RESULTS AND EVIDENCES OF FAITH

RESULTS AND EVIDENCES OF FAITH

           First is the Confession of Christ as Lord

 

                       (1. Evidential - confession, then faith. Rom. 10:10 - cf. the two orders

                        (2. Chronological - Faith, then confession.  Cf. John 12:42-43 Many believed, but would not confess.This faith puts matter in doubt. First after receiving the gospel message men were asked to be water baptized to reveal their salvation by the Triune God. The doctrinal thrust of Matt 28:19 is trinitarian and supports the triple action involved in triune immersion.

                        Rom. 1:5 ARV "Unto obedience of faith"  to bring about the obedience of faith (a work not bringing about but affirming what has transpired)

                        cf. Rom. 16:26 for same Greek construction - "For the obedience of faith." Give evidence of the gospel transaction having just taken place.

            Works of Righteousness follow the Gospel reception

                        Gal. 5:6 "But faith which worketh by love."
                        James 2:17, 26  "Even so faith; if it hath not works."                         "So faith without works is dead also." A dead horse won’t get you to Chicago, faith that’s dead won’t get you to heaven.

            Then comes Development of Christian virtues

                        2 Pet. 1:5-7 ASV "In your faith supply virtue...." Describes a growing plant, faith grows out to love progressively

             Victory over the world

1 Pet. 3:21 "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Peter gives the context for this statement by taking the reader back to Gen. 6:1 to the account of Noah to the disobedience of the angels, where people were demon possessed and Noah preached righteousness to these people. Only eight people were spared in the ark. Those eight were saved "through" the water in the sense that they were saved from the deadly moral and spiritual pollution that had engulfed the world after the demonic invasion. The waters bore up their ark of safety, even as the same waters destroyed their old world and old lives. Thus both the flood, with its ark of safety, and baptism, with its emergence from the waters of "burial" are "like figures" of the wonderful reality of the death and resurrection of Christ, as well as the death to sin and the new life of the believer. Baptism in and of itself would at most be only a bath for washing off the filth of the flesh, but, it becomes "the answer of [or, better, "appeal for"] a good conscience toward God" (see also Heb. 9:14) when experienced as a testimony of one's saving faith in the atoning death and justifying resurrection of the Lord Jesus secured forever by Christ's resurrection.
Heb. 9:14  "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

                        1 John 5:4 "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

            Unspeakable Joy

                        1 Pet. 1:8 "Yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

             Continuance in the Faith

                        John 8:31 "Which believed on him, if ye continue in my word."
                        1 Cor. 15:2 "If ye keep in memory what I preached unto you."