Upon What Does Your Faith Stand? (1)

Holy Scripture warns that "your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men" (I Cor. 2:5). The "wisdom of men" includes superb oratory, what Paul calls "excellency of speech" (1). This would include using "big words" to impress or using flattery to allure. These things merely draw attention to the delivery and the speaker and detract from the message. The old Puritan preachers criticized their high church opponents for making frequent quotations from the classical authors and for making sermons more of a literary production than a divine testimony. Our faith must not stand either in the "wisdom of men" in the form of human philosophy or rational proofs. Arguments for the truth of the Christian faith can be made from the unity and antiquity of the Bible, fulfilled prophecy, miracles, etc. Though these arguments have their uses, we must not believe the gospel merely because of these things. Also our faith must not rest on the testimony of our parents or our spouse or our friends or even on the witness of the Christian church. You must not believe merely because they believe. You personally must believe, and you must believe on more solid grounds than these.

None of these things (flowing oratory, rational proofs or the voice of the church or of friends), either separately or collectively, are sufficient as the ground for faith. A man may be eloquent in promoting the truth or he may be eloquent in advancing the lie. What if an anti-Christian debater is a more powerful reasoner than the Christian apologist? What if your Christian friend falls away? We cannot rest our faith upon man’s reasoning or man’s testimony or man’s oratory. These things are weak as opposed to the "power of God" (5). Saving faith must rest upon God and His Word alone and not on man. The Westminster Confession states, "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverend esteem of the holy scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts" (1:5).

Thus the apostle says, "your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (I Cor. 2:5). Next time (DV), we shall consider what it means for our faith to stand in the "power of God."