The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 26

1""er. 13.-Faith in Christ. "In whom having believed." Faith is a God-given reliance on an all-sufficient Mediator. L IT IS llORE T1liN A MEBB BELIEF OF THE TRUTH: it is an act of the will ; it is trfilt in e. Person. It has been strongly urged in our day that faith is simply the belief in God's testimony that Christ has died for ns. "It is simply believing that Ch..--:ist died for me." There are two statements here : Christ is the Saviour of sinners; he has sal""ed me. The first is true, whether I believe in him or not ; the second only becomes true on my believing. Faith is not believing that I am saved ; it is believing in order t-0 be saved. The grant of salvation is absolute or it is not. If not, the grant does not make the pardon mine before I believe ; if it is absolute, it makes the pardon mine before I believe; so I am justified before faith and therefore without faith. ·ou this theory of faith, faith is utterly impossible.; for the soul would require to accept the proposition, "I am saved," in order to be saved. A man may, firmly credit the te.stimony of God, and yet doubt whether he is himself a believer, though he is convinced that Christ will save all true believers. The position of some is practically this: "I believe that I am a believer." If this is true faith, we cannot deceive our- l!elves; for the more firmly a man believes he is a. believer, the stron'ger must his'faith be. But nothing but a theory of universal salvation <;ould warrant a shiner, while he is still a sinner, to believe that Christ died for him and will asimredly sa"l!(l him; The apostle said to the Galatians, " Let no man deceive himself;'' but on this principle there is no need for any warnings against self-deception. • •.• II. FAITH IS TRUST m A PEBSON. It thllS becomes the instrument of our justifica- tion. It is the receptive organ or the hand by which the graciously provided ransom is received by the sinner; or, it is the bond which attaches him t-0 Christ. When the object of faith is stated in Scripture, it is presented in connection with certain significant forms of grammatical construction. We are said to believe in or upon Jesus Christ. '.l'his form occurs fifty times in the New Testament, and the object is always a Person, and not a statement to be believed. If faith, indeed, is not taken to include trust, we have not a single exhortation in the whole New _Test:3-ment to tl'll:8t in the Lord li,ke what occurs so often in the Old Testament; and 1f faith does not rnclu<le trust, where is the evidence that the Old Testament saints had faith at all, apart from the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. xi.) ; for in the Old Testament they are not said to believe, •but always to trust in the Lord? III. F .A.ITH IS THE susTAINING PRINCIPLE OF oun CHRISTIAN LIFE. It Is not the mere root-principle; it is the continuing principle of it; for the apostle says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20). lie who believes receives the saving blessing~ which Ohrist,ls death procured. Faith apprehends Christ under three graciou~ aHpects : "Ghrist for us," for our jW1tification ; "Ohrist in  THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 23