> General Discussions
"of" or "in"?
Dave in Tenn:
Gal 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
"Faith" is both 'of' AND 'in'. But we shouldn't lose sight of just Who's "faith" it is, even as we share in it.
Here's what faith 'is':
Heb 11:1 Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope, and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.
I'll raise the question for thought. There's no need to answer--especially without thought. ;D Just what is the Faith of the Lord Jesus?
Gina:
--- Quote ---Just what is the Faith of the Lord Jesus?
--- End quote ---
Now that is a good question!
Gina:
What is the faith OF Jesus Christ?
That the Father is reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus Christ, our mediator. That God will make many sons and daughters who are in the image of God, and be the seed of Abraham, and that He will not fail.
Isaiah 43
22 For I am God, and there is no other.
23 "I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
24 "They will say of Me, 'Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.' Men will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him will be put to shame.
[But it doesn't end at shame...]
Romans 14:11 It is written: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.'"
Rev. 21
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne [the throne of God's temple not made with hands ;) ], saying,
"Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
5 And He who sits on the throne said,
"Behold, I am making all things new."
And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and
true."
And that, I believe, is the faith OF Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior Who sits on the throne of your hearts, in a nutshell. (He doesn't sit in a nutshell on our hearts, but you know what I mean.) :)
lurquer:
Gina and Kat,
Excellent responses...thank you for your thoughts--and I agree with them completely!
But I didn't mean to suggest that Christ was doubting his Father... I was more thinking he was maybe doubting himself in that hour. His flesh, that is. In all other instances where we read of Christ's TRUST in his Father (e.g., all miracles he'd performed), we know he had said "Father, I know you always hear me, but I say these words for the benefit of those here, that they may know that I am He..." (paraphrasing). He never showed any doubt in his Father's ability.
But when it came down to his final act...His very death... He knew, like no other man, what precisely he was about to endure. And it was horrible. And he was, after all, a Man (in the flesh). When he took his disciples to the garden and began to pray, the scripture says that they could not stay awake. Some have said they were just lazy, or carnal, or whatever (they were), but, the reason they slept was actually described in the scripture: they were asleep "by reason of their grief" (Luke 22:45, Rotherhams). I'm sure some of us understand how a profound grief/depression can cause that effect! They pretty much understood what was about to happen to their Lord; after all, they had just been plainly told during the supper.
So Christ comes to them and awakens them and says "the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak". But WHO was he talking about? Himself or the disciples? Whose flesh was most weak at that moment? Theirs or his? Like Ray intimated in his discussion about this, perhaps he was praying to the Father that he would be able to continue the mission... In that case, he was 'doubting' his flesh could go through with it...that he was afraid he might actually die before he had the chance to be the sacrificed Lamb of God.
Anyway, those were my mental meanderings about Jesus' 'doubt' (if it existed). I was only suggesting that doubt maybe a human emotion, not a sin. I'm not convinced either way. :-\
Kat:
--- Quote from: Dave in Tenn on January 04, 2015, 05:01:59 PM ---Gal 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
"Faith" is both 'of' AND 'in'. But we shouldn't lose sight of just Who's "faith" it is, even as we share in it.
Here's what faith 'is':
Heb 11:1 Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope, and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.
I'll raise the question for thought. There's no need to answer--especially without thought. ;D Just what is the Faith of the Lord Jesus?
--- End quote ---
Here are a couple of things from Ray that I think will shed a lot of light on this question about faith.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5417.msg43145.html#msg43145 ----------
James 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? Can faith save him?
He ask the rhetorical question, “can faith save us?” Of course the answer is no. That’s interesting, you know faith is talked a lot about, as we are justified by faith, especially in Paul’s writing, Rom 3:30, Gal 3:8. We are justified by faith, but nowhere does it say in the scripture that we are saved by faith, nowhere.
We are saved by grace. It’s free, gratuitous gift from God, but it does something. It teaches - it chastens - it educates - it is divine influence upon the seat of our emotions - thinking - plans - purpose - goals - aspirations and everything else. It divinely influences that heart, you can’t help it, it does it.
This just smacks free will right in the teeth. According to true free will, God can’t make you do anything, you have to choose it on your own. How can you choose to do good unless God divinely influences your heart? You see, you can’t. But the second you say He does, you’ve taken away man’s free will. Now God is doing it. What an evil contradiction this thing of free will and free choices is.
So he says in James, can faith save us? Of course the answer is no. We’re justified by faith, but we are not saved by faith.
So when you come right down to it, when I asked you, what is grace and what is faith? You’re tossing around these words and basically you’re all right. Bob said love and it’s true, it’s love, grace is love. Faith is love. All these things ultimately are love, because God is love. Whatever all these other things are that go out from love, you bring them back in, and it all comes down to one thing, it’s LOVE.
So we have the word grace... we have the word faith. Each one has shades of different meanings and so on. But they both do the same thing, don’t they.
Christ says if you call Me Lord and Master, if you believe that, that’s faith... believing. If you believe that I am your Lord and Master, why don’t you do what I say? You see that? Faith is doing.
James says, faith without works or faith without doing is dead. Of course some thinks that that contradicts Paul, who said we’re justified by faith not of works. But that is too big of a subject to get into here. But, no they are not contradicting each other. One is emphasized one thing over another, more than the other. But they both involved the same thing.
They both quote that Abraham lived by faith. That’s what it was all about... faith. Paul says Abraham had that faith before he was even circumcised, before he obeyed that ritual to be circumcised and so on. James emphasized that, how did we know Abraham had faith? Because God told him to sacrifice his son and he brought the knife and was ready to do it. He proved his faith.
But they both do something, all these things, they do something. If we think of these words in theological terms all the time, you’ll never know what they mean. They are very simple, okay. Faith is you BELIEVE what God says, therefore you DO what God says.
Grace is a gift, you don’t have it. Now this is something you can’t conjure up, it’s a gift of God. It’s always the grace OF God, it comes from God, there is nothing you can do. You say, ‘well what about the faith we’ve got, that comes from us.’ No no no, it says in Eph 2: 8-10 “…faith; and that NOT OF YOURSELF, it is the gift of God;”
The faith it’s a gift, the grace it’s a gift, everything is a gift. It’s all a gift of God... it’s all faith, it’s all grace, they are all one thing. Grace causes you to live rightly. What does faith do? If you believe God, you do what He says. It is virtually the same thing.
v
Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men,
v. 12 Teaching us….”
What is doing the teaching? Grace is doing the teaching. It’s laboring - it’s teachings - it’s the divine influence of God on our heart, it‘s teaching us. So it’s...
v. 12 ...TEACHING us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world (eon - age);
So when it says God judges us by chastening us in 1 Cor. 11:32, the word chasten there is the Greek word 'paideuō.' Then when God says He graces us, by ‘teaching us’ (Titus 2:12), the word teaching is the same word paideuo and it means - to labor, to work, to chasten, to punish, to teach, to educate. There is like a dozen different words that this means, this ‘teaching.’ That’s what it does, it actually does something. In the same way what it does for us, it will eventually do for the world.
v
We learn that we get the heart... and unbelief here, 2 things. Oh that there were such a heart in them (Deu 5:29)... then in Hebrews 3:12 it says, I hope that it’s not found in you such "an evil heart of unbelief." Those 2 go hand in hand.
There is one other aspect to this thing of grace. We saw it a little bit in Hebrews 3:12 that says, "an evil heart of unbelief.” Now you all understand that in the Bible when it talks about believe, that’s the verb. Faith is the noun. Faith and believe are the same Greek word, they’re the same. What is faith? It means to believe. If you believe, you have what? Faith. They are both the same word, one is a noun, one is a verb, that’s the only difference.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=2910.0 ---------------
Ray
I read your response today to a just published email to a person concerning faith. This was part of your answer....
"I am somewhat aware of all of these arguments against the faith. They do no hinder me. And why is that? Because I LIVE BY FAITH, that's why. But isn't faith based on PROVEN HISTORICAL FACTS? If we don't have PROOF, then we don't have FAITH, right? WRONG! Faith is belief and assurance that is NOT BASED ON EVIDENCE. The King James definition of faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews is worse than awful. Faith is an assurance that something is true even though there is no absolute tangible proof for that faith. So where does one find such a faith? He doesn't--IT IS A GIFT FROM GOD!
That is the magic of faith. Only those GIFTED WITH IT, HAVE IT--"For by grace are you saved [that being WHEN you are saved--yet future] through FAITH; and that NOT of yourselves: it is the GIFT OF GOD"
OK I can accept that. However, years ago I lived with a devout muslim who would say the same thing to me. He did not care about any contrary evidence to his faith. he believed because he said >>>it is FAITH. It is an "a priori" it is true and its resides in the center of his being. He once told me if an angel from heaven announced to him another faith, he would not accept it, if it contradicted the Koran and Islam.
How is your faith any different than his? A different book, of course, but the character of the faith is the same...you both believe it is a gift from God and accept it not based on evidence.
I wish that it could be shown that those who have the true faith, that their faith is of a different character than those with untrue faith, but apparently it cannot. The human experience of faith appears to be identical in all people. That faith may cause different actions depending on the tenets of the person or book it is built on, but the raw faith itself, is the same. If you disagree, how can you explain that those who have faith in belief systems contrary to yours, are by any objective measure, responding in kind to their inborn faith to follow those belief systems just as you?
I think correct faith is a gift from God, meaning the truth, but that faith itself, is found in all types of people. They believe with the same assurance as you do.
Doug
Dear Doug:
You are making something difficult and mysterious out of something that is quite simple (for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear).
"Faith" is not a "Bible" word, or a "religious" word: it is a WORD, and it has a meaning. Here is a definition of faith from my American Heritge College Dictionary: "faith--1 CONFIDENT BELIEF in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. BELIEF that does not REST ON LOGICAL PROOF OR MATERIAL EVIDENCE....." etc.
Those are very good definitions of faith, but as one can clearly and instantly see these definitions go totally contrary to the way that the King James defines faith in Heb. 11:2, "Now faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen." Hogwash. Faith is the diametric opposite of "evidence and substance." When one possesses absolute "substance and evidence" regarding any matter, the last thing on earth such a person needs is "faith!"
Just days ago I heard Rod Parsley quote that definition of faith from the King James Bible. No wonder they have not a clue as to anything SPIRITUAL.
Now then, faith is a word that has a definite meaning. Muslims have "faith" in Allah, and Christians have "faith" in the "God of Abraham," and some few have "faith" in the Scriptures that tell us how we are to have faith in God. They are all "faiths" as you suggest, so are they not all the same? No, of course not. The qauality or kind of faith one has is graded by what that particular faith accomplishes. Do you rely on the God you have faith in, do you live a godly life because of it, do you love God and all humanity, are you overcoming the sins that God says He hates, etc., etc.?
Maybe a "tangible" example will help:
Money--you have money and I have money. It all "looks" like the same money. But one can buy food for his family with his money and another can buy booze with his money and let his family go without. Is there a difference? You bet.
Guns--you have gun and I have a gun (both made by the same manufacturer). So our guns are the same, correct? There is no difference in your gun and my gun, correct? Not at this point, but what do the two guns produce? One man shoots game to feed his family with his gun, while the other SHOOTS HIS FAMILY. Is there a difference? You bet.
James has great and simple wisdom in this matter: "Even so faith, if it has not works, IS DEAD...Yea a man may say, You have faith, and I have works: show me YOU faith [this is one kind] without works, and I will show you MY faith [this is a second kind] BY MY WORKS" (James 2:17-18).
Two faiths, two entirely different manifestations of that faith.
It's a huge subject and deserves a whole paper on it.
God be with you,
Ray
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