκ ἀπιστῶ, ἀλλἀ πιστεύω πειθαρχῶν θεῷ, ῷ εὐ βούλεὶ καὶ σὺ ὑποτάγηθι, πιστεύων αὐτῷ, μὴ νῦν άπισθήσας, πεισθῆς ἀνιώμενος τότε ἐν αἰωνίοις τιμωρίαις. But, though it was reserved for men of later times to investigate more profoundly the idea of justifying faith in the Pauline sense, yet correct views on this subject were not entirely wanting during this period." Clement of Rome (t 100) says in a Pauline spirit, "Called by the will of God in Christ, we can be justified, not by ourselves, not by our own wisdom and piety, but only by faith, by which God has justified all in all ages. But shall we, on this account cease from doing good, and give up charity? No, we shall labor with unwearied zeal as God, who has called us, always works, and rejoices in his works" (1 Ep. ad Cor. c. 32, 33). Ireanaus (t 202) contrasts the new joyful obedience which ensues on the forgiveness of sins with the legal standpoint. "The law which was given to bondmen formed men's souls by outward corporal work, for it coerced men by a curse to obey the commandments, in order that they might learn to obey God. But the Word, the Logos who frees the soul, and through it the body, teaches a voluntary surrender. Hence the fetters of thee law must be taken off, and man accustom himself to the free obedience of love. The obedience of freedom must be of a higher kind; we are not allowed to go back to our earlier standpoint; for he has not set us free in order that we may leave him; this no one can do who has sincerely confessed him.
No one can obtain the blessings of salvation out of communion with the Lord; and the more we obtain from him, so much the more must we love him; and the more we love him, so much greater glory shall we receive from him" (Irenseus, Haer. Uk. 4, chap. 13:1, 23; Neander, History of Dogmas, Ryland, page 216). Tertullian (220) adv. Marc. 5:3: Exfidei hibertate justisficatur homo, non eax legis servitute, quiajustus ex fide vivit. According to Clement of Alexandria (+ 218), faith is not only the key to the knowledge of God (Coh. page 9), but by it we are also made the children of God (ib. page 23). Clement accurately distinguishes between theoretical and practical unbelief, and understands by the latter the want of susceptibility of divine impressions, a carnal mind which would have everything in a tangible shape (Strom. 2:4, page 436). Origen (A.D. 250) in Numbers Hom. 26 (Opp 3, page 369): Impossibile est salvari sines fide; Comm. in Ep. ad Rom. (Opp. 4, page 517): Etiamsi opera quis habeat ex lege, tames, quia non sunt cedificata supra fundamentum fidei, quamvis videantur esse bona, tames oparatanum suum justificare non possunt, quod eas deestfides, quae est signacurum eorum, qui justificantur a Deo (Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 70; comp. also § 34). Apollinaris (t 885) on Joh_6:27, says: "The eternally enduring food, by which we are sealed by the Father and assimilated to Christ, is the faith which makes alive" and on Joh_6:28, "Faith both justifies and sanctifies without human works, seeing that it contains within itself the noblest energy, and is not slothful or inactive" (Dorner, Person of Christ, Edinb. transl., div. 1, volume 2, page 389). Hilary (t 368): "By faith we become, not merely in a moral way, but essentially, one with Him" (ibid. page 418).
2. The Latins, more earnest on the practical than on the theoretical side, seem to have had deeper notions of faith (see Tertullian, cited above). But the minds of theologians were turned almost wholly to the doctrines of sin, grace, and free will (Pelagian controversy), and not to the appropriation of redemption by faith. The relations of faith to knowledge were set forth clearly and strongly, however, in the maxim Fides prcecedit intellectum, first announced by Origen, and adopted by Augustine (Epist. 120:3; ed. Migne, 2:453, cited by Shedd, History of Doctrines, 1:162). Compare also Augustine, De Utilitate Credendi, c. 23, where he shows the natural analogies for faith; e.g. that friendship among men, filial piety, etc., are grounded on faith. He makes a distinction between fides quae; and fides qua creditur (De Trin. 13:2); and uses the phrase fides Catholica in the objective sense, to denote the body of doctrine "necessary to a Christian" (De temp. serm. 53; and adv. Jud. c. 19). Augustine, says Melancthon, did not set forth fully Paul's doctrine, though he came nearer to it than the Scholastics (Letter to Brentius, opp. ed. Bretschneider, 2:502).
3. In the scholastic period the idea of the kingdom of God degenerated into that of an ecclesiastical theocracy, and the outward side of the religious life (penance and good works) was prominent. Nevertheless, the great doctrinal truths of Christianity were carefully studied, and the aim of the greatest thinkers (e.g. Anselm) was to show that faith can be verified to the intellect as truth, while, at the same time, it is the necessary condition of science, as well as of salvation. "First of all," he says, "faith must purify the heart: we must humble ourselves, and become as little children. He who believes not cannot experience; he who has not experienced cannot understand. Nothing can be done till the soul rises on the wings of faith to God" (De Fide Trinitat. c. 2). The great Greek theologian, John of Damascus (8th century), who may be considered as beginning the period of scholastic theology, defined faith as consisting of two things:
1. belief in the truth of revealed doctrines, the πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς (the faith which cometh by hearing, Rom_10:17);
2. firm confidence in the promises of God, the faith which is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb_11:1).
The first of these, he says, is the work of our own minds; the second is the gift of the Spirit (De Fide Orthod. 4:10). "Anselm comprises the whole doctrine of faith and morals in the question, how man appropriates redemption to himself. He says, 'The mere idea does not make faith, although this cannot exist without an object; in order to true faith the right tendency of the will must be added, which grace imparts' (De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, c. 6). He distinguishes (Monologium, page 72; compare page 75) between credere Deum, Christum, and credere IN Deum, IN Christum; the former denotes a mere outward faith which only retains the form; the latter denotes the true, living faith, which lays hold of communion with God (credendo tendere in divinam essentiam): the former is valueless and dead; the latter contains the power of love, and testifies its power and its life by love. The faith which is connected with love cannot be inoperative; it proves its vitality, by so operating. Hugo of St. Victor develops the general idea of faith in connection with the religious nature of man. Faith marks the manner in which invisible blessings dwell within our souls (quodam modo in nobis subsistunt), the real vital communion with God, his true existence in the human soul. For divine things cannot be apprehended by us through the senses, the understanding, or the imagination, since they have nothing analogous to all these, but are exalted above all images. The only vehicle of their appropriation is faith. Two elements meet in it the tendency of the disposition, and the matter of cognition. This latter is the object of faith, but its essence consists in the tendency of the disposition; and although this is never altogether without the former, yet it constitutes the value of faith. Bernard agrees with Hugo in his view of the nature of faith: ‘even now,' he says, 'many who believe with confidence have only scanty knowledge; thus many in the O.T. retained firm faith in God, and received salvation by this faith, although they knew not when and how salvation would come to them.' Abelard's expressions are also important (Sentent. c. 4). 'Faith,' he says, 'always refers to the invisible, never to thevisible. But how is this? when Christ said to Thomas, "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed." What Thomas saw before him was one thing, what he believed was another. He confessed the man whom he saw to be the Lord, in whom he believed. He saw the flesh, but he believed in the God veiled in the flesh'" (Neander, Church History, Torrey, 4:375).
Not merely Abelard, but also most of the other schoolmen, understood by Justificatio per fidem not objective justification, but a subjective character of the disposition, which proceeds from faith, the true inward sanctification in love which arises out of faith. Bernard, on the other hand, was led by his experience to a more objective view: 'No one is without sin (Sermo on Solomon's Song, 23, § 15); for all righteousness it is enough for me that he is gracious to me who has redeemed me. Christ is not merely righteous (Ib. 22, § 8), but righteousness itself.' The scholastic doctrine on this point received a fixed form through Peter Lombard (Sentent. in, dist. 28). He makes a threefold distinction in faith: Deum credere, Deo credere, and in Deum or Christum credere. The two first amount merely to holding a thing to be true, but the last is the faith by which we enter into communion with God. With such a faith love is necessarily connected, and this faith alone is justifying. Love is the effect of this. faith, and the ground of the whole Christian life. Applying to faith the Aristotelian distinction between theform as the formative principle (εῖδος, forma), and the inorganic material determined by it (ὕλη, materies), Peter distinguishes faith as the qualitas mrentis informnis, the mere material of faith, and the fidesformata, when the vivifying power of love is added to it, which forms and determines it. The fides formata is a true virtue and this faith, working by love, alone justifies" (Ne ander, History of Dogmas; Ryland, page 522 sq.).
The Scholastics generally recognised the distinction (hinted by Augustine) between objective and subjec tive faith (fides qua creditur and fides quae creditur) and also distinguished between developed (explicita) and undeveloped (implicita) faith (Aquinas, Sumnma, 2, qu. 1, art. 7). But in all the scholastic period, the prevalence of the sacerdotal theory of religion hindered, if it did not absolutely prevent, a just apprehension of the nature of faith, and naturally developed the theory of the merit of good works. Peter Lombard, indeed, says that good works are those only that spring from the love of God, which love itself is the fruit of faith (opus fidei; Sentent. lib. in, dist. 23, D); but the "views of Thomas Aquinas were not quite so scriptural; thus (Surmm. part. 2:2, qu. 4, art. 7) he speaks of faith itself as a virtue, though he assigns to it the first and highest place among all virtues." He defines faith to be “an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth in virtue of the operation of the Spirit of God upon the will" (Summa, 2:2, 1, 4), and reckons faith among the theological virtues, which he distinguishes from the ethical (Neander, Wiss. Abhandlung. ed. Jacobi. 1851, page 42) "Such notions, however, led more and more to the revival of Pelagianism, till the forerunners of the Reformation returned to the simpler truths of the Gospel" (Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 186). According to Aquinas, the faith by which we are cleared from sin is not the fides informis, which can coexist with sin; but is the fides formata per charitatem (faith informed by love). In justification there is a motes charitatis as well as a motuss fidei (Summa, part 3, qu. 44, art. 1). This statement contains the germ of the later Roman Catholic doctrine (see other passages in Moheler, Symbolism, N.Y. 1844, page 205; comp. Beck, Dogsaengeschichte, 1864, page 365). Its doctrine (as that of the period generally) is that justification is "not an objective act, but something subjective, making man internally righteous by the communication of the divine life in fellowship with Christ. For the attainment of justificatio, moreover, faith can only be the first step; it was not sufficient for jusfification, but love must be added; the gratia justificans was first given in the fides formata, making mman internally righteous. Since this external idea of faith required that for effecting justification something must be added from without, the additional aid of the Church here was demanded" (Neander, Dogmas, page 661). SEE JUSTIFICATION.
4. John Wessel (t 1489) was a precursor of the Reformation in his views on faith, as well as on many other points. None of the theologians of the Scholastic age expressed the principle of faith so fully in the Pauline spirit as Wessel. He considers it "not a mere taking for granted of historical facts, but the devotion of the whole mind to fellowship with God through Christ; it is the basis of the whole higher life; not merely in the relations of man to man, but also in the relations of man to God" (Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, Edinb. 1855, 2:468).
Practically, at the dawn of the Reformation (and for ages before), Christian people were taught by their pastors that the pardon of sin was to be secured, not bh faith in the merits of Christ, but by penitential observancms and good works, followed by priestly absolution; andfaith itself was generally held to be simply the reception of the teaching of the Church. In practice, faith was transformed into credulity.
(III.) The Protestant and Roman Catholic Doctrines of Faith compared. — The ProtestantDoctrine. — The central point of the Reformation, in a doctrinal point of view, was justification by faith. Its development will be treated in our article SEE JUSTIFICATION; we can here only briefly give the distinction between the Protestant and Roman Catholic doctrines of faith: 1. that of the Reformers; 2. that of the Roman Catholic Church.
1. The Reformers. — The Reformers, in opposition to the Scholastic doctrine of justification as a subjective work (the making just), brought out prominently the Objective idea of justification (as a work donefor us by Christ). "On the other side, correspondingly, they regarded faith as subjective, and as the principle of the transformation of the whole inner life" (Neander, Dogmas, 2:662). The prominent position of faith in the theology of the Reformers was a fundasmental part of the change that was taking place, at the time, in the general religious views of Christendom. " The mind was not satisfied with an objective and outward salvation, however valid and reliable it might be. It desired a consciousness of being saved; it craved an experience of salvation. The Protestant mind could not rest in the Church, neither could it pretend to rest in an atonement that was unappropriated. The objective work of Christ on Calvary must become the subjective experience and rejoicing of the soul itself. While, however, the principle and act of faith occupies such a prominent place in the soteriology of the Reformation, we should not fail to notice that it is never represented as a procuring cause of justification; it is only the instrumental cause.
Protestantism was exceedingly careful to distinguish justification from legal righteousness on the one hand, and from sanctification by grace on the other. It could not, consequently, concede to anv species of human agency, however excellent, a pecular and atoning efficacy. Hence we find none of that supplementary or perfecting of the work of Christ by the work of the creature which is found in the papalu sotetiology. And this applies to the highest of acts, the act of faith itself. Faith itself, though the gift and the work of God, does not justify, speaking accurately, but merely accepts that which does justify" (Shedd, History of Doctrines, 2:337-8). Luther was led to the true Pauline doctrine of faith by his profound conviction of the desperate condition of humanity, not simply from its sense of finiteness (which could only have led him to faith as a realization of the invisible and eternal), but also and chiefly from the crushing sense of personal guilt on account of sin. He regards faith not merely as a mere attribute, but, "so to speak, as a substantial and divine thing, so far as it cleaves to God, and God is in it. Faith is in the state of the unio mystica, union with God; and yet it is, at the same time, man's true existence." It is no mere intellectual act, but a giving up of the whole man to trust in Christ; and conversely, a penetration of the whole man by the life of Christ. "Faith makes new creatures of us. MY holiness and righteousness do not spring from myself; theys arise alone out of Christ, in whom I am rooted by faith" (Dorner, Person of Christ, 2:58, 64). In the Preface to the Epistle to the Romans Luther says: "Faith alone justifies, and it alone fulfils the law; for faith, through the merits of Christ, obtains the Holy Spirit. And then, at length, from the faith thus efficaciously working and living in the heart, freely (fluunt) proceed those works which are truly good... . But faith is an energy in the heart; at once so efficacious, lively, breathing, and powerful as to be incapable of remaining inactive, but bursts forth into operation. Neither does he who has faith (moratur) demur about the question whether good works have been commanded or not; but even though there were no law, feeling the motions of this living impulse putting forth and exerting itself in his heart, he is spontaneously borne onward to work, and at no time does he cease to perform such actions as are truly pious and Christian. Faith, then, is a constant fiducia, a trust in the mercy of God toward us; a trust living and efficaciously working in the heart, by which we cast ourselves entirely on God, and commit ourselves to him; by which, cer to fraeti, having an assured reliance, we feel no hesitation about enduring death a thousand times." "Luther laid the greatest stress at all times on the assurance of salvation, and of the divine truth of Christianity.
The ground certainty, on which all other certainty depends, is with him the justification of the sinner for Christ's sake apprehended by faith; of which it is only the objective statement to say that to him the fundamental certainty is Christ as the Redeemer, through surrender to whom faith has full satisfaction, and knows that it stands in the truth" (Dorner, Geschichte d. Prot. Theol., Miunchen, 1867, page 224). — "To believe those things to be true which are preached of Christ is not sufficient to constitute thee a Christian; but thou must not doubt that thou art of the number of them unto whom all the benefits of Christ are given and exhibited, which he that believes must plainly confess, that he is holy, godly, righteous, the Son of God, and certain of salvation, and that by no merit of his own, but by the mere mercy of God poured forth upon him for Christ's sake" (Luther, Serm. on Gal_1:4, in Fish, Masterpieces of Pulpit Eloquence, 1:462). Zwingle held that faith, in the sense of the appropriation by man, through grace, of the redemptive work of Christ, is the only means or instrument of salvation. It was one of his grounds of objection to the Roman and Lutheran doctrines of the Eucharist that these doctrines detract from the glory of faith by representing it as insufficient for salvation (Dorner, Person of Christ, div. 2, volume 2, page 116). Melancthen, in a letter to Brentius, May, 1531, says: "Faith alone (sola) justifies, not because it is the root (radix), as you write, but because it lays hold of Christ, on whose account we are accepted. It is not love, the fulfilling of the law, which justifies, but faith alone, not because it is a perfection in us, but only because it lays hold on Christ" (edit. Bretschneider, Hal. Sax. 1835, 2:501). Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 11) treats of faith at large, and distinguishes it from "a common assent to the evangelical history," and refutes the nugatory distinction made by the schools between fides forsata and fides informis. "The disputes of the schools concerning faith, by simply styling God the object of it, rather mislead miserable souls by a vain speculation than direct them to the proper mark. For, since God, 'dwelleth in the light which, no man can approach unto,' there is a necessity for the interposition of Christ as the medium of access to him." "This evil, then, as well as innumerable others, must be imputed to the schoolmen, who have, as it were, concealed Christ by drawing a veil over him; whereas, unless our views be immediately and steadily directed to him, we shall always be wandering through labyrinths without end. They not only, by their obscure definitions, diminish, and almost annihilate, all the importance of faith, but have fabricated thee notion of implicit faith, a term with which they have honored the grossest ignorance, and most perniciously deluded the miserable multitude." "Is this faith to understand nothing, but obediently to submit our understanding to the Church? Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge; and that not only of God, but also of the divine will... . For faith consists of a knowledge of God and of Christ, not in reverence to the Church.
In short, no man is truly a believer unless he be firmly persuaded that God is a propitious and benevolent Father to him, and promise himself everything from his goodness; unless. he depend out the promises of divine benevolence to him, and feels an undoubted expectation of salvation. He is no believer, I say, who does not rely on the security of his salvation, and confidently triumph over the devil and death" (Calvin, Institutes, book 3, chapter 2).
The passages from the several Confessions will be given more fully in the art. SEE JUSTIFICATION; we cite here a few. Augsburg Cosfession. — "Men are justified freely for Christ's sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor, and their sins are remitted for Christ's sake; this faith doth God impute for righteousness upon him" (Art. 4). The nature of saving faith is set forth in Art. 20: "It is to be observed here that a mere historical belief; such as wicked men and devils have, is not here meant, who also believe is the history of the sufferings of Christ, and in his resurrection from the dead; but that genuine faith is here meant which causeth us to believe that we can obtain grace and forgiveness of sins through Christ, and which giveth us the confidence that through Christ we have a merciful God, which also gives us the assurance to know God to call upon him, and to have him always in remembrance, so that the believer is not without God, as are the Gentiles" (compare the Apology for the Confession, art. 2, 3). Heidelberg Catechism. — Qu. 21. "What is true faith? Ans. It is not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Ghost works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merit." Remonstrants' Confession' (11:1). — "Faith in Christ is a firm assent (assensus) of the mind to the word of God, joined with true trust (fiduci) in Christ, so that we not only faithfully receive Christ's doctrine as true and divine, but rest wholly on Christ himself for salvati
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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