Word of Salvation – Vol. 19 No.52 – September 1973
The Origin Of Faith
Sermon by Rev. G. I. Williamson, Silverstream, N.Z. on Rom.10:17
SCRIPTURE READING: Romans 10:1-17
PSALTER HYMNAL: 263:1-4; 252 (Law); 184; 276:1,2; 276:3
When the Philippian jailer came in fear and trembling to ask that memorable question – (‘What must I do to be saved?’) – the answer was simple. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Just as you would give water to a man dying of thirst, saying ‘drink, and you will recover:’ or, as you would give food to a starving man, saying ‘eat, and you will live’, so you would tell a sinner to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the scripture says that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life! And when a man is literally perishing in his sins, it is of the utmost importance to put first things first according to the urgent need that exists.
But suppose that after the gospel has been preached in this simple way, that someone should begin to say, ‘Ah, it was really my own doing that brought me this salvation.’ That is what people said in the days of Isaiah the prophet. They said, ‘By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent.’ And that is also what people said in the days of the Apostle Paul. For he writes to the Corinthians with these words: “who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” Well, when people begin to act like that, it is time for them to hear that faith too is the free gift of God, and not of themselves, lest any man should boast. For, as our text so clearly says, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
I. THE NEGATIVE TEACHING OF OUR TEXT
In the first place, then, I would draw your attention to the fact that faith does not, and cannot, originate from many a source that is commonly accepted among professing Christians today.
(1) It cannot originate from the source of human heredity, for example, as if the faith of the parents could be inherited by their children by ordinary generation. This was the view of the majority of Jews in days when our Lord was on earth. For when Jesus said that they had to believe on him in order to be the children of God, they simply answered him by saying that they already were the children of God. “Abraham is our father” they said. “We are not born of fornication”, but “we have one Father, even God.” In other words, so long as they were born as the legitimate children of Abrahamic descent – 100 per cent Abrahamic descent – they were quite confident that they were true believers.
And we must not think that this is a mistake that only the Jews have made. For down through the history of the Christian Church also, there have been those who in one way or another have really come to the same thing. They have come to believe that the children of believers are all true believers just because they are born in ‘the household of faith’. So they do not pray that the Lord will work his grace in the hearts of their children, because they simply assume that this work of grace is already there. And they do not talk with their children to urge upon them the responsibility of true repentance and faith, because they simply assume that they have no need of any such urging.
But what does the Bible say about this so-called ‘hereditary faith?’ Well it simply says this: “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” and “neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children. . . of the promise.” For even in the case of covenant children, the word of God is quite clear. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. .It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. So we cannot have faith by any hereditary connection. We cannot have faith by any natural connection. For “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
(2) We can also say, on the basis of our text, that faith cannot originate from the benefits of a favourable environment. Or, in other words, it cannot originate from the mere fact that a person has been surrounded all his life by the instrumentalities of grace. And it was also to this that many of the Jews looked in Paul’s day as a guarantee of their favourable standing with God. Look at all this, they said in effect, ‘we have the ordinances of circumcision and the Passover, we have the writings of the prophets; and we have the divinely instituted worship of the Temple; how then can you say that we do not believe?’ Well, you know what the Apostle would say. He does say it, in Romans chapter 3. “What advantage then hath the Jew?” he asks, “or what profit is there of circumcision?” Well, says the Apostle, “much every way chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” No, says Paul, in effect, I am far from saying that these things are unimportant. I am far from saying that these things do not count. But still, says the Apostle, this does not change the fact that many do not believe. “For what if some did not believe” he writes “shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.”
And again we must hasten to add that these Jews were not the last people to make this tragic mistake. For there have been those, in every generation of the history of the Church, who have made the great mistake of thinking that they had the true faith because they belonged to the Church that had the true faith. Jeremiah the prophet said, to people living in his day, “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these.” And we might well say to many people today, “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, the true Church of Christ, the true Church of Christ, the true Church of Christ is this.” For important as it is to find, and belong to, the true Church of Christ, the simple truth is that this in itself will not give faith to our hearts. For it is written that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
(3) Another source from which we will never obtain faith, is that we might call the power of human argument or wisdom. And this too, has had a very long history in the Christian Church. Paul writes, in his epistle to the Corinthians, that Christ sent him “to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words. . . and I brethren, when I came to you,” he writes, “came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. . . and my speech and my preaching was not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” He did not try to make the gospel fit in with the preconceptions of sinful men, in other words, so that they would accept it on the basis of purely human reason. For he said that ‘the natural man’ could never really come in this way to faith. (“The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God,” he says, “for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”)
And yet, alas, how often the attempt has been made. It was made by the ancient Gnostics who tried to re-interpret the gospel so that it went along with the ideas of the great Greek philosophers. It is being made today by the modern theologians who are saying that the only way to get people interested in the gospel of Christ today, is to completely re-interpret the gospel so that it fits in with the modern scientific view of the world. And so, they tell us that we will have to eliminate everything supernatural from our presentation of the gospel, in order to make it convincing to the mind of modern man. If we do not do this, says one writer recently, then “the Christian faith will continue to diminish in its influence in the world at its present, alarmingly rapid rate.”
The only trouble is that when you have finished with all this work of trying to make the gospel acceptable to the mind of the natural man, is that you have no gospel left. For faith does not come by human reason, or human argumentation, however wise, and how ever learned it may be. No, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
(4) We can also see, from the words of our text, that faith does not originate from the power of human eloquence. It does not originate from the mere fact that a certain gifted preacher is fluent in speech and able to scale the heights of poetic sound and imagery! For if this were the case, then the work of Paul the Apostle would never have stood comparison with that of the Apostle Apollos. The Bible says that Apollos was “eloquent. . . and mighty in the scriptures.” Evidently it was a very easy thing for him to speak in a great assembly of people. But Paul says, “I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words.” And yet, it was not Apollos, but Paul, who laboured more abundantly than all!
The fact that a man is eloquent, in speech, does not, of course, prove that he is not a preacher of the gospel. One of the greatest preachers in the history of the Church was famous for his eloquence. He was called the man with the ‘golden mouth’. But even this great preacher John Chrysostom of Constantinople understood the words of the prophet Ezekiel. “And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” For human eloquence too is incapable of generating faith! After all, it is not HOW a man says it that really counts, according to the scripture. It is only WHAT he says that really counts.
For it is the gospel – not the man – it is the truth – not the poetic beauty with which it is presented that really has the power. For “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So again, I say, it is clear, Faith does not, and cannot, originate from any human source.
II. THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF OUR TEXT.
And so we now turn to a consideration of the source from which it does come. “Since, . . we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only,” says the Catechism, then “whence comes this faith?” And the answer is: “from the Holy Spirit, who works it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.” For “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
(1) And this leads us to observe, in the first place, that the gospel itself is the most important thing. For “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching” says Paul “to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” When the Apostle went out to preach the gospel to everyone that he could, he had plenty of advisers. There were people who told him what the Jews would like to hear. And there were people who told him what the Greeks would be likely to appreciate. To them it seemed the better part of wisdom to adjust the gospel as much as possible so as to win a favourable response. But that is just the one thing that Paul was careful to avoid. For the one thing that he was convinced of, above all else, was the fact that true and saving faith can only come to those who hear not what they want to hear but what God wants them to hear. It was our Lord Jesus himself, you remember, who said: “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
To human wisdom it always seems that this is the wrong approach. And that is the reason why some of the most popular preachers of every generation including our own make it a point to avoid the most unpalatable truths of the Bible. They never say anything about the doctrine of total depravity, because they know that sinful men do not like to be told that they are utterly wicked – they do not like to hear that they can do nothing to please God, or even to save themselves – they do not like to hear that they are utterly helpless and lost. For the same reason they never say anything about election, for again they know that this is against the grain of every natural man! He does not like to be told that it is God Who decides who will be saved, even before the foundation of the world. He does not like to feel that he is dependent on the sovereign mercy of God. And they never say anything about the fact that regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit of God instead of the work of sinful men. For they know only too well that this too is against the desires of the human heart: for no man likes to be told that it is God alone who can take away his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh. So they do not say anything about these things. And they hope that they will get men to believe by avoiding these unpleasant teachings.
2. And that is also, strange as it may seem, why preaching is also essential, Paul, you remember, says that “God hath chosen” the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” And I think he said it this way because he too was aware of the fact that this seemed to make him a very important person. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Yet strange as it may seem, to those who lack spiritual understanding, there is a very good reason why preaching is necessary to faith. It is not because the preacher is important, for the Bible says that he isn’t. That is why the Apostle could rejoice when the true gospel was preached, even when it was preached by men who did not really believe what they were preaching. So it has nothing to do with the man who preaches it, that this method was chosen by God.
It was chosen for one simple reason. It was chosen because of the very fact that there is such a great hostility to the truth in the mind and heart of man. Let me illustrate what I mean. If you give a man a book or a tract – or even the Bible itself – you know what often happens. He reads a little bit, and then comes to something he doesn’t agree with. And the more faithful it is to the true gospel of Christ, the more certain it is that he will react against it with all of his heart. So then what does he do? Well, he simply puts it down and reads no more. You see, reading of the word of God takes some effort, and desire. But how different it is when the word of God is preached. Then the words keep right on coming in spite of the way that we feel. And before we are able to do anything about it we have been confronted with the truth that sets men free.
I remember an example that will show you what I mean. It happened about a hundred years ago, in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. A certain newspaper man had decided to go and see for himself what people were discussing throughout the city of London. It was a certain youthful preacher by the name of Charles H. Spurgeon, who was attracting great multitudes as he preached the Reformation faith. Well, this newspaper man thought that it would be a very simple thing to go and hear this preacher without becoming involved. But as soon as the sermon began a strange thing began to happen in his soul. As Spurgeon reasoned of “temperance, righteousness and judgment” he realized that he had been confronted with the issues of time and eternity. And when the sermon had ended he knew that he would never be the same again.
(3) But of course, as everyone knows, “they have not all obeyed the gospel.” And the age-old question is: ‘why have not all obeyed the gospel? and why do only some who hear believe?’
Well, the answer was never more clearly stated than it was by our Lord himself, when he heard much the same question from his own disciples. For, of those who heard and did not believe, our Lord said this: “seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” for “their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. . . .because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. To some people, in other words, the gospel comes without any saving effect. For the more that gospel is preached to the natural man, the more there is bound to be hostility against it. But to other people that same gospel comes with saving effect. For the Holy Spirit of God has regenerated the heart. For “we have received, not the spirit of the world”, says the Apostle, but “the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
When the text says that “faith comes by hearing” then, it does not mean the kind of hearing that takes place when men hear and yet do not really hear at all. But it means the kind of hearing that takes place when the gospel of Jesus Christ enters into the heart as well as into the ear. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing” says the Apostle in writing to the Thessalonians “because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” When we come to the house of prayer, to hear the preaching of the word, there are always two possibilities. It may be that we will only hear the voice of a man! Or it may be that we shall hear the voice of the Lord himself. “They shall hear my voice” said Jesus “for they know my voice.”
(4) And this brings us to say, in conclusion, that our text makes it clear that we must take heed of the way in which we hear. “Take heed therefore how ye hear” said our Saviour, “for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath. When people hear the gospel, without having the wonderful experience of true faith, the temptation is always there to make out as if the fault were not in themselves. You will hear them say, “The preacher preaches the truth, but it just doesn’t seem to interest me. It just doesn’t seem to reach me, or do anything to me.” So right away they suppose that the trouble must be in the situation, or perhaps even in the Lord himself. After all, they will say ‘God could give me faith if he really wanted me to have it. But they forget all about the fact that all the time they are refusing to do the one thing that is needful. They forget that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So they do not take heed how they hear or how they listen! How different it would be if they would only take heed! For the Bible says, “give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.” In other words, if you really want to have faith, then seek that faith the way God says it is to be found. “Ask and it shall be given you,” says Jesus, and “seek and ye shall find.” Come, at every opportunity, to hear the gospel of Christ. And when you are here, give attention to the things that are being spoken. Then, when the sermon is ended, do not let it end in the thoughts of your heart. “Meditate on these things” says the Apostle, “take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine.” And I can promise you that if you will do it, you will never be sorry that you did. For our Lord Jesus Christ himself has solemnly promised: “every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
Or, in other words, you can rest your confidence firmly on our text, For if it is true that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” and it most certainly is true – then it certainly follows that you will have that faith too, if you will only hear the word of God in humble sincerity of heart.
As the inspired Psalmist has written:
‘While he proffers peace and pardon let us hear His voice today,
Lest, if we our hearts should harden, we should perish in the way.
Lest to us, so unbelieving, He in judgment shall declare:
Ye, so long My Spirit grieving, never in my rest can share.”
You see, beloved in the Lord, foolish as it may seem to the carnal mind of man, this is God’s method of saving sinful men. For “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Have you heard his voice today?
Amen.