Introduction:
In all the various controversies we have seen recently, what is common to them all? The common theme is confusion with regard to the intersection between Scripture and the world, and the role faith plays in understanding this rightly.
Suppose a precocious young boy, after his father has finished saying grace over the evening meal, asks something like this. “Dad, how we know that God gave us this food for blessing? Couldn’t He just be fattening us for the day of slaughter? James 5:1 and all?”
The Text:
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17)
What Is Faith?
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith is the natural response to the perceived faithfulness of God. And the faithfulness of God is seen preeminently in the promises. “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).
A Statement of the Problem:
Scripture tells us that a man reaps what he sows (Gal. 6:7). The Bible tells us that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12). This presents us with an interpretive problem. Manasseh was thrown into chains so that he might repent (2 Chron. 33:11-12). St. Paul was thrown into chains in order to rejoice and sing hymns to God (Acts 16:25). This is a hermeneutical issue, but what are we interpreting? Faith must interpret the text in order to interpret the world. We do not interpret the text instead of interpreting the world.
We have to be careful not to fall into an either/or hole here. You have a cousin in Oklahoma who, with regard to Cadillacs and Lear jets, is busying naming and claiming. And you have another cousin in Grand Rapids, this one amillennial, who is living out his days in the gathering gloom.
But consider what different kinds of things faith accomplishes. The italics mark a distinct change in tone.
Consider first the promise of salvation (Rom. 10:9-10). But not all faith is genuine (Jas. 2:19), and no Bible verse names any one of us specifically and by name among the elect.
And what of the promise of answered prayer (John 16:23)? The Bible also teaches us that not all requests in are in the will of God (Jas. 4:3).
And there is the promise that our children will be faithful (Ps. 103:17). But then, what are we to make of Esau and Samuel’s sons, and the many instances of covenantal unfaithfulness that we have personally seen?
Exegetically Indefensible:
What this means is that whenever you are trusting God for something He has promised, you can always be (and probably will be) challenged exegetically. But such challenges are really unbelief masquerading as a high view of the text.
What Does Faith Overcome?
One of the central realities of Scripture, to which we must return, is that faith overcomes the world (1 John 5:4).