The saving power of faith resides thus not in itself, but in the Almighty Saviour on whom it rests. It is never on account of its formal nature as a psychic act that faith is conceived in Scrijiture to be saving, — as if this frame of mind or attitude of heart were itself a virtue with claims on God
for reward, or at least especially pleasing to Him (either in its nature or as an act of obedience) and thus predisposing Him to favour, or as if it brought the soul into an attitude of receptivity or of sym- pathy with God, or opened a channel of communi- cation from Him. It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ : faith in any other saviour, or in this or that philosophy or human conceit (Col 2"- '*, 1 Ti 4'), or in any other gospel than that of Jesus Christ and Him as crucilied (Gal !'• • , brings not salvation but a curse. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faitli or the attitude of faith or the nature of faith, but in the object of faith ; and in this the whole biblical representation centres, so that we could not more radically misconceive it than by trans- ferring to faith even the smallest fraction of that saving energy which is attributed in the Scrip- tures solely to Christ Himself. This purely mediatory function of faith is very clearly indi- cated in the regimens in which it stands, which ordinarily express simple instrumentality. It is most frequently joined to its verb as the dative of means or instrument (Ac 15" 26'*, Ro S'^ i^ 5= II* 2 Co I^ He 11^- *• '■ '' '■ '■ "' "' ^' "■ ^' ^ 11 "- '^^ ^- ^• ") ; and the relationship intended is further ex- plained by the use to expre.ss it of the prepositions ^K (Ro l''^ '" 3''"- » 4'«- "« 5' 9«'- »» 10» 14-^- J Gal 2'« 37. 8. «. 11. la. 27. 28 5»_ 1 xi l», He 10**, Ja 2") and 5i4 (with thegcnitive, never with the accusative, Ro 3-*- ■^- »>, 2 Co ry\ Gal 2'" 3"- ^a 3', 2Ti 3", He 6^' 11^- ", 1 1' 1°), — the fundamental idea of the former con- struction being that of source or origin, and of the latter that of mediation or instrumentality, though they are used together in the same context, appar- ently with no distinction of meaning (Ro 3^- "*• *', Gal 2'"). It is not necessary to discover an essen- tially different implication in the exceptional usage of tlie prepositions ^iri (Ac 3'", Pli 3") and /card (He IF- ", cf. Mt 9^) in this connexion : ^irl is appar- ently to be taken in a quasi-temporal sense, ' on faith,' giving the occasion of the divine act, and Kara, very similarly in the sense of conformability, 'in contormity with faith.' Not infrequently we meet also with a construction with the preposition if which properly designates the sphere, but which in passages like Gal 2-'", Col 2', 2 'rh 2" appears to pass over into the conception of instrumentality.
So little indeed is faith conceived as containing in itself the energy or ground of salvation, tliat it is consistently represented as, in its origin, itself a gratuity from God in the prosecution of His saving work. It comes, not of one's own strength or virtue, but only to those who are chosen of God for its reception (2 Th 2"), and hence is His gift (Eph 6*', cf. 2", Ph 1=»), through Christ (Ac 3'«, Ph 1», 1 P 1-', cf. He 12^), by the Spirit (2 Co 4", Gal 5"), by means of the preached word (Ro 10", Gal 3-- •) ; and as it is thus obtained from God (2 P 1', Jude ', I P 1"), thanks are to be returned to God for it (Col 1*, 2 Th 1»). Thus, even here all boasting is excluded, and salvation is conceived in all its elements as the jiure product of unalloyed grace, issuing not from, but in, good works (Kidi 2"'"). The place of faith in the process of salva- tion, as biblically conceived, could scarcely, there- fore, be better described than by the use of the scholastic term 'instrumental cause.' Not in one portion of the Scrijilures alone, but throughout their whole extent, it is conceived as a boon from above which comes to men, no doubt through the channels of their own activities, but not as if it were an ellect of their energies, but rather, as it has been lincly phrased, as n gift which (Jod lays in the lap of the soul. 'With the heart,' indeed, 'man bclieveth unto righteousness'; but this be-
lieving does not arise of itself out of any heart Indifferently (Mt 13'), nor is it grounded in the heart's own potencies ; it is grounded rather in the freely-giving goodness of God, and comes to man as a oenofaction out of heaven.