GOD HAS SPOKEN BY HIS SON
AFTER repentance from dead works, the next foundation principle of the true religion is faith in God. Repentance and faith are the two essentials for true Christianity, and our Christian religion is found on these two things. However, the Christian formula which is more familiar to us and used most in the New Testament is repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. So it may seem strange to us for Paul to speak of faith in God.
Faith in God may seem to us to be an inadequate foundation. It could be said that most have some faith in God. Agnostics and atheists make up only a small percentage of the human race. Most have some faith in God. Even those religions of the world which are not Christian believe in God, and the attributes of their God in whom they believe have elements that are true as the Christian faith sets forth, and the Bible teaches, though they may have many aspects which the Bible says are wrong. Nature declares the glory of God and creation reveals his actions, and something of his nature and greatness. Every well taught Christian, while claiming such faith is good and a start, will say that this is not the faith that saves the soul or brings us into fellowship with God or to communion with God.
What does Paul mean here by faith in God? We must remember that Paul was speaking to Christian Jews, and so speaking in the language of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament faith in God means faith in the word of God revealed in the Scriptures, and in the promises of God in his word. So we read Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. This meant that Abraham believed the word of God to him, and committed his life to faith in God as he had promised, and although Abraham’s understanding of the meaning of the promises of blessing were necessarily much less than we have in the light of the advent of Christ, and the gift of the New Testament Scriptures, it still was faith in the same promise of blessing in salvation. So we read later in Hebrews that Abraham’s faith led him to obey God and leave his birth home and travel to the land God said he would give him, and to live under the authority of God all the time. We are also told that when he died he died in a faith in a better country, even a heavenly country, and so God was not ashamed to be called his God, and own him as his saved one. Abraham, though with limited light, had the same faith as the New Testament Christian has, which is faith in the promised Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.
From this we are able to understand that faith in God which saves is a faith in the God who speaks and promises salvation, and is placing our trust in such a God and his promises in Christ, which is the same as accepting Christ as promised as our Saviour and Lord.
The next foundation principle which Paul speaks of is instructions in baptisms. Notice the plural tense. Paul does not say ‘of baptism’ but of baptisms. The Jewish Faith had a form of baptism. Then there was the baptism of John which was a baptism of repentance, but stopped short of faith in Christ, and we read in Acts that some only knew the baptism of John and had to be taught the true faith in Christ, and be baptised in the name of Jesus. This teaching of baptisms was teaching which showed that baptism was in the name of Jesus, and this was the baptism that sealed to the believer the salvation promises which are in Christ. It was a teaching which lifted the believer from the inadequate faith seen in the old Jewish faith, and the partiality of the preparing baptism of John, and lifted them into faith in Christ alone.
The next principle of laying on of hands must have been instruction in the right understanding of the meaning of the action of the apostles, which we read of in Acts, when they laid hands on people prior to their receiving the gift of the Spirit. It is plain that this was a symbolic act by which the one who received the laying on of hands had their faith confirmed by the gift of God of his Holy Spirit. It would be wrong to understand this laying on of hands as a means to an end, and as producing the result, but an outward expression of the inward grace given by God alone, and not ultimately tied to any human action. Still the foundation principle is that of every believer receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit indwelling them.
The fifth foundation principle is a belief in the resurrection of the dead. In the world people like to calm the conscience with the thought that when this life is over we cease to have any life or consciousness. This is not true. There is a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. Some are raised to eternal life, and some are raised to eternal damnation. However we may dislike the thought of everlasting death it is taught in the Bible and by Christ, e.g. Matthew 25:46. Belief in resurrection is a foundation belief. We are not truly Christians if we do not believe in resurrection. It is the joy of our faith in Christ that we have the gift of eternal life, and have been saved from eternal death.
Sixthly and lastly, Paul mentions the foundation principle of belief in eternal judgement. It is an essential ingredient of faith that we believe that all will eventually stand before the judgement seat of Christ. As Christians we affirm this in the creed in the words ‘from thence he will come to judge the living and the dead’. It is the joy of our faith in Christ, that on that judgement day, as Christ’s sheep we will be gathered into his sheepfold, his everlasting glory. Our judgement is the apportionment of rewards for service. We are saved from judgement for sin as Christ himself has borne that judgement in himself on the cross.
On the other hand there is the reality of judgement for sin for all who do not have Christ as their Saviour through faith in him, and this is what drives every Christian to share the gospel of salvation in Christ with others.
This is the foundation of the Christian faith. This foundation must be faithfully and surely laid, but once laid it must be affirmed and held on to by faith in order that each believer may go on in service of Jesus, and in learning more deeply the glories and wonders and blessings that Christ has prepared for all who love him. This is what Paul here is urging us to do.