Through Faith
Through Faith
The Scriptures are “able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” wrote Paul (2 Tim. 3:15). Since their purpose (or the purpose of the divine author who spoke and speaks through them) is to bring us to salvation, and since salvation is in Christ, they point us to Christ, as we have seen. But their object in pointing us to Christ is not simply that we should know about him and understand him, nor even that we should admire him, but that we should put our trust in him. Scripture bears witness to Christ not in order to satisfy our curiosity but in order to draw from us a response of faith.
There is much misunderstanding about faith. It is commonly supposed to be a leap in the dark, totally incompatible with reason. This is not so. True faith is never unreasonable, because its object is always trustworthy. When we human beings trust one another, the reasonableness of our trust depends on the relative trustworthiness of the people concerned. But the Bible bears witness to Jesus Christ as absolutely trustworthy. It tells us who he is and what he has done, and the evidence it supplies for his unique person and work is extremely compelling. As we expose ourselves to the biblical witness to this Christ, and as we feel its impact—profound yet simple, varied yet unanimous—God creates faith within us. We receive the testimony. We believe.
That is what Paul meant when he wrote:
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Rom. 10:17)
We have seen that God’s purpose in and through the Bible is severely practical. He has ordained it as his chief instrument for bringing men to “salvation,” understood in its widest and fullest sense. The whole Bible is a gospel of salvation, and the gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). So it points its many fingers unerringly to Christ, so that its readers will see him, believe in him and be saved.
The apostle John writes something very similar at the end of his Gospel. He has recorded only a selection of the signs of Jesus, he says, for Jesus performed many others. He goes on:
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)
John sees the ultimate purpose of Scripture (“what is written”) just as Paul sees it. John calls it “life,” Paul “salvation,” but the words are virtually synonymous. Both apostles are further agreed that this life or salvation is in Christ, and that to receive it we must believe in him. Both present exactly the same sequence of steps: Scripture—Christ—faith—salvation. Scripture testifies to Christ in order to evoke faith in Christ, in order to bring life to the believer.
The conclusion is simple. Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and so believe. Only as we continue to appropriate by faith the riches of Christ which are disclosed to us in Scripture shall we grow into spiritual maturity, and become men and women of God who are “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17).