When it is said that Christian faith is personal trust in God in and through Jesus Christ, one need not conclude that ' faith ' and ' trust ' are exactly equivalent terms. The thought is only that the deepest essence of faith is trust, and that there is no Christian faith that is not personal trust in God. An examination, however, of the passages in the NT in which these words occur will clearly show that even here — to say nothing of later ecclesiastical usage — faith, formally regarded, is the more comprehensive term.
' Two factors (Momente) are to be distinguished in faith, one relating to the object, the knowledge of God mediated through Christ, the other relating to the state of the subject, the trust in salvation resting upon Christ. But the two cannot be sepa- rated from each other, since the Christian knowledge of God arises only in and with the trust in salvation. To the distinc- tion between these two sides of faith correspond the two lormuldb fides quce credi.tur = the content of faith, and fides qua creditii.r = the attitude of faith. Only it should be kept in mind that the content of faith consists primarily not in a theologi- cally formulated doctrine, but in the immediate beholding and understanding of the saving revelation itself ' (Kirn, art. 'Gla,uhe' in PRE 3).
It is accordingly unwarrantable to speak of ' a purely intellectual faith in God.' The mere liolding a doctrine to be true is not faith at all. Earlier dogmaticians divided the function of faith into three acts : notitia, knowledge, instruction in the facts and doctrines of Christianity ; assensus, assent to the teaching ; fiducia, personal trust. This view, however, is misleading ; for faith, how- ever many aspects it may have, is yet an integral thing, not formed by the synthesis of several acts. And
' notitia and assensus have nothing to do with religious faith except as they are included in the fiducia. That saving trust
meant to denote 'trumpet-blast,' as indeed the gloss (fuvtj; suggests. We should rather conjecture that fj-n-d ira.XTtyyo( lj.iya.Xv,c, preceded by y.a.i, originally stood after So'lvi; toXX-??, which would give a better order.
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does not arise without the hearing of the niessajje of salvation (lixaii, Ro 10") is self-evident and undisputed. On the other hand, the assensus, as the sure persuasion of the power of Christ as Redeemer and of the reality of the God who is above the world, is brought about only in and with the fiducin. . . . Only this one thing must remain unobscured, that the right and proper answer of man to the saving revelation that comes to liini is the jidiicia, and that out of it grows all certainty and knowledge of God and Divine things ' (Kirn).
Some, again, have attempted to draw a positive distinction between faith and trust, regarding faith as the receiving from God, and trust as the yielding of self to God. The essential cliaracter- istic of faith i.s indeed receptivity ; but it is a mis- take to suppose that the trustful yielding of self to God is anything more or other than the opening of the heart and life to His influence and control througii the overma.stering revelation of the grace of Christ. In other words, even the trustful de- votion of self to God remains at bottom a receiving from God.
The attempt has been made (cf. esp. E. W. Mayer, Das christliche Gottvertrauen und der Glaube an Christ us, 1899) to show that while Christ, according to the NT, is the object of ' faith,' only God is tiie object of the fidl ' trust' of the Christian. As Jesus, the Christ, revealing in word and deed the Father's holy love, bears the otter of salvation to men, so through their faith in His revelation He brings men to the Father in trust. Trust in God is the consequence of faith in Christ. But can this view be consistently main- tained ? Faith in Christ — not as Prophet merely, but as the Bearer of salvation — is justified only as we have ground for the assurance that in Him God is dealing with us. So then faith in Christ is trust in the Father, and trust in the Father as revealed in Christ is also trust in the Son, the Bearer of salvation (Jn 14"''-). Certain it is that the writers of the NT saw in Christ more than Teacher and Example. Even as their exalted Lord He con- tinued to be a personal Helper.
So long as the revelation of God's grace was not yet complete in the sending forth of His Son and then of the Spirit of His Son (Gal i'*- ^), faith could not rise to its full measure. Before Christ the full conception of faith could not be reached. The word ' trust ' occurs frequently in the Psalms and not seldom in certain other OT books. It does not, however, signify tlie perfect fellowship of the child of God, but only a reliance upon God's faith- fulness. The predominant idea in the trust of the OT was hope. There were heroes of faith before Ciirist, but their faith could not be perfect, for they had not received the object of their hope (He Ipg. 40) j„ Ciirist the filial disposition is estab- lished (cf. e.fj. V^-). And so fimdamental and all- comprehensive was His work as Mediator of the New Covenant that He could be truly called ' the author and perfecter of faith' (12^). Only as men know God in Christ can they know what faith in its full sense is. The life of faith is communion with God in and through Christ, and the nerve of that communion is personal trust. Christian trust is reliance upon God, but not upon ' God out of Christ.' Neither can it be reliance upon Jesiis except as the essential revelation of the Father.