The Fullness of Faith: its Attainment
Paper Eighth(TOC)
The Fullness of Faith: its Attainment
"Full of the Holy Ghost and of faith"—Acts 11:24
The fullness of faith is a work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when the apostle Paul sets forth the fruit of the Spirit he puts into the precious cluster faith. Now, since the Spirit himself, in fullness, is only given to believers, after they have exercised saving faith (that is, it is a Post-conversion experience), therefore, the faith which flows from his indwelling must be some enlargement and enrichment of faith which does not belong to it in its initial character. Faith, in its saving measure, is faith with hands and feet unloosed, yet with eyes that are darkened and wings that are bound: it is a clinging chrysalis it neither sees nor soars. But faith in its fullness is faith with eyes wide open, and wings unbound. Faith never reaches its fullness until it transmigrates from an exercise into a state of soul, until it can apprehend, as well as appropriate, the things which are freely given it of God. When faith, without losing any of its saving virtue, by the power of the Holy Ghost in us becomes the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, it has reached its majority, it is full grown. The process for the attainment of the fullness of faith differs from that for the attainment of faith in its saving efficacy, because they differ in experience.
Saving faith is a thing done by us, a conscious, voluntary act by which the soul accepts salvation; the fullness of faith is a state wrought in us by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Being a grace wrought in us, it must be definitely sought and received as any other grace is obtained. Two things are very essential to the souls attainment of the fullness of faith, it must know the source and the antecedents of this experience.