What is FAITH?

Does the Word of God have to be the only source of faith? No! Human faith, that "confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing", can come from any source that provides enough evidence of truth, value, or trustworthiness as to be believed, thereby forming the basis for faith. Faith in God, comes from God's word, no matter what form of "hearing" brings it to our mind and spirit.
</font>[/QUOTE]But when applied to a Biblical position:
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
In other words for a person to be saved he must first hear the facts of the gospel to be saved. He cannot be saved without the word of God, or that message that is in the word of God. That is inherent in Webster's definition: confident belief in the truth ...of a person. The truth is the Word, the gospel message. The person is the Lord Jesus Christ.
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]Good, then you are in agreement! But I fear that your understanding is focused on faith being faith in God only.

If you drive a car, you have faith in your driving ability, your car's ability to do its job, the other drivers on the road, etc. Those are all things for which man can have faith, and they are not found in the scriptures. Without faith in them, you would never sit behind the steering wheel of a car. Where does that faith reside? within YOU! Where did it come from? Hearing in what ever form hearing is presented to your mind and spirit.

[ July 03, 2003, 08:19 PM: Message edited by: Yelsew ]

 

Good, Now where does faith reside?

 

I guess that question is too hard. It really isn't all that difficult. Where does faith reside (live)? Where can faith be found?

Is faith something that divinity would have, or is it something that mortality would have?

 

One need not have faith to be faithful.(Deity)
Likewise one need not be faithful to have faith. (humanity)
Faith and faithfulness are not equals.
Faith is what one has, faithful is what one is.

 

Perhaps you can explain to me how Omniscient, all seeing, all wise, immutiable, infinite, omnipotentent, transcendent, self-sufficient, omnipresent God would ever need to have "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"? (Hebrews 11:1)

And while your are explaining that maybe you could also explain how that same God could ever be anything but faithful? Anything other than faithful implies change and in scripture God tells us, "I am God, I change not".(Mal 3:6)

So I don't understand your comments about God.

 

If, as you say it is an issue of faithfulness then why would Paul use the word faith in the place of faithfulness, they are not the same words.

God is faithful regardless of what man does. However a faithless man does not get saved by God! A man who has faith in God, and is faithful in doing what God says, receives the faithful salvation of God.

One who knows and sees, needs no faith. It is that simple. Not knowing and Not seeing are the reasons for faith.

Reliable, trustworthy, faithful are all words that describe conditions that man can only hope to be found true of himself, yet God is all of them, thus needing no faith.

 

GH Said,

GH: As you know, we disagree on this point. How in the world can someone have faith if God doesn’t give it to him? I base my view on Paul’s statement in Romans about some are chosen for noble use (vessels of mercy), some chosen for ignoble use (vessels of wrath). God has mercy on whom He will have mercy and HARDENS WHOM HE WILL HARDEN. This is His sovereign right to do so. This claypot isn’t going to talk back to the Potter on this important point. It is clear to ME that some are not given the kind of faith that causes one to believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ. But that doesn’t NOT nullify His finished work. Dead men (spiritually dead) can’t have faith. It is God who makes alive by His sovereign will. This is GOD’S FAITH IN ACTION.</font>[/QUOTE]How in the world does one come to faith in their parents? Or in anything for that matter? Faith comes by hearing, that is, by what our 'information gathering' human sensory system takes into the mind and spirit. It is through our senses that we establish patterns of trust and fear. Faith in God comes to us the same way, we "Hear", that is take into our sensory system, and process that information through our brain and deposit it in our mind and spirit.

So what do we hear, hear meaning to take into ourselves, to incorporate into our character, that causes us to believe in God? We "hear" God's word, again through our sensory system, eyes, ears, mouth, touch, and taste. We process the information and catalog it in our brain, and store it for subsequent retrieval and use. All that we know about God comes to us via our senses, and yes, spirit is our sixth sense, and is processed just like all other information. We learn trust in the same way, that which causes us pleasure or "no pain" becomes trusted, that which causes us pain is also trusted, but the trust associated with pain is trust that doing what caused the pain the first time will cause it again.

Biblically "Dead" men, the spiritually dead, are fully capable of having faith, do have faith, and will have faith. Their faith however is not in one God who gives life eternal, but in other "gods". God told us "thou shalt have no other god's before me", yet men do put other gods before Almighty Jehovah God, and their fate is that faith in those other gods causes them to be cast into the lake of fire as judgement against them. To say that man is dead and cannot have faith is a complete mischaracterization of the image of God in which we are all made. All men are made in the image of God! There is only one mold in which God mad man, that being the one in which God made Adam, all other men come from Adam. Regardless of our skin color, our national origin, our gender, etc. we are all made in the image of God, and don't forget that. It is key to understanding God! Not that any human has a full understanding of that which is unfathomable. God is one God, there is one image of God, and all men are made in that image. Therefore if one man has the capacity to have faith, All men have the capacity to have faith. To think otherwise is pure sillyness!

invite 1000 people to a banquet, provide 5 entres, and you will be able to divide that 1000 into five groups based on their choices of entre. That is what religion does! That is why you have the Jim Joneses, the David Koreshes, the John Wesleys the Popes, the Martin Luthers, etc.

Because God does not need faith, he is trustworthy because he cannot lose or alter his faith in the least.

Context is everything GH, the context is Romans 3:1-8 . Using the King James w/study notes, NRSV w/sn, and New Jerusalem Bible, w/sn, I find that the Faith of God is not in question, but rather the Faithfulness of God. It makes a difference!

God has no faith! But man must have faith in God to have life eternal. The above noted scripture taken out of context can mean whatever you want it to mean, but in context it cannot!

Why do you insist on making God obey human characteristics. God does not require faith in Himself! Remember God said "I AM that I AM" That implies total self sufficiency, total confidence, afterall who does God answer to? What higher authority is there that can Judge God?

The Plan of God's redemption does not include the use of force, that is, God does not force us to believe. He puts Himself before us in and through His Holy Word, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, supported by the evidence throughout His creation, but he leaves believing up to His created man. God has no reason to believe, HE IS! That is the reason it is appointed unto man once to die then the judgment (Rev 20:14,15). Whoever's name is not found in the book of Life shall be cast into the lake of fire which is the second death.

Now, the sins of the world have been atoned by the Son of God, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. Human "Works" cannot save even the greatest among men. That leaves FAITH alone as the rule of God's Judgment! Faith is what gets your name written in the Book of Life. If your name IS WRITTEN in the book of life, you will not be judged or cast into the lake of fire, but will instead not be judged, condemned, etc.

FAITH ALONE, not "God's faith" which He does not have or need, but man's faith in God is God's measurement of the righteousness of man...Like unto Abraham! Faith saved Abraham!

We are made in the image of God, and we all have as an attribute..."that which is true of us", love. Love is what we have, but it may not be what we do! We have control over our attributes just as God has control over His. Attributes cannot be given from one to another (except through creation in which the image of God is implanted into the created being, which is then passed through reproduction from generation to generation of that created being.)

Attributes are the constraints whereby we are known, that is if we are dominated by our attribute of Love, we are known as loving, if by Grace, we are known as gracious, If by Mercy, we are known as Merciful, If by any combination, such as love and grace, we are known as lovingly gracious, or graciously loving, etc. Yes, we can give gifts, out of our attributes, that demonstrate to the recipient of the gift how we relate to them. Gifts given out of love for example include Christmas gifts, Birthday Gifts, Valentine's gifts, Anniversary gifts, friendship gifts, and my favorite, "no special reason" gifts. Out of God's love for his created being Man, God gave us the gift of his Son, born into this world as "one of us", though in truth that Son is the living God "Emmanuel, meaning God with us". God gave us that wonderful gift while His Grace dominates His behavior. Therefore Jesus is God's gift of Love, in grace given to man so that if man will but believe in The Gift, and receive that gift unto himself, God saves the man from the second death.

Did you overlook the word "knowledge" in this verse? God gives us knowledge so that we can have faith. You see a chair, you know the chair exists, but! Do you have the faith to sit on the chair? Not until you test the chair or see that chair support someone else. Then you can have "trust" in the chair. God does not give you that trust or that faith. He gives you knowledge so that you can come to trust and faith.

It is "knowledge of himself" that God gives so that we can come to know Him and have faith in Him.

YES, our faith in Jesus Christ is counted unto us as righteousness by God...Just as Abraham's faith was counted unto him as righteousness.

YES, we who are Jews by birth, have learned that someone is reckoned as upright, not through the practice of the law but by faith in Jesus the Christ, because no human can be found upright in accordance with the law.

"scripture makes NO EXCEPTION when it says that sin is master everywhere; so the promise can be given only by FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST to those who have this faith."

NO my friend our faith is not "faith in faith", but Faith in the person of Jesus, the Christ himself. Jesus' faith does not save us, any more than Billy Graham's faith saves us. It is our faith in Jesus that saves us, and that faith comes through our knowledge of Him. The more we learn of Him the greater our faith becomes. Could Jesus, who is God the Son, be anything other than faithful and obedient to Himself as God? If He could then He would not be God the Son! Did He demonstrate a need for faith? NOT ONCE in his human manifestation! If You read His prayers, you will see no thoughts in them that Jesus himself needed or had faith! He had knowledge and Confidence! Yes, he did pray that "if this cup could be removed" but never once did he indicate a need for faith. He knew what he had to do, but like all of us, we may know what needs to be done by ourselves, but often we think and even pray that we would not have to do it! In the end, however, Jesus did what He knew must be done because he was obedient to Himself as God!

Again you are using this scripture out of it's context to prove a point that it doe not prove! It is not God's faith that saves us, it is our faith in God that saves us. If God had faith, who or what would that faith be in? What is worthy of God's faith? Did Jesus have faith? In whom did He have faith? He told us, "I and the Father are one", and "if you have seen me you have seen the Father", so who then would he have faith in?

Your words describe the Faith of God as well, Yelsew. Our hope is in HIM, knowing that there is NOTHING in and of ourselves worthy that God should be mindful of us. God has faith, brother, as I’ve shown several times.</font>[/QUOTE]Well You HAVE NOT shown even once that God has faith! Nothing exists that is worthy of God, who created all that exists, having faith in it. God does not have faith in anything or any one. Therefore God has no faith to give to anything or any one. He alone is worthy of our faith, that faith that comes from within us by our hearing of God, and believing in Him.

Well GH, I thank you for your prayers, but it is you who is lacking understanding of God, and of man. All that I can say is this. God existed in ALL of his Glory from eternity to eternity before he created! Man is created!

The highest power that exists, the one who created all there is, requires no faith! That which He created must have faith! He created us with the capacity to believe, and thereby have faith. God created man in God's image including many of the attributes that God has such as, love, mercy, grace, justice, and others, excluding the omni-attributes.

God created man to be limited by size, space, time, dimension, etc.

God is Spirit, therefore man is spirit. Jesus told us that spirit is like the wind and that no man can see from whense it comes or whither it goes. Man is constrained by a physical body of flesh for a specified period of 120 earth years max. We know of no one sinse God placed that limitation on man, who has lived past 120 years in a flesh body. We are told in scripture, that once the flesh dies, the believing spirit goes to be with the Lord, and the unbelieving spirit goes to be judged. There are no second chances after this 'natural' life!

So, you continue to have faith in God's faith, and I will continue to have faith in God. You place all of your trust in God's faith, and I will be saved by God, who is faithful to save those who believe in HIM!

 

If he has no faith to lose, it is not possible for Him to lose faith! It is quite obvious that you do not understand faith!