a) Knowledge.
Psa. 9:10--"And they that know thy name will put their trust in
thee." Rom. 10:17--"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by
the word of God." Faith is not believing a thing without evidence;
on the contrary faith rests upon the best of evidence, namely,
the Word of God. An act of faith denotes a manifestation of the
intelligence: "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not
heard?" Faith is no blind act of the soul; it is not a leap in the
dark. Such a thing as believing with the heart without the head
is out of the question. A man may believe with his head without
believing with his heart; but he cannot believe with his heart
without believing with his head too. The heart, in the Scriptures,
means the whole man--intellect, sensibilities, and will. "As a man
_thinketh_ in his heart." "Why _reason_ ye these things
in your hearts?"
b) Assent.
Mark 12:32--"And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast
said the truth." So was it with the faith which Christ demanded in
His miracles: "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" "Yea, Lord."
There must not only be the knowledge that Jesus is able to save, and
that He is the Saviour of the world; there must be also an assent
of the heart to all these claims. Those who, _receiving_ Christ
to be all that He claimed to be, _believed_ in Him, became
thereby sons of God (John 1:12).
c) Appropriation.
John 1:12; 2:24. There must be an appropriation of the things
which we know and assent to concerning the Christ and His work.
Intelligent perception is not faith. A man may know Christ as
divine, and yet aside from that reject him as Saviour. Knowledge
affirms the reality of these things but neither accepts nor rejects
them. Nor is assent faith. There is an assent of the mind which
does not convey a surrender of the heart and affections.
Faith is the consent of the will to the assent of the understanding.
Faith always has in it the idea of action--movement towards its
object. It is the soul leaping forth to embrace and appropriate the
Christ in whom it believes. It first says: "My Lord and my God,"
and then falls down and worships.
A distinction between believing about Christ and on Christ is made
in John 8:30, 31, R. V.--"Many believed _on_ him.... Jesus
therefore said to those Jews that had believed _him_."