Faith

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith (Romans 1:17).

We have been considering on previous occasions the revelations of Himself that God makes to us in Christ Jesus. We have now to consider those moral conditions which are necessary on our side if the revelations thus made are to be really of service to us, and those moral and spiritual results which may be expected to accompany or to flow from these revelations thus received. The sun shines in vain upon the sightless eyeballs of the blind, though it reveals a world of light and beauty to those who have eyes to see. And even so the great Revealer, our true Sun of Righteousness, whose beams bring to light a higher, vaster world of beauty and glory, shines in vain upon those whose spiritual sensibilities are not in a condition to apprehend and appreciate His light.

Faith Is the Root of Spiritual Life

And, first, let me speak of that upon which, so far as we are concerned, everything else depends. Faith lies at the root of all spiritual experience, and is the first essential characteristic of all true religion. “Without faith,” says the Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). In the Christian system it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of faith, or to speak too strongly of the hollowness and unreality of all so-called religion that is not pervaded with this element.

Yet it must, I am afraid, be admitted, that much that goes by the name of religion lacks this characteristic; nay, we must, I think, go further, and recognize the sorrowful and startling fact, that many who bear the Christian name seem to have only the most confused or defective views of what faith actually is. Others, who not only know what it is, but have felt its power in the earliest experiences of the Christian life, seem to regard it too much as if it belonged only to those