RHB The Lord might help us to speak together about faith: what it is and where it is. The Lord said to some at one point, “Where is your faith?”, Luke 8: 25. Peter speaks of it as “precious faith” (2 Pet 1: 1); he speaks of it as “much more precious than of gold which perishes”, 1 Pet 1: 7. I wondered if, in speaking together about it, we might have a fresh appreciation of the preciousness of faith and what it is to have faith as a gift from God; and how it is to be exercised in our daily life. There could not really be anything more basic in Christianity. We might get some help together in our enquiry as to why everything is based on faith. Why has God chosen that way to reach His end? We know that we are saved through it (Eph 2: 8); we know that we can be healed by it (Jas 5: 15); we know that we are to live by it, Heb 10: 38. We are exhorted to pursue it (2 Tim 2: 22); we are exhorted to maintain it (1 Tim 1: 19). We know from the scriptures that practically it can be overthrown in the soul: we read of some who overthrow the faith of others, 2 Tim 2: 18. On the other hand it can be built upon, we can build up ourselves in our most holy faith, Jude 20. There is great comfort to be had from faith. The apostle says, “to have mutual comfort among you, each by the faith which is in the other” (Rom 1: 12), and I wondered whether we might experience that in a reading like this; not simply to speak of it as a matter of teaching - though we must in what we say be within the bounds of the truth - but to speak of it in that way, “each by the faith which is in the other”. The apostle says, “I have believed, therefore have I spoken” (2 Cor 4: 13); so what he believed was what he presented in his speech to others. Faith comes by report, and the report by God’s word (Rom 10: 17); but the scriptures warn that it can be feigned. The scriptures speak of “unfeigned faith” (2 Tim 1: 5), and I feel, and have no doubt that others share it, that there is much abroad that has the effect of undermining faith. We need to be built up in it, to build one another up in it; to maintain it ourselves, and to exercise it.
In this great section of faith, the apostle draws on Old Testament saints to illustrate its nature and character in operation. But the present dispensation is spoken of specifically as “God’s dispensation, which is in faith”, 1 Tim 1: 4. It is not that it is limited, as these passages show, to this dispensation; it is a feature that has marked God’s dealings with men from the outset, but it is particularly in this dispensation that it comes into its own. I wondered if we might get some help together as to why that is.
JBI You spoke of faith as something we exercise. Do you think that as we exercise faith more is given?
RHB Yes, and confirmation is received in it. Help us as to what faith is.
JBI Do you think Enoch was looking to someone outside of himself in a day which was outwardly difficult? Jude gives us a little idea as to how he saw the Lord, “come amidst his holy myriads”, Jude 14. Do you think Enoch’s eye was on something outside of this world, and on what God was doing?
RHB It says of him that he walked with God (Gen 5: 24) in the midst of a wicked world, and he foretold God’s judgment upon it, “Behold, the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all; and to convict all the ungodly of them of all their works of ungodliness” (Jude 14, 15). But where did he get that view? That is what he saw, and that is what he said, but he must have had that from his communion with God.
KM Is faith the work of God in the soul? It is God’s work.
RHB Yes, it is God’s gift. The apostle says, “For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift”, Eph 2: 8. The question often arises with young persons, and it may arise sometimes after they are breaking bread, as to the reality of things that are unseen and yet eternal, 2 Cor 4: 18. I think in its essence what faith brings into the soul is the substantial reality of things that are unseen.
RDP Man’s mind and heart are dark because of sin. It helped me some time ago to see that faith is light. The first thing is that God in His sovereign operations brings light into the heart.
RHB I think that helps, it is light from God and it only becomes that as it is received in faith. We sometimes say we have a lot of light on the bookshelves, and we know what we mean; but light is not exactly in books; it is God communicating something Himself and opening our eyes to see the reality of things that we could not have any apprehension of, apart form divine revelation.
RDP The human mind could not reach it even in its most sophisticated form. It says of the Lord Jesus, “there is no beauty that we should desire him”, Isa 53: 2. That would be according to man, but God’s light illuminates His thoughts in relation to Christ and sheds that abroad, and I suppose it is extended by the Holy Spirit in the heart.
RHB So Peter says, even of Him, “whom, having not seen, yet love; on whom though not now looking, but believing, ye exult with joy unspeakable and filled with the glory”, 1 Pet 1: 8. That to me is a most remarkable tribute to what you have spoken about as to God’s work, that there should be ardent affection for the One whom we have never seen. It is a tremendous thing.
This man Enoch is brought forward - there is a chapter of personalities, but he is brought forward as one that could be translated that he should not see death. We know that if God is able to do that with one man, He is able to do it with myriads, but the writer’s point is that before his translation He had the testimony that he had pleased God, or as Genesis says, ‘walked with God’. He establishes in this passage that, “without faith it is impossible to please him”. I thought that underlines the importance of it for us, who like him are awaiting translation.
RDP One verse which always strikes me is, “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Heb 11: 3); I think we have been taught that that is more than that they were made, but framing involves intelligence. I suppose it introduces us to the fact that the area of things that we are in is not just a physical thing but a moral thing. The framing of the worlds involves a scene in which God is going to work His will so that nothing is merely ordinary, or an event, or a co-incidence, or luck or any of these kind of things, but we apprehend that, “the worlds were framed by the word of God”. That is a tremendous light, but all men do not live by that.
RHB It is very much under attack in the world, and the educational system, but it brings in the moral element, the activity of God. Scientists can study rocks and processes and make intelligent guesses as to how things may have changed in their character and so on, but that is the limit. They can only study material things which can be seen, but faith goes beyond that to see that God was behind it. Then not only that God was behind it, but that Christ was the One by whom He made the worlds - we learn that in John (chap 1: 3), but then we learn something even greater that, “all things have been created by him and for him”, Col 1: 16. Not only that He was the author of them. They were made, or framed by the word of God, but they were made for Him. I think that gives us a very different view of things when we apprehend that.
GMcK What do you say about the definitions in verse 1 - “Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”? I have always found the conviction of things not seen easier to understand; that describes what faith is, something that is not seen that you are convicted about. I wondered whether there is something additional in “things hoped for”. I wonder whether the rest of the chapter goes on to that, those who saw the promises afar off and embraced them, and the city that is prepared, there seems to be something more. It is not just a thing that is not seen, it seems to be something that is reached out for.
RHB Faith is very intimately connected with hope, the two really go hand in hand. Paul says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are the most miserable of all men”, 1 Cor 15: 19. It not only gives us the conviction of things not seen, things that exist, they exist now, they exist for God, and they exist for faith, but there is the hope of what, for the believer, is yet to come. That entered very much into the lives of these persons, they were prepared to accept present loss in view of eternal gain.
DCB I was just wondering as to what faith is. In one way it is a contrast to sight: perhaps we can learn in a sense of contrast to sight, but it is also in contrast to the law. It is wonderful that we can have this conviction. We can be absolutely certain of things: our souls have been so affected that we are absolutely certain of things that we cannot prove by human means or human logic. But then it is seen as our way of entrance into blessing as contrast to what we could not enter by way of law. That was a previous dispensation. Man was tested by that but in fact the writer had to go back to these persons who mainly pre-dated the law.
RHB That entered into the preachings in the early days, “all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified”, Acts 13: 39. What a statement that is. The law could never justify anyone, it served only to condemn, but faith, and justification by faith, was God’s great answer to that. I think what you say as to the contrast with sight is important too, because he says, “we see not yet all things subjected to him”; we shall see that, we do not see it yet, “but we see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”, Heb 2: 9. It might be a simple question for us as to how much a glorified Man in heaven is a reality to our souls.
RCT Twice in Genesis it says that Enoch, “walked with God”, Gen 5: 22, 24. Could you help us as to what that might involve? He was obviously near to God.
RHB That is the point that the company of God was sought by him and no doubt his company was congenial to God, “he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, or the note says ‘walked with God’. It is the same expression. Putting it simply he would have walked where God walked. To walk with God must involve in him an absence of will. He walked where God walked and he found the company of God in it. It was apart from the whole course of things. In other words the reality of the presence of God to him was such that his course was apart from what was so hateful and abhorrent to God. The scripture speaks of, “thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”, Ps 16: 11. This man found his joy, as well as his daily occupation, in divine company, apart from a scene which, had he immersed himself in it, would necessarily have taken that joy away.
RDP According to Jude he looks on to the Lord’s appearing, “the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads”, Jude 14. He was only the seventh generation from Adam, and I think he was probably a nomad or had some other very limited way of living. We do not know what kind of education and so on these men had, but he looks right on to the Lord’s coming. That is amazing. He could not have got that as graphically illustrated by anything in the world as seen around him. That came from God.
RHB I was thinking of that when we referred to sight, because these men, all of them, had a long view. They took the long view. How often we take the view of short term, present advantage, or expediency, and it works to our disaster often, but these men, their course was settled on a long view. The Lord says of Abraham, “Your father Abraham exulted in that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced”, John 8: 56. A nomad living in tents, he looked for a city that had foundations, “of which God is the artificer and constructor”, Heb 11: 10. The only cities on view at that time were idolatrous places, but God in His communion with Him gave Him the reality of these things as a promise. The light of it was so great that it governed his course down here. The man you refer to had that view of the Lord’s coming and then one day he was not there. He might have been thought to be an oddball, somebody that did not conform, but one day, as Mr Fred Trussler once said, he went for a walk, and he did not come back.
DCB It is interesting that it does not say that Enoch walked with God by faith; it says, “By faith Enoch was translated”. Could you explain that?
RHB I am seeking help with this, but I think that is an important distinction, he was translated by faith, but that he had the testimony beforehand that he had pleased God. No doubt faith did enter into his walk, but the way it is presented was that the expectation of that, of translation, the faith of it in his soul, was what governed him.
DCB I was impressed by the simple fact that he was translated by faith. There must have been that light, the light as to the Lord. He had a long view, but he had that for himself, that he was one that was going to be caught up to be with Christ.
RHB As we are; we are literally on the verge of finality. What effect does that have upon my walk, upon my priorities, upon the decisions of my life? Things that are going to disappear, that are for a time and disappear, I find still have such a claim to my attention; but this man is presented to us as one whose life was regulated by the prospect that he was going to be with God eternally.
JM It is quite a remarkable thing that what is said first of him was that he was “translated that he should not see death”. The penalty of death was upon the whole race, and yet he did not see it. I think there must have been that in him that was extraordinarily pleasurable to God, so that in a certain sense God said, ’I cannot leave you in the scene in which you are, I must take you to my scene’.
RHB It has been said, on the basis of this scripture, that God translates what pleases Him. It would stimulate that desire with us. I think what you draw attention to is important, “that he should not see death”. The great test of faith is the resurrection world, the reality of it. Death is the terminus of everything here: however attractive or appealing it may be, it terminates in death. This man did not actually even pass through the article of death. It seems to me that faith with us is particularly involved in the truth of resurrection.
JM The other remarkable thing about him was that he was the seventh generation, but he becomes a model for us. We look forward to the possibility that we should not see death, and that God will translate us; that should be paramount in our minds at the present time, and faith would lay hold of that. Although he came very early in the history of man Enoch in a certain sense becomes a kind of a model for those of us at the end of the dispensation.
RHB That is very much what I have in mind, that the Spirit of God selects these men. There is tremendous detail in the chapter. We have only read of two of them, but they do not belong to this dispensation. In the dispensation in which they lived, man in the flesh was to some degree recognised, there were still signs and things to be taken account of, there were the appearances to Abraham, the angelic appearances, the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night for Israel. Angels were active throughout the Old Testament, there was a good deal that could be seen and, even when you come into the New Testament, the Lord was with His own and in the days of His flesh could be seen, but still faith was required. The Lord said, “Where is your faith?”, Luke 8: 25. And then when He healed persons, “Do ye believe that I am able to do this? … According to your faith, be it unto you”, Matt 9: 28, 29. I wondered if we could get help as to why faith is so essential. What is it about faith that it is so fundamental to Christianity?
MJM In verse 13 there is reference to those who “died in faith”, would that mean that they were sustained in their course?
RHB They died as they had lived. They had lived in faith, and they died in it; the approach of death itself did not shake the faith on which they had lived. I thought that was the force of faith that it embraces the substantiality of what is beyond death. These things are not simply texts or doctrines, but they are great eternal realities and faith lays hold of them, and in the light of them death is vanquished. Death for the believer has been overthrown because he has been taken up with a view to having part in what is beyond it.
RDP It is God’s gift. We often speak about the Lord Jesus and His gift, the Holy Spirit, but faith is His gift as well. Without that gift there would be nothing; so God must begin the work that He will finish. I am not sure at what point in the believer’s history faith comes in, taking into account new birth and so on, but without it there is no illumination at all of God’s world. You spoke about the world of resurrection; the whole of Christianity is on the basis of resurrection: it is the platform of it. Man has not light as to that at all, it forms no part of his world, his hopes or his projections. But everything for the believer is based on resurrection, and faith is linked with that.
RHB It seems to me that it is the great test for faith. People say, ’I am a believer’ or ’I am not a believer’, but a believer in what? Lots of people would say they have faith in all sorts of things, but “if we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again” (1 Thess 4: 14), and, “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved”, Rom 10: 9. I think you get the very kernel of faith there, that there is one Man out of death and that is the pledge and assurance that there are going to be myriads of men out of death for God’s eternal pleasure. But if I believe in the heart that God has raised Him from among the dead, then my heart must necessarily seek after that resurrection world where Jesus is. It opens up another sphere altogether. If He has been raised from among the dead, or as the eunuch was told, “for his life is taken from the earth” (Acts 8: 33), in the principle of it I do not want to live here any more. I want to live where He is.
JBI “He that draws near to God” - do you think that that colours both these men? I was thinking that perhaps we may have a poor view of faith, as perhaps we may yet eke out an existence until the Lord comes. Do you think it is far greater than that, that it is in view of drawing near to God?
RHB I have wondered whether the fact that everything for God is on this basis is related to what came in at the fall. God said certain things, He gave man great blessings, but He set limits upon it. And another voice spoke not only in deception, but the cunning suggestion was instilled in the heart of man that God had some ulterior motive, and that His word could not really be relied upon, and things would not actually be as God had said them. That poison was what was injected into the human heart at the fall. I think the divine answer to that is that God will have, in glory, myriads who have never seen Him, but have trusted Him and have trusted His word implicitly. I think we need to lift our view so that it is not, as you say, just getting through the course of things until the Lord comes, but that God is glorified in that. There should be persons living on this earth, surrounded by so much in the way of materialism to seduce them away from the path of faith, that are living in simple implicit trust on God and on the unshakeability of His word. I think we have little idea what pleasure that is to God and what an answer it is to what came in at the fall. There must be more in it as to why everything for God is based on the matter of faith. The hymn writer says:
Repentance only, God requires from man
We can understand that as sinners, but he adds:
And faith in Christ, His well-beloved Son.
(Hymn 123)
It is a sovereign gift from God; there is nothing really for us or for God apart from it.
TI I wondered if Noah was an example of obedience in that way. You spoke of implicit trust in God’s word. The verse brings in the word, “moved with fear”; is that a simple obedience to God? He believed God, he believed the word of God unshakeably through so much opposition as he preached. I wondered whether we might think of fear in terms of respect for the greatness of God over us?
RHB I have no doubt it was that, and also fear for what was coming on the scene in which he and his family were. Faith anticipates that what is anti-God in this scene must pass away in judgment and that is a solemn thing to be enlightened as to. The result was that he wanted to save his house. That is a responsibility that no doubt presses on heads of houses. It is not just a question of how I am going to get through, but how are my children going to cope. Noah “prepared an ark for the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith”. I think that “condemnation” is part of the more blessed side which is brought out in Enoch. He walked with God, apart from things here, but the other side of that is seen in Noah who was left here in a corrupt scene, and he maintained by his action his condemnation of it as a scene under judgment.
KM When you come to think of the skill, the ark was a masterpiece. The skill necessary to build that. Think of how people might speak today of the mathematics, and the absolute skill, of a man could build that and work to God’s dimensions, and yet that masterpiece was not the most important thing. What was the most important thing was that he built it for the saving of his house; so that the saving of our houses is far greater than any masterpiece could be here.
RHB I think God will honour faith where it is in activity in the saving of a house. The word to the jailor was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”, Acts 16: 31. I think we can take from that that in taking up a man for blessing God will have in view the sphere of influence which he has, that the whole should be secured for the testimony and for the service of God. But it involves the obedience of faith. Noah was oracularly warned. The scripture says, ““faith then is by a report, but the report by God’s word”: this had been revealed to him. The Lord says there was nothing outwardly that would have caused people to think that the end was imminent, but “they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage” (Luke 17: 27), and then suddenly one day the flood came and took them all away. Life was going on as it always had done, and in the midst of it there was a man who was saying, ’I am not going on like that’, and he was constructing this huge vessel, and it was a living testimony that he and his household were headed for another world altogether. One man said, “as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah”, Josh 24: 15. I think that is the conviction that we need to bring into our households, that God has given us, as heads of houses, a sphere of responsibility for which we are accountable to Him. But He will help us and support us as we move in relation to our households, in relation to what He has said in His word.
MJM Does this emphasise the necessity for the maintenance of the preaching? You referred to the subtlety of Satan in undermining this line of faith, and the stress in our education system of the ‘multi-faith’ idea is all part of Satan’s activity to undermine the very line that you are speaking of.
RHB And to imitate it. The apostle speaks of “unfeigned faith”, 1 Tim 1: 5. We could go on with the outward, we could take account of how brethren generally behave, how they generally look; and I could adopt that, and pass amongst them without any personal attachment to the divine centre. It is noticeable in the gospels that the greatest opposition to the Lord came from religious persons. It did not come from ignorant people who did not know the scriptures, it came from people who were very, very intelligent in relation to the scriptures. Even the devil himself quoted the scriptures to the Lord at one point; but the fiercest opposition to the path of faith - if it is right to use that of the Lord Himself being in the path because He is spoken of as the “leader and completer of faith” - came from persons who were well acquainted with divine writings.
BE All these souls, according to the revelation that they had, were able to boast in a God who could not lie. Has God not made it easy for us to be maintained in the power of faith?
RHB Yes, every time we pray it is an exercise of faith; every time you speak to God, whether privately or in the meeting, it is an act of faith. Outwardly people might say you are talking to yourself, but your soul is in communion with God, you are conscious of that, that you are speaking to God and that He is hearing you. That is a very blessed thing, to live in the consciousness of that relationship and to be sensitive about anything that would disturb it.
BE So, how absolutely we can trust in God who cannot lie. Trust is very closely allied to faith. How shaky everything else is. Faith in this One will never let us down.
RHB So the Lord said at one point, “Where is your faith?”, Luke 8: 25. If it is not in Christ, where is it? What can you rely upon apart from Him? You rapidly come to it that there is nothing else for my soul to rest on than what God has revealed to you in Christ.
PW It is important that faith is in relation to Christ, and I was thinking of certain conflicts that have happened when we were urged to be one hundred percent with a certain person. That is not right: it would just be faith in a mere man.
RHB Christ is the great object for faith. We are “justified on the principle of faith” so that “we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5: 1), and scripture also speaks of “through faith in his blood”, Rom 3: 25. Our faith is in the Person, but our faith is in His blood too. The divine testimony from God is that that blood meets every claim of His holiness and righteousness, and I can rest the eternal welfare of my soul implicitly upon it because it is God who says it. Then what comes out in these persons is that they lived by faith, “the just shall live by faith”, Heb 10: 38. There are many believers, who are believers in the sense that their eternal destiny is secure, who do not live on the principle that has saved them. They may be saved, but faith is not the governing principle of their lives. I think the scriptures would encourage us, and this epistle particularly, that it might become the prevailing principle in our lives.
RDP The Lord said to Peter, “I have besought for thee that thy faith fail not”, Luke 22: 32. It seems that, in the working out of it, it is possible for sight to overtake it. It is very striking and touching that the Lord should say that to Peter. He does not say, ’I have prayed for thee that you will not fail, or you will not be tempted’, but “that thy faith fail not”.
RHB You feel that there is a lot against it. One danger is that we may fail, and then the enemy in his subtlety says you are failure, you are hopeless, and you can begin to despair. We know that Peter took his eye off the Lord at one point and he sank. He started off to walk upon the water, but he sank, Matt 14: 25-33. Then there is the scene in which we live where present advantage is so stressed and people are measured by their material prosperity and success. This is the world in which we live, and faith therefore might seem, particularly when we are younger, to be nebulous. It may seem to be insubstantial, but He brings forward here this great crowd of witnesses, of men whose lives were on that principle and who were blessed by God. They may have suffered privation and loss, but they proved a present blessing as well as an eternal one.
JM It is very encouraging in the previous chapter that you have the reference, “But the just shall live by faith”. Mr Darby’s footnote suggests, ‘my just man’, (note d) the one in whom God delights as though faith is the real basis for God having delight in persons.
RHB I think you have provided the answer to what I was seeking after as to why this matter of faith is so important: that God has always looked for it from the outset of time. I think that helps that it is what pleases Him, the “the just shall live by faith”. So he says, “But we are not drawers back to perdition, but of faith to saving the soul”, Heb 10: 39. There is always the tendency to draw back, but the pleasure of God is in those that are maintained on that principle.
KM The fact is that if we do fail - and perhaps we do fail, and sometimes quite miserably - it says in Numbers as to the fiery serpent, “it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, and looketh upon it, shall live”, Num 21: 8. It is not that they existed or survived, but they lived. Is communion as to walking with God restored?
RHB When that scripture is brought forward by the Lord in John 3 it is in relation to eternal life, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 14, 15. It is not only that I should be saved from hell, but that I should be brought into the enjoyment now of eternal life. That leads on to what is enjoyed in the assembly in the circle, the sanctified company. Paul speaks of an “inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”, Acts 26: 18. What we are speaking of is preliminary to that. We could never enter in to what is available in the sanctified company if we are not individually grounded in this principle.
As to failing, I think faith is spoken of too in relation to conflict, to combat, that we might not fail. You get reference to the “shield of faith” (Eph 6: 16), and you get reference to the “breastplate of faith”, 1 Thess 5: 8. We have “the inflamed darts of the wicked one” (Eph 6: 16), and the apostle says, “I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”, 2 Tim 4: 7. We are conscious of weakness and failure, but I think that faith is to be exercised. There is an expression in the world in relation to physical things, that if you do not exercise it you lose it, and I think there is a sense in which that applies to faith. If it is not exercised consciously, the faith that God has given me, I shall lose the reality and enjoyment of it.
BE It is not faith that fails me is it? It was Peter’s failure to use his faith that led him to start to sink outside the ship?
RHB Yes, he looked away. He looked at other things and it is only written for us because Peter was a very great man. Whilst we speak freely amongst ourselves of his weaknesses and failures as they are recorded in the scriptures, none of us would put ourselves on a par with the apostle Peter; what a trophy he was of the Lord’s work. These things are written for us because our eye is easily distracted from the Lord. There is an expression used in the world, ‘blind faith’, but the person who has faith is the one that sees things as they are. It says, “the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ … should not shine forth for them”, 2 Cor 4: 4. The unbeliever is living in darkness and unreality, it is faith that lays hold of realities as they exist before God.
DCB James is an epistle which brings in works in relation to faith. Sometimes it is thought that it contradicts what we have here, but what would you say?
RHB I think Luther and others sought to get that epistle excluded from the Bible. I think it brings out that faith is practical and it is evidenced through works. I read the verses in chapter 12 to bring that out that we are to, “run with endurance the race that lies before us”, and there are resources to do so. I think what James is bringing out is that you cannot see the faith in my heart, the smallness of it or the greatness of it, but what you can see is how I live my life and that testifies to the measure of faith. God has dealt to each a measure of faith. We may not all have the same measure, but I think it increases with use.
DCB In the whole of this passage in Hebrews, as soon as someone has faith they act, they do something. That will apply to believers: as soon as they have faith they will act in faith.
RHB And it is especially referred to in relation to Abraham, “the steps of the faith ... of our father Abraham”, Rom 4: 12. The way I have understood that is that God gives you the light for the next step and as you take that step, trusting in Him, not necessarily seeing the end or the consequences, but taking that step, then light for the next step will be given. But if that step is not taken then, in a sense, the benefit of that is lost.
DCB On one side there is the long view that you have spoken of; you see the completion of God’s ways, but in practical matters it is step by step.
RHB Scripture speaks of “the proving of your faith”, 1 Pet 1: 7. It says of this man of faith, Abraham, that God tried him. He tested him as to whether his trust was implicitly in God and whether he loved God more even than his own son, “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac”, Gen 22: 2. I often think of it with amazement that he answered to that test, he took that precious boy, the only child of an old man, in whom all the promises of God were centred, and he went to offer him up. “And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slaughter his son”, v 10. There was no question that he was going to go through with it, and he did it in the faith that God was able, even if he put him to death, to bring him back to life again. What pleasure there must have been for God in that. He did not want the death of the son, but what he saw was a man whose implicit trust was in Himself and in His word.
JBI I was thinking of the man in John 9; he spoke faithfully as to what the Lord had done for him and something happens. He is cast out because he is true to the light that he had been given, and then he is given much more light. The Lord found him and opened his eyes as to the greatness of His own Person.
RHB So it is step by step, and it is running the race, and laying aside things that will hinder. It is remarkable that the Spirit of God tells us of things that hinder us and things that will help us. We have weights and sins, they will hinder us, a secret course of sin, or my encumbrance with things which may not be sinful and may be legitimate, but will hold me back. But then there is “a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us”. Think of these persons, they did not have “so great a cloud of witnesses”. Enoch was only the seventh from Adam, but we have a whole history of persons who have overcome in the power of faith, and above all we have Jesus. We are not looking exactly at the great “cloud of witnesses”, but “looking stedfastly on Jesus”. I think that would be a great result from our reading if we valued more the preciousness of the faith that enables us to look beyond circumstances to One who is the “leader and completer of faith”.
RDP I was thinking of what we have said about Peter - you get the two things there, he walked on the water, he began to sink, but he walked on the water. He did something that was totally impossible as far as this world is concerned; and then he saw the waves and began to sink. His view of Christ for that moment was distracted and he begins to sink, but never let us forget that he walked on the water, and that is something that belongs to the sphere that is beyond this one.
RHB It is good to be reminded of that and he knew where to turn when he did sink, “Lord, save me”. Think of that hand reaching out to lift him up to his true characteristic calling. So we are to look on Jesus, the One who has overcome and has entered in. We not only see an example in Him, a model that He has left for us down here, but we see in Him where faith leads. It leads to glory, and He is the “leader and completer of faith”, and He endured so much, the cross and the shame, but He is “set down at the right hand of the throne of God”. The path of faith leads to the glory. I think if we could get some impression of that we would be stimulated in it.
Manchester
20th September 2008