The object of our faith.

The Christ of God does everything necessary in order to make your redemption sure.

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

I was so encouraged by this extended excerpt from Rev. Alexander Maclaren on the object of our faith that I couldn’t not share it with you. I pray your heart is filled with comfort and consolation with the reminder that the gospel’s object of trust is not merely some creed or doctrine, but the Living Lord himself. Maclaren writes:

If the Object of faith were certain truths, the assent of the understanding would be enough. If the Object of faith were unseen things, the confident persuasion of them would be sufficient. If the Object of faith were promises of future good, the hope rising to certainty of the possession of these would be sufficient. But if the Object be more than truths, more than unseen realities, more than promises; if the Object be a living Person, — then there follows inevitably this, that faith is not merely the assent of the understanding, that faith is not merely the persuasion of the reality of unseen things, that faith is not merely the confident expectation of future good; but that faith is the personal relation of him who has it to the living Person its Object, — the relation which is expressed not more clearly, but perhaps a little more forcibly to us, by substituting another word, and saying, Faith is trust.

If we will only take that as our explanation, how simple, how grand, how familiar too it sounds, — to trust Him! . . . When the child looks up into the mother’s face, the symbol to it of all protection, or into the father’s eye, the symbol to it of all authority, — that emotion by which the little one hangs upon the loving hand and trusts the loving heart that towers above it in order to bend over it and scatter good, is the same as the one which, glorified and made divine, rises strong and immortal in its power, when fixed and fastened on Christ, and saves the soul.

The Gospel rests upon a mystery, but the practical part of it is no mystery. When we come and preach to you, ‘Trust in Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ we are not asking you to put into exercise some mysterious power. We are only asking you to give to Him that which you give to others, to transfer the old emotions, the blessed emotions, the exercise of which makes gladness in life here below, to transfer them to Him, and to rest safe in the Lord. Faith is trust . . . Faith is mighty, divine, the gift of God; but oh! it is the exercise of a familiar habit, only fixed upon a divine and eternal Person. (12:2.314–16)

As simple as it may sound, faith is trust. It’s trusting in the self-revelation of God in the person of Jesus that all of your sin has been absolved through his passion and resurrection, and that, accordingly, you have been brought into union with him and made holy by him. All has been taken care of by the Christ of God. He does everything necessary in order to make your redemption sure. Such is why we can trust him with everything because he’s done everything already.

Grace and peace to you, friends.

Works cited:

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vols. 1–17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1944).