■ff A little girl had asked her father what faith meant, and he had told her to wait for his answer. One day he was doing something in a cellar, the entrance to which was a trap-door in a passage. The child called out to him, " May I come down to you, father ? " " Yes," he said. The little girl was going to descend, when she found that the ladder had been taken away. " I can't get down," she called out ; " there is no ladder." " Jump down," her father answered, " and I will catch you." The child hesitated ; she could not see her father, and below her everything seemed dark. " But I can't see you, father ; I can't see anything," she said. "I can see you," was the reply; "jump, and I shall be sure to catch you. My arms are wide open now." The child hesitated no longer; she was sure that her father was there ready to catch her, though she could not see him. She jumped into the darkness and was safely caught.2
ii. The Lord Jesus.
1. The belief that saves is belief " on the Lord Jesus." And belief on the Lord Jesus is not merely to believe that a man once lived in the world who was called Jesus. It is not merely to 1G. S. Barrett. 2J. R. Gregory.
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believe that the Bible contains a true account of all that He did and said and suffered while He was on earth, and of what He has told us to do for His sake. For it is very easy to believe all these things with the head and yet not to care about them with the heart, just as we believe a great many other things in the world : facts of history, for instance, in which we feel no interest, and which we do not think are of any concern to us. The truth is, that to believe about Christ and to believe in Christ are two very different things. The first will help only so far as it may lead to the second. To know that He is able to save is nothing, unless we are really saved ; to know that He is able to wash away our sins is nothing, unless they are washed away ; to know that He will help us to come to Him is nothing, unless we come ; just in the same way we shall be none the better for knowing that there is a heaven, unless we enter into heaven.
Tf Eeaders of George MacDonald will remember the scene where Mr. Graham, the pious schoolmaster, is sent for to see the Marquis of Lossie on his death-bed. He ventured this verse to the dying man, but it only drew from him the reply, " That's cant." "After thirty years' trial of it," said the schoolmaster, "it is to me the essence of wisdom. It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter." " What am I to believe about Him, then ? " " You are to believe on Him, not about Him." " I don't understand." " He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the Divine Man, the human God : to believe on Him is to give ourselves up to Him in obedience, to search out His will, and do it. This is the open door to bliss." x
2. In its fulness, then (for it is of a corresponding fulness with salvation), belief on the Lord Jesus involves (1) the appre- hension of that Person. We know Him — not, however, in the sense of comprehending Him, but having Him before the mind as an object of apprehension. We know His name. We recognize His present existence. We cannot repose believingly in the annihilated. We know something about Him. The more we know the better. (2) Faith will include assent to what comes to our knowledge respecting the Person, the Deliverer; not merely assent of the intellect, as to the proposition that once at Nazareth lived, and at Jerusalem died, such an one called Jesus.
1 S. L. Wilson, Helpful Words for Daily Life, 59.
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Assent of the understanding undoubtedly, but also of the emotions — of the conscience, of the will. (3) Faith in a Deliverer, presenting Himself as able and willing to save, offering to save us, will include acceptance of that offer. A curious and somewhat striking illustration of this is to be found even in the derivation of the word " believe." That word is kinsman to the German word glauben. And the ancestor of both words is a noun, signifying " hand." The simple, primitive idea of believing, then, is that of accepting a promise by the striking of hands, or that of putting into, or leaving in, the hands of another some vital and commanding interest. (4) On such acceptance there follows reliance ; just such reliance as the patient places on the physician, the accused on his advocate, the scholar on his teacher, the liegeman on his king. At first the reliance is, that Christ will do such and such; but with advancing experience it becomes a reliance that Christ has done, is doing, great things for us, and will yet do greater things than these. (5) But faith in the Lord Jesus is of such a nature that it demands and implies obedience to His competent direction, the co-operation of our will with His will, the unifying of our whole nature with His perfect nature, a union close, energizing — not merely life-long — existence- long.