The Essence of Faith

When we think of faith, we usually think of the activity of believing and trusting in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faith is believing and trusting, but before that it is something else.  Faith in its deepest reality and essence is union with Christ.

This is suggested in the Heidelberg Catechism which, speaks of true faith in terms of "engrafting into Christ" (20), and in the Westminster Larger Catechism, which says that faith is not only assent to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but a receiving and resting upon Christ for salvation (72).  In distinction from the activity of faith, this is sometimes referred to in theology as the power or principle of faith.

But, does Scripture teach that faith is union with Christ?  It does in such passages as Galatians 2:20, John 17:20, 21, and Ephesians 3:17, and in the very way that Scripture speaks of faith throughout.

In the NT for example the Greek uses several different expressions, most of which imply that faith brings us into living contact and union with Christ.  Scripture speaks, for example, most often of believing "in Christ." What else can that refer to but that we are through faith bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh? (Eph. 5:30).  It speaks also and literally of believing "into" Him (Jn. 3:16, 18, Col. 2:5), or of believing "on" Him (Rom. 9:23, 10:11) or "upon" Him (Acts 11:17, 16:31).

All these passages imply close personal union and fellowship with the Son of God.  Even those passages that speak simply of believing Him imply that we are close enough to Him by faith that we can actually hear Him speaking and know and trust what He says (Jn. 14:11, II Tim. 1:12).  Such is the nature of true faith.

This, then, is what distinguishes true faith from all its counterfeits.  In many other ways a counterfeit faith mimics a true faith, but there is one thing that cannot be mimicked and that is being in Christ by faith.

To see faith as union with Christ is also to see that faith must be a gift of God.  If we only ever speak of the activity of faith then we may begin to think that faith has its origin in us and in our will.  But when we remember that it is union with Christ, then it is clear that it must be God's work and gift.  Could we unite ourselves to Christ?  No more than a branch might graft itself into the tree!

This understanding of faith explains many other things as well.  It explains how the righteousness of Christ becomes ours for our justification through faith.  It explains how faith is the victory that overcomes the world, for it is not some inherent power in faith that overcomes, but the fact that faith puts us into Christ and so brings us into union with His victory over sin, death, the world and Satan.

What a marvelous thing, then, to be able to say that we have faith!  To say it is to confess that by a wonderful and sovereign work of God we live in Christ and He in us, nevermore to be parted from one another.  Can you say it - that you are in Christ by faith?