saved,' cf. Jn 1").
The usual sense of the verb in the Fourth Gospel is a soteriological one. It expresses saving faith directed to the Person of Christ. In some instances, it is true, the immediate object of the faith is the wonder-working power of Jesus (the 'miracle- faith ') : Jn 4'"* (' Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in nowise believe'), ll''".§ But here also the same remark applies as to the similar cases in the Synoptics, that tlie soteriological meaning lies very close to, and is sometimes almost indistin- guishable from, the other (cf. Jn 4^" with v.^'' and 9»8, and 11* with v.'^ and \■l'■^•*). In the foUowing instances, however, the direct soteriological sig- nificance is clear and unmistakable: 3'5- 18 4-11. 42. 53 5« 636- «• " 9^8 10=5- =» 11>5 \-<:» 14-'-' \&^ XSF- 20*'. Of these passages the two last are particularly instruc- tive : ' That ye may believe ' (19^), and ' These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye may have life in his name' (20^"). Here faith occupies
* For the possible interpretation of the words HNT m.T 1.13 (Gn 2214) as a proverb= ' In the mountain (i.e. when perplexity is at its height) Jahweh will provide,' see C. J. Ball in SHOT note, ad loc. Cf. Zee 4^.
t Cf. al™ Ac 149.
; Cf. also the use of riirriiut for saving faith in Christ, in Mk
15^2. §.Cf. Mt b
3 9'-;3 -21, Lk HM.
FAITH
FAITH
a fundamental place. Its essential object is defined to te the belief that Jesus is ' the Clinst, the Son of God.'
9"). Lt. li.e ,„u,..ae U=c Ml ^ 7,.- r.», ■ Uul^ciwi tilk »- IGIJ, Jit
13S«, Mk 06 ; also ill the Epp.) ; i-ri^T:», ■ disbelie\ e ' (Ilk lUll- 1", Lk 24"-", Ac 282», 1 P 27); and i\iyiT,a-ro;,i'ot little faith' (Mt 630 828 1431 168, Lk 1228); S>.,ycT,^T,«., 'little faith," occurs lit
5. Some characteristics of the Johannine con- ception of 'faith.' The Imuhiniental conception of 'faith' in the Fouitli (!.)spi-l cdini'ides with that of the other NT writers ; it cdii^ists essentially in trustful self-committal to Christ ;inil His s.Uvation. Only it is concerned less than in tin' Synupties with the appropriation of directly physir:il relief; it moves rather in the sphere \a spiritual and eternal facts, and directs itself more exclusivelj- to the Person of Christ. Trust in God and in Christ are equated (14') ; faith characterizes those who recognize His Divine mission (cf. also 16™), and they are described as those 'who believe in his name.' The result of faith is an acknowledgment of Christ's unity with the Father {10^ 14").
Faith (TTiffTeufii') and knowledge (yiyviia-Kav) are intercliangeable ideas in tlie Fourth Gospel (cf. 6"' 1038 178)^ or rather they express the same truth looked at from different sides. ' To know ' (7i7i'ui(7- Keiv) in the Johannine language expresses the per- ception of eternal truth ; ' to believe,' its temporal discovery and appropriation. The former is there- fore the fruit of the latter (cf. esp. 10^ ' believe . . . that ye may know'). The intellectual ele- ment is thus the product of a moral act, and is conditioned by it. Faith is not the result of logical operations, but is due to tlie Divine working (C'"
'No man can come ti eNre|.i the Father which
.sent me draw him'). WIm !.■ imli is not attained, this is due to the distr.u tii.n cmh ii.l by lower and earthly ambitions or idi:ils c ulciiy one of another,' 5'"), or the deliberate choice of darkness rather than light (3", cf. v.^'). Trust is also shown to be characteristic of a real faith, which does not need 'signs,' and has risen above the necessities of ' sight ' (20-"). Tlie boon which faith appropriates is eternal life (5-^).
Tliere is evident in tlie treatment of faith char- acteristic of the Fourth Gospel a spirit of protest against the false and exaggerated views of know- ledge that were beginning to affect tlie Church. The subtle and pervasive danger of Gnosticism, with its dangerous glorifieatiuii <if a merely in- tellectual knowledge, and its (.ini(iii|ii in simple faith, had to be met. This u,, , n,- ,, ,| i,, the Fourth Gospel, 'on the one IiuimI Iry il. ,|,riiinn' the idea of knowledge to the knowledge of exjierience' (which is the fruit of simple faith), 'and on the other by insisting upon the immediate entrance of every believer into the possession .^of salvation.' t The writer of the Fourth Gospel 'would indoi^l have believers know what they believe, and who He is in whom they put their trust, and what He has done for them, and is doing, and will do in and through them ; but this is not that they may know these things simply as intellectual propositions, but that they may rest on them in faith, and know them in personal experience.'? Nothing is more
* el TirTiitratvTt: (=tho3e who had turned to Christ in trustful reliance) is perhaps used as a subst. in such passages as Ac 2-*^ 4 ".!, 2 Th 1115, He 43.
t 1!. B. WarfieUl in Hastiniis' D/J i. S30 (.irt. 'F.iith').
t Warfleld, ih.
characteristic of the Johannine conception than the insistence on the /»rscn< experience and partici- pation in eternal life of believers. ' He that be- lieveth hath eternal life' (S'^ 5-* e"-"; cf. IJn ;(i4. 15 5ii-i3)_ The inheritance of the true Christian w as not merely a future boon, — tliough the future liad in store tor him a greater glory than that of the present, — but the simple believer, by the mere act of faith, was already placed on a plane of life to which no knowledge could attain.'