Faith in Christ.
"In whom having believed." Faith is a God-given reliance on an all-sufficient Mediator.
I. IT IS MORE THAN A MERE BELIEF or THE TRUTH ' it is an act of the will; it is trust in a Person. It has been strongly urged in our day that faith is simply the belief in God's testimony that Christ has died for us. "It is simply believing that Christ died for me." There are two statements here: Christ is the Savior of sinners; he has saved me. The first is true, whether I believe in him or not; the second only becomes true on my believing. Faith is not believing that I am saved; it is believing in order to be saved. The grant of salvation is absolute or it is not. If not, the grant does not make the pardon mine before I believe; if it is absolute, it makes the pardon mine before I believe; so I am justified before faith and therefore without faith. On this theory of faith, faith is utterly impossible; for the soul would require to accept the proposition, "I am saved," in order to be saved. A man may firmly credit the testimony of God, and yet doubt whether he is himself a believer, though he is convinced that Christ will save all true believers. The position of some is practically this: "I believe that I am a believer." If this is true faith, we cannot deceive ourselves; for the more firmly a man believes he is a believer, the stronger must his faith be. But nothing but a theory of universal salvation could warrant a sinner, while be is still a sinner, to believe that Christ died for him and will assuredly save him. The apostle said to the Galatians, "Let no man deceive himself;" but on this principle there is no need for any warnings against self-deception.
II. FAITH IS TRUST IN A PERSON. It thus becomes the instrument of our justification. It is the receptive organ or the hand by which the graciously provided ransom is received by the sinner; or, it is the bond which attaches him to Christ. When the object of faith is stated in Scripture, it is presented in connection with certain significant forms of grammatical construction. We are said to believe in or upon Jesus Christ. This form occurs fifty times in the New Testament, and the object is always a Person, and not a statement to be believed. If faith, indeed, is not taken to include trust, we have not a single exhortation in the whole New Testament to trust in the Lord like what occurs so often in the Old Testament; and if faith does not include trust, where is the evidence that the Old Testament saints had faith at all, apart from the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:1-40.); for in the Old Testament they are not said to believe, but always to trust in the Lord?
III. FAITH IS THE SUSTAINING PRINCIPLE OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE. It is not the mere roof-principle; it is the continuing principle of it; for the apostle says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Galatians 2:20). He who believes receives the saving blessings which Christ's death procured. Faith apprehends Christ under three gracious aspects: "Christ for us," for our justification; "Christ in us," for our sanctification; "Christ with us," for comfort and confidence. These are not three separate blessings, any one of which we may have without the others, but three parts of the Christian's privilege, bound up together in the same bundle of life, and given upon our believing. There is a mysticism which speaks of Christ in his people which fails to realize Christ for his people; but our fellowship of life with Christ is not redemption, but as the Bible everywhere represents it, as the result, reward, and fruit of the ransom offered by our Divine Redeemer.—T.C.
The sealing of the Holy Spirit.
"In whom, having believed, ye were scaled." It is spoken of as a past process, but, though dating from a certain specific point of time, it is continuous in its operation.
I. THE NATURE OF THE SEALING. It is something different from faith, as the scaling of a letter is different from the writing of it. In the order of nature there must be a difference; in the order of time, the faith and the sealing may be contemporaneous. The sealing implies the direct contact of the seal with the thing sealed, and an impression made by it. It has both an objective and a subjective meaning. It is objective so far as it is for identification. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Timothy 2:19); for the Lord sets his mark upon believers to keep them safe for himself; and it is also for security, for "we are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30), that is, to be preserved unto that day, the sealed ones of the Revelation being expressly sealed for safety (Revelation 7:3). Then it is subjective as it involves the assurance of faith, saints being thus assured of their interest in the favor of God and in the blessings of his kingdom. "Faith is the hand that takes hold of Christ; assurance is the ring which God puts on faith's finger." Believers as sealed by the Spirit have the witness within themselves that they are children of God (1 John 5:10; Revelations 1 John 5:5; 8:18).
II. THE SEALER. This is God, not the Holy Spirit; for it is said, "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Corinthians 1:21, 2 Corinthians 1:22). The Holy Spirit is not the Sealer, but the Seal.
III. THE PERSON' INTO WHOM BELIEVERS ARE SEALED—JESUS CHRIST. "In whom ye were sealed." The sealing has direct relation to our union with Christ, as the passage implies; but the apostle also says, "He which stablisheth us with you in [rather, 'into'] Christ is God .. who hath also sealed us" (2 Corinthians 1:22). Jesus said," At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Thus all the three witnesses in heaven, as well as the three witnesses on earth, concur in the testimony to our interest in the blessings of salvation. Our sealing is indeed in virtue of the sealing of Christ himself; for "him hath God the Father sealed" (John 6:2.).
IV. THE SEAL IS NOT BAPTISM, OR THE LORD'S SUPPER, OR EXTRAORDINARY GIFTS, BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT HIMSELF. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed till the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30), as marking the element or sphere of the sealing. God stamps the image of his Spirit upon the Christian soul; and all that is involved in the Spirit's operation—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Galatians 5:22)—is worked into man's spirit; for "we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18), that is, as reflecting his image.
V. THE SEALED ARE BELIEVERS. It is not truths, or promises, or experiences, that are sealed upon the heart; it is believers themselves who are sealed. A hard, cold, lifeless heart cannot receive the seal. The believing heart must be melted by the love shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, just as wax is melted to receive the device carved on the seal, before it can be in a state receptive enough for taking the impress, that is, the witness of Divine favor and security.
VI. THE INDELIBILITY OF THE SEAL. This seems implied in the very nature of the term employed, "ye were sealed"—in the past tense. "Whatever bears God's image will be safely carried home to his bosom." The seal that may be broken is no security. "Ye were sealed till the day of redemption"—till no day short of that; but it is a sealing that implies a perseverance in holiness. It is this security that supplies the strongest argument why we should not grieve the Spirit. The apostle does not suggest the fear of the Spirit's withdrawal, but rather the ingratitude of believers who could grieve One who had done so much for them.—T.C.