There is Only One God; Assurance pt. II

We have seen that there is a difference between what a Christian calls ‘faith’ and what the world calls ‘faith’: they are not referring to the same meaning of the word. For the Christian ‘faith’ cannot mean the opposite of faith, while the world’s meaning may well include its’ opposite. For the world unfaithfulness is just an expression of another faith. True or false does not apply, so it is very unlike the Christian’s meaning of faith.

The Christian’s faith does not rely upon his own understanding, but either is in line with or out of line with what God has said to be true. There are many types of Christians in this world, but there are some things that are in common with all of them. There is one creed to which all of them agree: the Apostles’ Creed.

It is important to know what the Apostles’ Creed is. It is not a creed thought up some four centuries after the Apostles’ time so that the Church may appear to be united in its beliefs. It had been in existence already for a long time before that, in a number of different forms, before it was adopted into a single form for all to hold to. The creed is an answer to the question “Which confession?” that may be asked when reading Heb 4:14, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. One person believes one thing and another believes something else, so which is the confession that we all are to hold to? This creed states what the church has believed in response to the gospel message in every age since the time of the Apostles, and the Apostles received this confession direct from God by way of the Holy Spirit.

This is important because it has to be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit in each generation. If Jesus promised to be with His people until the end of the age, as He did in Matt. 28:20, then it should be seen that the Church has believed the same thing throughout that age, that it is in contact with that same Jesus in each generation. Believing the same articles of faith, therefore, is a proof that the same Holy Spirit has worked in the hearts of each generation, because the same faith is still confessed today. There will, of course, be differences of time and circumstance, but all these differences pertain to the time and the circumstance, not to the confession that is held to. Whenever a church strayed from holding fast to the confession there was always a return to this same confession when that church would again turn to the Bible. So, though it is not “divinely inspired” like the Bible, but is penned by the Church in response to faith, yet it is a demonstration of the work of the Holy Spirit in each age.

The Apostles’ Creed, therefore, is the eye-witness testimony of the truths of God’s Word passed on from generation to generation. It is also the evidence that the Holy Spirit has been with the Church all along, so that Jesus’ promise to be with us is shown to be faithfully kept until the present day.

It is this present day, our modern era, that gives us the problem. In our day all faithful beliefs and unfaithful beliefs are considered to be equal. When we say we believe the Bible it is now commonly thought to be that we are saying the Bible is true for us because we believe it, but that other scriptures might be true for others because they believe these other ones. Who is to say which one is right? It is all a matter of faith, isn’t it? But the history of the Church has this one creed in common all along, and this marks our faith. The Bible is not true for us because we believe it; rather we believe it because it is true.

 In our own circles there is the question of believing in a literal six day creation when all the scientific evidences prove the earth is a lot older than the first man Adam, and not just six days older. It is said that those who believe in a literal six days do so because they impose their faith onto the Word of God, making it say what it doesn’t really say. So we face a lot of contention over our faith, not just because we mean something different when we use the word, but because what we believe is countered with “evidences” to the contrary.

Christians understand it that belief in a six day creation is not the result of “interpreting” on man’s part. It is particularly an act of avoiding exactly that thing. It is called “taking God at His Word”, or “taking the Word at face value.” There are limitations to science. Scientists might be able to determine the speed of light, and therefore determine how long it should have taken for the light of a distant star to reach the earth, but because they cannot go back in time, or live long enough to witness it from beginning to end, it cannot be proven that it actually took as long as they would calculate. If God can make axe heads float, or make a donkey talk, or raise the dead back to life, if He is the God He says in His Word that He is, then why would anyone think it incredible that He caused the light of distant stars to reach us the same day they were created? It certainly is not outside His power to do so. In the absence of scientific certainty the Christian simply takes God at His Word; because he knows that putting his own spin on it is being unfaithful. God knows what He meant to say, and it is always best to seek that than to assume the Bible depends in any way on one’s own understanding. The six day belief is simply saying, “We don’t know, so we just take God at His Word.”

There are many scientists who say that they do know. But there is a difference between the scientific conclusion, for example that light travels at a certain speed, and a deduction that is based on scientific conclusion: the source of light being so many millions of light years away is therefore so many millions of years old. This second part, the deduction, is a conclusion of a different kind, not of observation but of logic which involves limited knowledge. The first kind looks at all the facts, this second kind does not take into account that God could have created it in the first place. If He did, then it would be very non-objective of scientists to ignore this fundamental fact. There are more things that scientists cannot put under the microscope to find out what it is, or to prove its parts, but that does not mean that they don’t exist. Science cannot examine God, but that does not mean that God is not there. Scientists may say they know, but in fact they are talking about theories that work for the present, not about facts that they know are true. No one can step back in time to prove that miracles did not happen, that God’s works did not happen. Scientists do not know that the creation did not take six days. They deny it because it does not fit their theories, not because they have proven it false.

Christians know that any man’s knowledge is only tentative, partial, and still forming. We do not take the precepts of men and impose them on the Bible, and therefore we are left with (did not invent but are left with) a literal six day creation. We acknowledge that man’s knowledge is not as full as some boast of. We are not subjecting God’s Word to our beliefs, but rather trying to hold fast to the original confession, and we are doing so because the Holy Spirit is still at work in our day. Jesus is still present with His Church in the 21^st Century. We know this because there are still Christians who have such respect for God’s Word that they dare not impose their own understanding on it, but let it speak for itself and put their full trust in it. And in doing so they demonstrate that they still hold to the same original confession.

There is Only One God: Assurance, pt. I

Believing in one only God is one thing, but having an assurance that the God you believe in is that one only God seems to be another. I suppose that’s because everyone thinks of God as the projection of what they believe, because that’s what the secular world tells them faith is. In Christian terminology, though, assurance is something that seems to be presupposed in another way. Everyone should know this one only true God, and know that all other religions are false. No one has an excuse for not knowing this God who has revealed Himself in both the creation and in the Bible. The question is not so much about gaining an assurance of that as it is of continuing in this assurance, of continuing in faithfulness.

In order to see this difference a little more clearly, let’s look at the onus that is on the Christian in holding to his beliefs. He is not confessing his own views or his own set of standards: he is confessing a faith in God’s standards. It is therefore no good to find a refuge in “personal beliefs”, even though that is the kind of faith that is seen as protected by law in our modern way of understanding. According to this modern idea it is not the faith, or the right to pursue the true faith, that is protected; it is the right to believe what one personally holds as the true faith for oneself that is protected. The state, for its part, has no right to interfere with that, even if that belief is sometimes outrageous. This secular idea of a true faith has more to do with whether what is stated as a belief is a true statement of what one believes than whether what one states as a belief is true. And that is because in our modern philosophies no one can judge whether someone else’s belief is true.

The Christian, on the other hand, does not have any such protection. When he confesses a faith he is stating his own submission to another’s way, to God’s way. He is guided by what God thinks is right and true, not what he himself thinks is right and true. He has to correct his beliefs, hold his own beliefs in abeyance, so that he is completely formable and teachable to what is right and true. Anybody can check on him, whether his actions coincide with what God says, and whether what he states as his beliefs is in accord and consistent with God’s teachings. Being in accord is not done overnight, but comes over an entire lifetime of learning. Nor can he stand on his own interpretation of the Bible, for that betrays a double standard. What God teaches is not to be subjected to men’s theories of truth; rather, men are always to hold their own ideas and concepts as secondary to God’s own objective and unerring and revealed standards. To find a refuge in the personal aspect of one’s beliefs according to modern standards is not the Christian way.

For many the popular untouchable character of personal beliefs in the modern social order is a charter protecting their Christian beliefs from being publicly condemned. It is not protected, though, because it is a Christian belief but because it is a personal belief. It may feel secure, but in fact it also has the tendency to cut off from teachable-ness, and from any beneficial effects which public ridicule could have for the believer. For public ridicule is also one of God’s methods of perfecting our faith. If the Christian’s faith includes some ridiculous or contrary claims, or if it is inconsistent with itself, or includes things which cannot be found in God’s Word, then the public has a right to hold that faith accountable. And a Christian ought to be thankful for that. As a matter of fact, the original concept of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience was based upon this very notion: no person has complete knowledge, so all men ought to strive for what is true and right, even to the point of mutual discussion and censure in order to improve oneself. The one true religion is what is in mind here as the ultimate goal. It was the universality of truth that underwrote the original concept of the freedoms we have been bequeathed through our constitutions. Unfortunately it is now the individuality of truth that is new the standard of understanding these freedoms, understandings that are completely alien to the original concepts. A Christian, of all people, who cuts himself off from the mutuality of discussion and censure and hides, not under the shadow of God’s wings but rather behind his personal rights to his opinions, is going contrary to what the Christian means by appealing to faith.

He would be emulating exactly what our secular counterpart means by ‘faith’, but in many ways going the direct opposite way of what the Christian should mean by ‘faith’. The dictionary often defines faith in terms of a lack of proof, of a belief when there is no proof. But this kind of definition neglects that though it may be true that faith is put into practice in particular cases where proofs are not there, it still remains essential that the basis of faith is defined by its grounding in the irrefutability of its’ proofs.  

Most of the meanings used in the New Testament of the word ‘faith’ refer to a continuing in the things that have been assured. That is, the word does not refer to whether you feel assured but rather to the One who assured it to us so that our faith is solidly grounded, so that we might have an assurance. We don’t have it in ourselves, or fabricate it ourselves; it is given to us.  We have to abide in His Word. What the Bible says of itself is that everything that it teaches has been sufficiently proven for all men. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)