Study Two – Kinds Of Faith!

Introduction

What kind of faith did men have in Jesus before His Death and Resurrection? John 20:9 “For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” This is a part of the dramatic story connected with the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We know that salvation is dependent upon our faith in Jesus as a Substitute, that He died for our sins, and that He arose for our justification.

He took the blame for every sin—each wrong decision, each hateful thought, each horrific act. Jesus became our Substitute. Just look at what that means for you:

So, Martha’s faith in Jesus is described in John 11:27, “She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”” She did not have faith in Jesus as the One who had died and risen as her personal Substitute and Savior. She rather had faith in Him as God’s Son, as the Messiah that had been promised.

Peter made another confession of Jesus which is recorded in Matthew 16:16. “Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”” That was not a confession that Christ had died for his sins and had risen for his justification, but simply a confession of His Messiah-ship and His being the Son of God. There is still another type of confession in the Four Gospels that is striking. John 6:30 “Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?” Notice the expression “that we may see it and believe.”

Perhaps we should turn to John 20:25 and read Thomas’ declaration.  Jesus had appeared to the disciples after His Resurrection. Thomas was not present. They told him what had taken place. He said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” He was willing to believe if He could have the evidence. Jesus met him. 27-29 verses “Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.””

Here are two kinds of faith in contrast. One is Sense Knowledge Faith, which is based upon physical evidence. We see and believe. We hear and believe. Jesus speaks of another kind of faith where they do not see, nor feel, nor hear, yet they believe. The Faith that men had in Jesus during His earth walk was Sense Knowledge Faith.

This is one of the most startling discoveries we have ever made in this faith walk. It clears up so many issues. The great body of the church has Sense Knowledge Faith, rather than faith in the Revelation that God has given to us. During the earth walk of Christ, the Jews were under the First Covenant.

They were under the blood of bulls and goats. They did not have Eternal Life until Christ died and rose again, for none of them believed in Christ as a Savior. They did not believe in His Substitutionary work. They knew nothing of it. Luke 24:1-3 gives a vivid picture of the condition of the disciples after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He had appeared to Mary and to the others. They rushed to the place where the disciples were gathered. “Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. ” (Luke 24:9-11) There was no saving faith on the part of the disciples at that time. They did not hail Him as their Savior. They were mystified, staggered by His appearance.

They recognized Him for they saw the evidence of the crucifixion in His body. They knew it was He. The disciples had faith in Jesus as a Messiah, as the Son of God, but not as a Substitute, not as a Savior from sin. Literarily, they touched Him. They ate with Him. They heard his voice. Their faith in Him was based upon Sense Evidence. It is not the kind of faith that you have.

You have never seen Jesus physically. You may never have heard His voice audibly. You have never touched His body, yet you believe He arose from the dead. They had lived with Him before His death. They had lived with Him again for forty days after His Resurrection. Read carefully Acts 2:1-4. “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

They heard the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind. They saw the tongues like as of fire parting asunder upon the brow of each one. They heard them speak in tongues and glorify God.

This was no Revelation faith; it was purely Sense Knowledge Faith. They believed in tongues because they heard them. They believed the Spirit had come because they had seen the evidence. The mighty miracles that followed, which are recorded in Acts, 5, gave the multitudes great faith in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It was not the kind of faith that you have today, because you have no such physical evidence as they had in Jerusalem. 1 John 1:1-4 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”

There were Peter and others who had seen Jesus with their own eyes after the Resurrection, and with their own hands then had handled Him. Jesus had given them the right to use His Name and to lay hands upon the sick. They manifested this authority. Acts. 3:6 Peter and John used the Name to heal the impotent man at the beautiful gate of the temple. The multitude could see the man whom they had known as a helpless cripple, healed before their eyes. The Sanhedrin could say nothing when they arrested them. Acts 4:14 “And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.” It closed their mouths. Peter did not say on the day of Pentecost when they asked, “Men and brethren, what must we do to be saved,” that they were to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

He simply said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins.” The Revelation of faith had not yet come. God was dealing with them as children. He did not ask them to believe anything they could not see, hear or feel. It may be interesting to note that many times, believers have said to us, “We want a primitive type of Christianity such as the church had in the first few years of its existence.” They did not know that by attempting to get that type of Christianity they were repudiating real faith, and the Word. They declare that no one ever received the Holy Spirit unless he has received a physical manifestation. They do not believe God is in the midst of people unless there is Sense evidence. That is not faith in the Word of God. That is faith in the Senses. I “saw it”; I “heard it”; I “felt it”.  Therefore, I believe that I have it. Galatians 3:2-3 “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?’ (or senses). You can see that God has dealt in great grace with us as children, when by reason of time we should have grown up and learned to walk by faith and not by sight.

Before we take up Revelation faith, we should notice the different kinds of faith that men have in Jesus today. Christian Science and the other Metaphysical and philosophical teachers of today do not believe that God is a Person. They will tell you that He is a perfect mind, but He has no location. It is just a great universal mind which finds its home in every individual. He has no headquarters. It is a mind without a brain, without a personality. They do not believe in sin as Paul taught it in the Revelation given to him. They do not believe that Jesus died for our sins, but that He died as a martyr. They do not believe He had a literal Resurrection, a physical Resurrection, but as one puts it, “a metaphysical resurrection.” (whatever that means) If God is not a person and Jesus did not put sin away, then who is Jesus and what is the value of our faith in Him? One of them calls Him “The way-shower”. He is not a way-shower. HE IS THE WAY!

Their faith in Jesus and their faith in God is, after all, faith in themselves and what they inherently have within themselves. It has caused mighty changes in them, but it has never produced a New Creation, nor brought them into real fellowship with the Father God, nor given them Righteousness.

What is the faith that the modernists have today? It is not faith in Jesus as a Substitute, for they do not believe in the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ. It is not faith in God the Father as unveiled to us by Jesus. It is faith in man’s conception of Jesus that does not produce a New Creation. It does not save the lost.

Man has faith in science and loudly proclaims science as the modern god of the human. But science is but the fragments of knowledge that man has gathered out of the great body of hidden truth in the universe. He has gained this knowledge through the Five Senses. These Five Senses have been unable to find the reason for Creation or the cause of Creation. They have not discovered the source of Life or Motion, or the Authority or Power that holds the Universe together.

They do not know the Reason for man, nor the end of man. As Sense Knowledge is limited, so Sense Knowledge Faith is limited.