Aspects of Faith

At the very heart of our Christian experience stands faith. It is by believing in Jesus Christ and the Good News that He proclaims and embodies that we enter into the Christian life. And faith, of course, must mark every stage of our pilgrimage. We do not believe once and then forget about it. Faith must be reclaimed and renewed every day of our lives. We must always be, above all else, believers.

However, our understanding of faith does not always match its importance for us. Many Christians are confused about just what faith is. Some strands of Christian tradition suggest that faith is not much more than giving intellectual assent to a series of doctrines. Other traditions tie faith closely to the sacraments. And some preachers suggest that faith is especially important for getting things—health or wealth—that we want for ourselves. Such uncertainty and confusion about the nature of faith are not surprising—it is a hard concept to pin down. But while Romans 4 gives no final and definitive description, it does, via the example of Abraham, make three key points about the nature of faith.

First, faith is essentially different from works and the law that calls us to perform works. One of the purposes of Romans 4 is to show that the story of Abraham in Genesis, when rightly interpreted, supports Paul’s insistence on faith as the only means of justification. Jews tended to emphasize Abraham’s works, even claiming that he had obeyed the whole law before it was given. But Paul, citing his key verse, Genesis 15:6, insists that it was Abraham’s faith, not his works, that secured God’s justifying verdict. And faith, Paul elaborates, is essentially different from works. Believing and doing are two separate categories; and it is believing that puts us in relationship with God.

In verses 4–5, Paul uses the key theological concept of grace to make this point. Grace is central to Paul’s understanding of God. Whatever God does, He does freely, under no compulsion. This is the very nature of God. Yet if God accepted us on the basis of our works, He would be, in effect, like an employer, legally bound to give wages to His employees. As Paul himself would protest, “May it never be!” And so, Paul concludes, faith, not works, must be the means of our acceptance with God.

From this basic distinction between faith and works, we learn that faith is not something we do. John Calvin compared faith to open hands reaching out to receive a gift. When we believe, we accept the gift that God offers us. We have done nothing to earn it; we can claim no credit for it. Many of us would think immediately—and rightly—of our initial acceptance of the gift of salvation. But faith, as we have said, does not end at the point of conversion. We should hold out our hands every day to receive the gifts and blessings God wants to give us. Basic to faith, then, is a forthright acknowledgement of our inability and a humble willingness to receive God’s manifold gifts.

Two other aspects of faith emerge in Paul’s description of Abraham’s own faith in verses 18–21. They are beautifully summarized in the seemingly paradoxical verse 18a: “contrary to hope, in hope [Abraham] believed.…” How could Abraham’s faith be both “contrary to hope” and “in hope”? In these verses, Paul refers to the way Abraham responded to God’s promise that he would father a child who would be the heir to the promises. When God made that promise, Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah was 90—and barren (Gen. 17:15–17; Rom. 4:19). Truly, God’s promise seemed to fly in the face of all the “evidence.” Yet Abraham did not let the apparent facts of the matter stand in the way of his faith. He believed “contrary to hope”—he believed despite the fact that, from a human point of view, there was no hope that he could ever father a child.

Stressing this “contrary to hope” nature of faith, some theologians have compared faith to a “leap in the dark.” But this is an unbalanced assessment, for Abraham also believed “in hope.” He did not dream up the idea that he would have a child; his conviction was no wish-fulfillment. God had promised. It was because Abraham was “fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform” (Rom. 4:21) that he believed. When assessing God’s promise to him, Abraham looked not at the physical evidence—he looked at the God who had promised.

When we look at the “evidence” around us, belief in God and His promises seems to be a very foolish thing. The success of science in explaining so many parts of our world without any reference to God; the evil of this world, so tragically revealed again on September 11, 2001; the sin and failure of God’s own people—all these shout out to us, “God does not exist” and “Being a Christian is foolish.” Like Abraham, we need to look beyond the evidence of our senses and consider carefully the nature of the God revealed in the Bible. To be sure, we believe that what God reveals in this world and what He reveals in His Word agree. But that agreement is not always very clear, for events, people, and circumstances obscure God’s revelation in the world. And so, we look to the Word and the promises of that Word to find the solid grounds for our faith. This is evidence that rests not on the transitory world God has created but on His own eternal being and nature. Walking by faith and not by sight is as necessary for us as it was for Abraham.