BIBLICAL TRUTHS (Part 3)
An Author wrote “You believe there is such a person as Jesus, and that He is the sinner’s Saviour. You do well; but that is only a partial and incomplete faith. To believe that a certain doctor exists and has a large practice is not to believe personally in that doctor. True faith contains a moral as well as an intellectual element, and when the moral element is wanting the intellectual can avail but little. Do you repose your moral confidence in Him, as being to you the Saviour that you need, as one whose character and office are congruous to the wants of your nature?”
It is true that God loves us and gave us His Son that we may believe on Him and not to perish “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. There is therefore condemnation for not believing on Him (John 3:18). This is the intellectual element of our faith because it centers only on believing in believing in Christ as people are being asked to do today. if that is all there is to our faith, it is incomplete indeed!
Believing in Christ must not leave anyone the same. It should lead to a total transformation of life and character “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Corinthians 5:17
The moral element is that part of our faith that brings about such transformation of life and character. That was the salvation that Zacchaeus possessed that never left him the same, it made him to open up about restoring in four fold what he had falsely taken from anyone. That is what Christianity entails. This gap in experience has resulted in many so-called professing Christians without the corresponding life. The basis of our Christianity therefore should be “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts 20:2).
