Beware of Confusion about Faith -- By: Robert N. Wilkin

Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Volume: JOTGES 18:34 (Spring 2005)
Article: Beware of Confusion about Faith
Author: Robert N. Wilkin


Beware of Confusion about Faith

Robert N. Wilkin

Editor
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Irving, Texas

I. Faith Is Unfathomable Today

Christianity is called the Christian faith for a reason. Christianity is all about doctrines. It is all about what we believe. Our lives cannot be transformed unless our minds are first renewed by the Word of God (Rom 12:1–2).

You might think that one thing pastors and theologians would be absolutely crystal clear about is what faith is.

Sadly, just the opposite is true. Faith is a dense fog, an impenetrable mystery for most pastors and theologians today. People hearing them become totally confused as to what faith is.

Beware of confusion about faith.

II. Beware of Confusion about the Definition of Faith

Jesus said, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47).

Recently I spent about an hour on the phone with a man who has struggled with assurance for nearly 20 years. When I pointed him to John 6:47, he said something like this: “Yes, but the Greek word for believe means something more than the English word and hence merely believing the facts of the gospel is not enough.”

That man is far from alone.

Make no mistake. If we don’t know what faith is, then we can’t be sure we are believers.

Many people understand John 6:47 as though it read: “He who whatchamacallits has everlasting life.” Since they don’t know what whatchamacallit is, they don’t know if they have everlasting life or not.

In February 1989 an article was published in the GES newsletter entitled “Doctrinal Déjà Vu: An Old Issue: Faith and Assurance.” Zane Hodges cited an 1890 book by Robert L. Dabney, a Calvinist, in which he said that no one can be sure whether his faith is genuine or spurious:

There is a spurious as well as a genuine faith. Every man, when he thinks he believes, is conscious of exercising what he thinks is faith. Such is the correct statement of these facts of consciousness. Now suppose the faith, of which the man is conscious, turns out a spurious faith, must not his be a spurious consciousness? And he, being without the illumination of the Spirit, will be in the dark as to its hollowness.1

Hodges concludes: “Obviously, the kind of ...

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