What is faith?

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What does it mean to have faith?  Many will toss the word faith around casually.  “I have faith” many will say, but often there is little thought attached to the declaration.  But the word of God tells us that if there is truly faith then that faith should show itself in some substantial way. 

James the Apostle was fierce on this account when he wrote in James 2:14, “What good is it, beloved if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?”  James is not talking about salvation here.  For we are taught in Scripture that our salvation is by faith in Christ apart from works. (Eph 2:8-9)  But what James is teaching is that if I do claim to have faith then that faith will change me in some substantial way. 

There is tremendous confusion on these questions.  Some believe faith is intangible or obtuse, meaning it is simply an abstract idea in something that is plausible, but not very likely.  An agnostic claims faith when they say, I believe that there might be a God.  But an agnostic will go on to say that because God is unseen, He is unknowable.  And if God is unknowable then it is not really possible to have a relationship with Him. 

Another response to having faith is that it is like leaping over a canyon or jumping off a cliff.  I don’t know what will happen when I get to the other side, but I am willing on scant evidence to take a run at it.  Maybe things will work out, maybe they won’t.    Again this kind of faith is not going to produce much change in a person. 

Then there is what I call biblical faith.  Biblical faith begins with a conviction or confidence that comes from the spoken word of God.  Romans 10:17 tells us that biblical “faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God.”  This word from God includes many things.  It is a word about who made the world.  A word of why we are here and what is our purpose.  I word about why the world around us is in such a mess and what God has done to change it. 

Hebrews 11:1-3 gives us one the most concise definition of this kind of faith.  “Faith is the assurance (or confidence) of things hoped for, the conviction (or surety) of things not seen…by faith we understand the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”   The things the writer is talking about here in the context is the things related to the word of God.

For example, when we hear with our ears and receive with our hearts a word that tells us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” (Genesis 1:1), I am now on the path of biblical faith.  For I am accepting that behind all that I see, there is an unseen Person behind it all. 

So faith begins with a word that I hear.  It is not something that I conjured out of the recesses of my own heart, or from my own logic and ingenuity, or simply religious tradition.  True biblical faith begins with a word spoken and a word received.  It is a confidence that God has spoken in time through prophets, Apostles, and Christ Himself about a God who created all things.

Now biblical faith produces fruit.  It looks like something.  For example, when I believe in what God has spoken that He is all-powerful, and all-loving and is working all things together for the good, then I choose to believe that He will carry me through whatever I may pass through in this life.  And when I believe that, I will have peace.  So instead of anxiety and fear, I have peace in a God who is able and working good all things out for the good.